Hiram Maxim

Just reading about William Cantelo, a British engineer who invented a portable machine gun. He went off to the USA with his new gun in 1860, where he and his machine gun disapeared without trace. When Hiram Maxim came to London in 1861, William Cantelo's sons recognized him as their father in disguise and said they also recognized the machine gun! Other people also recognized Maxim in London; he denied any knowledge of Cantelo. William Cantelo was very fond of maxims and always carried a little book of maxims with him, he reportedly called his machine gun "my maxim gun". A unsolved Mystery.

Then his brother Hudson Maxim would have had to collude in the deception, and the two hated each other, apparently.