Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927

The Elusive Giant by Henry Gollomb[6]

THE WHOLE WORLD WAS HIS COURT. AND FOR HIS CRUEL GRACE FAIR LADIES AND BRAVE MEN BARTERED THEIR LIVES

Six foot three, massively built, strikingly featured, he was the focus of all eyes. When he was present all things centered about him. The crimes he enacted filled the mouths of men and the pages of the newspapers. Governments knew him well, millionaires were his companions, many women loved him, but withal he was the most invisible of men.

He appeared out of the mist of the unknown and loomed like a mountain. He vanished like a mirage. The police of many nations sought him, but when he was caught he squirmed and was gone. He was Franz von Veltheim, master rogue, king of blackmailers and despoiler of women.

All of the foregoing may sound bombastic, but he carried with him an atmosphere of the dramatic, the theatrical, and minor adjectives are insufficient to describe him.

He was murderer, blackmailer, polygamist, thief; but he had a charm and a magnetism that inspired faith, that made his victims believe, his judges to doubt their judgment.

Germany bore him. Karl Kurt was born in Brunswick in 1857, and with him came into being a truly criminal soul. His family was of the lower classes, but somewhere in its earlier generations there must have been a left-handed infusion of nobler blood; for here was Karl, in appearance an aristocrat, in manners, when he so willed, a gentleman, but in nature a blackguard.

The strict discipline of German family life left him untouched. Just as soon as the years developed his physique, and experiences his wit, he became the leader of the younger thieves of the city.

The prisons were his schools, jailbirds his teachers. From them he learned the tricks of evasion, the fine points of crime, the need of a cold heart in his profession. All these came to him with ease, they were the gifts of his birthright.

Until 1880 he was Karl Kurt. But the name did not fit. His appearance spelled romance, his carriage aristocracy. So he changed his name. And he stole even that. The German navy called him to service.

He came, with a mental reservation that his stay would be short. He climbed ropes, he manned guns, he saluted his captain — and stole his watch. The captain raged, questioned, threatened, but Karl Kurt had faded away; how, no one could reveal.

A London pawnbroker saw him next. A magnificent-looking stranger, his English barely tinged by a German accent, wished to pawn a beautiful gold watch, an heirloom. Name? Franz von Veltheim. See, there it was, cleverly engraved under a coat of arms which had been his family’s insignia for centuries.

And the pawnbroker, gazing at the name and the man could not doubt they belonged to each other. With fifteen pounds in his pockets the newly baptized adventurer vanished from Europe, where as Karl Kurt he had interested the police too deeply for his comfort.

As Baron Franz von Veltheim he made an undeniable impression upon the best people of Melbourne, Australia. His manners were perfect and he was modest in his references to the vast estates of which he was the heir. But he did mention them occasionally in the presence of one of the financial leaders of the city.

The latter was somewhat hard-headed and dubious, but his daughter bad no such questionings. She fell thoroughly in love with the handsome adventurer. But the father remained hesitant and von Veltheim swept the girl into a hasty marriage. This was the first wedding ceremony in which he participated, and it was the only legal one.

Love for another had no part in his make-up, and when his wife’s father failed to provide in the manner fitting a baronial son-in-law, the latter found himself handicapped by a poor investment, a wife who could not support him.

Never again did he make that mistake. Every woman he married thereafter, and there were many, came to him with a carefully investigated financial statement. But how well he convinced them that it was love only that drew him, that money meant nothing to him!

With the utmost nonchalance he told his wife that she was to sail for London and wait there for him while he went to South Africa to settle one of his “estates.”

In response to her natural curiosity as to the reason why she could not accompany him, he pleaded diplomatic intrigues, political dangers in which he did not wish to involve her. And she believed him.

South Africa was later the scene of von Veltheim’s most notorious exploits, but on this occasion he found Capetown an unfruitful field. His criminal efforts for the moment were confined to the types of thieving with which he was familiar, and though his harvest was poor, his elusive skill kept him from trouble with the police.

He left behind him an impression of his personality which was to return both to plague and to help him in the future.

Back in London again he found his wife living on an allowance from her father. That was sufficient to insure his companionship for a time, a doubtful blessing which brought the poor disillusioned woman little besides sorrow. She referred casually to the kindness offered her by an elderly English general who had taken pity on her loneliness during the long trip from Australia.

Immediately the spark of an idea flashed illumination into the man’s fertile mind. It awakened a sympathetic reflex in his character. Blackmail! Here was the keynote of a profitable future. Conscience, decency, scruples, these were but empty words to him.

The well-meaning general received the impressive-looking visitor with cordiality.

“Baron von Veltheim? Happy to know you, sir. I met your charming wife en route to England.”

“Indeed you have!” thundered the apparently furious baron. “And I have come, sir, to demand satisfaction!”

“But — but — but—” stuttered the bewildered officer.

“Your actions in respect to my wife made her the gossip of the ship. I repeat, sir, I demand satisfaction — either on the field or in court.”

But the poor officer could not afford to meet the baron either in field or court. He had entered politics and though he was perfectly innocent in mind and deed, the resultant publicity would have been fatal to him.

He soon perceived the nature of this man’s indignation, and the upshot was that for the consideration of the sum of five hundred pounds the baron declared that the afront to his honor was satisfied.

Delighted with the success of his first effort in a new criminal field von Veltheim discarded all pretense with his wife and proposed to her a career of blackmail with herself as decoy.

But he encountered an absolute negation. She loved her husband and her love survived disillusionment and mistreatment, but it was not proof against her conscience. The result was that he deserted her shortly after.

Von Veltheim was a nomad, a true internationalist. Europe, Asia, Africa, America, all were one to him. He was at home in the mines of the Transvaal and the boudoirs of Austria. For several years he flashed through the continents, leaving everywhere a trail of broken-hearted, impoverished women. He was not a Don Juan.

It was not for love or passion that he sought and drew this feminine army to him. It was purely a business proposition. They had money; he wanted it. But he did this sordid phase behind such a romantic, dashing personality, such a verisimilitude of ardor, an enchantment of tongue, a fascination of physique, that most of his victims loved and remembered him long after he had forgotten their existence.

He was no philanderer; he married with bell, book and candle every one of these women whose money and jewels he coveted. If the lady already possessed a husband his liaison with her ended as soon she ceased to be a source of financial profit to him. He was never prosecuted, because he always chose his prey from among the families that he knew would shun a scandal.

His aliases were many, but he always returning to the one he had come to believe his real name. And it was as Franz von Veltheim that the police systems of various countries knew him.

For it was not only women whom he victimized. His talents were varied. Hard-headed business men succumbed to the spell of his fluent tongue and convincing manner. The truth of the matter was that he possessed a great deal of practical ability and more than one of them sought to employ him.

As a matter of novelty he worked hard and honestly for a time. Advancement was rapid and the prospects before him were excellent. But the incubus of his criminal nature bore down upon him and he disappeared, taking with him his prospects and his employers’ money.

Warrants had been issued for him in many cities for crimes of larceny, blackmail, bigamy and Heaven knows what else; but to serve them was a task almost beyond police powers. He appeared here, there, as himself, under an alias or disguise, chose a victim, struck, vanished.

He was as evanescent as a shadow, as intangible as a breeze. Scotland Yard would hear of him in London. A heart-broken wife would sob out the tragedy of her honeymoon. “My husband — newly married — is missing — find him.” A few questions. Her money? Gone. “No, no, don’t accuse him. He was too wonderful. He couldn’t do such a thing to me.”

Hot on a new trail the man-hunters would strain to the utmost. Another day, another hour and he would be in their hands. Then would come a report from Vienna. Von Veltheim has just paid his respects to this city. He has appropriated a noble lady’s jewels. But he cannot be found. Will Scotland Yard be so kind as to watch out for him?

The vigor of the chase is redoubled. The jumpy nerves of the police causes the arrest of many innocents.

It was a foggy morning in January, 1896. A London Bobby was patrolling his beat, which included the shorefront of the Thames below London Bridge. He was vigorously swinging his arms against the raw chill of the day and humming “God Save the Queen” to warm his loyal soul.

Suddenly both the swinging and the humming stopped short, and he sprawled forward on his face. He had stumbled over a large object which the fog had kept from his view. He righted himself with an exclamation, which turned to a whistle of surprise when he saw what had tripped him. It was the body of an enormous, powerfully built man tightly bound up with a length of heavy rope.

The forehead and part of the face had been shattered by a terrible blow, but the policeman was able to distinguish that he had been a German.

He blew his whistle until some longshoremen ran up; whereupon he dispatched one of them to fetch the police sergeant and a wagon. Meanwhile he searched the man’s clothes, but found absolutely nothing in them to indicate who he was or to furnish a clew.

When the sergeant arrived with the wagon the corpse was conveyed to a mortuary where an inquest was held. No one appeared to identify or claim the body, and after a short stir in the papers it was buried.

About three weeks later the editor of a London newspaper which possessed a great deal of influence with the government, was informed that a Mme. Franz von Veltheim wished an interview with him.

“What, another?” he exclaimed. “Show her in at once.”

Von Veltheim was always news, and the paper had been gently prodding Scotland Yard for its inability to locate the notorious blackmailer.

An unusually handsome woman entered. She was wearing black and showed signs of deep grief. The editor greeted her, asked her to be seated and then remarked: “You say that you are Mme. von Veltheim. May I inquire which one of them?”

“The only one,” she replied. “I am the lady he originally married, and though he has deserted me many times, I have always loved him.”

“When did you last see him?”

“About two months ago.”

“Have you heard from him since?”

“That is what I have come to see you about. I have received a marked copy of the Times describing the finding of a body near the Thames a few weeks ago. I feel sure that it was my husband. I beg of you to use your influence with the home secretary to have the body disinterred and settle my doubts.”

The editor was delighted. Here was the makings of a big story, and after he had satisfied himself of the truth of the woman’s claim, he started a campaign of publicity to accomplish his object. Scotland Yard supported him, and after some delay the secretary issued a permit to exhume the body.

This was done. It was laid out on a slab in the mortuary and Mme. von Veltheim was brought in. She approached it shudderingly and forced herself to gaze at the face. Then she shrieked, “It is my husband!” and fainted.

When she revived, a police official urged her to look again and make sure. Again she cried, “Yes, it is he,” and burst into violent tears.

When the Yard was informed, there was much jubilation and relief. The man who had set them by the ears so easily and for such a long time was gone. Word was immediately flashed to police centers all over the world; and everywhere the same feeling of release from strain was experienced. But in Capetown the chief of police frowned deeply when he read the cablegram.

“Too bad,” he murmured. “Life is full of disappointments.” Then he sent a return message to London: “Identification of von Veltheim a mistake. Known to be in Cape Colony.” And he was.

The body was later identified as that of a German spy who was known to von Veltheim. Whether he had any connection with the murder has never been discovered. One theory was that he had a hand in it and sent the marked copy to his wife in order to allay the pursuit, which had become uncomfortable. If that were so, he almost succeeded.

Meanwhile, under an alias, he had insinuated himself into South African affairs, which at that time were in a chaotic state. The friction, which a couple of years later resulted in the Boer War, was becoming acute. South Africa was in a turmoil of conflicting interests. The diamond and gold discoveries in the Rand and the Transvaal had greatly enhanced its value in the eyes of the world.

England, with its large number of colonists, was anxious to establish it as a colonial dependency of the type of Canada and Australia. The Boer settlers, in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, were divided. Most of them desired a free Boer Republic, as did their president, Paul Kruger, but others, chiefly of the wealthier classes, felt that their financial condition would be better under a British protectorate. This bit of history is necessary for the better understanding of the following occurrences.

Yon Veltheim never showed more remarkable cleverness, more amazing ability to make people believe in him, than he did in “running with the hares and hunting with the hounds” in this South African involvement.

He was openly and loudly a friend of the Boers, a “defender of the downtrodden,” a “savior of the oppressed.” The Boer farmers, cattle raisers and miners swore by him, refused to believe the rumors that were rife in connection with him.

And at the same time he was working and plotting against them in the pay of one of the enemies of Kruger’s policies, the diamond millionaire Woolf Joel. The latter was one of a group of wealthy Boers who favored consolidation with England, and his political activities included much that could not bear daylight.

Von Veltheim was a wonderful tool, but he was a tool with two edges directed by a brain and nerve quite capable of turning sharply and cutting the hand that was wielding it. In Johannesburg, capital of the Transvaal, Joel and the adventurer met and worked secretly together for awhile. But the millionaire was deceived.

He thought he had purchased a faithful hireling, one to be manipulated while useful and discarded when no longer needed. But he soon realized that this man was learning too much about his affairs; worse than that, was attempting to use that knowledge for his own enrichment.

They met on the street one day, and Joel spoke briefly and decisively. “We are through,” he said. “I will have nothing more to do with you.” Then he walked on.

Von Veltheim looked after him with a sardonic grin on his face, and a bystander heard him murmur: “You will not? How wrong you are.”

The next day Joel was alone in his private office when von Veltheim entered and carefully closed the door behind him. The clerks in the outer room heard the mutter of the conversation change rapidly to exclamations of anger. Then — a shot!

When they burst into the room they saw Woolf Joel’s body lying slumped back in his chair, his right hand clasping a pistol. Von Veltheim was standing on the other side of the desk, also holding a pistol from which smoke was rising. He made no attempt to resist arrest, and, in response to questions, said only, “I did it in self-defense.”

Feelings ran very high in Johannesburg while preparations for the trial were going on. The prevalent idea among those who knew of the relationship between Joel and his slayer was that von Veltheim had attempted to blackmail the millionaire and had reenforced his threats with a revolver. The foolhardy Boer had clutched his own weapon, but not quickly enough.

This version had strong evidence in its favor, and it seemed as if the adventurer’s career had come to its conclusion.

The trial lasted for several days, and from the beginning von Veltheim dominated the atmosphere of the court. The prosecution had built up a strong case, aided by evidence as to his character supplied by police headquarters from all parts of Europe.

But there were two powerful elements working in his favor. One of these was the influence of his individuality; the other was the faith and favor with which rank and file of the Boers regarded him as a defender of their cause. The jury was composed of these, and he made the most of it.

He was his own lawyer and could not have possessed a better one. He met attack after attack with a ready wit, a plausible lie, and, above all, an effective sincerity of manner which rapidly overcame the handicap of his weak legal position.

His version of the shooting was as follows:

Moved solely by his sympathy with the cause, he had come to persuade Joel to cease his opposition to the aims of the Boer Republic. He acknowledged that he possessed information concerning the millionaire which the latter was anxious to keep secret.

When persuasion failed, von Veltheim threatened to use this knowledge to ruin his plans. In a rush of anger the Boer reached for his revolver, whereupon von Veltheim, fearing for his life, drew his own and fired first.

In cold type the story sounds rather incredible, but related in his vivid language and convincing manner to a well disposed jury the effect was undeniable. And the verdict was justifiable homicide. The spectators cheered the prisoner and the jury. Von Veltheim was a hero.

But the same night he received a visit. A delegation of strongly built, grimly silent men invaded his room. Very little was said, but there followed an uninterrupted night journey. By daybreak von Veltheim was well on his way to British territory, with instructions to remain away from the Transvaal.

For a time his luck seems to have left him. In Cape Colony he was among enemies, and was forced to make shift as a manual laborer for several months. He worked his way eastward, avoiding capture with difficulty, but at Delagoa Bay the police picked him up as a vagrant without recognizing him.

With a number of other vagrants he was placed on a ship for deportation to England, which was the last place he cared to visit. The ship’s officers were not aware of the identity of their passenger, and taking advantage of their laxity, he disappeared from the ship at Capetown. Then, like a bad penny, he turned up again at the Transvaal.

Two things could be said for him. He possessed plenty of courage, and he had the utmost confidence in his own ability to extricate himself from any difficulty. So again he boldly walked the streets of Johannesburg. Too boldly.

Solly Joel, brother of the late Woolf Joel, passed by and glanced casually at him. A few minutes later a gentle tap on the shoulder conveyed a familiar message to him. A Transvaal policeman, gun in hand, quietly requested his company to the station.

With an equal lack of fuss he was conducted to jail. Charge? Oh, anything. British spy, for example. And it was as a spy that he was imprisoned for the period of the Boer War.

The British captured Johannesburg. The prison records revealed the existence of an English spy in its cells. Whereupon von Veltheim was given his freedom with honors, and began to blaze a new trail of misadventure throughout Europe.

Once more he was the elusive giant, badly wanted in many countries; almost caught time without number; always vanishing with one name, reappearing with another; living riotously, squandering a fortune during one month, haunting the docks the next.

In 1901 Trieste, the seaport town on the Mediterranean, was garrisoned by the pomp and glittering uniforms of Austrian military aristocracy. The general in command was fond of display, an adorer of rank, and — short of money.

One day there appeared in his quarters a man after his own heart. He was tall, finely built, displayed a uniform more gorgeous than his own, claimed high rank in the German army, and — promised the general the opportunity to make much money.

How? That would come later. Would the general introduce him to his officers and later to the best society of the town? The general would.

He gave a resplendent dinner for which von Veltheim supplied the funds. Colors flashed, white shoulders gleamed, military music resounded. At the commanding officer’s right hand sat a figure which held the eyes of all the women present.

Warmed with noise, laugher and wine, the general spoke with fervor. He wished to introduce to the favor of the distinguished company the son of one of the highest officers of the German army, who would relate to them the narrative of his marvelous adventures in South Africa.

The stranger rose to a clatter of applause. His language was simple, straightforward. He attempted no forensic effects. But the dignity of his bearing, his air of natural power gave his words the significance of truth.

He briefly sketched the preliminaries of his career in the Transvaal. As a personal friend of Paul Kruger’s he acted as his right hand man during the war — a war fought for the holy cause of liberty. He had suffered in that war, prison, torture, malignment. But it had not been without reward. First, the reward was a happy conscience; second, the strong possibility of a material payment.

“I possess a secret, my friends,” he said, “a secret of a buried treasure. Paul Kruger, my poor, persecuted comrade of the dead republic, shared this great secret with me before the end; before the final victory of that tyrant, England.

“An immense store of gold from the heart of the Transvaal, a vast wealth of diamonds from the mines of Kimberley lie buried far out on a lonely veldt. And I, dear friends, helped to bury it. This is the secret which has been locked in my bosom, and, sooner than to permit it to pass into the hands of the ravisher of Africa, I shall die with the knowledge hidden in my breast.

“There are millions and tens of millions, and none but black savages and the animals of the wilds tread the soil that covers them. What happiness it would bring to me, what joy, to share them with you, my newly-found comrades. The dangers I must pass through to reach that Golconda, to bring it back, they are nothing.

“But my sorrow is this: I have lost my all in the war of oppression. I am a poor man. And so to you, companions in arms of my beloved Vaterland, I offer this wealth. For myself I ask but a part. To you, if you will, shall go the bulk. All that I ask is that you make this recovery possible. I ask you to form an expedition, to pay the costs.

“I shall give my knowledge, my experience, if need be — my life. But this, too, I ask, nay demand, that one-third of this treasure hoard shall be sent to my poor friend, the heart-broken idealist, Paul Kruger, Else there shall be no search.” He folded his arms nobly over his breast.

Buried treasure! The glamour of the phrase! The romance of it! How it dazzles the eyes of the most worldly, the most skeptical. The company broke into a furor of exclamations, questions, offers. Von Veltheim was surrounded by a clamor which he had difficulty in stilling.

Gradually out of the confusion came the coherence of a plan, the formation of a stock company and the selling of shares. It is a commentary on the man’s hypnotic powers that there was not a single unbeliever in the gathering.

The reader will smile at their credulity, but perhaps the smile will acquire a somewhat bitter flavor when memory brings back the promises of some oil stock or mining shares which proved to have no greater existing value than von Veltheim’s buried treasure.

Twenty thousand pounds! That was the sum placed into his hands by those of simple faith and simpler heads. Then — pouf — the man was gone. And with him went the wife of one of the officers — and her jewels.

America came next. A favorite with society, silencing rumors with a glance, an accusation with a brilliant lie; an outwitter of business men, who admired him the more for fooling them. Wealth poured in and flooded out. Several years of crest and trough.

Naples and a duel; Switzerland and a marriage to eight thousand pounds; Paris and a girl who killed herself for him. Fifty years of age, still a freeman, still a wanderer — but a tired one. What would be the end? He wanted peace and rest, but the devil of his nature drove him. One last coup for millions and he would stop — if he could.

His memory traveled back. What did he know that could give him this? The secrets of Woolf Joel. The scandals that would tarnish a great name. Solomon Barnato Joel, multi-millionaire race horse owner, living in England, would pay well to keep these skeletons in their graves.

In 1908, ten years after the death of Woolf, von Veltheim and “Solly” Joel met again. The blackmailer wasted no words.

“These are the things I know,” he said. And he recited them. The other man eyed him coolly and speculatively.

“How much?”

“Fifteen thousand pounds.”

The calm brain of the Boer was at work. “It would be only the beginning,” he thought silently. Aloud he said: “That is too much.”

“Nothing less.”

“Ten thousand?”

“No.”

“Give me time to think it over.”

“Three days.” He left, exulting.

Joel made his decision. Better an immediate operation than a corroding cancer. He visited Scotland Yard and told his tale. There was joy in the Yard.

Three days later the two men faced each other again.

“Well?” asked von Veltheim.

“I agree,” replied the other. The money passed hands. Then Joel tapped his fingers on the desk. “Now we’ve got you,” he said quietly. The blackmailer looked up. Several Yard men had quietly surrounded him, guns in hand. He shrugged his shoulders and rose.

“When I get out of this I will pay you,” he said venomously to his Nemesis. And, in spite of his success, the millionaire looked grave.

While he lay in prison awaiting trial, von Veltheim spent his time inventing a complete history of his life to present before the court. He never doubted his ability to put it over.

London was thrilled. Old Bailey, the famous criminal court, was the Mecca for society, magnates, novelists, playwrights, princes. The fame of his career, the promise of piquant revelations, brought them crowding into its gloomy precincts.

As a king into his throne room von Veltheim strode to the bar. Stern, erect, splendid, his firm mouth, cold gray eyes and calm bearing spoke for him strongly. People began to doubt their knowledge. That man could not be a criminal, a blackmailer. It was impossible that such a noble appearance could comport with the tale of his indictment.

The record of his life was read. Crime after crime, against men, against women, against government, stripped in their telling the nature of this man. And still they could not believe.

He made his defense. He parried, evaded, denied. But ruthlessly the past marched against him. His own words, uttered a decade before at the Johannesburg trial, testified by their contradictions.

Sir Charles Gill, the prosecutor, was a man of ice and facts. The figure of romance, the effective pose of the man in the dock touched him not at all. Like a surgeon with his scalpel he cut with his questions, he stabbed with his facts. The other felt the wounds, but he smiled at them. Once he was pierced to wincing.

“A cruel and purposeless crime,” Sir Gill called the killing of Joel.

“It is a lie!” shouted the prisoner. “It was my life or his. He was a fool!”

A stern word from the judge silenced him. Then he became a statue and said no more. The verdict of guilty came as expected, but still some shook their heads.

The solemn voice of Justice Phillimore intoned the words: “Twenty years at penal servitude.”

A moment of impassivity and then the man finally broke. “That means life,” he gasped. And with four warders supporting his bulk he staggered away.

But it was not life. Six years later came the Great War, and an internment camp. Four years later the armistice, and the parole of all the German prisoners in England. And von Veltheim — Germany felt him, South Africa saw him again, and then — he disappeared, still free, still the elusive giant.