Savvy travelers are wary of dark streets, urchin gangs, and passersby eager to help sort out foreign currency squabbles with merchants and taxi drivers. Guidebooks and battery-operated language translators in hand, American tourists trudge through exotic climes sporting jackets with safety pockets and purses with steel cable-lined straps. But few prepare for the British confidence trickster, aka the Pretender.
Lulled by our mutual language and friendly natives, Americans relax their guard in Great Britain where this upscale knave operates throughout city and shire in quest of folks awed by a likely story. Sometimes his scams flummox his own countrymen unable to distinguish Hyacinth bucket from true upper crust.
Baby Toys
Two decades ago, when my husband and I launched what has become our annual trip to Great Britain, London was a lucrative arena for sleight-of-hand artists and the ubiquitous gypsy cradling a toy baby and pleading for alms. But their siege ended with the Millennium celebration when Tony Blair banished small-time crooks from traditional traveler haunts. In their stead, the cunning Pretender surfaced.
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Last year in London, a sleek black car drew alongside as we paused for a traffic light at the angle of Regent street and Pall Mall. Beckoning us closer, the driver asked directions to St. James's square in a manner that begged sincerity, no matter that he was a mere block from his destination.
Before we could react, his hand shot out and clutched my wrist. "You know Milan? You know Valentino and Versace? This is my business. I trip the world for them."
Maintaining his steel grip, yet charming to a fault, he flipped open an adjacent garment bag to expose a teal suede jacket. Beneath was one of honey tan. "Look! A sample of my wares. Feel how soft and luxurious they are."
We declined his invitation and tried to retreat, but he held me fast, flashed a toothy grin, and grew confidential. "Please, I make a present of these to you." On he rambled, ignoring our protests. "I have one request. You see, I find myself in an embarrassing situation, unable to buy gas for my car because I lost more than ten thousand pounds gambling last night, and my prestige cards are no longer good. In return for the jackets, I ask merely for adequate money to buy gas."
"We never carry cash," I lied.
Casting my wrist aside, he accelerated toward St. James's Square. Later that day, we passed a concentrate on Belgrave Place chatting curbside with the driver of a sleek black car. At the driver's urging, "Feel how soft and luxurious they are," they reached toward the bait.
This year we encountered three more Pretenders. The first, a matron bearing a briefcase, hailed us a block beyond the Plymouth railway station. She was due to lecture at the University, she said, but was lost, befuddled by the pedestrian plaza layout. Although the campus and scores of book-toting students were directly in view, she persisted. "I'm so poor at following directions that the blurb on the jacket of my newest book says I'm illustrious for accumulating parking tickets in London."
Aha! That was our cue to quiz, about her book. (Did her portfolio contain tacky publications for sale?) We smiled blankly and prolonged toward the Hoe to scrutinize the site that launched the Pilgrims, Drake, Raleigh, Cook, and Darwin toward their destinies. She kept pace, chattering nonsensically, for nearly a block before disappearing into the crowd. We espied her later outside the railway middle point awaiting fresh prey.
The next Pretender, blonde and thirtyish, executed her scam in London's Fortnum & Mason's Fountain Restaurant. Commanding the table next to ours, she demanded from the waiter a detailed narrative of each entrée listed. At length, her selection made, she contemplated the wine list.
"A superb wine makes the meal," she said, beaming in our direction.
Torn in the middle of some choices, she requested one to sample and the waiter obliged. It did not meet her expectations. While he was gone to fetch another, she prolonged to sip from the rejected wineglass until her attentiveness was diverted by a cell phone. We did not hear it ring; still, there was no mistaking her spicy conversation with an imaginary friend.
"Why, Mabel darling, what a delight!...You've just arrived in London and want to meet me for dinner?...How extraordinary!...I've only just sat down in Fortnum & Mason and ordered a meal...What?...Is it inherent to cancel my order?...Let me try."
Summoning a nearby waiter, she explained her predicament, then leaned over to confide in me, "I hate that my cell phone bothers others, but at times like these it's indispensable." She departed before her bill arrived.
The third Pretender, traveling on the Gner express from York to London's King's Cross Station, aimed higher. He identified himself to the train staff as the Duke of Worcester. Although his thinning hair, trim mustache, and rumpled tweed jacket screamed fading aristocracy, his two swarthy bodyguards appeared great adapted to dark alleyways than a country estate.
We were seated in the dining car directly ahead of the First Class car where the Duke and his bodyguards, its only occupants, were being served. Halfway through our meal, the conductor burst into our car, summoned the staff for brief consultation, then dialed his firm headquarters, the first of many calls for assistance.
For two hours, he and the kitchen staff made frequent trips into the next car, returning each time in a cloud of nervous laughter. The Duke, one server explained to us, refused to pay for the three First Class seats he and his entourage occupied, declaring that his status entitled him to free passage. This, the conductor confirmed, was untrue. Furthermore, the Duke dubbed his bodyguards "non-persons," his excuse to avoid paying for their meals.
At King's Cross, the Duke and his bodyguards were met by two compel policemen with leashed dogs.
Laughing and visibly relieved, the conductor told us, "The real royals are very low key. They never pull rank and would gladly pay duplicate what is due rather than draw attentiveness to themselves. Pretenders stand out because they expect people to be impressed and agree to every demand."
Curiosity reigns. Does the counterfeit Duke of Worcester remain in detention, or has he been set loose to once again play Pretend?
© 2010 Emily Pritchard Cary.
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