Business & Finance: Travelers’ Traveler

One morning fortnight ago Travelers Bank on Rue de la Paix, Paris posted a blue-penciled sign on its door: “The bank will open tomorrow at noon.” But the bank did not open the next day, nor the next nor the next. No one could explain why it had closed, least of all its employes. Finally on complaint of some annoyed customers who wanted their money, French officials closed it tighter than ever by sealing the vaults. Apparently the only person who could solve the mystery was the bank’s founder, principal owner and undisputed boss, Bertrand Coles Neidecker, a U. S. citizen of 37.

Son of a Brooklyn realtor, Bertrand Coles Neidecker sold bonds, went to France in 1916, joined the Lafayette Escadrille, won several decorations. After the War, he remained in Europe, setting himself up as a money changer to U. S. troops in the Allied occupation of the Rhineland. His Paris bank, a logical sequel, was started in 1921, catered to itinerant U. S. citizens and French aristocrats.

When it suddenly closed, Bankster Neidecker was not to be found. He was rumored to be cruising in the Mediterranean in his yacht. Shooting Star. He was supposed to have deserted his extravagant apartments on Avenue Foch for his villa at Deauville. He was reported to be in London seeking financial support. But, as French police soon discovered in their own records, Bankster Neidecker was safe aboard the Britannic, Manhattan bound.

Bankster Neidecker’s arrival in the U. S. last week was more harassing than his departure from France. Slipping quietly from his ship, he sought refuge in Manhattan’s Hotel Waldorf-Astoria, where he registered as “Peter” Neidecker. (His French friends always called him “Pete.”) Reporters reaching him by telephone last week asked bluntly whether he was the missing Paris banker. “Why, absolutely not!” said he. Who was he, then? He was a brother. Reminded that he had only two brothers neither named Peter, he explained pleasantly: “Strange, strange—apparently there are others, for I am one.”

Meantime branches of Travelers Bank in Nice, London and other European cities had closed their doors, and agitated French magistrates, mindful of I’affaire Stavisky, issued a shower of warrants for almost anyone named Neidecker. But the Neidecker exodus was complete for already steaming westward was another ship bearing Bankster Neidecker’s wife, his two children, his mother, his two authentic brothers and one of his automobiles.

When that was discovered the Paris police fairly burned the cables with peremptory demands for detention of most of the Neidecker family and their baggage. Neidecker deposits in Manhattan banks and brokerage houses were tied up with court orders. Manhattan detectives obligingly picked up Bankster Neidecker at the Waldorf, hustled him off to headquarters with the 600 $1 bills he had in his pocket. Slight, swart, amiable, he wore a big, white, knitted glove on his left hand to cover burns received when his yacht Argus exploded at Cannes last September. Airily he turned all questions about his suspicious behavior, dismissing his troubles with such remarks as: “Well, the French are always trying to put something over on Americans”; or “You know how excited the French police get.” After vainly waiting an hour for the French consul general in Manhattan to appear to prefer charges, a judge released the dapper young man in the custody of his counsel.

No sooner had Bankster Neidecker regained his liberty than the rest of the fleeing Neideckers arrived in Norfolk, Va. on a Baltimore Mail ship. His wife, mother and Brothers Aubrey and George were detained in compliance with the frantic French cables, and the brothers were dispatched to Manhattan to join Bankster Neidecker for a hearing on the fraud and embezzlement charges which the French consul general eventually made as a preliminary to extradition proceedings. Since no one seemed to know what to do with the three Neideckers until legal documents arrived from abroad, the hearing was postponed a week. The Neideckers were presumably free until the French authorities got around to inspecting the books of the defunct Paris bank.

Travelers Bank was particularly attractive to people who could not forget the stock market. A comfortable customer’s room with quotation boards was a conspicuous feature of its head office in Paris. Its founder liked to see himself identified as a “young international banker,” but both his fame and fortune were grounded in spectacular plunging. He was an international speculator, largely in stocks and foreign exchange. Travelers Bank and Mr. Neidecker were listed as big short sellers on the New York Stock Exchange by the Senate Banking & Currency Committee in 1932. The bank and its boss were supposed to have operated profitably on the short side of the dollar and the franc. With his preference for the short side of any market, Bertrand Neidecker may well have been caught in the current rise.