London, July 10th.
Inspector Theakstone,
Your letter and enclosure came safe to hand. Wise men, they say, may
always learn something, even from a fool. By the time I had got through
Sharpin's maundering report of his own folly, I saw my way clear enough
to the end of the Rutherford-Street case, just as you thought I should.
In half an hour's time I was at the house. The first person I saw there
was Mr. Sharpin himself.
"Have you come to help me?" says he.
"Not exactly," says I. "I've come to tell you that you are suspended till
further notice."
"Very good," says he, not taken down, by so much as a single peg, in
his own estimation. "I thought you would be jealous of me. It's very
natural; and I don't blame you. Walk in, pray, and make yourself at
home. I'm off to do a little detective business on my own account, in
the neighborhood of the Regent's Park. Ta-ta, Sergeant, ta-ta!"
With those words he took himself out of my way,--which was exactly what
I wanted him to do. As soon as the maid-servant had shut the door, I
told her to inform her master that I wanted to say a word to him in
private. She showed me into the parlor behind the shop; and there was
Mr. Yatman, all alone, reading the newspaper.
"About this matter of the robbery, Sir," says I.
He cut me short, peevishly enough,--being naturally a poor, weak,
womanish sort of man. "Yes, yes, I know," says he. "You have come to
tell me that your wonderfully clever man, who has bored holes in my
second-floor partition, has made a mistake, and is off the scent of the
scoundrel who has stolen my money."
"Yes, Sir," says I. "That _is_ one of the things I came to tell you. But
I have got something else to say, besides that."
"Can you tell me who the thief is?" says he, more pettish than ever.
"Yes, Sir," says I, "I think I can."
He put down the newspaper, and began to look rather anxious and
frightened.
"Not my shopman?" says he. "I hope, for the man's own sake, it's not my
shopman."
"Guess again, Sir," says I.
"That idle slut, the maid?" says he.
"She is idle, Sir," says I, "and she is also a slut; my first inquiries
about her proved as much as that. But she's not the thief."
"Then, in the name of Heaven, who is?" says he.
"Will you please to prepare yourself for a very disagreeable surprise,
Sir?" says I. "And in case you lose your temper, will you excuse my
remarking, that I am the stronger man of the two, and that, if you allow
yourself to lay hands on me, I may unintentionally hurt you, in pure
self-defence?"
He turned as pale as ashes, and pushed his chair two or three feet away
from me.
"You have asked me to tell you, Sir, who has taken your money," I went
on. "If you insist on my giving you an answer"--
"I do insist," he said, faintly. "Who has taken it?"
"Your wife has taken it," I said, very quietly, and very positively at
the same time.
He jumped out of the chair as if I had put a knife into him, and struck
his fist on the table, so heavily that the wood cracked again.
"Steady, Sir," says I. "Flying into a passion won't help you to the
truth."
"It's a lie!" says he, with another smack of his fist on the table,--"a
base, vile, infamous lie! How dare you"--
He stopped, and fell back into the chair again, looked about him in a
bewildered way, and ended by bursting out crying.
"When your better sense comes back to you, Sir," says I, "I am sure you
will be gentleman enough to make me an apology for the language you have
just used. In the mean time, please to listen, if you can, to a word of
explanation. Mr. Sharpin has sent in a report to our Inspector, of the
most irregular and ridiculous kind; setting down, not only all his own
foolish doings and sayings, but the doings and sayings of Mrs. Yatman as
well. In most cases, such a document would have been fit only for the
waste-paper basket; but, in this particular case, it so happens that Mr.
Sharpin's budget of nonsense leads to a certain conclusion which the
simpleton of a writer has been quite innocent of suspecting from the
beginning to the end. Of that conclusion I am so sure, that I will
forfeit my place, if it does not turn out that Mrs. Yatman has been
practising upon the folly and conceit of this young man, and that she
has tried to shield herself from discovery by purposely encouraging him
to suspect the wrong persons. I tell you that confidently; and I will
even go farther. I will undertake to give a decided opinion as to why
Mrs. Yatman took the money, and what she has done with it, or with a
part of it. Nobody can look at that lady, Sir, without being struck by
the great taste and beauty of her dress"----
As I said those last words, the poor man seemed to find his powers of
speech again. He cut me short directly, as haughtily as if he had been
a duke instead of a stationer. "Try some other means of justifying your
vile calumny against my wife," says he. "Her milliner's bill, for the
past year, is on my file of receipted accounts, at this moment."
"Excuse me, Sir," says I, "but that proves nothing. Milliners, I must
tell you, have a certain rascally custom which comes within the daily
experience of our office. A married lady who wishes it can keep two
accounts at her dress-maker's:--one is the account which her husband
sees and pays; the other is the private account, which contains all the
extravagant items, and which the wife pays secretly, by instalments,
whenever she can. According to our usual experience, these instalments
are mostly squeezed out of the housekeeping money. In your case, I
suspect no instalments have been paid; proceedings have been threatened;
Mrs. Yatman, knowing your altered circumstances, has felt herself
driven into a corner; and she has paid her private account out of your
cashbox."
"I won't believe it!" says he. "Every word you speak is an abominable
insult to me and to my wife."
"Are you man enough, Sir," says I, taking him up short, in order to save
time and words, "to get that receipted bill you spoke of just now, off
the file, and to come with me at once to the milliner's shop where Mrs.
Yatman deals?"
He turned red in the face at that, got the bill directly, and put on his
hat. I took out of my pocket-book the list containing the numbers of the
lost notes, and we left the house together immediately.
Arrived at the milliner's, (one of the expensive West-End houses, as I
expected,) I asked for a private interview, on important business, with
the mistress of the concern. It was not the first time that she and I
had met over the same delicate investigation. The moment she set eyes on
me, she sent for her husband. I mentioned who Mr. Yatman was, and what
we wanted.
"This is strictly private?" says the husband. I nodded my head.
"And confidential?" says the wife. I nodded again.
"Do you see any objection, dear, to obliging the Sergeant with a sight
of the books?" says the husband.
"None in the world, love, if you approve of it," says the wife.
All this while poor Mr. Yatman sat looking the picture of astonishment
and distress, quite out of place at our polite conference. The books
were brought,--and one minute's look at the pages in which Mrs. Yatman's
name figured was enough, and more than enough, to prove the truth of
every word that I had spoken.
There, in one book, was the husband's account, which Mr. Yatman had
settled. And there, in the other, was the private account, crossed off
also; the date of settlement being the very day after the loss of the
cash-box. This said private account amounted to the sum of a hundred and
seventy-five pounds, odd shillings; and it extended over a period of
three years. Not a single instalment had been paid on it. Under the last
line was an entry to this effect: "Written to for the third time, June
23d." I pointed to it, and asked the milliner if that meant "last June."
Yes, it did mean last June; and she now deeply regretted to say that it
had been accompanied by a threat of legal proceedings.
"I thought you gave good customers more than three years' credit?" says
I.
The milliner looks at Mr. Yatman, and whispers to me,--"Not when a lady's
husband gets into difficulties."
She pointed to the account as she spoke. The entries after the time when
Mr. Yatman's circumstances became involved were just as extravagant, for
a person in his wife's situation, as the entries for the year before
that period. If the lady had economized in other things, she had
certainly not economized in the matter of dress.
There was nothing left now but to examine the cash-book, for form's
sake. The money had been paid in notes, the amounts and numbers of which
exactly tallied with the figures set down in my list.
After that, I thought it best to get Mr. Yatman out of the house
immediately. He was in such a pitiable condition, that I called a cab
and accompanied him home in it. At first, he cried and raved like a
child; but I soon quieted him,--and I must add, to his credit, that he
made me a most handsome apology for his language, as the cab drew up at
his house-door. In return, I tried to give him some advice about how to
set matters right, for the future, with his wife. He paid very little
attention to me, and went up stairs muttering to himself about a
separation. Whether Mrs. Yatman will come cleverly out of the scrape
or not seems doubtful. I should say, myself, that she will go into
screeching hysterics, and so frighten the poor man into forgiving her.
But this is no business of ours. So far as we are concerned, the case
is now at an end; and the present report may come to a conclusion along
with it.