Having thus seen one criminal disposed of, Mr Sharp returned to his
office to take measures for the arrest of a few more of the same class.
Since we last met with our superintendent, he had not led an idle life
by any means. A brief reference to some of his recent doings will be an
appropriate introduction to the little entertainment which he had
provided for himself and his men on that particular evening.
One day he had been informed that wine and spirits had been disappearing
unaccountably at a particular station. He visited the place with one of
his men, spent the night under a tarpaulin in a goods-shed, and found
that one of the plate-layers was in the habit of drawing off spirits
with a syphon. The guilty man was handed over to justice, and honest
men, who had felt uneasy lest they should be suspected, were relieved.
On another occasion he was sent to investigate a claim made by a man who
was in the accident at Langrye Station. This man, who was an
auctioneer, had not been hurt at all--only a little skin taken off his
nose,--but our fop with the check trousers advised him to make a job of
it, and said that he himself and his friend had intended to make a
claim, only they had another and more important game in hand, which
rendered it advisable for them to keep quiet. This was just before the
attack made on Mr Lee in the train between Clatterby and London. The
auctioneer had not thought of such a way of raising money, but jumped
readily at the idea; went to Glasgow and Dundee, where he consulted
doctors--showed them his broken nose, coughed harshly in their ears,
complained of nervous affections, pains in the back, loins, and head,
and, pricking his gums slightly, spit blood for their edification; spoke
of internal injuries, and shook his head lugubriously. Doctors, unlike
lawyers, are not constantly on the watch for impostors. The man's
peeled and swelled nose was an obvious fact; his other ailments might,
or might not, be serious, so they prescribed, condoled with him, charged
him nothing, and dismissed him with a hope of speedy cure. Thereafter
the auctioneer went down the Clyde to recruit his injured health, and
did a little in the way of business, just to keep up his spirits, poor
fellow! After that he visited Aberdeen for similar purposes, and then
sent in a claim of 150 pounds damages against the Grand National Trunk
Railway.
Mr Sharp's first proceeding was to visit the doctors to whom the
auctioneer had applied, then he visited the various watering-places
whither the man had gone to recruit and ascertained every particular
regarding his proceedings. Finally, he went to the north of Scotland to
see the interesting invalid himself. He saw and heard him, first, in an
auction-room, where he went through a hard day's work even for a healthy
man; then he visited him in his hotel and found him, the picture of
ruddy health, drinking whisky punch. On stating that he was an agent of
the railway company, and had called to have some conversation regarding
his claim, some of the auctioneer's ruddy colour fled, but being a bold
man, he assumed a candid air and willingly answered all questions;
admitted that he was better, but said that he had lost much time; had
for a long period been unable to attend to his professional duties, and
still suffered much from internal injuries. Mr Sharp expressed
sympathy with him; said that the case, as he put it, was indeed a hard
one, and begged of him to put his statement of it down on paper. The
auctioneer complied, and thought Mr Sharp a rather benignant railway
official. When he had signed his name to the paper, his visitor took it
up and said, "Now, Mr Blank, this is all lies from beginning to end. I
have traced your history step by step, down to the present time, visited
all the places you have been to, conversed with the waiters of the
hotels where you put up, have heard you to-day go through as good a
day's work as any strong man could desire to do, and have seen you
finish up, with a stiff glass of whisky toddy, which I am very sorry to
have interrupted. Now, sir, this is very like an effort to obtain money
under false pretences, and, if you don't know what that leads to, you
are in a very fair way to find out. The Company which I have the honour
to represent, however, is generous. We know that you were in the
Langrye accident, for I saw you there, and in consideration of the
injury to your nerves and the damage to your proboscis, we are willing
to give you a five-pound note as a sort of sticking-plaster at once to
your nose and your feelings. If you accept that, good; if not you shall
take the consequences of _this_!" The superintendent here held up the
written statement playfully, and placed it in his pocket-book. The
auctioneer was a wise, if not an honest, man. He thankfully accepted
the five pounds, and invited Mr Sharp to join him in a tumbler, which,
however, the superintendent politely declined.
But this was a small matter compared with another case which Mr Sharp
had just been engaged investigating. It was as follows:--
One afternoon a slight accident occurred on the line by which several
passengers received trifling injuries. At the time only two people made
claim for compensation, one for a few shillings, the other for a few
pounds. These cases were at once investigated and settled, and it was
thought that there the matter ended. Six months afterwards, however,
the company received a letter from the solicitors of a gentleman whose
hat it was said, had been driven down on the bridge of his nose, and had
abraded the skin; the slight wound had turned into an ulcer, which
ultimately assumed the form of permanent cancer. In consequence of this
the gentleman had consulted one doctor in Paris and another in Rome, and
had been obliged to undergo an operation--for all of which he claimed
compensation to the extent of 5000 pounds. The company being quite
unable to tell whether this gentleman was in the accident referred to or
not, an investigation was set on foot, in which Mr Sharp bore his part.
At great expense official persons were sent to Paris and to Rome to see
the doctors said to have been consulted, and in the end--nearly two
years after the accident--the Company was found liable for the 5000
pounds!
While we are on this subject of compensation, it may not be
uninteresting to relate a few curious cases, which will give some idea
of the manner in which railway companies are squeezed for damages--
sometimes unjustly, and too often fraudulently. On one occasion, a man
who said he had been in an accident on one of our large railways,
claimed 1000 pounds. In this case the company was fortunately able to
prove a conspiracy to defraud, and thus escaped; but in many instances
the companies are defeated in fraudulent claims, and there is no
redress. The feelings of the juries who try the cases are worked on;
patients are brought into Court exhibiting every symptom of hopeless
malady, but these same patients not unfrequently possess quite
miraculous powers of swift recovery, from what had been styled
"incurable damage." One man received 6000 pounds on the supposition
that he had been permanently disabled, and within a short period he was
attending to his business as well as ever. A youth with a salary of 60
pounds a year claimed and got 1200 pounds on the ground of incurable
injury--in other words he was pensioned for life to the extent of 60
pounds a year--and, a year afterwards, it was ascertained that he was
"dancing at balls," and had joined his father in business as if there
was nothing the matter with him.
A barmaid who, it was said, received "injuries to the spine of a
permanent character," was paid a sum of 1000 pounds as--we were about to
write--compensation, but _consolation_ would be the more appropriate
term, seeing that she had little or nothing to be compensated for, as
she was found capable of "dancing at the Licensed Victuallers' Ball"
soon after the accident and eventually she married! To oblige railways
to compensate for loss of time, or property, or health, _to a limited
extent_, seems reasonable, but to compel them to pension off people who
have suffered little or nothing, with snug little annuities of 50 pounds
or 60 pounds, does really seem to be a little too hard; at least so it
appears to be in the eyes of one who happens to have no interest
whatever in railways, save that general interest in their immense value
to the land, and their inestimable comforts in the matter of locomotion.
The whole subject of compensation stands at present on a false footing.
For the comfort of those who wish well to railways, and love justice, we
may add in conclusion, that proposals as to modifications have already
been mooted and brought before Government, so that in all probability,
ere long, impostors will receive a snubbing, and shareholders will
receive increased dividends!
But let us return to Mr Sharp. Having, as we have said, gone to his
office, he found his faithful servant Blunt there.
"Why, Blunt," he said, sitting down at the table and tearing open a few
letters that awaited him, "what a good-looking _porter_ you make!"
"So my wife says, sir," replied Blunt with a perfectly grave face, but
with a twinkle in his eye.
"She must be a discriminating woman, Blunt. Well, what news have you
to-night? You seemed to think you had found out the thieves at Gorton
Station the last time we met."
"So I have, sir, and there are more implicated than we had expected.
The place is a perfect nest of them."
"Not an uncommon state of things," observed Mr Sharp, "for it is
well-known that one black sheep spoils a flock. We must weed them all
out, Blunt, and get our garden into as tidy a condition as possible; it
is beginning to do us credit already, but that Gorton Station has
remained too long in a bad state; we must harrow it up a little. Well,
let's hear what you have found out. They never suspected you, I
suppose?"
"Never had the least suspicion," replied Blunt with a slight approach to
a smile. "I've lived with 'em, now, for a considerable time, and the
general opinion of 'em about me is that I'm a decent enough fellow, but
too slow and stupid to be trusted, so they have not, up to this time,
thought me worthy of being made a confidant. However, that didn't
matter much, 'cause I managed to get round one o' their wives at last,
and she let out the whole affair--in strict confidence, of course, and
as a dead secret!
"In fact I have just come from a long and interesting conversation with
her. She told me that all the men at the station, with one or two
exceptions, were engaged in it, and showed me two of the missing bales
of cloth--the cloth, you remember, sir, of which there was such a large
quantity stolen four weeks ago, and for which the company has had to
pay. I find that the chief signalman, Davis, is as bad as the rest. It
was his wife that gave me the information in a moment of
over-confidence."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Sharp, in some surprise; "and what of Sam Natly and
Garvie?"
"They're both of 'em innocent, sir," said Blunt. "I did suspect 'em at
one time, but I have seen and heard enough to convince me that they have
no hand in the business. Natly has been goin' about the station a good
deal of late, because the wife of one of the men is a friend of his
wife, and used to go up to nurse her sometimes when she was ill. As to
Garvie, of course he knows as well as everybody else that some of the
men there must be thieves, else goods would not disappear from that
station as they do, but _his_ frequent visits there are for the purpose
of reclaiming Davis, who, it seems, is an old playmate of his."
"Reclaiming Davis!" exclaimed Sharp.
"Yes, an' it's my opinion that it'll take a cleverer fellow than him to
reclaim Davis, for he's one of the worst of the lot; but Garvie is real
earnest. I chanced to get behind a hedge one day when they were
together, and overheard 'em talkin' about these robberies and other
matters, and you would have thought, sir, that the fireman was a regular
divine. He could quote Scripture quite in a stunnin' way, sir; an'
_did_ seem badly cut up when his friend told him that it was of no use
talkin', for it was too late for _him_ to mend."
"Has Garvie, then, been aware all this time that Davis is one of the
thieves, and kept it secret?" asked Sharp.
"No, sir," replied Blunt. "Davis denied that he had any hand in the
robberies when Garvie asked him. It was about drink that he was
pleadin' with him so hard. You know we have suspected him of that too,
of late; but from what I heard he must be a regular toper. Garvie was
tryin' to persuade him to become a total abstainer. Says he to him,
`You know, Davis, that whatever may be true as to the general question
of abstaining from strong drink, _your_ only chance of bein' delivered
lies in total abstinence, because the thing has become a _disease_. I
know and believe that Christianity would save you from the power of
drink, but, depend upon it, that it would do so in the way of inducin'
you of your own free will to "touch not, taste not, handle not, that
which" _you_ "will perish by the using."' Seems to me as if there was
something in that, sir?" said Blunt, inquiringly.
Sharp nodded assent.
"Then Garvie does not suspect him of being connected with the
robberies?" he asked.
"No," replied Blunt; "but he's a deep file is Davis, and could throw a
sharper man than Garvie off the scent."
After a little further conversation on the subject Mr Sharp dismissed
the pretended porter to his station, and called upon the superintendent
of the police force of Clatterby, from whom he received an addition to
his force of men.
That night he led his men to Gorton station, and when he thought a
suitable hour had arrived, he caused them to surround the block of
buildings in which the men of the station resided. Then, placing Blunt
and two or three men in front of Davis's house, he went up to the door
alone and knocked.
Mrs Davis opened it. She gave the least possible start on observing by
the light of her lobby lamp who her visitor was--for she knew him well.
Mr Sharp took note of the start!
"Good-evening, Mrs Davis," he said.
"Good-evening, sir; this is an unexpected pleasure, Mr Sharp."
"Most of my visits are unexpected, Mrs Davis, but it is only my friends
who count them a pleasure. Is your husband within?"
"He is, sir; pray, walk this way; I'm sure he will be delighted to see
you. Can you stay to supper with us? we are just going to have it."
"No, thank you, Mrs Davis, I'm out on duty to-night," said Sharp,
entering the parlour, where Davis was engaged in reading the newspaper.
"Good-evening, Mr Davis."
Davis rose with a start. Mr Sharp took note of that also.
"Good-evening, Mr Sharp," he said; "sit down, sir; sit down."
"Thank you, I can't sit down. I'm on duty just now. The fact is, Mr
Davis, that I am come to make a search among your men, for we have
obtained reliable information as to who are the thieves at this station.
As, no doubt, _some_ of the men are honest, and might feel hurt at
having their houses searched, I have thought that the best way to
prevent any unpleasant feeling is to begin at the top of the free and go
downwards. They can't say that I have made fish of one and flesh of
another, if I begin, as a mere matter of form, Mr Davis, with
yourself."
"Oh, certainly--certainly, Mr Sharp, by all means," replied Davis.
He spoke with an air of candour, but it was quite evident that he was
ill at ease.
Calling in one of his men, Mr Sharp began a rigorous search of the
house forthwith. Mr Davis suggested that he would go out and see that
the men were in their residences; but Mr Sharp said that there was no
occasion for that, and that he would be obliged by his remaining and
assisting in the search of his own house.
Every hole and corner of the ground-floor was examined without any
discovery being made. Mrs Davis, observing that her visitors were
particular in collecting every shred of cloth that came in their way,
suddenly asked if it was cloth they were in search of. Mr Sharp
thought the question and the tone in which it was put told of a guilty
conscience, but he replied that he was in search of many things--cloth
included.
Immediately after, and while they were busy with a dark closet, Mrs
Davis slipped quietly out of the room. Mr Sharp was stooping at the
time with his back towards her, but the two back buttons of his coat
must have been eyes, for he observed the movement and at once followed
her, having previously ordered Mr Davis to move a heavy chest of
drawers, in order to keep him employed. Taking off his shoes he went
up-stairs rapidly, and seeing an open door, peeped in.
There he saw a sight that would have surprised any man except a
superintendent of police. Mrs Davis was engaged in throwing bales of
cloth over the window with the energy of a coal-heaver and the haste of
one whose house is on fire! The poor woman was not robust, yet the easy
way in which she handled those bales was quite marvellous.
Being a cool and patient man, Sharp allowed her to toss over five bales
before interrupting her. When she was moving across the room with the
sixth and last he entered. She stopped, turned pale, and dropped the
bale of cloth.
"You seem to be very busy to-night Mrs Davis" he observed, inquiringly;
"can I assist you?"
"Oh, Mr Sharp!" exclaimed Mrs Davis, covering her face with her hands.
She could say no more.
Mr Sharp took her gently by the arm and led her down-stairs. They
reached the room below just in time to see Blunt enter, holding the
ejected bales with both arms to his bosom. Blunt had happened to take
his stand just underneath the window of Mrs Davis's bedroom, and when
that energetic woman tossed the bales out she pitched them straight into
Blunt's willing arms. The accommodating man waited until he had
received all that appeared likely to be delivered to him, and then with
a quiet chuckle bore them, as we have seen, into Davis's parlour.
"This is a bad business, Davis," said Sharp, as he slipped a pair of
manacles on his prisoner.
Davis made no reply. He was very pale, but looked defiant. Mrs Davis
sat down on a chair and sobbed.
Leaving them in charge of Blunt, Mr Sharp then paid a visit to all the
men of the place, and ere long succeeded in capturing all who had been
engaged in the recent robberies, with the various proofs of their
guilt--in the shape of cloth, loaves of sugar, fruit, boxes of tea,
etcetera, in their apartments.
It had cost Mr Sharp and his men many weary hours of waiting and
investigation, but their perseverance was at length well rewarded, for
the "nest" was thoroughly "harried;" the men were dismissed and
variously punished, and that portion of the Grand National Trunk Railway
was, for the time, most effectually purified.