The story concerning an illiterate man called Jon Smiff finding his way through the sewers and into the vault of the Bank of England has been doing the rounds since the late nineteenth century. Apparently this story comes from the year 1836, but the earliest telling of this tale that I can find comes from The Stroud News and Gloucestershire Advertiser on Friday 23rd October 1891.
It all began with a letter, which read;
"Two Gentlemin off Bank of England: Yee think yow is all safe hand your Bank is safe, butt i knows better. i bin hinside the Bank the last 2 nite hand yow nose nuffin abowt it.
But i um nott a theaf, so hif yeo will mete mee in the gret squar rom, werh arl the moneiys, at twelf 2 nite Ile ixplain orl to yoew. let only 1, her 2 cum alown, and say nuffin 2 nobody. - Jon Smiff."
The letter caused some consternation amongst the directors of the bank, some thought it a hoax. Armed with the letter the directors all agreed it would be better in the hands of police, and detectives were duly sent for. The detectives took the letter very seriously indeed, there seemed to be a plot here and it needed investigating. I'll leave it up to the The Stroud News and Gloucestershire Advertiser to take up the story.
"The detectives looked grave, and with their usual penetration they penetrated the deepest depths of the iniquity.
There is a very large room underground, where the huge wealth of the bank is deposited - millions and millions of English sovereigns, bars of gold, and hundredweights of silver, with myriads of notes. The detectives, of course, knew that this room must be the place which the writer of the letter had designated as 'the gret squar rom.' It is full of treasure. It's floor is a solid stone pavement, and it's walls, roof, and door are of wrought iron and steel.
All night long the detectives were secreted in the room, but they saw nothing and heard nothing, with the exception that some say they heard, about one or two o'clock, a strange noise they could not account for. The next night was the same, and the next, and the next; and when the board day of the bank came round the whole of the directors would have treated the affair as an idle attempt to frighten them had not their attention been more strongly called to the subject by the following incident.
A heavy chest had been forwarded addressed to the 'Directors of the Bank of England.' The chest was of course opened before them at once - such a thing being very unusual - and found to contain a large packet of most valuable papers and securities which had been safely deposited in the vault. With them was the following letter:
'To the Directors of the Bank of England.
Gentlemen,
My husband, who is an honest man, wrote to you last week, and told you that he had found a way - which he believes is only known to himself - of getting into your strong room, and offered, if you would meet him there at night, to explain the whole matter.
He had never taken anything from that room except the enclosed box. You set detectives on him, and he took the box to show that he could go there, if he chose, whoever might watch.
He gives you another chance. Let a few gentlemen be in the room alone, guard the door, and make everything secure, and my husband will meet you there at midnight.
Yours respectfully,
Ellen Smith.'
This letter was more mysterious than the last. The only thing that was evident was that the writer, 'Ellen Smith' was a better scholar than her husband, who styled himself 'Jon Smiff.'
The detectives were shown the letter, and acted accordingly. Of course they saw through 'the dodge.' The cleverest men were posted in the room. In the morning they told a strange story. They said they saw a light come from a dark lantern; but directly they ran to the spot whence the light proceeded, it went out and the strictest search had discovered nothing.
The bank officials became alarmed. They, however, agreed to do what perhaps would have been wiser if done at first - viz, to depute a few of their number to visit the vault alone. So it was arranged that three gentlemen should remain in the strong room all night, and that no one else should be with them.
Every suitable precaution was taken when night came. The sentinel paced up and down outside; the detectives were not far off; and after the most rigorous search had been instituted, the gentlemen were locked in.
At last one of them, who paced the floor rather impatiently, beginning to think that perhaps after all it was only a clever trick, cried out: 'You ghost, you secret visitor, you midnight thief, come out! There is no one here but two gentlemen and myself. If you are afraid, I give you my word of honour as a gentleman that the police are not here. Come out, I say!'
It was more in jest than in earnest that Major C, for he was a military man, shouted out the absurd speech, for, as we have said, he had begun to suspect that after all some practical joke was being adroitly carried on, such having more than once before been perpetrated, and he did not much like being victimised himself.
His astonishment, however, was great when, in reply, he heard a strange voice saying 'If you have kept your word, I will keep mine. Put out your light, for I've one, and then I'll come.'
The Major and his fellow directors did not much like putting out the light, but they were not cowards, and after some demur, it was done. Where the voice came from was, however, a mystery, for there were no hiding places in the room, every side being of thick, many plated iron and steel; the ceiling was also of the same material.
When the light was out they waited in silence, while the Major grasped firmly in one hand a revolver, and in the other held the lantern and a few matches. For a little while a low, grating sound was heard, and then a voice, evidently that of someone in the room, said; 'Are you three alone, sure?'
The Major, who cared for nothing in bodily forms, struck a match, and instantly a crash was heard, and a low, smothering laugh. When the match was lighted, nothing could be detected - no one was there. Again the Major called upon the mysterious somebody to come forth, and again a voice was heard saying, 'How can I trust you now.'
The Major was angry, and his companions alarmed, and after trying in vain to trace the point whence the voice proceeded, he exclaimed: 'Well, we'll put out the light again; only come quickly, and make an end to this bother.' So saying, he put out the light again.
A moment or two after, the same grating sound was heard, then the falling of some heavy body, and the next instant a man was visible standing in the middle of the vault with a dark lantern in his hand. Of course he had come from somewhere, but the puzzle was - how? A ghost could not have entered more mysteriously.
The man soon spoke for himself; and the directors, who were a little at a loss to explain his presence there, listened in astonishment. It appeared that he was a poor man, and obtained a precarious living in a strange way. When the tide was low, it is the custom of a certain class of people, unknown to refined society, to enter the sewers to search for any articles of value which may have been washed down into them. It is a very dangerous task, and, of course, revolting in the extreme, but they not infrequently find very precious things hidden in the filth. This man was one of those strange adventurers.
One night he discovered an opening leading to some place above. There was a large square stone, which he found could be easily raised. He listened for some time, and, finding all was silent, lifted up the stone without much difficulty, and found, after some little investigation by the light of his lantern, that he was in the strong room of the bank.
These men, like miners, can readily determine the exact spot of ground under which they are; and he soon had a clue to the whole mystery. He told his wife, who was a woman of superior education to his own, of the whole affair; and then she wrote, as we have seen, to the directors.
Down in the sewer he was able to hear all their movements as well as above ground, and thus was not only able to know their plans, but to frustrate them, and of course could watch his time to remove the small but valuable box, to leave the letters on the table, and to appear so mysteriously.
No one had thought of looking to the stone pavement, which was supposed to be solid and immovable, as it was known that there were no vaults below, although the iron walls and doors had been carefully tested. The mystery was now cleared up, and the man was well rewarded."
So there it is, the Bank of England mystery. If this all sounds rather familiar, you would be right, in the August of 1891 Strand Magazine published The Red Headed League by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
In a nutshell, this story is about a red headed shopkeeper who is chosen from many other red headed men to copy out the Encyclopedia Brittanica for a tidy sum. While he is thus engaged his new (and a bit dodgy) shop assistant is busy tunnelling from the shop cellar to a nearby bank vault, where there is a huge deposit of gold to be had.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson get involved and the whole case is brought to a climactic close in the bank vault.
Two months later we have a rather similar story, albeit concerning an honest man with good intentions. Jon Smiff, I declare, is a story made up by "an enterprising journalist" (as the police said of the Dear Boss letter during the Ripper murders of 1888) who had read and was inspired by The Red Headed League.
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