The only known photograph of Inspector Jean Roux.
This time Wells was sent to Dartmoor Prison to serve his three-year stretch. He was now 65 years old, and was assigned to relatively light tasks in the tailor’s workshop instead of breaking up rocks in a quarry.
Jeannette visited him whenever he was allowed visitors, and when she was able to make the journey. She was now in her mid- to late thirties, and her waistline had expanded considerably since she had first met Charles Wells. But their passion seems to have been undimmed by the passing years, and when Charles was permitted to write to her he told her how much he missed ‘the touch of golden tresses flowing through my fingers’, and similar endearments. Such outpourings of love would seem perfectly tame today, but in England in the 1900s – despite a general loosening up of attitudes in the Edwardian era – his letters would have been considered distinctly racy. Convicts’ mail, both incoming and outgoing, was routinely scrutinised by prison officials, and it so happened that one of Wells’ letters to Jeannette was referred to the prison governor himself, Basil Home Thomson.1
Although still in his mid-forties, Thomson had already gained more experience of the world and its inhabitants than most men see in a lifetime. At the age of about 22 he had fallen in love with a young woman, Grace Webber. Her parents agreed that the couple could marry if Thomson were to find suitable, well-paid employment. So he took up a position with the colonial service and was sent to Fiji. Not content with simply having secured this post, he began to acquire a thorough knowledge of the Fijian language. He was then transferred to Tonga – where again he studied the language and customs in depth. Promotion quickly followed for this vigorous young diplomat, and he married Grace in 1889. By the time he was in his early thirties he had become deputy prime minister of Tonga. However, when Grace’s health deteriorated, the couple moved back to Britain, and Basil embarked on his prison service career.
When he first encountered Charles Deville Wells in about 1907, Thomson had already been assistant governor of Liverpool Prison and governor at Northampton and Cardiff. Unlike many of his colleagues, Thomson made it his business to get to know all of the prisoners in his care, and not just the troublemakers:
The contented convicts go through their sentences giving as little trouble as possible [he later wrote], never incurring ‘reports’ and never putting their names down to make an application to the Governor. Wells was one of these. I had made it a practice to find some excuse for sending for these men with a clean sheet in order to give them some reward or encouragement for their consistent good conduct and to get into their confidence. I found that this policy was bread cast upon the waters: it returned to me in the form of a better and more contented tone in the prison generally.
... [Wells’ letter] was a most refreshing document. The writer represented himself to be in the best of all possible worlds, where the food was excellent, the warders kind and considerate, the work congenial, and the library full of interesting books.
Wells was summoned to Thomson’s office. ‘I have been looking at your sheet, Wells,’ the governor said. ‘I see that you have never been reported and have never made a single application in more than two years.’
‘No, sir – the fact is I didn’t like to trouble you.’
‘You have been a long time in the tailors’ party. Would you like a change? You have earned it, you know.’
‘No, sir, thank you. I am very happy.’
‘Have you all the books you want?’
’The librarian is very kind to me, sir. I never have to wait long for a book. The fact is I am making a study of Dickens. I never had time to read him before. A wonderful author, sir.’
As Thomson himself explains in his memoirs, the library was stocked with 3,000 books, which were regularly changed. The works of Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens, which had for a time fallen out of favour with the inmates, were presently regaining their former popularity.
‘You will be discharged next year,’ said Thomson. ‘What are your plans?’
‘Ah, sir – there you are asking me a difficult question. My head is full of things – little inventions, little plans.’
’That is what I fear. Your optimism may carry you away again, Wells.’
Thomson – clearly one of the many people over whom Wells had cast a spell – went on to write, ‘At intervals of about three months he would appear, and I could not help feeling that the air of that gloomy place was brightened every time he came.’
Wells gained his release from Dartmoor on 7 May 1908. The prison door swung shut behind him and he was a free man once more after two years behind bars. As he stepped outside he breathed the untainted air of freedom again. But at 67 years of age he was no longer young. His faithful Jeannette had stood by him for almost twenty years and, out of necessity, she had supported herself and saved some money of her own. Perhaps she hoped that Charles would keep out of trouble for the next few years and leave it to her to earn enough for them to settle down again beside the sea in Ireland, or in the South of France.
But as Charles had told the prison governor, he had his own plans for the future. At the end of that month he said farewell to Jeannette and made his way to Paris. This may have been part of some carefully thought out plan – but it seems more likely that there had been a disagreement.
In Paris, Wells adopted the name ‘Ernest Beauparquet’. He came with very little money, and used what he had to buy some reasonable looking second-hand clothes. Two weeks later, he travelled to Lyon, then France’s second largest city some 250 miles to the south-east, probably choosing this location because it was a long way from his old haunts of Paris, Marseille and Nice, and he was not known there.
Once there, he renamed himself ‘Ernest Cuvilier’ and pretended to be 55 years of age. He took a room at a hotel in the town centre, and then moved into more permanent lodgings at the Quai de la Pêcherie – the quay on the bank of the River Saône where fish were landed and sold. He had with him a young woman, 18 years of age, by the name of Myriam d’Etigny. Predictably, he told people that she was his niece and he was acting as her guardian, but it was common knowledge that she was his mistress. She also seems to have gone under the name of ‘Marie Chalandre’. (It was never explained why an 18-year-old girl would need an alias or, indeed, why she would go out with a man almost fifty years her senior.)
‘Cuvilier’ rented a large office on a mezzanine floor at 8–10 Rue de la Charité, and launched a travel company – the Touriste Universel Centennaire – which, according to him, had its registered office ‘in London’. Since he had reportedly been trawling the flea markets of Paris for presentable clothes only days before, it is a mystery that he was able to finance such sumptuous business premises.
He also produced what was described as a ‘long prospectus with an extraordinary phraseology’ – a comprehensive forty-page brochure, sent out free of charge to anyone who requested it, containing an abundance of tariffs, charts and explanations. Its contents resembled one of Jules Verne’s more fanciful novels. The company offered cruises to various parts of the world for the bargain price of 1½ francs per day, all expenses included. The trips would last from eighteen to twenty-four months. Passengers would be entertained, fed and transported around, whether at sea or on land. The tourists would participate in once-in-a-lifetime mountain climbs; they would hunt and go fishing; they would catch whales, ‘each weighing the equivalent of an army of three thousand men’, according to the prospectus. There would be priests to take care of marriages and baptisms during the journey, and teachers of both sexes to provide lessons for the children, which even included tuition in horse-riding.
The brochure described the history of the charitable foundation which had made this profoundly generous offer possible. During the Battle of Castelfidardo, Italy, in 1860, the Sardinian Army had defeated troops defending the Papal States. Some of those killed in the action had left their money to loved ones, who set up a society to carry out humanitarian works. The sum involved was 11 million francs, and it was claimed that over the course of half a century this had grown to 88 million. Unusually for a charity, the money accumulated first, before anyone decided what to use it for.
Then, according to ‘Cuvilier’, a descendant of one of the families was left with a broken heart after a love affair went awry. He became so depressed that his doctor pronounced him incurable. Someone recommended a holiday to take his mind off his grief. He took their advice, went on a world cruise, returned completely cured and lived to the age of 100. The families were so thankful, they decided to benefit humanity by providing subsidised holidays for the public.
To gain public confidence, ‘Cuvilier’ had created a dazzling panel of administrators, some real, some fictitious. And to advertise the new enterprise he produced a newsletter – the Revue du T.U.C. – though only two issues of this were ever published. It was couched in the sort of language we have come to expect from Charles Wells, and was full of awkward circumlocutions and glaringly obvious truths, such as, ‘By taking the journey more slowly the traveller will have more time to see the towns and the interesting sights’.
A two-year cruise could be had for 1,000fr., while a week’s holiday was only 10fr. To quote a contemporary source, the explanations were ‘as numerous as they were incomprehensible’, a claim borne out by the following excerpt:
The work of the Touriste Universel, eminently productive and humanitarian, which resembles the ultimate stage in a long evolution, the roots of which extend back to well before the unfathomable recesses of the human heart, was conceived by people of substantial means, who … have become compassionate people with results that give the spectacle of grandiose efflorescence to generate substantial and flavoursome fruit for the relief of misery and the salutary regeneration of the human body as a whole.
However impenetrable the language, people were clearly impressed, and the money flowed in. The police in Lyon were far from impressed, however. They finally raided the office, uncovering piles of letters from would-be customers. But most of the envelopes contained only small amounts of money, and the total haul did not amount to much. ‘Cuvilier’ was arrested at the end of September 1908 and in accordance with recent procedures he was photographed and fingerprinted.
News of his arrest must have somehow reached the ears of Jeannette. And perhaps at the same time she heard of Charles’ romance with the 18-year-old Myriam d’Etigny. Whatever the precise circumstances, Jeannette’s patience was clearly at an end. On 10 December 1908 she married a Dr James Burns at Fulham register office.2 Two days later, the newly-weds boarded the passenger steamer Pretorian at Liverpool, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a first-class cabin, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia. But when the ship docked there, they evidently changed their minds and stayed on board until the vessel reached its final port of call, Philadelphia. Here they disembarked, and told US immigration officials that they were going to Chicago.
‘Ernest Cuvilier’ was held in detention for eight months awaiting trial, while the police interviewed victims all over France, and searched for the people he had named as members of the governing committee. His case finally came to court in June 1909. It was a sweltering mid-summer’s day in Lyon and the heat in the courtroom was oppressive. ‘Cuvilier’ was brought up from the cells, ‘a little old man who claimed to be 56 years old, but looked older’. He wore a frock coat of a good cut – though he spoiled the effect by wearing a soft black cap. His beard and hair had not been cut, giving him a somewhat desperate appearance. With blinking eyes he followed the proceedings attentively, making copious notes on a thick file of papers that he had been provided with.
The judge, Monsieur Deschamps, began by questioning ‘Cuvilier’ about his identity. He asserted that he was born in Paris on 25 January 1852, and his parents were Charles and Emélie Cuvilier (Charles and Emily actually were his parents’ first names). He further said that he had entered into negotiations in London for the purchase of the ships with a Robert Hill. This was the name of his uncle who – if still alive – would have been in his nineties by now.
‘I went on a sea voyage when I was seven years old,’ he told the judge. ‘The ship I was on was wrecked and I landed at New Orleans. Since the accident I have lost my memory.’ Le Matin – the Paris newspaper – reported on what it called this ‘amusing case’. ‘As he recites this drivel, Cuvilier maintains a pious, discreet manner.’ None of the other major newspapers concerned themselves with the story at all.
’One might assume you wanted to conceal your identity?’ the judge said.
‘Of course, you can assume anything you wish. I promised to keep a secret and I have a major interest in hiding my identity.’
Monsieur Deschamps went over the story of his arrival in Paris, and then his activities in Lyon. He then told the tale of the charitable fund, expressing disbelief at the claim that 11 million francs had become 88 million.
‘That’s not much,’ ‘Cuvilier’ retorted. ‘With interest mounting up at more than 5 per cent a year it comes to more than 80 million. That’s all. It’s simple.’
Deschamps moved on to the schedule of fares, wryly observing that it was cheaper to take one of the cruises than to stay at home. He then joked, ‘En somme c’était un bateau bien monté [all in all it was a well-organised boat].’ This was rather a clever pun: bateau is French for ‘boat’, but is also used figuratively to denote a ‘fib’ or an untruth.
Completely missing the point of the judge’s little wisecrack, ‘Cuvilier’ responded with pride, ‘Yes I think it was. The proof is that the world at large thought it was, too, and the members of the organising committee believed it more than anyone did.’ [Hearty laughter.]
The verbal sparring continued. The whole scheme was fanciful, the judge declared.
‘The court cannot say what is fanciful and what is not, because the court doesn’t know,’ ‘Cuvilier’ replied. ‘I am only the representative of M. Raoul Montpensier, the man to whom I promised to keep a secret.’
‘Then tell us where M. Montpensier is.’
‘I’ve made promises and I will keep them – even at the cost of my liberty. You may find me guilty but you’ll regret your mistake.’
‘Perhaps there are others in it with you. If these people exist, which is doubtful, they are certainly fraudsters for whom you are the representative. Your guilt, therefore, is beyond doubt, whichever way you look at it.’
‘Why am I not allowed to believe what other people – such as the members of the committee – believe?’
‘Yes, but they could claim it’s you who told them this cock-and-bull story.’
‘There have been some irregularities in the transfer of assets, that’s what I’ve been given to understand. But there really are 88 millions!’
‘Where?’
At this point ‘Cuvilier’ ran out of answers. In summing up the case, the judge said that the frauds amounted to only 7,000fr. (£280). It was, he remarked, ‘a very unremarkable swindle’. No doubt these words wounded Wells’ pride more than the two-year jail sentence which he then received.
Wells was taken to Clairvaux Prison, 120 miles east of Paris. It was one of the toughest jails in the country, and a decidedly unpleasant place for a man in his late sixties. Yet Wells seems to have almost enjoyed his day in court: he had lost, but had put up a spirited, though implausible, defence. He had proved how easy it was to make the public believe the unbelievable, and he had shown that he could assume more than one identity without the authorities working out who he really was. The experience as a whole had strengthened his resolve.
There were lessons to be learned, though. In future he would need to be more cautious. His adventure with the Fishing and Trawling Syndicate had taught him that he could only push his luck so far. On that occasion he had kept the deception going for too long and had been captured: and, worse still, he had made little money. But his next venture, the Omnium Général, had been moderately successful, and he had narrowly escaped being caught.
The challenge now was to invent a scheme where he would make piles of money and get away with it. It was a question of finding the perfect balance. And in jail he had plenty of opportunity to set his mind to work on the problem.
Charles Wells was released from prison a year later on 8 June 1910, after being granted several months’ remission for the time spent in custody before the hearing. By the end of July he was back in Paris again, ‘absolutely penniless’. But in the meantime Jeannette and the mysterious Dr Burns had separated. She returned to France and apparently there was a joyful reunion between her and Charles.
Wells soon returned to the area he was most familiar with – the southern end of the Avenue de l’Opéra. A woman there had two offices to let. He called on her and introduced himself as ‘Lucien Rivier’. At first this little old man in worn out trousers, his artful face hidden by a long, greying beard, did not make an especially favourable impression. However, as their conversation progressed, the landlady was won over by his charming manner, and finally came to the conclusion that he was ‘a very correct and extremely pleasant gentleman’. He paid six months’ rent in advance, and took possession of the suite on 20 August with three employees. He had letterheads printed which showed that he was an ‘industrial chemist’ with two business addresses: the Head Office was at 11 Avenue de l’Opéra, while the Commercial Services were at 12 Rue d’Argenteuil. However, the latter address was just the back entrance to the same building (see map, p.27).
He informed the landlady that he was from Nice, and that he was perfecting a product called Chocolite3 – a new version of chocolate, with seaweed as its principal ingredient instead of cocoa. He confidently predicted that this invention would ‘revolutionise the world and put the other manufacturers out of business’. He told the landlady that he was constantly at work at his factory elsewhere in the city, but asked her not to send anyone to him there as it would disturb his experiments.
By early September he was ready to move on to the next stage in his campaign. He placed an advertisement in Le Matin on the financial page, next to the share prices, exchange rates and other business news. It offered fantastic returns of 1 per cent daily – 365 per cent annually. In line with methods he had tried and tested in the past, once potential customers had been snared by the advertisement, he sent them a leaflet. In this he explained that he had found a way to bring the Stock Exchange within the grasp of every person, not just professional investors. No specialised knowledge was required whatsoever: the customer needn’t do anything.
The leaflet proceeded to answer every imaginable question that a prospective investor might have:
The profits are unbelievable? Not at all. For example, if a merchant buys something for 100 f in the morning and sells it for 102 f in the evening, would you call that a miraculous feat? We buy a product for 100 f, and – thanks to a method of ours, unwritten but completely proven – this generates two francs, one for us, one for our clients. Where’s the miracle in that, if you please?
He goes on to address those still in doubt:
A few years ago, if someone had claimed to be able to see the inside of a human body they would have been classed as mad. A person who claimed to be able to send a telegraphic message to a ship on the high seas would have been treated as a fool by the great scientists of his era. To predict that manned flight would soon become a possibility would have invited public ridicule. But now these – and many other wonders – seem quite normal and very simple, now that the problem has been solved!4 So why doubt the solution of a financial problem?
To those sceptics who still wondered how it was possible to pay a daily interest of 1 per cent, he wrote:
Very small daily increases, repeated constantly, allow us on average to earn a modest 2 per cent per day. It’s not a question of earning ten, twenty or a thousand francs from a single 1,000 f note, and it’s not an instant fortune. It’s the work of an ant which, one twig at a time, erects an edifice, fills it with provisions, and lives thereafter sheltered from cold and hunger.
‘Rivier’ assured prospective investors that his methods were completely proven over thirty-five years, and that his institution had never failed in any of its obligations. ‘Naturally you will understand,’ he wrote, ‘we don’t want to reveal any more about our system. Our secret is our fortune.’
The enterprise outgrew its small offices in the Avenue de l’Opéra within a few weeks. ‘Rivier’ received so many replies that he had to engage extra staff to deal with them all. In October, he relocated to much larger premises at 1 Place Boïeldieu in the financial district of Paris, near the Stock Exchange (Plate 9). He amended his advertisements to take advantage of this happy coincidence, artfully adding the phrase ‘Stock Exchange’ to enhance the impression that his was a solid and reputable financial institution. For emphasis, he repeats the words a little further down, and then again at the end, as if they were part of the address:
1% Guaranteed every day: STOCK EXCHANGE
The only establishment guaranteeing profits: 15% paid twice a month.
The least initiated person in the affairs of the Stock Exchange can profit from our systems with ease. Do not judge without seeing the proof, but study the explanatory leaflet which will be sent free of charge.
Minimum accepted: 25 f; Maximum: 100,000 f. The RENTE BI-MENSUELLE [fortnightly dividend], 1, Place Boïeldieu, 2nd. arrondissement, Stock Exchange, PARIS.
The imposing building in which the bank was situated occupied the whole of the northern side of the square, opposite the Opéra Comique.5 ‘Rivier’ rented offices on the third floor at a rent of 6,500fr., and paid for six months in advance. Inside he spent 10,000fr. decorating the rooms to a sumptuous standard, with lavish furnishings, wallpaper, curtains and carpets. He also fixed a sign advertising his bank to the balustrade. ‘The wonderful promises and the beautiful surroundings inspired confidence’, as one observer later wrote. ‘Rivier’ recruited a team of twenty employees, headed by his chief clerks, Monsieur Armand Coste, a former lawyer from the Auvergne, and Monsieur Gente. ‘Rivier’ would strut around the offices, keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings, a respectable-looking man of ‘about 60’ wearing a wig and always dressed in a frock coat.
He lived in the same building, but the contrast between his private quarters and the bank’s offices could not have been more striking. He occupied just one small room furnished with a table, a chair and a little iron bedstead with a mattress that was stuffed with seaweed – perhaps a leftover from the Chocolite escapade. He prepared his own meals of boiled eggs and tea over a spirit lamp.
To attract customers he flooded Paris and the provinces with tens of thousands of leaflets, and the money came pouring in by every post. At first clients invested small sums, often 25fr., the minimum allowed. But when, after three months, they got back twice the sum they had ventured, they were ecstatic. The 25fr. clients became 4,000fr. or 5,000fr. clients. One man, with tears in his eyes, begged ‘Rivier’ to waive the rules and let him invest more than the 100,000fr. maximum. But ‘Rivier’ was intransigent. With dignity but firmness he declined to accept more than the upper limit.
’Rivier’s’ concierge handed over his own little inheritance. The postmen who delivered the sacks of applications deposited their money. His employees entrusted their savings to the bank and encouraged their friends and acquaintances to do the same. The general public came in a continuous stream to open accounts, and the twenty employees could hardly cope, while ‘Rivier’s’ deputies, Coste and Gente, worked themselves to death from morning till night just to keep on top of things.
Among the most assiduous clients were priests. ‘Rivier’ had particularly directed his publicity towards the clergy. And despite the seeming improbability of the scheme, he did regularly send the promised payments to his clients, and as he did so, the word got around. Daily receipts soared: 2,000–4,000–16,000 francs. Every delivery of mail brought more money orders from subscribers. And every day the bank paid out up to 20,000fr. in interest – sometimes more. One man invested almost 14,000fr. and doubled his money in 100 days. Around the beginning of March 1911, an investor placed a 500fr. note in an envelope and sent it to ‘Rivier’s’ bank. Such was his haste to avoid missing out on any interest, he forgot to include a letter with his name and address. One of the bank’s cashiers conscientiously pinned a slip of paper to the banknote to say that it was from an unknown investor, and put it to one side until such time as the sender realised his mistake and claimed it.
Jeannette, meanwhile, was hardly ever seen at the bank. She spent her time in London, where she had been taking care of business for the past few months. She lived in a modest house, 22 Micklethwaite Road, Fulham, the same address she had given at the time of her marriage to Dr Burns.
Once a week, Charles would make the trip from Paris to London with another suitcase stuffed full of cash. While they were together during these brief visits, he and Jeannette carefully pondered over how best to invest these funds. In March 1911 they formed a company, the Excelsior Yachting and Trading Club Ltd, with a registered office at 235 High Holborn, the premises of Wells’ accountant, Walter Bonavier. The company’s shareholders were listed as ‘Charles de Ville’ (merchant), and ‘Janet de Ville’ (married woman), both of 28 Essex Street.6
Charles and Jeannette opened a company account at the London, County & Westminster Bank in Earls Court. Jeannette also had a private account in the name of Joséphine Binet, as well as a box at the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit. (Incidentally, it is not difficult to guess how Jeannette thought of the name Binet as an alias: a shop almost next door to the safe deposit was owned by one Roland Binet.)
As the weeks went by the bank balance and the cash in the safe deposit reached stupendous proportions. Beginning in late March, Jeannette began – with the assistance of their solicitor and accountant – to acquire assets with these funds. When she had run the Terminus Tea Gardens at Uxbridge in the late 1890s, she could not fail to have noticed the rapid expansion of London’s suburbs, and her business sense would have told her that a fortune was to be made in districts like this. She and Charles had decided to lend a large proportion of their money in the form of mortgages to property investors: they chose areas close to Uxbridge for these speculations – especially Southall, where the population had doubled in ten years.7 Eventually the loans reached a total value of £8,000, secured on about forty-five separate properties. They included a row of three shops in the Railway Approach at Southall (reminiscent of Jeannette’s station buffet of former times); a boot shop and a draper’s store in Elmfield Parade; several small terraces of houses and a few individual shops and dwellings.8
Later that year they purchased £17,000 worth of annuities on Charles’ life (£1.5 million), and these produced a sizeable yearly income of about £2,200 (£200,000).
In Paris, daily receipts of the Rente Bi-mensuelle topped 25,000fr., and continued to grow at a runaway pace. The bank’s early clients continued to receive their 1 per cent daily interest – being paid, of course, out of the ever increasing deposits from new investors. It was, to quote Le Matin, ‘a splendid affair – splendid up to the point where it became suspect’.
At 36 Quai des Orfèvres, the French equivalent of Scotland Yard, Octave Hamard – ‘a blustering man with an ample waist and a more than ample temper’ – had only recently been appointed to the top position in the Sûreté. Faint rumours about the bank had already reached his ears, but he had refrained from taking any action since there was no evidence that any crime had been committed. And then the would-be investor who had absentmindedly sent in a 500fr. note without a covering letter lodged a complaint saying that he had not had a receipt for his money.
Hamard sent one of his best detectives to investigate. Sous Brigadier (Detective Inspector) Jean Roux, a thickset man with a little moustache, belonged to an elite squad of only thirty-nine detectives whose job it was to investigate the most serious of crimes – assassinations, murders and important thefts. They travelled far and wide, both in France and abroad, to catch the criminals they were seeking, sometimes disguising themselves so as to infiltrate criminal circles. Only recently, one had gone undercover as a priest to help bring a gang of crooks to justice. It could be dangerous work. While dealing with a political disturbance in Paris a couple of years previously, Roux and two other police officers had been attacked and suffered head injuries.
On Tuesday, 18 April 1911, Roux presented himself at Place Boïeldieu, and was politely received by the dapper ‘Lucien Rivier’. Roux questioned him at length about the bank’s operations. ‘Rivier’ gave reasonably satisfactory answers, but Roux’s instinct, sharpened by years as a detective, told him that something was amiss. He reported his suspicions to Hamard, who summoned the banker to attend his office on the next day.
That evening, at about 8.30, ‘Rivier’ left the apartment. ‘I’m going out, Paul,’ he said to the office boy who doubled as his personal valet. ‘I’m sure to be out until very late. If you hear a noise in the night, don’t be concerned.’
______________
1 By coincidence, Thomson was the son of the Archbishop of York who had ‘pardoned’ the Reverend Vyvyan Moyle following that individual’s conviction for fraud.
2 The exact identity of Dr Burns has never been established. No doctor named James Burns can be traced in any of the usual British sources. Searches in the United States, and elsewhere, have also proved inconclusive.
3 There is no connection with any trademarked product available today.
4 Wells had drawn on several recent developments in creating his prospectus. Röntgen had discovered X-rays in 1895; Guglielmo Marconi had recently won the Nobel Prize for Physics on account of his work with wireless telegraphy; the Wright Brothers had made the first powered manned flight in 1903; and Blèriot had flown across the Channel in 1909.
5 Not to be confused with the Opèra Garnier in the Avenue de l’Opèra.
6 A narrow road off the Strand, near the Central Law Courts, with many offices populated by lawyers, architects and accountants. At number 28, a Marion White was the resident caretaker. Marion and her sister, Catherine, had been the witnesses at Jeannette’s marriage to Dr Burns in 1908.
7 The population of Southall was 13,200 in 1901, and 26,323 in 1911. (Grundy, p.9.)
8 The real estate on which the mortgages were secured has soared in value, as property values have risen at a faster rate than other measures. Forty-five similar properties in the same area would be worth about £12 million today.