It was a well-known fact at the time that in the richly furnished houses where they lay in wait for trusting out-of-town suckers, certain members of the ring were assigned to impersonate widely-known millionaires, such as Frank Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Mr. Astor—myself. The greatest care was exercised—photographs of these men were studied; wherever possible they themselves were closely observed in every feature of height, build, carriage, dress. The way they brushed their hair, the kind of glasses they wore, their peculiar mannerisms—no detail was too insignificant to escape attention. The intended dupe must be utterly taken in, so he might feel that he was among the best people, and that the game was honest.”
Madden paused a moment. "Of course, some of these impersonations were rather flimsy, but it was my bad luck that Mr. Delaney here, who had been an actor, was more or less of an artist. Starting with a rather superficial resemblance to me, he built up an impersonation that got better and better as time went on. I began to hear rumors that I was seen nightly at the gambling house of one Jack McGuire, in Forty-fourth Street. I sent my secretary, Martin Thorn, to investigate. He reported that Delaney was making a good job of it—not, of course, so good that he could deceive any one really close to me, but good enough to fool people who knew me only from photographs. I put my lawyer on the matter, and he came back and said that Delaney had agreed to desist, on threat of arrest.
“And I imagine he did drop it—in the gambling houses. What happened afterward I can only conjecture, but I guess I can hit it pretty close. These two Maydorf
