Fraudsters and Charlatans (36 page)

‘Have you any doubt that this statement is untrue?' demanded Isaacs.

‘In its connexion it is true,' said Wright. ‘But I ought to have said “loss and depreciation”. It was an extempore utterance.'

‘That is, as it stands, the statement is untrue?'

Wright was unable to reply, and shortly afterwards Isaacs goaded him: ‘Would you like to say it was a slip of the tongue?' He pointed out that it appeared in a report edited by Wright and had not been corrected. Wright was reduced to claiming that ‘his time was absorbed. The manager or secretary ought to have looked at it. In this company he had to do everybody's work.'
⁵⁵

Isaacs let the pathetic evasion stand without comment.

After the evidence had been taken, with even the judge commenting that ‘some parts of this case passed the wit of man to understand',
⁵⁶
it was decided that, for simplicity's sake, only two counts should go to the jury, whether or not the 1899 and 1900 balance sheets were false and fraudulent.

During the summing-up, Wright became pale and agitated. He doodled on a notepad, the word ‘INTENT' written in bold capitals, his own initials metamorphosing into the Roman numeral VII repeated over and over again, suggesting he fully expected to get seven years in gaol. It took the jury less than an hour of deliberation to find him guilty.

When Wright stood to receive sentence he was outwardly calm and did not flinch when Bigham sent him to prison for seven years. He was taken by the tipstaff to the consulting room below the court, which had been reserved for his use. There he was joined by his friend John Eyre, who had stood surety for him, Worters, and assistant court superintendent Arthur Smith. He asked to go to the lavatory and Smith conducted him there, waiting outside the door while he was inside. Back in the consulting room, Wright, who seemed the calmest person in the room, was enjoying a drink and a cigar when he was joined by his solicitor, George Lewis, with whom he discussed plans to apply for a new trial. He then took his watch and chain from his pocket and gave them to Eyre, saying he would have no use for them where he was going. Shortly afterwards Wright slumped into an armchair and asked for another cigar. He was about to light it when Lewis saw that his client was breathing very heavily and looked ill. A doctor was sent for, but a few minutes later Wright was dead.

At first it was thought he had died of natural causes, but the post-mortem showed the unmistakable effects of poison. It was believed he had put a prussic acid tablet in his mouth when in the lavatory and then swallowed it down with the drink. Because Wright had been tried in a civil and not a criminal court, it had been no one's duty to search him. Another tablet was found among his effects, and, in a hip pocket, a six-chambered revolver, fully loaded and cocked. The body was taken by train to Witley, where a large number of people had gathered at the station, then by road to the now empty Lea Park, where it lay, watched over by faithful servants. He was buried at Witley Church, Godalming, on the following day. Hundreds of villagers came to pay homage, and the funeral was attended by family friends and City gentlemen as well as representatives of the charities to which he had made generous donations. When his affairs were settled, the former man of millions left £148,200.

Taking stock of Wright's career, the
Telegraph
observed that from 1889 he had launched thirteen companies, with capital of £11,225,00, and of these only Lake View and Ivanhoe, worth £3,325,000, had been successful. Investors had lost far more than the difference of almost £8 million, as many shares had been sold at a premium from the start.

The failure of the Whitaker Wright companies marked the end of the stock-market boom in West Australian gold, and a change in emphasis from gambling on new and unproven properties to enhancing existing ones. The mansion at Lea Park was burned down in 1952. Today the estate is a conference centre, and nothing remains of the days of Whitaker Wright. If he has any monument to his enterprise, it is the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway, which was completed by a syndicate and opened in 1906. Nowadays it is called the Bakerloo Line.

TEN

The Double Duke

I
n December 1907 workmen were constructing a large wooden shed around a tomb in Highgate Cemetery. To prevent investigation by inquisitive eyes, the shed had no windows and a single door, the interior illuminated through skylights placed in the roof. There was nothing remarkable to be seen, yet the work drew huge crowds of onlookers. Inside the shed, a stone monument weighing several tons was removed to expose the entrance to a vault. By 30 December the work was almost complete. Sleet and a cold biting wind did not deter the public as they gathered outside the gates of the cemetery, which was closed to all except those with special permits. Large numbers of policemen were there to prevent any disorder, but the crowds were quiet. At 5 a.m. electricians arrived to complete the installation of artificial lighting, followed two hours later by workmen who removed the flagstones covering the vault and carefully hoisted a coffin to the surface. As the morning progressed, there were more arrivals, Mr Augustus Joseph Pepper, surgeon, and pathologist Sir Thomas Stevenson, representing the Home Office, while Chief Inspector Dew and Assistant Commissioner Sir Melville Macnaghten represented the police. It could not have been more sombre or impressive if a case of murder was to be resolved. It was, in fact, the culmination of twelve years of court actions and public controversy that would decide the ownership of a fortune of more than £16 million.

The name plate on the coffin was inscribed ‘Thomas Charles Druce, Esqre. Died 28th Decr., 1864, In his 71
^st
year'. Photographs were taken, the lid was unscrewed and an inner lead coffin revealed. Carefully, a workman cut the lead around the outer edge, and as the lid was lifted it brought away with it the top of the inner wooden shell. The onlookers peered into the coffin. Either the contents would prove to be the body of Thomas Charles Druce, or, as had been alleged, his funeral had been a hoax and they would find only lead weights. Either way, the ramifications would be extremely serious, and criminal charges were already in preparation, the only question being who would become rich and who would go to prison? In June 1895 Mrs Anna Maria Druce, ‘a tall slim pale and rather sallow aquiline featured woman . . . with just a suspicion of faded gentility about her',
¹
applied to the Bow Street Magistrates Court for a summons against persons she believed were depriving her son Sidney George Druce of his rightful inheritance. Born Anna Maria Butler in Ireland around 1848, the daughter of a land steward, she had been employed in 1872 as governess to Bertha Druce, youngest daughter of Thomas Charles Druce and his wife Annie (née Annie May). In December that year, much to the family's distress, Anna Maria Butler, then 24, married the Druces' youngest son, 20-year-old Walter. Five children were born to the couple before Walter died of typhoid in 1880, aged 28. Their eldest son, Sidney George, was born in 1875 and joined the Navy, but by 1898 he was farming in Australia. He seems to have played no part in his mother's actions on his behalf.

Thomas Charles Druce had, to all outward appearances, been a prosperous furniture salesman and occupied substantial premises at 68 and 69 Baker Street known as the Baker Street Bazaar, also the original home of the Tussaud waxworks. According to Anna Maria, however, Thomas Druce had never existed. He was merely the assumed
alter ego
of William John Cavendish Bentinck-Scott (usually known as John), the eccentric 5th Duke of Portland, who had died unmarried in 1879. The Duke's estates, which were inherited by his cousin, provided an annual income of £300,000. There was ample evidence that Thomas Charles Druce had died at his home, Holcombe House, Mill Hill, in 1864, but according to Anna Maria the death and the funeral were a sham, and she demanded that the coffin be opened to prove her point. Delusional she may have been, but Mrs Druce was also persistent and single-minded. When she was rejected by the magistrates' court, her next similarly unsuccessful appeals were to the Home Secretary and the House of Lords, demanding that the present incumbent of the dukedom should be ejected and Sidney George put in his place.

Had the 5th Duke been a gregarious man with a large social circle, it would have been easier to contest her claims, but his preference for seclusion, although not apparent in his youth, amounted in later life to an obsession, and he was rarely seen in public. Even during his lifetime he had been considered rather odd. Widespread rumours that there was a man's body in a coffin on the roof of one of his London houses were only dispelled by a visit from the sanitary inspectors, who found nothing suspicious. He was born in 1800, and his early careers – neither of which appealed to him – were the Army from 1818 to 1824 and politics from 1824 to 1826. He had inherited the dukedom in 1854. The family seat was Welbeck Abbey, near Worksop, and he commenced a programme of improvements and additions, which was to occupy him for the rest of his life. Hundreds of workmen were employed landscaping the estate, constructing kitchen gardens and building underground tunnels, one leading to a magnificent riding hall, and another as a carriage ride to Worksop station. He dressed in a curious old-fashioned style, with a high top hat, frilled shirt and loose heavy coat, sometimes with another underneath and an extra coat carried over his arm. He constantly complained of ill health, so the coats may just have been a precaution against the cold, wet and mud as he inspected the building work. This may also explain why he always carried a large umbrella and why his trousers were fastened under the knees with straps. His London residence was Harcourt House, Cavendish Square, where he had an iron and glass screen built at the back for privacy. He would travel there in a special carriage in which he was protected from prying eyes by heavy curtains. That such a man might have led a secret double life was not thought to be impossible.

The origin of Anna Maria's obsession was financial jealousy. On attaining his majority (then 21 years), her husband Walter had come into possession of his inheritance, just over £18,600. He took up farming in Staffordshire, but the couple squandered the money through bad management and extravagance, returning to London with only £500 and some furniture. The oldest Druce son, Herbert, had been a partner in Druce and Co. since 1867 and gave Walter a job as a clerk on condition he put all his money into the business. When Walter died, his estate was valued at £1,500, of which the company gave Anna Maria only the original stake. The rest was tied up in a Chancery suit, which meant that she was obliged to rely on her mother-in-law for support, while the industrious Herbert was a prosperous man. Anna Maria, however, had a powerful weapon that she was not afraid to use, a piece of information then known only to one other person, Thomas Druce's widow. Thomas Druce and Annie May had not married until 1851. Before the marriage they had cohabited, and thus their three eldest children were illegitimate: Walter was their oldest legitimate son. As Anna Maria commenced legal proceedings laying claim to the Baker Street business the shocking truth was revealed, causing considerable distress to Annie, and embarrassment to her children. Herbert's illegitimacy, of which he was deeply ashamed and which he felt sullied the memory of his parents, was a fact he thereafter made every effort to conceal. Anna Maria was unsuccessful in pressing her claim, but the revelation cost the Druce estate additional legacy duty and Annie was no longer able to support her daughter-in-law. Anna Maria was obliged to go to the Marylebone Workhouse, where she relied on such funds as Annie could afford to feed the children. She did not institute any further litigation until after Annie's death in 1893.

In 1894 Anna Maria was living in modest lodging houses, making ends meet by passing worthless cheques and creating scenes at the office of her husband's executor until he gave her money to go away. She had researched the family papers, looking for details of a piece of copyhold land once owned by her father-in-law, which was no longer in the Druce family, and eventually discovered that the land had once been the property of the Duke of Portland, who had disposed of it by transfer. Copyhold was an ancient form of land tenure granted by a feudal lord, under which it could revert back to him, but to Anna Maria the Duke's ownership meant only one thing, that Thomas Druce and the Duke of Portland were one and the same; and it followed that the burial in 1864 had been a sham, the Druce will invalid and her son was Duke of Portland and heir to the massive Portland estates, which also included properties passed to the de Walden family on the death of the 5th Duke. To prove her point she needed to open the family vault, but ownership had passed to Herbert, who adamantly refused to grant permission to open it on the grounds that it was an act of desecration – although it is tempting to suppose that Herbert was prepared to do anything he could to obstruct the woman who had caused such grief to his family.

In 1897 Anna Maria wrote to the cemetery authorities, who agreed to transfer ownership of the vault to her son. She engaged a broker, Edward Phillips, who raised loans for her, and sold some Druce bonds on the strength of the millions she claimed were Sidney's. Her application to open the grave was heard by the Consistory Court of London on 9 March 1898. Anna Maria's solicitor, Mr Wright, had assembled a plausible case, carefully omitting any mention of the supposed double identity with the Duke of Portland, which he may have felt would not help his client. He was correct, as this was probably the only court hearing at which Anna Maria was heard with any sympathy. Thomas Druce, it was claimed, had become insane, and other people had faked his death and obtained probate in order to get hold of his property, and cheat Walter, who in 1864 had been just 12, out of his rights. It was asserted that, when the vault was opened in 1893 for Annie's burial, Walter's coffin, which was on top of that of Thomas Druce, had dropped, revealing that the lower one was just a shell weighted with lead. (The coffins of Thomas and Walter Druce actually lay in the vault side by side.) Anna Maria claimed to have seen and recognised her father-in-law, whom she had never met, in 1874. She had been passing the Berkshire County Lunatic Asylum in Maidenhead, and had seen Druce there as an inmate under the name of Dr Harmer. She had later been told that he had lived on as late as 1884. Dr Forbes Winslow, the head of the asylum, testified that he had once had a patient called Dr Harmer, a former homeopathic doctor who used to stand in the hospital grounds and dance like a bear. Shown a photograph of Mr Druce – and Wright took care not to reveal when it was taken – he identified it as a picture of Dr Harmer. Wright added fuel to the case by pointing out that Thomas Druce's death certificate, which gave the cause of death as abscesses, exhaustion and gangrene, had not been signed by a medical man. The court granted leave to open the grave, and there the whole matter might have ended except for the determined opposition of Herbert Druce, who proceeded to throw every possible legal obstacle in the way. At this difficult time, Anna Maria gained a new ally, the journalist John Sheridan. Sheridan, who, recognising that others too could make money from the case, interviewed her at length and made their discussion headline news in
Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper
. Before long, Highgate Cemetery was besieged with thousands of sightseers, all of whom wanted to see the Druce tomb.