Next morning, they found a suitable lawyer to act for them. The lawyer's offices were on the far side of the river, tucked away in a side street near the Palais de Justice. They walked, map in han
d, enjoying the daytime splendor of the city. Instead of the spectacle of the illuminated dancing fountains on the lake the previous night, daytime Geneva was dominated by the snow-capped Alps rising in most directions around the perimeter of the city and lake - a magnificent, breath-taking sight.
Their appointment with the lawyer was for 11.15 a.m. The exterior of the lawyer's office appeared massive, being built from local stone and like many office buildings on the continent, the
downstairs’ lobby was the province of a concierge and was dominated by her desk at one side of the hall. She asked them their business in heavily accented French and Pascoe informed her of their appointment with Herr Diffring, the lawyer. The concierge explained to them that the lawyer's office was located on the second floor and that the lift wasn't working. In that respect it reminded them of the Change Alley office, but there the comparison stopped.
Pascoe made the introductions using the name of Robertson.
"Delighted to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Robertson. Please to sit. "Diffring motioned to the seats. His English was good and almost accent less.
"How may I be of service to you?"
"Herr Diffring, I shall come straight to the point," replied Pascoe, "We have only a limited amount of time here in Geneva - just today, in fact and we wish to open a numbered account in one of your banks and arrange for a lawyer like yourself to deal with such funds as it may acquire, on our behalf. Can you help us in this matter?"
"What you are asking is irregular, but not without precedent. You are not the first to make such a request. The problem lies with your bona-fides. It will be necessary to establish them with the bank in question."
"That is why we are here to see you Herr Diffring. We do not have the time available to us to go through the normal channels. However, we do have fairly large amounts of money in different banks around the world that we would like to transfer to a Swiss bank; to a numbered account, where we will know that it is being well cared for and safe from prying eyes. The attitude of our Revenue service is not as beneficial as yours is here and having taken a great deal of trouble to preserve our family's wealth over the past few generations, we do not wish to see it fall into the wrong hands."
"Quite so. I
do understand. You will certainly not be the first to seek sanctuary for your money inside our Swiss banking system."
"Can you help us in this respect?"
"Anything is possible, Mr. Robertson. It is in the development of possibility into probability and then into certainty that the problem lies."
"Would a catalyst help the process?"
"I'm sure it would."
"How much would this catalyst cost?"
"One thousand... "
"Swiss francs?"
"I thought you British always dealt in guineas." Diffring smiled.
"That does seem an awful lot of money to pay to open a bank account."
"I assume a great deal of money is involved and if I am to guarantee your bona-fides at the bank, I think it is a reasonable price."
"All right, Herr Diffring, you have got yourself a deal. I will telephone you here at two o'clock for your news and if you have been successful, we will meet at the bank and conclude our business."
As Herr Diffring dismissed them, Pascoe noticed the slight nod of his head and the almost imperceptible click of his heels. As a Swiss national, Herr Diffring made a good German. He had probably headed for Switzerland at the end of the war.
Later, Pascoe found that the lawyer had been as good as his word. A meeting with the manager of the Engleburger Bank had been arranged for three o'clock. They met at a nearby cafe at 2.30
p.m., where the lawyer explained what he had been able to do for them.
The bank itself looked discreet - not particularly large, overbearing or even glamorous, as bank buildings go, but it did seem dependable, as did its manager, Herr Peter Braun who led them into his office. Once seated comfortably inside, Braun opened the discussion.
"Frau and Herr Robertson, Herr Diffring advises me that you wish to open an account with us and that as you only have a limited time in Geneva, he is willing to guarantee your bona-fides."
"Yes, Herr Braun, that is so."
"Herr Diffring also tells me that you wish to have a numbered account, with all its benefits."
"If possible."
"Everything is possible in Geneva. Of course, one expects to pay according to the facility of fulfilling certain requests."
"How much?" Pascoe knew he could rely on banks and lawyers to get straight to the point, when it concerned money.
"Confidentiality costs money, you understand and for us to offer you our most confidential service, will cost you 2,500 Swiss francs per year.
"I think 2,500 Swiss francs is a reasonable price to pay for loyalty and secrecy," replied Pascoe. "Please arrange it and do you mind if I settle the expenses of opening the account in pounds sterling?"
"Not at all, Herr Robertson, they are still worth something, after all!" It was the first time Pascoe had come across the Swiss sense of humor and he wondered if they were as shrewd and cynical in their business dealings. When the manager left the office, he settled with Herr Diffring.
"It seems that you have been as good as your word Herr Diffring. It has been a pleasure dealing with you. An expensive pleasure
, but a necessary one. Thank you."
"Ach! I am pleased to have been of service to you. If you should need my services again.
” He handed his engraved business card to each of them in turn, shook Pascoe's hand ; kissed Sam's and left the manager's office. This time, the heel-click was even more pronounced. The manager returned and fussed around with sets of papers, arranging them carefully, before he spoke.
"Everything here is in order, Mr. Robertson. As you must know, the object of holding a numbered account is secrecy. There will be no record of you being the owner of the account. The only link between you and the account will be its number. If you forget, misplace, or lose the number of the account, you will hav
e forfeited its contents forever. The only access to the account will be by yourselves. Even I will not have access to it. However, I must warn you that the Swiss authorities do, under certain circumstances, have the right to inspect numbered accounts, if serious breaches of Swiss law are involved. Is everything perfectly clear?"
"Yes, I believe so."
"Good. I must ask you to sign this certificate of indemnity which absolves the bank of responsibility for the account. As we don't know which account belongs to whom, we have no way of checking the amounts in the accounts. Therefore we cannot be responsible for them." Once the formalities had been completed and the money handed over, the manager passed him a small sealed envelope.
"As you can see Mr. Robertson, your account number is concealed inside that form. No-one else at the bank knows what that number is. Whenever you wish to pay funds into the account, instruct any bank to pay the amount to that numbered account. Alternatively, to withdraw funds, instruct us to transfer whatever sum you need to any other account. Nothing could be simpler. Remember the number is unique. You hold the only copy of it. We do not check signatures. So be careful with it."
Geneva – romantic journey
"Thank you Herr Braun. If I get into difficulties, I'll let you know. "The manager left.
"What are you going to do?" Sam asked.
"I'm going to telex the Provincial Bank in London to transfer all the funds in the account there to the Belgaebank in Brussels." Sam watched, fascinated by the technology.
It took Pascoe a little while to fathom the workings of the machine, but he finally managed. The clear version of the message he typed read:-
'Attention of Mr. Bristow, Manager, Provincial Bank, Gresham Street. London. Please transfer all of the funds in my account, except £500, to account of Reginald Guyton, c/o Belgaebank, rue d'Independence.Brussels, (No.346365). Yours, etc., Remember, ‘the pen is mightier than the sword.'’
The telex message was completed using the appropriate codes for the banks involved. Satisfied that the message was clear in its meaning and incapable of being misinterpreted, he pressed the button to send. Several seconds elapsed before the machine on his desk started to chatter away, printing a hundred characters a second. Pascoe tore his copy off the telex machine and placed it safely inside his jacket pocket before leaving. He asked a clerk to inform Herr Braun they had finished with the telex. The manager arrived with the mandate forms ready for signature.
"One last thing, Herr Braun," said Pascoe, extracting a package from his briefcase. "These are the pre-ad
dressed envelopes for the bearer bonds. There are seven in all. If you could convert the funds of the account into Swiss bonds of 5,000 francs and divide them evenly as you can, I should be obliged. There are full instructions inside."
Braun took the package and scanned the addresses on each envelope. Each was addressed to the Robertsons, Poste Restante at different ports around the world. Pascoe noticed a puzzled look on the manager's face.
I promised Mrs. Robertson a decent honeymoon. We're leaving shortly on a world cruise." Pascoe commented by way of explanation. "Thank you for all your help Herr Braun.
“We've got a train to catch in half an hour." Pascoe informed Sam back at the hotel.
"Where to this time?"
"Avignon," said Pascoe, "Where the bridge is."
"Why are we in such a goddamned hurry? All we seem to have done this past week is to have a series of one night stands throughout Europe. We're never in one place long enough to enjoy it."
“You're right darling, we haven't had much time to ourselves and when we're on the train, I will explain, only now, just take my word for it and let's get out of here."
"But I like it here!"
"So do I, but for the moment it's too dangerous."
"Why dangerous?"
"Because since I sent that telex from the bank, we have established an indirect link from the Provincial Bank in London to the bank here in Geneva."
"You don't think that they will be able to get on to us through that?"
"Not yet, but I don't intend to wait around here to find out."
They packed quickly, settled the bill and caught the 16.44 train to Culoz. Later, after two changes they took the Rapide service to Avignon where they arrived a little before 11 p.m. that evening.
While Pascoe & Sam were jetting around Europe, the first batch of Dallasbank che
ques was making its rounds in the labyrinthine headquarters of Thomas Cook in Leicester.
The Leicester office is the one to which all
travelers’ cheques from Thomas Cooks' travel shops and bureaux de change in the United Kingdom eventually arrive. There, each cheque is sorted by name and currency type, before being photographed onto microfilm for record purposes. The country of the currency in which the cheques is drawn, determines its final resting place. Thus all cheques in Japanese Yen are cleared in Tokyo, while American Dollars are cleared in New York. After microfilming, each batch of cheques is fed into a reading machine which scans the magnetic code on the bottom of each cheque and retains the identity, value and number of every cheque. Each day, these codes are sent electronically via telephone and satellite links from the bank's mainframe computer to its counterparts around the world. As soon as the receiving computer has acknowledged the correct codes, the value of the cheques flows electronically back to the U.K. bank as a credit using the S.W.I.F.T. system. Using high speed communications technology, the whole event is timed in minutes rather than hours.
The British banks, having received notice of the Dallasbank operation, treated Pascoe's
travelers’ cheques as any other dollar travelers cheques.
When the batch of Dallasbank ch
eques was placed into the 'reader' machine, the sensors read the codes as American Express codes just as Pascoe had intended and filed them onto its non-volatile memory. Later, when the information was transmitted at high speed frequency in conjunction with bona-fide information from actual American Express cheques, it was impossible for the New York office's receiving equipment to discern the difference between its own codes and those on the Dallasbank cheques. The code sequences Pascoe used were current. Some may have been already used. Others had not yet been issued. Pascoe had calculated that it would probably take months before the faults were detected.
Once the funds have been transferred electronically, the cancelled che
ques are stored until there are sufficient quantities of them to be parcelled together and flown to the country of origin. There they are stored by the issuing bank, in case the need arises to cross-check them. Contrary to some opinions, neither American Express nor any of the other banks involved in the business of travelers’ cheques, employ people to look and sort through mountains of cancelled cheques. Once they have been safely stored, they are just as safely forgotten.
On the Thursday following Easter, some $37,500 of Dallasbank che
ques were recorded as debit figures on the far side of the Atlantic and a like sum had been credited to the major clearing banks in the United Kingdom. The Thomas Cook organization alone had handled some $12,000 worth of them that day. It was a painless transaction. No one even knew they had been hurt!
Some 1,700 miles south-west of New York, T.T. Ford arrived at Dallas Fort Worth Airport, worried and jet-lagged from Paris. The news, awaiting his arrival at the Memorial Hospital, was both good and bad. His wife was expected to make a full recovery, but would need extensive private nursing, of the expensive kind that Am
erica specialises in. Expensive!!! By the time Ford arrived at the hospital, his wife had already signed over the deeds to their marital home, in order to finance the emergency operations she needed. Ford thought how much easier things might have been, had she died in the accident.
Her death would have enabled him to take up his life in Europe with his mistress, but the news of his wife's impending recovery had buried any chance of that happening.
It was after he had booked into his hotel near the hospital and was unpacking his bags, that he noticed he still had the travelers' cheques, untouched since he had left France. There was no way he could return them to the London office in time. Accusations of theft flashed through his mind. Perhaps he was already a wanted man and as they even had a photo-copy of his passport, they were probably checking his whereabouts already. He remembered the little book of instructions, issued with the cheques and turned to it. Flipping through the tiny pages he found what he was looking for, the Dallas address of the bank's head office, 'Second National City Bank of Dallas, Dealey Plaza. Dallas.' As he had time to spare while cooped-up in Fort Worth, he decided to drive over to Dallas to repay the cheques to the bank. He had already given up any idea of making a profit from the deal and was happy with the thought of preventing a worse catastrophe befalling him in the shape of the law. By courtesy of the Hertz organization, the 30 mile drive on the Fort Worth - Dallas turnpike was simplicity itself. It was parking the hire car that caused the problem. Eventually, he stashed the hire car some distance from the city center and hired a cab the rest of the way.
"Can you take me to the 'Second C
ity National Bank of Dallas'?" he asked the driver.
"Sure thing mister. Just tell me where it is an' I'll take you there."
"The address I have is Dealey Plaza."
"Okay. But it sure ain't there." The cab pulled out into the traffic and headed for Main Street. The cab halted at 'Historic Plaza'.
"That'll be $6.80 without the tip," the driver announced.
"Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Sure. You wanted Dealey Plaza. Here it is, only they've renamed it on account of the trouble." Ford showed the cab-driver the address in the travelers’ cheques notes. The driver looked at it.
"I think someone's been playing a joke on you friend. That's the address of of the old Texas School Book Depository, where they say the shots that killed the president were fired from. It's over there," the driver pointed across the road.
"No, I can't have made a mistake. It's here in black and white. It’s the address of the bank."
"Mister, you wanted Dealey Plaza; you got Dealey Plaza. What else do you want?"
"Don't you know the bank?"
"Can't say I do."
"Well take me to the ones you do know." Ford could not have found a more willing accomplice. As long as the meter stayed on, the driver was more than happy to take Ford anywhere he wanted to go.
They visited the 'First City Bank of Dallas' in Main Place ; the 'InterFirst Bank Dallas' at 1401, Elm Street and the 'Dallas Bank & Trust', 1825, North Industrial Boulevard as well as a dozen others. But of the 'Second National City Bank of Dallas' itself, there was no trace.
Ford spent the journey back to Fort Worth racking his brains. It couldn't just have been a misprint of the address, as he would have found the bank with the help of the cab-driver. Also, Dealey Plaza was no longer called Dealey Plaza and when he had asked someone about it, they had informed him the name had changed several years previously. The address of the head office of Dallasbank had turned out to be the building from which Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly assassinated John F. Kennedy. It seemed to him that someone was playing a joke, but on whom. He hadn't been the only one involved. There had been nearly 150 others, all fellow Americans and if they had each been given $15,000. The sum involved - more than two million dollars, caused him to swerve the car nearly off the turnpike. Ford knew in that instant that the bank didn't exist; had never existed except in the imagination of the smooth talking con-man in London.
The more he thought about it, the more it amused him. It had certainly been one hell of a con, using 150 innocent people to do the dirty work. He
realized that it meant that he had paid hotel bills and airfares across Europe, with counterfeit cheques. He was innocent of course, but who would believe him. Ford smiled to himself; then grinned and began to laugh, shaking so much that he almost lost control of the car again. Long before he arrived back at his Fort Worth Hotel, he had decided to leave things well alone.
He made straight for the hotel bar, ordered a cool Budweiser and took it to a far corner table, well away from the other bar-flies. He thought back to the day at the London Grosvenor hotel, where Guyton, or whatever his real name was, had so effectively pulled the wool over 150 pairs of American eyes. He raised his glass and chuckled.
"Here's to you, you two-timing, double-dealing, son of a bitch! I hope you get away with it.
In London, the same evening Henry J. Winters arrived at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square with his wife Emily. He was to take up duties as one of the residential clerks at the embassy and was in the process of producing his credentials to the duty sergeant, when he discovered his pouch of American Express
travelers’ cheques were missing. The sergeant made the usual sympathetic noises he reserved for American tourists in a similar plight, until Winters told him of the amount involved.
"$
10,000 dollars Sir?" The shock brought the sergeant to his feet. “I'll get somebody down for you Sir."
Shortly afterwards, a senior embassy official arrived to take charge. The call he made was routed from the embassy to the Home Office because an Embassy official was involved and then on to Special Branch, because of their close working relationship with the Home Office. A senior police officer and a detective sergeant were soon on their way to the embassy from Marlborough Street Police Station. Upon their arrival, they were shown into a small reception room on the ground floor, where they were able to interview Winters and his wife.
Normally, in the event of travelers’ cheques being stolen, nothing very much happens except a recording of the details, cheque numbers etc., but because an Embassy official was involved, things not only had to be done, they had to be seen to be done. Both Detective Inspector Roberts and Detective Sergeant Heath, the officers assigned to the case, knew that they would be wasting their time. They knew, because there was no system to alert the thousands of banks and exchange bureaux in the country. They also knew that within minutes of the theft being made, the cheques would have been passed on to a team of 'handlers' who were experts in converting travelers’ cheques, ordinary cheques, credit cards and foreign cash into clean, untraceable money. It was how the system worked and it worked very efficiently. In the ordinary run of things, such crime fitted into the 'white-collar' category. As no-one normally got hurt and the victims were invariably reimbursed for their losses by the institutions involved, the crime didn't appear high on the police list of causes deserving their most vigorous attention. The only difference was the involvement of the embassy and the amount of money involved.