It must have been a very dramatic moment when the credulous creditor turned the key in the lock and the safe door opened on its hinges, and he must have felt pleased with himself when he saw the pile of important-looking documents which seemed to him to be valuable share certificates. But a moment later he realized that he had been grossly swindled, for the papers proved to be worthless.
The bubble had burst! Mrs. Chadwick was from that moment known as the Madame Humbert of America. How her creditors howled! How they were chaffed and ridiculed! A few would not reveal themselves once they guessed that there could be no redress. Nevertheless, stern measures were adopted, and a warrant was issued for the impostor's arrest.
Mrs. Chadwick had taken up her quarters in an expensive hotel in the early part of December, 1904. She intended to pass Christmas there, and the management had already consulted her as to her ideas of a really Christmasy entertainment. She was paying one hundred dollars a week for her rooms, and she had arrived with a fortune in jewels, and half a dozen personal servants. She was the uncrowned queen of the hotel, where the other visitors stood in groups and discussed her wonderful personality in awed accents.
She was destined, however, to spend that Christmas in gaol. One evening when Mrs. Chadwick, resplendent in a marvellous Parisian creation, and wearing jewels which must have cost fifty thousand dollars at least, was chatting at the dinner-table, the manager came to her and respectfully intimated that a couple of gentlemen wished to see her. She graciously answered that she would receive them in her drawing-room. Visitors were every-day occurrences with her, and these, she thought, were local celebrities, who had come to enlist her support for their Christmas charities.
Without the slightest suspicion that anything was wrong she entered her luxurious drawing-room, and with a smile inquired the strangers' business. Now American detectives have a habit of being brutally frank, and they lost no time in informing her that she was their prisoner, and that the charge against her was that of having obtained nearly a million dollars by fraud.
The news stunned her, and for a moment or two she stood motionless. Then she collapsed in a faint, and it was some time before the two detectives could get her downstairs and into the waiting cab.