In Victorian London, a gang of U.S. hustlers attempts a ten-million-dollar heist on the safest bank in the world. Can the detective who inspired Sherlock Holmes catch them?
On April 18, 1872, Austin Bidwell walked into Green & Son tailors on London’s renowned Savile Row and ordered eight bespoke suits, two topcoats, and a luxurious dressing gown. Bidwell was 26 years old, 6ft tall, and handsomely groomed with a waxed mustache and bushy side-whiskers. If the accent didn’t give it away, his eye-catching western hat marked him out as an American — a rich American. London tradesmen called Americans with bulges of money in their pockets “Silver Kings,” and they were most welcome in upmarket establishments like Green & Son, which charged as much for the strength of their reputations as for the quality of their goods.As master tailor Edward Green busied himself around his store, young Austin, lips clamped around a cigar, explained he was a businessman who had crossed the Atlantic to introduce Pullman railroad cars to England. Austin was setting up a factory to manufacture the cars and he expected to spend a lot of time in London. He would likely need to expand his wardrobe. The obliging tailor, with dollar signs in his eyes, recorded the order and asked Austin to sign the ledger. Austin Biron Bidwell took a pen, dipped the nib into an ink reservoir, and signed his name as “F. A. Warren.” For Frederick Albert Warren, the ten-million-dollar con was on.Sixteen days later, Austin returned to Green & Son to try his new clothes. He was now a regular visitor, having called several times to be fitted, and to place new orders, and he had a friendly rapport with the tailor. Austin told Green he was going away for a while, to Ireland. He had a substantial amount of money — £2,000 (equivalent to around $215,000 in 2020). It was too much to carry with him. Brandishing a thick roll of notes, Austin asked if Mr. Green would be so kind as to hold the money for him until he returned. The tailor declined politely but invited Austin to follow him around the corner to the Western Branch of the Bank of England.Savile Row was thick with the lavender smell of gentlemen’s perfumes and the sweaty-palmed stench of money. London in the early 1870s was, according to a Collins’ travel guide from the time, “the metropolis of a great and mighty empire… and the richest city in the world.” At the heart of the city’s prosperity was the Bank of England, “unquestionably the greatest bank in the world.” It was founded in 1694 by the government of King William III. Over the next couple of centuries, it established itself as a model financial institution that was regarded as completely impenetrable. “As safe as the Bank of England” became a much-used simile for good reason.London tradesmen called Americans with bulges of money in their pockets ‘Silver Kings,’ and they were most welcome in upmarket establishments like Green & Son, which charged as much for the strength of their reputations as for the quality of their goods.Green led Austin through the Western Branch’s stone portico and into the grand two-story banking hall, where motes of dust floated in sunbeams from the high windows. The key to the security of the Bank of England was trust. The Bank only conducted business with persons known to them. This meant, as an American stranger, Austin Bidwell was unable to open an account — unless he was introduced by a reputable existing customer of the bank. As Austin had staked out the bank for several days prior to his first meeting with the tailor, he knew Mr. Green was just such a customer. After Green’s introduction, Austin was presented with a checkbook and passbook in the name of Frederick Warren.The Collins’ travel guide, alongside information on places of interest, omnibus routes, and the city’s sewerage system, offered useful hints for visitors to the entangling metropolis of London. “Beware of strangers who endeavor to force their acquaintance on you,” it warned. “They are often low sharpers.” This advice could have been useful to Edward Green, and to the Bank of England. Austin Bidwell was a low sharper, a filcher, and a chizzler, and he had set in motion a plot to dupe, rob, and humiliate the greatest bank in the world.***The men who robbed the Bank of England had steamed out of New York harbor earlier that spring on an iron-hulled liner that would take more than a week to cross the Atlantic. The plot’s mastermind was Austin’s brother, George Bidwell. George was more than a decade older than Austin, a few inches shorter, and a little stockier. He wore a fashionably-trimmed mustache and was almost as dashing, if perhaps not as silver-tongued. George was a notorious fraudster and a veteran of headline-making scams perpetrated across the US, South America, and Europe. The Chicago Tribune called George “an ingenious scoundrel” whose numerous scrapes and swindles placed him “among the most remarkable men known in the criminal annals of America.”George first encountered the art of the scam as a kid, when his father was conned out of every penny he had by a crooked business partner. George regarded his father as honest and hardworking but embarrassingly naïve. The family moved several times, from upstate New York to Michigan and around the Midwest. In each place, his father would establish a new business, only to be “taken in and done for” by hustlers who left the family penniless. George sold apples and candy from a basket to support the family and bristled at his father’s gullibility. Somewhere around this time, he decided there was no point struggling to earn a legitimate living when there was much easier money to be had in fraud, so he moved to New York to make his fortune.George’s favorite scam was a consignment fraud that involved setting up bogus shopfronts and ordering large quantities of stock — everything from sugar to furniture — on credit that would never be paid. As the scam expanded, George recruited an assistant — Austin. George lined up suppliers, and Austin set up shopfronts. George was protective of Austin, who was still a teenager, and endeavored to “keep my young brother ignorant” of the illegalities of their business. But Austin’s eyes were quickly opened to the swindles and their financial possibilities, and, at the age of 16, he followed his brother to New York....
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