Everything now was ready for my departure from England. For some weeks my partners had been busy preparing for the completion of the operation.
The first lot of bogus bills were ready to go into the mail at Birmingham as soon as I was out of the way--it having been decided that I should then be out of the country. So one Monday late in November I packed my baggage, and, after many warm hand shakings, I bade my friends adieu. We had had many talks about the happy future. We had planned pleasant things in the future, and spoken confidently of our four-in-hands, our Summer cottages at Saratoga and Newport, of our town house, fine suppers and our boxes at the opera. After that I saw them for a brief hour on the coast of France and once more said adieu. When we met again it was in Newgate. I need hardly say that for the next twenty years we had no boxes at the grand opera, no four-in-hands, nor yet any fine suppers, but all that which was merely external passed away, consumed in that fierce flame, but all that was manly and true remained; that is, our devotion and courage and our high resolve to conquer fate and live for better things.
Before leaving London we had squared up our cash account. It was something to make one stare to see how our money had melted away. It was arranged to send in the first lot of bogus bills on Thursday, giving me two full days out of the country. Here I made a fatal mistake in determining to go to the West Indies, then on to Mexico. As George had planned I should have gone at once to New York, stopped at the best hotel in the city and registered in my right name. By taking this course I should have been safe and could have laughed at any attempt of the bank authorities to extradite me, for the first lot of bogus bills could have been held back 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.