Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in SolitudeBidwell, Austin
General
Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
Bidwell, Austin
Bank fraud -- England; Bank of England; Bidwell, Austin; Criminals -- Biography
"The next morning I went out and purchased a handbag, a Scotch cap and a
cheap frieze ulster. My night's cogitations had not enabled me to solve
the detective problem, but I felt confident that something was decidedly
wrong. I then hired a covered cab, driving past the postoffice to
recoinnoitre, and saw one of the detectives standing in the doorway.
This sight deterred me from going in to ask for a letter. Dismissing my
cab, I took another and drove to the place where I had made my
purchases, taking them into the cab and going through a by-street which
brought me close to my hotel.
"From the commercial room in the second floor front I looked out and
marked the farthest house I could see to the left on the opposite side.
Stepping to the desk I wrote an order directing the postmaster to
deliver any letters to my address to the bearer. This I gave to a
cabman, instructing him to drive to the postoffice and bring my mail to
the house I had marked, returning myself to the commercial room to
watch. In a few minutes I saw the cabman drive to the house, and seeing
no one waiting there, he turned and drove slowly down the street past
the hotel, holding up at arm's length a letter to attract my
notice--which it did to my two detectives walking along a short distance
behind him, on the hotel side of the street, with noses elevated and
eyes peering everywhere.
"'Well,' I thought, 'this is getting to be hot, and it is time for me to
leave Cork.' I was now fully aroused to a sense of my danger. No one
happening to be in the commercial room for the moment, I left my hat on
the sofa, and wearing the Scotch cap, slipped downstairs just as they
were past the hotel, following them until I came to where the cab was
waiting with my luggage. I ordered the driver to take me to a canal-boat
wharf, where I dismissed him; then, with bag in hand, I walked across
the canal bridge, stopped in a small shop and hired a smaller boy to go
for a jaunting car, and a few minutes later I was rolling to the
northward.
"On the road I threw some small coins to poor-looking people, who then,
as now, comprised among their numbers the most honest patriots and the
truest-hearted sons of Erin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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