Free Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen by Matthew P. Mayo Page B

swindling, Baggs was indefatigable, bouncing back time after time, arrest after arrest, conjuring deceits of greater daring and loftier planning, increasingly complex and oddly successful. So what kept him—and for that matter, so many of his ilk—returning perennially to fleece the sheep, as dupes were considered? Baggs once famously and quite candidly addressed this very point:
    â€œI defy the newspapers to put their hands on a single man I ever beat that was not financially able to stand it. I am emotionally insane. Whenever I see anyone looking in a jewelry store, thinking how they would like to get away with the diamonds, an irresistible desire comes over me to skin them. I feel like drowning them if I can.”
    That said, the man was also quick to point out that he was himself a fine, upstanding chap: “I don’t drink, smoke, chew, or cheat poor people. I pay my debts.”
    A famous instance illustrating Baggs’s impressive self-confidence took place in court one day shortly after he was arrested by Denver lawman Michael Spangler on the not-uncommon charge of “bunco steering,” or sleight-of-hand swindling. Not only did Baggs act as his own attorney, but standing before the court, immaculately dressed as always, Baggs refuted the charges against him, then went on to successfully debunk the very charge of bunco steering itself.
    â€œGentlemen,” we can picture him thumbing the lapels of his immaculate suitcoat and stepping slowly back and forth, a gentrified rooster explaining barnyard etiquette to a bunch of upstart cockerels. “How might I possibly be guilty of a charge that does not even appear in the statutes defining criminal acts? Indeed, no such term as ‘bunco steerer’ appears there.”
    He let those words hover in the hushed air of the court for a moment. “Indeed,” said he again, flipping open a massive dictionary he’d thoughtfully brought with him for just this moment. Baggs made a quick, deliberate show of thumbing through the mighty tome’s pages before driving an imperious forefinger in the midst of a page. “It would appear that this very dictionary, a most revered work in itself, does not even hold the term ‘bunco steerer.’”
    His bold gaze met that of the judge, eyebrows raised. The dictionary was checked, the statutes were checked and double-checked. And then the judge dismissed the case. One can only assume Spangler the lawman reddened and worked his jaw muscles as he watched the dapper form of Doc Baggs exit the courtroom, whistling as he strolled down the sidewalk, free and easy.
    As high theater as were his various courtroom antics, Doc Baggs’s grandest productions were his infamous “big-store” scams. Elaborate to the extreme, these involved setups became his signature swindles, emulated to this day.
    The big-store scam was, as the name implied, a storefront setup, often a grand and expensive design for the express purpose of bilking a wealthy mark out of a large sum of money. Baggs’s shops were full-blown offices filled with bustling workers and grand furnishings, and anchoring the scene was a massive built-in vault. The door would be partially open to allow visitors—marks—a glimpse inside. And what they saw would go a long way toward convincing them that this was an office to be trusted.
    Even the oak railings and counters were designed such that they would collapse and be hauled off or stashed away in hidden compartments in the event that the setup was rumbled by the police. And this would happen now and again. But naturally, Doc had that angle covered as well.
    On the occasion that a sucker would haul a marshal to the spot where less than an hour before he’d been bilked, he’d not find the same bustling office. Instead, Doc and his team would have disassembled the entire affair, then decked out the room to resemble a boudoir, and hired a Chinese woman to explain that