Charles Wells arrives at Boulogne on board the cross-Channel ferry Invicta, following extradition from Britain
At Falmouth Police Station on the day after the arrests, Jeannette enjoyed a breakfast consisting of two raw eggs, a cup of tea and a cigarette. ‘Pairis is a great lover of cigarette smoking and was allowed to freely indulge in the habit when in custody.’ Wells spent the morning with a solicitor, Edward E. Armitage, who was also the local town clerk.
At about noon, George Nicholls arrived at the police station from London, accompanied by his wife, Alice, who had been enlisted as an escort for Jeannette. An urgent telegram from Scotland Yard was waiting for them. Inspector Pike had suddenly remembered that ‘when Wells last arrested his woman had bank notes sewn in [her] corsets’. Pike recommended that she should be searched – just the sort of task that Mrs Nicholls had been brought along for.
Wells looked up at Nicholls, who towered above him. Nicholls began the process of formally identifying both prisoners. ‘Is your name Lucien Rivier?’
‘My name is Charles Wells.’
‘You have passed under the name of Lucien Rivier in Paris.’
‘If they like to call me Rivier, very well; yes, it’s me.’
‘Is your name Jeanne Pairis?’
‘Yes, that’s my name. I have nothing to conceal.’
‘I hold a warrant for the arrest of you both for fraud and participating in fraud committed within the jurisdiction of the French government.’ Nicholls started to read the warrant aloud to both of them, but Wells immediately pointed to Jeannette. ‘It is absolutely false as to her. She has done nothing.’
Nicholls produced one of the printed leaflets from the French police and showed it to Wells: then he showed the small photograph of Jeannette to her. ‘These are the photographs of you?’
Both said yes. Nicholls then informed them that he would seize all of the property on the boat, and Wells replied, ‘Very well, you’ll find everything open on board.’
Because the warrant had been issued in a different county, certain legal niceties had to be observed when the prisoners were formally charged. A local magistrate had to be present, and Arthur William Chard, JP, was asked to attend. As a marine engineer and surveyor, Chard was an acquaintance and near contemporary of Herbert Cox, the shipbuilder who had done work for Wells, and on at least one occasion the two men had jointly presided over the committee which investigated wrecked and missing ships. Chard had no doubt heard all about the ‘French captain’ and his pretty wife: gossip about them had been circulating in the town for months. And he had almost certainly learned still more about the yacht and the couple’s lavish lifestyle from his friend and colleague, Mr Cox.
In happier circumstances, with their shared interest in engineering, boats and the sea, Chard, Wells and Cox would have got along famously together. But today Chard was there to deal with more serious matters. He turned to Wells, and asked him whether he disputed the allegation that he was the man named on the warrant.
‘Not at all,’ Wells said. ‘I can’t deny my name. I’m the man you used to sing about. I’m Wells, the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.’
There. He had said it. After all the months of secrecy, pretence and deceit he had revealed his true identity. In many ways it must have been a relief not to have to dissemble any longer.
At the harbour, meanwhile, police officers had carried out a thorough search of the Excelsior, and had listed the property on board – an exercise which bore a close resemblance to the annual stocktake at a major department store. Jeannette’s wardrobe included a lavish assortment of high-quality clothing, including coats, jackets, a nightgown, silk blouses, ‘6 pairs knickers’ and ‘3 shemise [sic]’. Wells’ wardrobe, on the other hand, seems to have comprised: one white jersey; two pairs of pants; two singlets; one cardigan jacket; three shirts. The vessel was made secure and Captain Emery was retained to stay and look after it. A police officer stood guard around the clock.
The arrest of the ‘French captain’ and his alluring companion was the talk of Falmouth. The townspeople could scarcely remember another story of such proportions. A rumour circulated that the prisoners would be taken to London by train on the Sunday, and around five o’clock in the afternoon, large crowds gathered at the station, in the belief that the accused would leave on the 5.20 to Paddington. But Nicholls was still sifting through huge quantities of evidence, and their departure was postponed. In a telegram to Scotland Yard, Nicholls advised Superintendent Froest that he had found receipts and chequebooks relating to the couple’s bank accounts and to Wells’ safe deposit box. In addition, the Excelsior Company held an account at Barclay’s, Fleet Street. Nicholls urged his CID colleague, Sergeant Crutchett, to visit all of these places without delay, in case Wells’ solicitor tried to remove any of the assets or other evidence. His telegram ends with a warning, ‘Have information heavy cheques likely to be presented tomorrow morning. Nicholls.’
Detective Sergeant Alfred Crutchett was five years older than Nicholls. Although he had a head start on his friend and colleague, his rise through the ranks of the Metropolitan Police had taken longer because of the old-fashioned practices of the time. ‘I was a uniformed constable for six and a half years, and in those days one had to show some special aptitude for detective work before one could become a plain-clothes man down in the East End, acting as a patrol to assist the recognised detectives,’ he later said.
In 1905, while still a lowly constable, he had assisted in the investigation of a murder in Deptford, south London. An elderly couple were beaten to death during the course of a robbery by two brothers, Albert and Alfred Stratton, who forced open a cash box, which they left on the floor, and escaped with £12. Crutchett was one of the first officers on the scene. Realising that the cash box might furnish important clues, he carefully picked it up using pieces of paper to avoid contaminating the evidence with his own fingerprints. The offenders’ prints were later discovered on the box, and the men were subsequently found guilty and hanged. This was a landmark case in Britain – the first conviction for murder to rely on fingerprint evidence. And without Crutchett’s presence of mind it undoubtedly would have failed.
Soon afterwards Crutchett was promoted to detective, and eventually he worked on several cases of fraud. ‘At that time Chancery Lane and the Strand were full of bogus firms,’ he recalled, ‘and most of my work for a time lay in tracing out the long firm frauds and dealing with bogus concerns.’
When Crutchett visited the banks where Charles and Jeannette had placed their money, he thus found himself in familiar territory. At Barclays in Fleet Street he discovered a balance of £1,200 and £60 was found in the London County and Westminster Bank in the name of ‘J. Binet’. Although he had no official power to take control of these funds, police records show that he ‘induced’ the managers of the banks to hold the money. He then went to the safe deposit office in Chancery Lane, and found that Charles and Jeannette had a box there, as Nicholls had said.
Next day – a Monday – crowds gathered at Falmouth Station yet again before the 1.30 p.m. and 5.20 p.m. departures. But each time, they were disappointed. Nicholls had returned to the yacht, and was still sifting through masses of material.
Yet the people waited patiently. A crowd of 150 locals huddled in the falling temperatures and drenching rain to catch a glimpse of Charles and Jeannette. They were finally rewarded for their patience when, at about nine o’clock in the evening, two cabs appeared. Charles Wells, Jeannette Pairis, Detective Sergeant Nicholls, Mrs Nicholls and Inspector Roux got out. They were accompanied by the local police superintendent and his sergeant. Pandemonium followed, as the mass of people surged forward to see the man who broke the bank, and his mistress. The excited crowd spontaneously burst into song:
You can hear them sigh and wish to die,
You can see them wink the other eye
At the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.
As the little procession entered the booking hall, the throng parted to allow them on to the platform. Charles and Jeannette spoke with the well-wishers, and shook their hands, like members of the royal family at a society ball. An onlooker shouted, ‘Goodbye, good luck!’ and Jeannette replied, ‘Thank you’. Two crewmen from the Excelsior greeted them warmly. Charles and Jeannette asked them to pass on the ‘compliments of the master and mistress’ to the other two.
Reporters scribbled furiously, noting every detail of the couple’s appearance. Wells was described as wearing his familiar yachting cap and a dark overcoat. He carried an umbrella. Jeannette – ‘short in stature, but of good figure’ and ‘distinctly of French appearance’ – wore a black outfit with black feather boa and a light, mauve veil which only partly obscured her face. As press photographers jostled for a better picture, a flashlight went off immediately in front of her and she gave a little scream. ‘I can hardly see,’ she exclaimed. Mrs Nicholls took her arm and led her on to the train where a third-class smoking compartment had been reserved for them.
’Wells seemed to be much interested and amused at the attention which was being paid him, and would have liked to remain on the platform for a while, but Detective Sergeant Nicholls would not allow this, and he entered the carriage to occupy the seat opposite his companion.’ Edward Armitage, the solicitor, stepped on to the train for a few moments to bid Charles and Jeannette farewell, and the superintendent of Falmouth Police and his assistant said their goodbyes. The couple thanked them for the kind and considerate treatment they had received while in custody.
Close to the door stood the Excelsior sailors, and from time to time the accused would turn to them, and, smiling, wave their hands to them – Wells rather wistfully, but Pairis cheerfully. The blinds of the compartment were then drawn, and the crowd were unable to see them again. An ubiquitous photographer, however, got around to the other side of the carriage and again ‘snapped’ the occupants.
Wells sat in one corner of the compartment, and appeared to be ‘as comfortable and unconcerned as an ordinary traveller’. Next to him was Sergeant Nicholls. Roux occupied the seat immediately opposite Wells. Next to the inspector sat Jeannette, and beside her Mrs Nicholls. ‘All five were obviously interested in the conversation, in which the French detective appeared to be a vivacious leader.’
The train rattled and wheezed its way up the steep branch line to Truro, where the party had to change for the London express. A few onlookers had gathered here, too, along with more reporters and photographers. Shortly before midnight the train halted at Plymouth’s Millbay Station, and was delayed there for half an hour. As they waited for their journey to resume, Wells must have inevitably been reminded of times gone by, for they were close to Walker Terrace where he had once lived with his wife and daughter, and to the dock where the refit of the Palais Royal had been completed a few years after.
On the following morning, as they pulled into Paddington Station an hour late, they were tired and irritable, their muscles cramped from the long night in the confined, smoky compartment. Here, too, a small crowd had gathered despite the early hour. ‘Those who saw a short, slight, grey-bearded, rather benevolent-looking man step from the milk train at Paddington in the gloom of the early morning were rather surprised at his appearance.’
As the little group made its way along the platform, Wells was tetchy when photographers tried to take pictures of him. He opened his umbrella and hid his face. ‘His companion … looked very much frightened. … The pair looked very tired and careworn as they were driven off to Bow Street in the company of officers from Scotland Yard.’ A taxi-cab full of papers and other evidence from the yacht accompanied them.
Charles Wells stood in the dock at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, where he had appeared exactly nineteen years previously. But this time Jeannette was at his side. Her presence added considerably to what was already intense public excitement:
The unusual interest created throughout the country by the news of the arrest, was reflected in the appearance of the Court. Before the ordinary business was commenced persons interested arrived in order to make sure of securing admission and by the time the magistrate took his seat the Court was fairly full. It became crowded long before the prisoners made their appearance in the dock. Both are smartly dressed, the woman particularly so.
Jeannette was described as ‘short, plump, and vivacious’ with ‘clean-cut features and long eyelashes’. She looked much younger than her 42 years. Wells was said to have ‘little trace of the “independent air” mentioned in the song’. Instead spectators saw ‘a man whom age has withered’.
This time the purpose of the hearing was to hear evidence of the crimes, and for the magistrate, Sir Albert de Rutzen, to judge whether the French government’s claim for extradition should be granted. If he was not satisfied that Wells and Jeannette had committed the crimes, or if he considered that for any reason extradition should not take place, he could refuse France’s request, and the couple would walk free. ‘Rivier is sure to use the argument which succeeded at the time for Guérin, the Devil’s Island escaper,’ claimed a French newspaper, the Petit Parisien. Guérin had committed a particularly violent bank robbery in Paris in 1901 and had been sent to Devil’s Island, French Guyana, to serve a life sentence. After four years he escaped and made his way to Britain. When France requested his extradition he proved that he was a British national and extradition was consequently refused. The Petit Parisien concluded that ‘Rivier will plead that he is [also] a British citizen and will rely on a certificate which proves that he was born in 1841 at Broxbourne as Charles Wells. Besides, the [extradition] warrant describes both prisoners as British subjects.’
It was far too early for the court to consider these matters in detail: the police investigations were still continuing, and it was anyone’s guess as to how long it would take for all the evidence to be processed. For now, Detective Sergeant George Nicholls gave formal testimony that he had identified, arrested and charged the prisoners. He read out the list of property found in their possession, and when he came to the long list of Jeannette’s jewellery, she was seen to smile broadly. Otherwise she seemed to take no notice of the proceedings. Wells, on the other hand, listened intently to the evidence and once or twice whispered to Jeannette.
Their solicitor, Mr Clarke Hall, said the prisoners had a complete answer to all the charges. They had considerable property, which had unfortunately been seized. Wells had £1,200 in Barclay’s, but two cheques he had drawn for his defence had been stopped by the police. They could not access any funds – not even for their immediate requirements, such as ‘food and sleeping accommodation in prison’. He urged the magistrate to allow a trifling sum such as £5 to be made available.
‘We have heard of large means, and we have also heard of large frauds,’ the magistrate replied. ‘They sometimes mean one another.’
‘I entirely appreciate that,’ Clarke Hall said. But his next statement came as a surprise. ‘I do not think those who are acquainted with him will ever seriously suggest that Mr Wells has not a considerable amount derived from other sources.’ This assertion contradicts all of the evidence we have seen up to now, which tends to suggest that Wells had failed to hold on to any of the vast sums which had passed through his hands long ago. However, the solicitor would later attempt to show that the funds now in Wells’ possession were not the proceeds of recent frauds in France but money that he had retained since his casino wins of the 1890s. For this gambit to succeed, he needed to plant the germ of the idea at this early stage. Clarke Hall’s statement fuelled persistent rumours that Wells had stashed away a secret fortune from his patent activities or his Monte Carlo profits (or both). It is unlikely, though, that these stories had any foundation: if Wells had been in possession of a fortune he surely would not have mortgaged the Palais Royal, for example.
The magistrate, in the event, would not release even the smallest sum, and to make things worse, he also refused them bail. Looking ‘downcast’ they were led down to the cells to await their next court hearing. Prison was nothing new for Charles, who had spent several years in captivity and was inured to life in a cell, but for Jeannette the abrupt change from her life of luxury on the yacht to an existence behind bars must have been a brutal shock.
Wells surreptitiously passed an envelope to Sergeant Nicholls. Inside was a scrap of paper bearing a hastily written note in pencil. He asked to be allowed a private interview with Inspector Roux: ‘It is for the very great benefit of creditors that I wish to give him most important information … out of hearing of any witnesses.’ He ended with a postscript in which he thanked the British officers for their ‘great kindness’. His exact intention remains a mystery, but it seems likely that he wanted to negotiate an arrangement with the French detective, under which he would return all the money to his French victims in exchange for being allowed to remain in Britain as a free man. However, Nicholls decided not to pass the note on to Roux.1
Now that Charles and Jeannette were under lock and key, Nicholls and Crutchett set about tying up the loose ends of the investigation. Nicholls wrote a full report on the arrest, and itemised the documents found on board the yacht. While he was in Falmouth, he had discovered that Wells had also left several very large locked trunks and some fishing tackle in the custody of Williams & Co., a local firm of ship’s chandlers.
Soon afterwards, strongbox number 340 at the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit was opened. Inside were Consols, cash, War Bonds, Australian bonds to the value of £2,500, and other securities. There were receipts and letters in the name of Joséphine Binet addressed to her at 28 Essex Street and at 22 Micklethwaite Road. A copy of the marriage certificate for James Burns and Jeanne Pairis was also found. Finally, statements were taken from witnesses, including Jeannette’s friend, Marion White, and a number of individuals living in the vicinity of Micklethwaite Road.
Charles and Jeannette made a further court appearance on 8 March 1912. George Nicholls – who had meanwhile been promoted to the rank of detective inspector – read out some of Wells’ intimate letters to Jeannette which had been found during the police searches. Coming from the lips of the lofty, urbane detective, phrases such as ‘you are before everything in my body, heart and my soul’ and ‘waiting to squeeze you tightly in my devoted arms’ must have sounded awkward, perhaps even comical.
The lawyer representing the French government claimed that more than £40,000 had been brought to this country from France, and that the defendants had made wills in each other’s favour. In one of many appearances in court Wells made a spirited appeal to the magistrate, asking to be set free immediately. He held up a copy of the extradition treaty recently signed by Britain and France. Wells pointed out that the wording of this document suggested that it was the British Foreign Office who ought to have made an application for their extradition, and they had not done so. (It would, of course, have been nonsensical for the British government to have to apply to itself, but this was how Wells interpreted the phrasing of the document, and his advocate backed him up.)
‘We have been here three times in 14 days,’ Wells said. ‘This lady is an English lady, having married Dr. Burns, and I am an Englishman. The law is that an application must be made by the diplomatic agent of [the accused person’s] country.’ The magistrate replied that the point must be further argued. Perhaps the Home Office would release Wells, but he was certainly not going to do so.
‘And I can’t take a cab and go to see the Home Secretary?’ Wells asked.
‘I must remand you.’
Leaving aside such legal hair-splitting, his lawyer argued that up to the point where Wells had left Paris, no one had lost any money, everyone had been paid their interest and some had doubled their initial capital in 100 days – just as Wells had promised. Wells had never undertaken to invest their money in stocks and shares, or in any other investment for that matter. ‘The money was not handed to him for any specific purpose. He might, if he chose, use it at Monte Carlo, a place with which he was not unfamiliar. His clients did not mind where the interest came from so long as they got it.’
And, he contended, some of the so-called evidence from France was only hearsay, and not admissible in a British court. One witness, for example, was supposed to have heard a man say, ‘Don’t trust him. He looks like an old swindler.’ (At this remark, both Charles and Jeannette laughed heartily.) ‘Many well-known banks in this country would find themselves in a curious position if they were called upon to meet all their obligations at once without the assistance of new business,’ the barrister asserted.
But these arguments did not persuade the magistrate. He declared that the case was ‘eminently one for extradition’ and ordered that Wells and Pairis be sent to France to stand trial, along with all the documents and property which had been seized by the police.
There was, at the end of this legal labyrinth, an appeal by Wells before the Lord Chief Justice. The Solicitor General, however, pointed out that since the extradition treaty had been amended three years earlier, it had become optional for either state to hand over its own citizens if it chose. The book on extradition law that Wells had been relying on was out of date.
Wells made a final attempt to halt the process. He wrote a long, rambling letter to a Major General Geoffrey Barton – a retired officer with a distinguished service record. Barton had served in the Zulu War, Egypt and Sudan. In the Second Boer War he had commanded the 6th Fusiliers Brigade, which Winston Churchill later referred to as ‘Barton’s Brigade’. In this capacity he was involved in the relief of Mafeking and, later, of Ladysmith, and was wounded in action. Following his retirement in 1904, he had settled in Dumfriesshire where he was now a Justice of the Peace and all round pillar of the local community.
Wells begins his letter with a jaunty introduction:
I am C. Wells, ‘the man that broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’. I have just heard of your return and venture to write to you on the following matter. I am to be extradited to France, with Mrs. Burns née ‘Jeannette Pairis’ who, some 8 or 10 years back was minding a baby for Mrs Zalma Bradley [sic] in Maisons Laffitte, and in other places.
He asks General Barton to put in a good word for him at the Home Office. But there is a hint of blackmail. He implies that Barton had been on intimate terms with Zalma, and that if this were made public there would be a ‘great society scandal’. Barton wrote to the Home Office, saying, ‘I do not know the writer, nor any of the people he refers to … I have no wish to be troubled with any more of his effusions’. Wells’ last-ditch attempt to halt the extradition had failed.
On 29 May – over four months after their arrest – Charles and Jeannette were extradited to France. Detective Inspector Nicholls and Sergeant Crutchett escorted them to Boulogne on the steamer Invicta, and handed them over to Inspector Roux. The Sûreté was taking no chances – Roux was accompanied by no fewer than five other officers.
A French newspaper report welcomed the fact that they would face justice in a Paris courtroom, but it ended with a dig at the British: ‘The sum of one million [francs] seized on board his yacht did not accompany them, as the Treaty intends.’ This large sum of money would become the subject of a bitter wrangle between the French and British governments over the coming months, and it threatened to drive a wedge between the two nations at a time when the alliance between them would be crucial to their survival.
Charles Wells arrives at Boulogne on board the cross-Channel ferry Invicta, following extradition from Britain
That night, as soon as the train had come to a standstill at the Gare du Nord in Paris, Inspector Roux and his agents took Charles and Jeannette straight to the Dépôt, an austere, foul-smelling, overcrowded cell block attached to the Palais de Justice, a stone’s throw from the Quai des Orfèvres. Later, Charles was sent to La Santé, a jail on the outskirts of Paris where the only event to break up the tedium of life behind bars was the occasional execution by guillotine. Jeannette was transferred to Saint-Lazare Prison – a grim institution dating from the Reign of Terror in 1793. For the last century it had housed female convicts. Saint-Lazare was, according to an official report of 1912, ‘totally incapable of achieving the object for which it was designed, and equally incapable of improvement’. Many inmates were prostitutes, or unmarried mothers, or both.
As Charles and Jeannette languished in their respective cells, the prosecutors built up their case – an unenviable task as many of the relevant documents were still in England. Following a preliminary hearing in June, a process known as the ‘open questioning’ began on 14 September and was conducted by Monsieur Bourdeaux, the juge d’instruction. The forensic accountant, Malétras, said that more than 6,000 victims had lost a total of almost 1.5 million francs. It was plain that the Rente Bi-mensuelle would have collapsed before long: he had calculated that in another few months the scheme would have required over 21 million francs just to keep going. He revealed, too, that at the time of their arrest Charles Wells and Jeannette were in possession of about 850,000fr. in annuities, bonds, sums lent on mortgage and cash. As things stood, all of these assets were being retained in England for the creditors of his 1893 bankruptcy.
Wells was then called on to give evidence. He denied having committed a fraud, saying, ‘I have an extraordinary martingale which gives me a daily return of 2 per cent. I give half to my clients and keep the other half. Nothing could be fairer.’ Monsieur Bourdeaux was unconvinced. On seeing this, Wells offered to write down the secret, put it in an envelope and give it to Bourdeaux so he could try it for himself. Wells added that he did not take the investors’ complaints seriously. ‘They are gamblers and like all gamblers they should be prepared to lose as well as win,’ he said.
Bourdeaux interrupted him, saying that the only reason they had lost was that Wells had run away with their money.
‘But I am quite willing,’ Wells continued, ‘to give up the £34,000 seized by the police at the time of my arrest to the so-called victims.’
’That’s an easy offer for you to make,’ the judge said, ‘because you know very well that England will never let this money go. The authorities there intend to apply this money to debts incurred by you at the time of your bankruptcy twenty years ago.’
‘You can be a bankrupt and still be an honest man,’ Wells replied.
Bourdeaux turned his attention to Jeannette Pairis. In his opinion, she could not have been unaware of her lover’s crimes, as she had lived with him for about twenty years. Once before, in 1892, she had been arrested with Wells when both of them were wanted by the British police. On that occasion the case against her had been dismissed but Wells was sentenced. Jeannette answered that she had believed her companion was gaining large profits on the Stock Exchange. Wells, too, was insistent that she knew nothing of his business activities.
The full criminal trial began on 14 November, before the trial judge, Monsieur Schlumberger. Every newspaper of any consequence had a reporter in attendance. The courtroom was packed solid with pressmen and curious members of the public, anxious to see for themselves ‘the King of Fraudsters’, as one journal called him. An American commentator hinted that under French law Wells could expect a sentence of at least fifteen years. Yet, according to another source, he seemed almost amused at the prospect of another long spell in prison. Certainly there was a wealth of material to entertain the assembled crowds: the whole of the first sitting was taken up by a long recitation of his extraordinary life story. In the next day’s edition of Le Matin the trial was front-page news:
If daring bankers were to elect a prince they would indisputably choose Wells.
No-one is certain that Wells really is his name. He is an Englishman. His wife, disapproving of the life he led, still lives in the Marseille suburb where she went when she left him. De Ville Wells is a little old man with a polite demeanour and wily features.
He was from an honourable family, it was claimed, the son of a noted romancier anglais. The article made reference to his linguistic and musical skills – and his powers of persuasion:
He speaks with great abundance. ‘To promise a return of one per cent, monsieur le président, is not an enormous promise. In business if one were to earn one franc on a capital of 100 francs it would hardly be worth mentioning. If what I promised was impossible to achieve, how is it that people start off with nothing, and then become millionaires?’
One observer dubbed him:
… a strange character, this little old seventy-one-year old man, with his bald head, his white beard, and his blue overcoat, which is too big for him. One would think he was a dutiful little clerk of respectable behaviour.
He answers questions with ease: he knows just how to wriggle around M. Schlumberger’s questions. His voice is quiet, but he knows how to raise it at the required moment … Around 1890 he found the company that suited him, Jeanne Burns, now forty-two years of age. She is of simple character, devoted, and docile in his hands. She adapted wonderfully to the life-style of her lover.
Those who knew Jeannette better may have found words such as ‘simple’ and ‘docile’ ill-suited to her. It could be argued with some justification that she had encouraged Wells in his life of crime. Since he lived so frugally himself, it is plausible that at least some of the motive behind his crimes came from a desire to ‘make his little doll happy’.
Reports of Jeannette in the French press were, overall, less complimentary than they had been in Britain, with comments such as, ‘Mlle Pairis … [has] the look of a little housemaid who has hit the big-time. She loudly protests her innocence.’
The forensic accountant was then called as a witness. ‘M. Malétras explained the system without accounting for how anyone could have believed Rivier’s crazy promises.’ The prosecution case hinged on the fact that ‘Rivier’/Wells must have known that it was impossible to invest his clients’ money in a way which would produce a return of 365 per cent per annum.
But Wells had a ready answer. ‘You forget, monsieur, that I’m the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo,’ was the essence of his reply. The capital provided by investors allowed him to carry out transactions on the stock market using an infallible martingale, which had once helped him to win ‘two million francs’ in one night at the casino. The Stock Exchange, he added by way of explanation, was nothing more than ‘a vast roulette, after all’.
By now Wells was getting into his stride. ‘A professor once told me, “a martingale doesn’t work”. So I thought, there’s only one thing to do to improve it. Make it work!’ He described his ‘system’ just as he had described it to journalists twenty years ago, ‘wait for the “series” – when you see the same colour 8 or 10 times. Play intermittently during the series’. (As Le Figaro commented, there really was no answer to his argument.)
The judge asked whether he really had broken the bank.
‘Yes, not once but ten times,’ he answered with pride. ‘I won altogether in 1889 £80,000 [£8 million], and in August 1910, during the existence of the Rente Bi-mensuelle, I won at Monte Carlo £2,480 [£235,000] using my system.2 If I took flight, it’s the fault of the police. There was talk of arresting me and searching my premises. My credibility would have been ruined. If you search any banker’s property, his credit will collapse immediately. I preferred to flee. In any case, I haven’t spent the money that I took with me because they found a million [francs] in my possession, which the English authorities “forgot” to return when France obtained my extradition.’
Jeannette continued to deny all personal involvement in the plot, and claimed to have no knowledge whatsoever of her lover’s activities. She said she was not at all surprised that he was poor in 1910 and a millionaire in 1911.
Their defence lawyer said that at least some of the investors were fully aware of the risk they were taking. A photographer had sent in 100fr. In his covering letter the man had written, ‘I know it must be a fraud, but I do not care as long as it lasts long enough to enable me to make money. I do not object to making money out of other people in any way.’ As for the others, the lawyer asserted that it was a case of ‘buyer beware’. The law was not intended to protect ‘either idiots or knaves’.
The prosecution, however, urged the judge to award the severest sentence possible. Wells was found guilty of fraud and misuse of funds, and was, indeed, given the maximum penalty – a prison sentence of just five years and a 3,000fr. fine. Jeannette was found guilty of complicity, given a thirteen-month jail sentence and fined 1,000fr. The judge implied that he would have imposed a much stiffer sentence if the law had allowed him to do so.
A tongue-in-cheek editorial in one of the Parisian papers reminded its readers that Wells was not entirely to blame for what had happened. It was the victims who were really at fault:
The promise of one per cent daily interest – an insult to the intelligence? Apparently not, because a considerable number of honest citizens rushed to hand over their bundles of cash. But all the same, there are several hundred rogues who profited to a great extent from Rivier’s fraud. These are the first clients who lent him their money. They did receive the fantastic interest that was advertised. Why not arrest them? Why not arrest the three thousand plaintiffs … Why not arrest the fools who expected to get 365 per cent return on their money?
But the investors were not the only ones to be made to look foolish. France itself, with its almost non-existent supervision of financial institutions, had also been shamed. As a direct consequence of the Rente Bi-mensuelle scandal, the government introduced a new police department – the Special Eighth Section – with the aim of preventing further embarrassments of this kind. ‘Close enquiry will in future be made into the antecedents and financial resources of all financiers who describe themselves as “bankers”.’
The court which had tried Wells and Jeannette appointed Monsieur Joseph Albert Desbleumortier, in his capacity as administrator,3 to set up a scheme for reimbursing the investors in France who had lost their savings. But the judge neglected to explain how this was to be done, as the money was still in Britain – and the British were not prepared to let it out of their hands. As a matter of fact, the Official Receiver in London was already working on an identical scheme to use precisely the same funds to recompense the creditors of Wells’ 1893 bankruptcy.
One of those creditors was the Hon. William Cosby Trench. At his castle in County Limerick, that avid disciple of The Times was studying the latest news from London when one article in particular attracted his attention. He was a middle-aged man now, not only older but considerably wiser than he had been in the early 1890s, when he had entrusted the equivalent of more than £1 million to the care of Charles Wells. In all the time since Wells had been declared bankrupt, the creditors – Trench among them – had received not a penny of the money that he owed them. There had been few worthwhile assets to seize, and the Official Receiver could do no more than keep the file open in case this situation ever changed. Now, if the press reports were to be believed, it had changed.
Wells’ debts in 1893 had added up to £32,000. By chance, the assets seized from the yacht and from Wells’ various investments came to the same amount, give or take a couple of thousand pounds. After twenty long years, incredibly, there seemed to be a distinct possibility that his victims would be repaid. Unfortunately, this development came far too late for the elderly Caroline Davison, who had died in 1897, a few years after handing over her savings to Wells, or for Dr White who had passed away in 1909.
But Trench, Miss Phillimore, the Reverend Blake and several of the other victims were still alive and well. And as most of them had long since given up all hope of getting their money back, this fresh news was all the more welcome.
The French government, however, had very different ideas. ‘Au contraire,’ they said, the money must be restored to the French citizens to whom it belongs. Britain and France prepared to do battle. Many hearings subsequently took place in the British courts; legal arguments of unfathomable complexity were bandied about. Months went by, and it seemed as if the matter would never be resolved.
Finally the case went before Judge Bucknill, whose unenviable task it was to give a ruling on this judicial muddle. He emphasised from the start that he was most anxious to avoid a falling out with the French, with whom Britain had signed a pact of friendship – the entente cordiale – in 1904 when the prospect of a war with Germany first loomed on the horizon. In the intervening eight years, the threat had by no means gone away, and it was clear that Britain and France badly needed each other as allies. His Lordship said:
I have come to this conclusion. The French Government has through its agents asserted that it thinks the English Government has not treated it properly under this Treaty and that is a feeling which must be allayed if possible … I will not do anything … to give the French Government an opportunity of thinking that we are trying to get out of our proper Treaty obligations.
However, he did not specify what action was to be taken, and merely urged the two parties to reach an amicable agreement between themselves. So, for the time being, the battle continued: the British Official Receiver said he was ready to distribute the property among the creditors of the first bankruptcy, but the French government continued to argue that, ‘as an honest man’, the Receiver had no right to dispose of funds which had been illegally acquired from French citizens.
Jeannette was out of prison by April 1913. Having already been in custody for a long while before the trial, she had served only another four months or so behind bars. She turned up in London in an almost destitute state, and approached Detective Inspector Nicholls at Scotland Yard. He wrote to the Falmouth Police asking for her belongings, which had been in store there, to be sent to London, adding that ‘The carriage would not cost much, and Mrs. Burns might be disposed to pay it’. Thanks to his kindly intervention a quantity of clothing was duly sent to Jeannette in London.
It was not until late June 1913 – over two years since the collapse of the Rente Bi-mensuelle – that the two sides agreed to divide the assets on a fifty–fifty basis: half would be distributed among the creditors of Wells’ earlier bankruptcy, and the other half would be shared out among the victims in France. The income from the annuities, paid annually, would likewise be split in two and paid in equal measure to the British and French victims. The Official Receiver was to retain the annuities and Monsieur Desbleumortier undertook to certify, at regular intervals, that Wells was still alive, as proof to the insurance companies.
A relieved Judge Bucknill expressed his delight at this compromise. ‘This has been a case of such difficulty, and has involved such important points of law that I should have found extreme difficulty in deciding it, and the case might have gone to the House of Lords.’4
As a side issue, Jeannette was allowed to keep a sum of £835 (£80,000), which she had always insisted was her own money and nothing to do with Wells. Judge Bucknill seemed genuinely glad to learn that she was to receive this sum, along with her gun and fishing rods, which had been impounded.
Wells served his prison sentence in France at the Maison Cellulaire de Fresnes – an institution to the south of Paris which had once been intended as a model prison, though in practice it fell far short of this ideal. When he was released this time, there was no triumphal journey with people waiting to shake his hand or congratulate him. No journalists clamoured for interviews. He was quietly reunited with Jeannette.
The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 had pushed memories of la Belle Epoque to the back of people’s minds, along with Wells and his exploits, and almost everything else that had gone before. Charles Wells, no longer headline news, slowly but inexorably faded into that part of the public memory that is reserved for people who ‘used to be someone’. Even while he had been busy setting up the Rente Bi-mensuelle in Paris, another Englishman had grabbed the headlines by breaking the bank at Monte Carlo.
Arthur Bower was the name of this ‘young pretender’,5 though he liked to introduce himself as ‘Captain Arthur de Courcy-Bower’. Aside from a shared tendency to use adopted names, he had several other things in common with Charles Deville Wells, including a criminal record for fraud and a bankruptcy of several years previously from which he had not been discharged. He had even patented several inventions, though not nearly as many as Wells. And he was unquestionably a gambler, too.
At Monte Carlo, Bower won the maximum pay-out eighteen times in a row and broke the bank on five separate occasions. And whereas the title of ‘the man who broke the bank’ had previously been associated with Charles Wells alone, now it was Bower’s name that came to mind. He was even linked – quite erroneously – to the famous song.6
As the bitter war against Germany continued, the British public became fearful that foreign spies might enter their country and attack them from within. In March 1915 the authorities announced that, to reduce the risks, a single route would be kept open for all non-military passenger traffic between Britain and the Continent. Steamers would operate a special wartime service between Dieppe and Folkestone, and the government promised that heightened security measures would be put in place:
There is a double check here, for all passengers are examined, first by the authorities controlling the movements of aliens, and afterwards by Scotland Yard officials, working in conjunction with the local police … The work is done by specially trained men, who have had years of experience in dealing with aliens both in London and at the south coast ports.
The new precautions proved their worth at the beginning of December, when the spy Mata Hari arrived at Folkestone on her way to France and was recognised by Detective Sergeant Warrell, a Scotland Yard officer temporarily assigned to the port. She was interrogated and searched. Although nothing incriminating was found, she was noted as a person of interest to the police and security forces.
Warrell was praised by his superiors for his quick-witted actions and, with his sights set on early promotion, he redoubled his efforts to spot other suspicious individuals. His vigilance was rewarded just over two weeks later when one evening he recognised an elderly gentleman disembarking from the Dieppe ferry. Charles Deville Wells, now almost 75 years of age, was not on any wanted list in Britain at the time, but Warrell still questioned him in some detail.7 Afterwards, Wells boarded the boat train to London around 9.00 p.m. The ever vigilant Sergeant Warrell phoned Scotland Yard, where a constable took the message and noted it down:
Charles de Ville Wells, known as the man that broke the bank at Monte Carlo, arrived here from Dieppe this evening and left by boat train arriving at Victoria at 10.45 p.m.
Carriage No. 986. 2nd Class. Second compartment from end of train. Gave as his address for tonight the Wilton Hotel, Victoria. States that he is going to London to see his Solicitor Mr. Hoddinott, Finsbury Circus. Please direct an officer to meet the train and obtain particulars.
A constable was sent to Victoria Station, where the train arrived later than scheduled:
CHARLES DE VILLE WELLS
I beg to report [he wrote] that I proceeded to Victoria on the evening of the 20th. inst., and was present on the arrival of the Boat Train from Folkestone which arrived at Victoria at 11.05 p.m., but no person alighted from the carriage named whom I thought answered the description of the above man.
From discreet enquiries, I ascertained that no person of the above name had arrived at the Wilton Hotel that evening, or booked rooms there.
Hubert Morse, P.C.
Once again, Wells had cocked a snook at the authorities. There is no further entry in his file and, as far as the police were concerned, that was the end of their long professional association with Wells.
The thousands of pounds that Charles and Jeannette had invested in securities or deposited in banks, together with the proceeds from the sale of the yacht Excelsior, were shared among their victims on both sides of the Channel.
Once the tortuous financial arrangements had been settled, the creditors from Wells’ British bankruptcy of over twenty years ago received an initial dividend of 2s 6d for every pound they were owed – exactly one-eighth of the total debt. The ongoing income from the annuities was distributed annually, and took the form of a smaller payment, which varied from year to year between about 2 and 4 per cent of the original sum (these payments are detailed in Appendix B). And since the assets and income were shared on a 50–50 basis with France, corresponding sums were apportioned among the French creditors (who were, of course, far more numerous).
It was not until after the war that Wells was heard from again in Britain. The conflict had had serious repercussions as far as the French economy was concerned. Between 1914 and 1919 food prices had trebled in some cases. Wells got in touch with the administrators of his finances to say that he was living in impoverished circumstances, and could no longer afford to feed himself because the cost of living was so high. Following his release from prison he had been allowed a tiny income out of his annuities. Now he needed more.
He insisted on – and was granted – a hearing in a French court to argue his case. ‘Give me some money to live on, or I’ll kill myself, and you won’t get a penny more,’ was his plea. Since the annuity income would have ceased if he died, the French and British creditors promptly granted him an annual ‘pension’ of about £260 – the equivalent of a skilled worker’s pay. Wells was able, once more, to live in relative comfort, and his creditors continued to receive a modest annual dividend.
It was late July 1922 when the Daily Telegraph announced:
MONTE CARLO WELLS – FAMOUS ADVENTURER’S DEATH
News has been received in London of the death, in Paris, at the age of 81, of Charles de Ville Wells, known to fame as ‘the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.’
Readers were reminded of his long career, not only as a gambler, but also as a fraudster extraordinaire, who had obtained many thousands of pounds from his victims. ‘Nobody will be more sorry to hear of his death than his numerous creditors,’ one columnist declared. Harry Wilson, a solicitor who had acted in the Rente Bi-mensuelle affair, told a Daily Chronicle reporter that the British creditors had been refunded with nearly all the money they were owed. This was an exaggeration, but they had received almost half – a lot more than creditors in a bankruptcy usually get. On the other hand, they had suffered a very long wait – over thirty years – for their money.
The news of Wells’ death spread far and wide, and as it passed from one person to another it was considerably embellished and sensationalised in the retelling:
HE BROKE MONTE CARLO BANK AND DIED BROKE
Charles Deville Wells, the ‘man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo’ … died in Paris recently in such abject poverty that his death passed unnoticed until more than a month afterward. He was eighty-one years old.
Readers relying on this article could have been forgiven for picturing a dusty garret in some dilapidated Paris tenement. An old man has breathed his last – he has died alone, unloved and unnoticed – only after several weeks is his body discovered.
But the truth was very different. In death, as in life, nothing about Charles Deville Wells was straightforward. To begin with, he did not die in poverty. He may not have been especially well off, but the yearly income he had been awarded from the annuities was quite adequate for a man with his unpretentious lifestyle. And he most certainly did not die in Paris, as most accounts claim. By the time of his death, he and Jeannette had returned to London. Charles occupied lodgings at 1 Edith Grove, Chelsea (Plate 10) and Jeannette had an apartment not far away, at 39 Oakley Crescent8 (Plate 16) (a few yards from Captain Smith’s former home in Redesdale Street). Chelsea was then, and still is, a relatively prosperous district.9
Wells’ landlady said that, although he was such an old man, he was ‘quite sprightly until last winter when he began to suffer from his heart. Previous to that he would move about as actively as a man half his age.’ She said she had never had the slightest inkling that he was the man who inspired the song she used to sing as a young girl. ‘I knew him as “Mr. Charles”, which, of course, was his Christian name,’ she explained. After breakfast he used to return to a little back room which served as his bedroom and a workshop. He was, she added, always working on inventions. He often wore shabby clothing. His landlady gave him all her husband’s cast-offs and he gratefully accepted them.
He frequently visited Jeannette at her apartment, just over a mile away. Despite his illness during the cold British winter, it was now mid-summer, and he seemed to be in reasonable health. ‘The end came unexpectedly, death overtaking him with little warning or none at all, as he rested in an armchair.’ The unimaginable fortunes that had once passed through his hands were long gone, and he died owing two weeks’ rent.
Charles Deville Wells, the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo, was laid to rest in North Sheen Cemetery, in an unmarked grave. As he had no known relatives, Jeannette signed the documents in connection with his burial. It is believed that she could not afford a headstone.
Not long afterwards, Sir Basil Thomson – the governor of Dartmoor Prison when Charles was a prisoner there – wrote:
Monte Carlo Wells is dead. A man with such a temperament ought to have been immortal: he ought not even to have grown old. I am quite sure that it was his bodily machine that wore out and that his spirit was invested with perennial youth …
______________
1 The note remains in Wells’ police file at the National Archives to this day.
2 He evidently means 1891, not 1889. The amounts he claimed were surely an exaggeration. And no independent evidence has been found to support his claim of a more recent visit to Monte Carlo in 1910. As a rule, the casino did not allow convicted criminals to enter the premises. Some of the current employees had been there when Wells had his major wins twenty years earlier, and would assuredly have recognised him. One member of staff in particular is said to have had an exceptional memory for faces and once spotted a customer who reappeared after an absence of forty years. The man had left owing money to the casino, and was taken aback when he was asked to pay up after such a long time. (Smith, A., pp.342–43.)
3 The French term used is ‘Administrateur Judiciaire’: there is no exact English equivalent.
4 In the event, it had not been necessary for Charles Wells’ case to be referred to the House of Lords, which is the highest court in the land; but a few weeks previously he had been ‘honoured’ with a brief mention in the House of Commons, during a debate on the costs of certain trials. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury referred to a ‘very expensive case in the London Extradition Court, which obtained considerable notoriety in the public Press – the case concerning a gentleman named Wells – Monte Carlo Wells’. (Hansard (Commons), 10 February 1913.)
5 He was seventeen years younger than Wells.
6 A number of publications, including Lost Chords and The Great Song Thesaurus, state that he was the original inspiration for Fred Gilbert’s opus, even though the composition dates from 1891 and Bower did not achieve Monte Carlo fame until twenty years later. (Gilbert, p.237; Lax and Smith.)
7 Warrell was promoted to inspector soon afterwards. (Folkestone Herald, 23 September 1916.)
8 Since renamed Oakley Gardens.
9 The Booth Maps of 1898–99 show both streets to be ‘reasonably well-to-do’. The 1910 Inland Revenue Valuation Survey shows that at that time the house was occupied by a clergyman, the Reverend Buchanan, his wife and their two servants. There is nothing to suggest that this was anything other than a respectable, gentrified area.