The most popular and simple scam of treasure hunters by scammers in the 19th century (Story)

Egor Trofimovich was very pleased, firmly shaking the seller’s hand. A middle-aged man, above average height, pleasant in appearance, neatly dressed in bourgeois fashion and with a thick, trimmed, clean beard. The deal was profitable; eighty sheets of roofing iron were purchased at a quarter cheaper than the price if taken directly from the factory. That’s why it’s a fair. Merchants and manufacturers set a minimum markup in order to make a good profit for themselves on large sales volumes. That’s why people wait all year and save money so that they can then buy everything they need and need at the fair at the best and best price.

The merchant accepted and counted the money, handed over the change in copper and motioned to the farmhands to load the iron into the buyer’s cart. Two harnessed mares shifted rhythmically from foot to foot, constantly driving away biting flies with their tails. Yegor Trofimovich measuredly counted each loaded sheet. And then his nephew Mitka knocked him out of counting.

A minor of eighteen years old. Strong, tall, well dressed, the eldest son in the family. Wind in the head, simple-minded, has not seen life. His father, Yegor Trofimovich’s younger brother, asked to take him to the fair. The guy was planning a wedding soon, so he wanted to look for gifts for the future bride. A couple of scarves, thread and needles for embroidery.

— Uncle Yegor, this is the case here. “The guy spoke hesitantly and clearly in nervous excitement. – Uncle Yegor, lend me ten rubles. I’ll give it to you when I get there. Here, honestly, I’ll give it to you. “Seeing that his uncle was in no hurry to reach into his wallet, Mitka decided to play his trump cards, so to speak. – Well, why, it’s the right thing, I’ll give you twenty rubles. Just give me a chervonets now.

Things were clearly looking bad. Yegor Trofimovich looked at the guy and thought. At first he thought that he had lost at cards or dice and was now asking for money to win back. But then this version disappeared. Because in such cases they say that they will give the money right away. Yegor had such friends in the army, lost people, who ended their lives very badly. So, the option of a gambling debt was out of the question.

— Why do you need that kind of money? – Yegor Trofimovich asked his nephew. But he was in no hurry to reveal his plan. Shifting from foot to foot, as if he really wanted to go to the toilet, he continued to look at his uncle with emotion and with the face of a church blessed man.

— Well, it’s necessary, desperately necessary. It’s the right thing, that’s for sure. – Mitka hesitated, shivered, rolled his eyes from side to side, thought a little and decided to share his idea with his uncle. – There it is, a faithful man says that he has a letter from his friend. A friend died in hard labor and asked his mother to take a letter to him. And in the letter he says where he buried the treasure. The loot that he took from the merchant Trishkin’s house. So, that man says that he himself will not be able to reach his friend’s mother, his leg has gone gangrene, but his friend’s will must be fulfilled, he promised him this sin before his death, he gave him his word of honor.

The man said that I have a good heart and you can come to an agreement with me, if I promise to give half of the treasure to the mother of his deceased friend, then he will give me the letter. The letter contains all the correct signs where to look for the treasure. Well, I think it’s the right thing, I’ll divide it in half, on my word of honor, half is my mother’s half. I agreed, the only thing the man asks for for his leg treatment is nothing, ten rubles. I thought so, ten rubles would not be a pity if there were five thousand in gold in that secret deposit. With that money, even with half of it, I’ll have a big wedding and build my own big house, with an iron roof.

— Look, five thousand in gold!!! – Yegor Trofimovich exclaimed in surprise but with a laugh.

— Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. As many as five thousand, and all of this was buried in a ravine on the road to the village of Vasino. And Vasino is what is ten miles from us. The mother of a deceased friend lives there, her name is Agafya. Everyone knows her there.

— Did you see the letter yourself? – Yegor Trofimovich asked his nephew.

— Of course, that man showed it to me. “You could see how Mitka’s lower lip was trembling from jitters and greed. He constantly bit, licked and sucked it.

— So, how did you understand that it was written there about the treasure, you don’t know how to read ? – Yegor Trofimovich wanted to slap stupid Mitka in the face as an edification. But then I thought and decided that one slap in the face would not be enough, so I needed to properly disgrace him. To disgrace him so much that the whole village would laugh and it would be a lesson for him for the rest of his life. – Well, what are you waiting for, bring that man here, let’s see what he wants for ten rubles.

Mitka turned and signaled to a crippled beggar standing nearby. He, faithfully expecting this very moment, moved towards them. Hobbling heavily on his sore leg, while leaning his whole body on a crooked crutch carved from a hazel spear. Yegor Trofimovich saw immediately that this ragamuffin was not lame. For twelve years in military service, he saw many wounded and maimed, and none of them limped so demonstratively, but without any pain on their face.

And when the ragamuffin came up and stood next to him, bending in feigned pain and looking at the tall Yegor Trofimovich from under his belt, it became clear that he was a pure fraudster. The rags in which the man dressed up were torn and darned many times. Allegedly, the sore leg, stricken with gangrene, was wrapped in dirty scraps of rags intentionally stained with blood, everything was done correctly, except for one thing. Yegor Trofimovich knew very well how bad a person with gangrene smells. And this covetous man smelled of bath soap and birch broom. Just yesterday I was steaming my heart out in the bathhouse.

— Health to you and your children, your parents, health and God’s protection to all. – The cripple spoke quickly and barely intelligibly

— And, you will live to see the second coming,” Yegor Trofimovich answered with a grin. – Here my nephew Mitka says that you have a nice person, there is a letter from a friend of the deceased. And, they say, in that letter the secret was revealed where he hid the gold. And, according to this letter, gold can be found.

— Everything said is true. This is true. – The cripple answered, trying to squeeze out as much suffering from bodily ailments as possible from his voice.

— But you can look at the letter? – At that moment, the soldier’s skill instinctively told Yegor Trofimovich that there was a threat somewhere nearby. The man looked around and saw that two cunning men were watching them a few steps away. One sprout is small, wiry with a shock of red hair and a sparse beard, the second is a typical dwarf. About twenty years old, the little guy is tall-haired, well-fed, has a round muzzle, a sagging belly, and fists like three of an ordinary person.

Here Yegor Trofimovich casually reached towards the cart and took out the handle of a shovel. He took this stalk by the middle, and put one end to the heel of his right foot.

Apparently, showing that very treasured letter to a literate person was not part of the cripple’s plans, so he took it out of the folds of his torn robe and said. “Here is the letter, but I won’t show it.” Oh, what a cunning one, you will read the letter and dig up the treasure yourself ahead of your nephew. Oh, he promised me a piece of gold. Why would he return this chervonets?

The last words made Mitka’s lower lip tremble even more and more strongly, and his hands found no place. He either wrung them, then put them in his belt, or pulled down the sleeves on his shirt.

— So maybe there is no treasure? – Egor Trofimovich, I realized that it’s too late to joke, now the conversation will go in a completely different direction, thanks to his nephew, he got into a very serious turn.

To which the cripple dragged out his long and tedious story. About hard labor, about my best friend, about a letter to my beloved mother, but I didn’t get to listen to it to the end. The two men who were standing and watching, most likely at a sign from the cripple, came up and intervened in the conversation.

— Dear man, why are you offending a cripple? – the red-haired man said in a drawling, sing-song voice with a clear Vologda accent. At the same time, he opened the hem of his caftan and showed a large knife with a bone handle. This was no longer even a hint, but a direct threat, and apparently, just ten rubles will definitely not get by here. Yegor Trofimovich understood perfectly well that if you just take out your wallet, they will take away everything you have. He looked around and realized that there was nowhere to wait for help. All the traders at the fair obviously knew these bandits. That’s why everyone pretended that nothing was happening. And they just watched sideways and furtively how things would end.

— Your son, — The redhead continued his conversation. “I came to an agreement with the cripple?  There was an agreement?” Red looked at Mitka, who confidently waved his head in response. “The frets beat for ten rubles?” Mitka nodded again in the affirmative. – And frets are a serious matter, there should be no refusal. Here, if anything, he has witnesses, because Myakish? – Red turned to his young accomplice. At this time, he gathered his thick, sausage-like fingers into a fist and tapped threateningly into his wide palm. The sound was as if butter was being pounded in a churn.

Yegor Trofimovich looked around again. There was nothing to do. If Mitka managed to come to an agreement with this cripple and was on good terms, then the money had to be given back. Frets are a serious matter. On the other hand, as soon as he took his wallet out of his bag and showed how much money he had, the matter would not end with just one piece of gold, they would take everything away, and he had more than a hundred rubles there. In addition to roofing iron, nails and staples, Yegor Trofimovich planned today to buy a lot of things for the house under construction. Even the clock strikes. And here is the situation.

There was nothing to do. Perhaps someone noticed that all this time Yegor Trofimovich stood like a sentry at his post, firmly pressing the shovel handle with his right hand to his heel. But a civilian could hardly guess what it could be.

— Do it once. – Yegor Trofimovich said as he exhaled and with a movement practiced over years of army training, he lunged with his left leg, repeating the classic bayonet strike to the submandibular part of the neck. True, Myakish had three chins, but the blow was so strong that he shook like a jelly and rolled his eyes from the shock of pain and collapsed, raising a large cloud of dust.

The redhead managed to grab the knife from his belt, but Yegor Trofimovich said, “Do two.” – And, with a semicircular movement of the handle, he turned his hand with the knife to the side, and under the phrase – Do three. – He took a step with his right foot and with the end of the handle, as if with the butt of a rifle, he dealt a crushing blow exactly to the red-haired temple. From such a blow, the bandit’s legs came off the ground and he made a half-turn in the air and fell to the ground next to Myakish. – Do four. – Yegor Trofimovich turned towards the cripple. But he was no longer around. Throwing away his crutch and not looking back, he ran away with the agility of a young goat. What kind of leg is there? What kind of gangrene is there?

The people fell silent, everyone was so surprised and amazed by what had happened that they simply wondered how this could happen ? Meanwhile, Yegor Trofimovich picked up the letter thrown by the cripple from the ground, took the handle by the end and with all his might struck three times on the back and others body parts of his careless nephew.

-Oh, well, run to the cart, we don’t have any time at all, this cripple of yours will now call his friends. – Yegor Trofimovich quickly counted the sheets of iron loaded into the cart, everything was correct. He climbed onto the bench and, slamming the horses with the reins, began hastily leaving the fair.

We left the city, passed three milestones, and only after that, having made sure that there was no pursuit of them, were we able to catch our breath. Mitka was offendedly silent, constantly rubbing his hand, swollen from the blow with the handle. He had no idea that today he had gotten off lightly, otherwise he could have already been lying in some ditch with his guts on his belly.

Only when it became clear that they were no longer in danger did Yegor Trofimovich take out that very letter from his coat pocket. His eyesight had not yet failed, so the man had difficulty reading, and that was because of the ornate handwriting. Mitka looked with interest at the unfolded sheet of paper and asked without giving up hope.

-Well, what’s there? Where is the treasure buried?

Yegor Trofimovich, without reading even half of it, swore loudly, spat bitterly and crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it into a roadside ditch where the puddle had not yet dried up after the rain.

— Shame!!! What’s there? I’ll tell you when you get married in a couple of years, but for now I’m still too young to talk about such topics.

In fact, there was not a single word in the letter about the treasure or love and repentance for the mother. It was an ordinary advertising letter that prostitutes and other corrupt women sent to wealthy men. Such letters were written in the form of love correspondence with descriptions and hints about the young lady’s abilities. Often there was such frankness that the word “shame” was completely inappropriate.

A couple of months later, Mitka got married, and the whole village went for a walk. Yegor Trofimovich completed his house and became friends with a young widow who had three children. Time passed, years passed, but Mitka could not forget that day and that letter. It seemed to him that Uncle Yegor had deceived him. There was truth in that letter; it said where five thousand rubles in gold were hidden. So, just Yegor Trofimovich read the letter and threw it away, then he dug up a treasure in one and completed his house, and started a good farm and raised children, and Mitka continued to earn odd jobs as farm laborers and unskilled laborers. Therefore, when in the eighteenth year the Bolsheviks came to the village and organized a council, Mitka was one of the first to report where the kulak and world-eater Yegor Trofimovich Mitrokhin lived.