Jabez was a businessman, philanthropist, politician, temperance campaigner and charmer. He was also an astonishing scoundrel – a liar, adulterer and cheat – who perpetrated the most destructive fraud of the 19th century. When the Liberator building society collapsed under the weight of its own extravagant malpractice, thousands of people were left defrauded and destitute. Jabez immediately took flight to Argentina, accompanied (scandalously) by not one, but two female wards half his age. Eventually, a determined Scotland Yard detective caught up with Jabez, and kidnapped him on a high-speed train across South America from whence he was hauled back to justice...