An African Millionaire: Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay by Grant Allen

Scam after scam from an expert flimflam man

Grant Allen (1848-1899) was a prolific Canadian-born British writer of both science books and fiction. His book An African Millionaire: Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay was published in 1897. The table of contents would lead one to believe this is a collection of short stories, since all the chapter titles begin with “The Episode of the . . .”, but really this is a novel. The chapters don’t really make much sense unless read together in sequence, and they all add up to one unified narrative. The story is narrated by Seymour Wilbraham Wentworth, who works as secretary to his wife’s brother Sir Charles Vandrift, the “African Millionaire,” an Englishman who has struck it rich in South African diamond mines. Vandrift has an estate in Scotland but spends most of his time in London. He and Wentworth’s adventures take place primarily in Europe, not in Africa, with a sojourn in America.

The first chapter gives the impression that the reader is in for yet another Sherlock Holmes pastiche, with Wentworth playing the part of Vandrift’s Dr. Watson. It soon becomes apparent, however, that the plot is not so much a mystery as it is a series of what might be called capers. The “illustrious” Colonel Clay is a con artist who sets his sights on Vandrift. In each chapter he comes up with a new ingenious scheme to bilk the millionaire out of thousands of pounds sterling. Colonel Clay (not his real name) is a master of disguise and various accents, as is his attractive female accomplice. The larcenous pair repeatedly fool Vandrift and Wentworth with their assumed personalities and ever-changing appearances. Thus, An African Millionaire does not emulate the Sherlock Holmes stories but rather presages the adventures of the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin created by French writer Maurice Leblanc in 1905.

The premise soon becomes formulaic, as the reader always recognizes that every new character the millionaire and his secretary encounter in each chapter will likely turn out to be Clay or his woman friend in disguise. This is very similar to the structure of another book by Allen, Miss Cayley’s Adventures, in which the heroine travels around Europe repeatedly encountering a rogue who serves as her nemesis. Vandrift and Wentworth get a little wiser in each chapter, employing various methods in an attempt to thwart the master con man, but Clay remains one step ahead of them. Allen’s clever and witty writing keeps all this from becoming monotonous, and the way he wraps things up in the final two chapters is delightfully smart.

Also adding to the fun is that the right-and-wrong, good-vs.-evil setup of the crime story plot becomes less cut-and-dried as the story moves along. Allen was a writer known for advocating radical ideas like evolution, socialism, atheism, and feminism. At first his leftist agenda is not readily apparent in An African Millionaire. The novel reads as if Allen aimed for an audience of the smart set, who would identify with Vandrift’s lavish lifestyle and expensive vacation destinations. After Clay’s first few scams, however, Allen starts working in digs at the British class system. The con man is fashioned into a quasi-socialist Robin Hood while Vandrift is painted as a greedy capitalist. Though Vandrift and Wentworth are supposedly the heroes of the book, Allen takes pleasure in satirizing the upper classes by frequently depicting the pair as buffoons.

An African Millionaire is a bit too familiar, predictable, and repetitive to get excited about, but it is a moderately entertaining read. I think I prefer Allen’s nonfiction writings, but his fiction is dependably good for those who appreciate Victorian pulp fiction along the lines of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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