until I had actually arrived in America. Then there
could not have been found a single particle of evidence against me.

I say "if I had come to New York." But there is some mysterious spell
over men embarked in crime that blinds their eyes to the plainest
dictates of common sense or prudence. This has been proved in a thousand
dramatic instances, but never more forcibly than in our own. It would
seem as if clever, daring men do almost impossible things with ease, but
there is a Nemesis which blinds them to trifles, fatal if overlooked,
causing them to make mistakes of which a schoolboy would be ashamed.

When we first got our combination together I thought we had found a
short cut to fortune, and never doubted of our success to the very end,
and amid many mishaps, that either crippled or ruined our schemes and
lengthened this short cut to fortune, I maintained my confidence until
on that day down in blazing Rio, when the letter "c" in lieu of the "s"
in indorse came to the front to crumble our "sure thing" into ruin. I
remember that in the stupefaction which for a few minutes settled down
on us, I felt we were really fighting against fate. A fate that like the
fiat of Deity says "Thou shalt not," to all wrongdoing.

For some time after that "indorce" takedown a feeling took possession of
me that such short cuts to fortune were risky, and that if success did
come the success would in the end prove a failure. But there is so much
in companionship and such magnetism in human association that when we
all three met in Paris and went in and out together, then, under the
stimulus of our union, I forgot all my forebodings and began to think
the unforeseen fatal something would not happen, and that we could
conquer fortune whether she would or no, and by any method on which we
chose to enter. But, as will be seen in the sequel, when reveling in an
unheard-of success, literally loaded down with wealth, Nemesis appeared
and by means even more simple than our error in Rio stripped us of our
wealth and dignity and left us naked to every storm that blew.

CHAPTER XXIII.

SHOWERS OF GOLD FALL--AND THEN?

I shall try and condense into a single chapter the narrative of events
in London from the time of my departure until the day, some months
later, when our scheme exploded and all took to flight when Noyes was
arrested.

Our expenses had been so enormous that we were anxious to make enough to
recoup them, so it had been