Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1895-10-09


rope, and in all Europe only three or
four people had seen him and knew him
as representing Warren.
The business was finished. All three,
laden with money, were going to leave
England, leaving the bank to slumber
on for weeks until the first bills became
due before there could be discovery.
By that time the cash would have been
safely slowed, and how or where or to
whom could anything be traced?
So in council they had decided to be
content with the enormous amount they
had. The last batch of bills was in the
mail. Only one day more, and the strain
on the nerves would he over. That day
Noyes bought bonds and drew cash for
more than 100000. At 8 o'clock they
sat down to lunch, their last in London,
and then went direct to Macs apart
ments in James place.
All the material for making fraudu-
lent bills was there, and what could be
burned was thrown into the CRATE, and
the rest into the Thames from London
bridge. The three were there, and they
Were happy. They had engineered gi-
gantic scheme, had struck for wealth
and won The short cut to fortune in de-
fiance of fate had been traversed, and
now they set about grateful task-that
of getting themselves and their rich
argosy out of England. Mac, being the
artist of the party, and having executed
the actual writing, drew the sealed box
containing the unused bills up to the
fire and began throwing them in one by
one. In doing so he occasionally would
throw some bill more elaborate than the
common run on the floor beside his
chair. He had finished his task and took
from the floor those he had thrown
there, looked at them for a moment,
then crumbling them together raised
his hand to throw them in the fire, but
as the devil always forsakes his friends
at the critical moment he stopped,
smoothed out the bills, and turning to
the others said: "Boys, these are per-
feet works of art. 1t is pity to destroy
them." From our point Of view it was,
since it was only necessary to drop them
into the mail, and they would coin US
thousands Then George said, Suppose
we send them in. - The others said, "All
right" and our doom was scaled.
There were in the lot 10 bills Of ex-
change for 926, 900. A date had been left
off one of them! They failed to notice
it! Poor fools, we had sold ourselves!
Was this all accident? No, it was
Nemesis. It was anything you want to
call it, but it was not an accident.
So letter was written, the bills,
with memorandum, inclosed, the envelope
directed and stamped, and the three
fools went to Birmingham, mailed the
letters, and then laughed over their sue
cess in the fight against society, felici-
tating themselves that they had safely
traverscd the short cut to fortune. There
is no short cut by wrongdoing to fortune.
As that fatal letter slipped from their
fingers into the mailbox the last act OF
the deadly tragedy began. When it end
ed, the curtain fell upon us, descending
from the dock into the chill dungeons
of Newgate, never, SO far as the sentence
was concerned, to emerge again.
On Tuesday morning the letter with
the bills arrived at the bank. Follow
ing the routine, they went to the dis
count department, were discounted and
placed to my credit. AS I had balance
of EGO, 900. when the proceeds Of the
bills were added to it it brought up the
whole to the handsome sum Of e46, 600.
When the bills arrived at the bank,
strange thing occurred. The fatal omls-
sion was made on an acceptance OF Bly,
denstein g. Co., a great banking firm in
London. The discount clerk noticed the
omission of the date Of acceptance, but
this being a mere formality he thought
it clerical error Oh the part OF the
bookkeeper of Blydenstein & Co. He
made no report of the matter, and 1t
was discounted along with the other 10
which were put away in the vaults with
the patches that had preceded it and
laid it aside until the next day, which
was Wednesday. At half past 10 he gavo
it to the bank messenger, telling him
when he went his regular rounds to take
the bill to Blydenstein's and request
them to correct the omission.
At 2 p. IN. on Tuesday Noyes went to
Jay Cooke g. Co., ordered 100000 In
United States bonds and gave them
check on the Bank Of England for the
amount. He was to call for the bonds
next day, of course, after the check had
gone through the clearing house and
had been paid.
As soon as the bank opened on
Wednesday, in order to test If every
thing was all right, Noyes sent in a
messenger with a small check, and the
money was thrown out as at all other
times without remark. And that was
complete demonstration that everything
was all right So it was then, but with
in 80 minutes from that second the mes
senger was going to start with the bill
to Blydenstein's for correction.
This was 10 o'clock Wednesday. The
bills had been % hours in the possession
of the bank, had been discounted and
the proceeds placed to my credit for "a
hours.
Who with intellect less than an arch
angels could have dreamed the true
combination! First Of all, that men bril-
liant and clever, gambling with their
lives, could have made such an omis-
sion, damning, fatal; second, if made,
that the great Bank of England, thought
absolutely infallible by the whole world,
conservative, supposedly cautious, would
have discounted bill for 1000 with
the date out of the acceptance, and hay
ing done so hold the bill we'll on into
the second day without discovery, and