AN INGENIOUS MARQUIS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LX, Issue LX, 3 November 1910, Page 6

AN INGENIOUS MARQUIS.

A sensation was created in Berlin last month when it became known that the "Marquis de la Ramee," who had been "lionised" in select society circles, was really the son of a Hungarian school teacher and a member of a notorious gang of international swindlers. The "Marquis," whose real name is Klimm, received a legacy of about £4000 a year or two ago, and, being a young man with large ideas, he proceeded to spend it lavishly. In Rome he met a man named Howard, the head of the gang, and in the course of an evening he lost something like £1800 at cards. He could not pay, and he was persuaded to .join forces with Howard and use his good appearance and personal attractiveness to decoy wealthy men into the swindler's net. The business was lucrative, and soon KlirriTn was able to enter Berlin society in the character of a French nobleman possessed of enormous wealth. The "Marquis" succeeded in winning the heart of Fraulein Alice Heeht, the daughter of the late Berlin millionaire, Herr Hecht, and married her in London, despite tbe opposition of her widowed mother. Instead of the expected large dowry, however, he found that his bride had only £100 a year. He was getting deeper and deeper into debt, and finally he arranged a trick to get himself out of his difficulties. He took an actress, wearing a thick veil, to the house of a well-known money-lender, where she pretended to be the widow of the deceased millionaire and signed a mortgage on Herr Hecht's property. The money-lender advanced on the mortgage a sum of about £10,000, and Klimm departed hastily for the Hague. He was arrested there while living in luxurious style at one of the best hotels. His trial will be a "cause oelebre" in Berlin, and is likely to bring to light scandals affecting several families included in the "upper ten" of the German, capital.