HOW I STRUCK JAMES MULLEN’S TRACK
Whether Jeanes, _alias_ Mullen, had noticed any signs of curiosity in
regard to his movements on the Professor’s part, and had intentionally
misinformed that worthy; whether his suspicions had been aroused by his
discovering that he was being shadowed to the hotel; or whether his
change of plans was entirely accidental, I had no means of knowing; but
that my adversary in the game of chess I was playing had again called
“check” just when I had hoped to come out with the triumphant “mate”
was not to be denied. The only additional information I succeeded in
eliciting from the Professor was that Jeanes had visited the shop some
month or so ago and had arranged that any letters sent there for him
should be kept till he came for them. He had left half-a-sovereign on
account and had called four times, receiving three letters, including
that which had been handed to him by the Professor.
As for that precious rascal, I need scarcely say that I placed no
reliance whatever upon what he said, and had seriously considered
whether the story of his giving Jeanes the letter on the stairs,
and then shadowing his customer to the hotel might not be an entire
fabrication. I did not for a moment believe that he knew who Jeanes
really was, for had he done so he would, I felt sure, have lost no time
in securing the reward by handing the fugitive over to the police. But
I quite recognised the possibility of his being in Jeanes’s pay, and
had seriously asked myself whether the statement that Jeanes would not
be having any more letters addressed to the shop, and would not be
visiting Stanby again, might not be a ruse to get me out of the way.
But that the Professor’s surprise and dismay when he found Jeanes
gone from the hotel were genuine, no one who had witnessed them could
have doubted, and as the circumstances generally tended to confirm his
story, I was forced to the conclusion that he had, in this instance at
all events, told the truth.
In that case I should be wasting time by remaining longer at Stanby; so
after arranging with the Professor that if Jeanes called again, or if
any other letters arrived for him, the word “News” should at once be
telegraphed to an address which I gave, I packed my bag and caught the
next train to town.
Mullen had called “check” at Stanby, it is true, but I was not without
another move, by means of which I hoped eventually to “mate” him,
and what that move was, the reader who remembers the contents of the
intercepted letters will readily surmise.
In one of those letters the person to whom it was addressed was told
that the steam yacht, by means of which he was to escape would be
lying just off the boat-builder’s yard where the little yacht was laid
up. Any one who did not know from whom the letter was, or under what
circumstances it had been written, would not be any the wiser for this
piece of information. But to one who knew, as I did, that the writer
was the wife of Mr. Stanley Burgoyne, it would not be a difficult thing
to ascertain the name of any small yacht of which that gentleman was
the owner, and the place where it was likely to be laid up.
Whether Mullen intended to abandon or to carry out the plan he had
formed for making his escape by the help of his sister, I had no means
of knowing. If he suspected that his letters had been intercepted,
he was tolerably sure to abandon the arrangement, or at all events
to change the scene of operations. But if he was unaware of the fact
that I had taken up the thread which poor Green had dropped, it was
possible that he might assume his secret to be safe now Green was
satisfactorily disposed of, and might carry out his original plan,
in which event he would walk of his own accord into the trap which I
was preparing for him. In any case I should be doing right in making
inquiries about Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Burgoyne and their yacht, and with
this end in view I purchased a copy of the current “Yachting Register.”
Turning to the letter B in the list of owners, I found that Mr. Stanley
Scott Burgoyne’s club was the Royal London, and that he had two boats,
one a big steam yacht called the “Fiona,” and the other a little
five-tonner named the “Odd Trick.” It was no doubt in the former that
Mr. and Mrs. Burgoyne had gone to Norway and by means of which Mullen
was to fly the country, and it was probably to the latter that Mrs.
Burgoyne had referred in her letter.
No one can be led to talk “shop” more readily than your enthusiastic
yachtsman, and it did not require much diplomacy on my part to
ascertain, by means of a visit to the Royal London Club House in Savile
Row--in company with a member--that Mr. Burgoyne’s little cruiser was
laid up at Gravesend, in charge of a man named Gunnell.
Him I accordingly visited, under the pretext of wanting to buy a yacht,
and after some conversation I remarked casually--
“By-the-bye, I think you have my friend Mr. Stanley Burgoyne’s
five-tonner, the ‘Odd Trick,’ laid up here, haven’t you?”
“I did have, sir,” was the reply, “but Mr. Burgoyne he telegraphed that
I was to let his brother-in-law, Mr. Cross, have the boat out. That
there’s the telegram wot you see slipped in behind the olm’nack.”
For the second time in the course of this curious enterprise the
information I was in need of seemed to come in search of me instead
of my having to go in search of it. I had felt when I started out
to pursue my inquiries about Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Burgoyne, by
interviewing the waterman Gunnell, that it was quite possible I might
learn something of importance, but I had not expected to strike the
trail red-hot, and so soon, for “Cross,” as the reader may perhaps
remember, was the name by which Mullen was known to his family.
“Mullen” had been used only in connection with the conspiracy.
Lest the man should see by my face how important was the information
he had let drop, I stooped as if to flick a splash of mud from my
trousers-leg before replying.
“Ah, yes,” I said at length, straightening myself and bending forward
indolently to look at the telegram, which I read aloud.
“To Gunnell, Gravesend.--Get ‘Odd Trick’ ready and afloat. Mr. Cross
will come for her.--BURGOYNE.
“Windsor Hotel, Scarborough.”
“Of course,” I went on, “I had quite forgotten Mr. Cross telling me,
when I saw him last, that he was going to ask his brother-in-law to
lend him the ‘Odd Trick,’ for a cruise. Whom has he got on board?”
“No one, sir. Mr. Cross was sailing her himself; said he was only going
as far as Sheerness, where he expected a friend to join him who would
help him to handle her.”
“He’s a good sailor, isn’t he?”
“No, sir, that’s just what he isn’t, and that’s why I wanted him
to let me go with him until his friend turned up. But, bless you,
sir, he got that huffy there wasn’t no holdin’ him. And him a very
pleasant-mannered gentleman in the usual way, and free with his money
too.”
Our conversation was interrupted at this point by the entrance of
another waterman with the key of the shed where a boat that was for
sale was laid up. The craft in question was a pretty little cutter,
named the “Pastime,” and I of course made a great pretence of
inspecting her narrowly, and was careful to put the usual questions
about her draught, breadth of beam, findings, and the like, which would
be expected from any intending purchaser.
“Isn’t she rather like the ‘Odd Trick’?” I said casually, being
desirous of getting a description of that vessel without appearing to
be unduly inquisitive.
“Lor’ bless you no, sir!” answered the honest Gunnell. “She’s about the
same _siz_ right enough, but the ‘Pastime’ is cutter-rigged and the
‘Odd Trick’ ’s a yawl. Besides, the ‘Pastime’ is painted chocolate,
and the ‘Odd Trick’ is white, picked out gold.”
This was just the information I required, so after telling Gunnell
that I would let him know my decision when I had seen another boat
which was in the market, I slipped half-a-sovereign into his hand, as
“conscience money,” for taking up his time when I had no intention of
becoming a purchaser, and bade him “Good-day, and thank you.”
The result of my inquiries, though by no means unsatisfactory, had, I
must confess, put me somewhat out of my reckoning. I had all along been
of opinion that Mullen’s hiding-place was on water, as the reader is
aware, but I had not supposed he would be so rash as to trust himself
on a vessel which, if his connection with the Burgoynes should reach
the ears of the police, would be almost the first object of their
inquiries. I could only account for his doing so by presuming that
he was convinced that the secret of his relationship to Mr. and Mrs.
Burgoyne--being known only to them and to him--could not by any means
come to light, and that, taking one thing with another, he considered
it safer to make use of Burgoyne’s boat than to run the risk of
purchasing or hiring what he wanted from a stranger. Or it might be
that as no fresh outrages had occurred for some time the vigilance of
the police had become somewhat relaxed, and that Mullen--knowing it
to be so, and that the hue and cry had subsided--felt that his own
precautions might be proportionately lessened.
Perhaps, too, the ease with which he had hitherto eluded pursuit had
tended to make him careless, over-confident, and inclined to underrate
the abilities of English detectives. But, whatever his reason, the fact
remained that if Gunnell’s story was to be believed--and I saw no cause
to doubt it--Mullen had contrived to get possession of the “Odd Trick”
by means of a telegram which, though purporting to come from the owner
of the boat, Mr. Burgoyne, had in reality been despatched by Mullen
himself.
That he was the sender of the telegram was evident from some inquiries
which I afterwards made at Scarborough. These inquiries I need not
here enter upon in detail, but I may mention that I was able by a
little diplomacy to get a photograph of the original draft (it is not
generally known that the first drafts of telegrams are retained for a
considerable time by the postal authorities) and so became possessed of
a piece of evidence which might one day prove valuable--a specimen of
what was in all probability Mullen’s own handwriting.
But as a matter of fact I had good cause, quite apart from the
inquiries which I instituted at Scarborough, to feel satisfied that the
telegram had been sent by Mullen, or by his instigation, and not by
Burgoyne, as I knew by the date of the letter which Mrs. Burgoyne had
sent to Mullen--the letter which I had intercepted--that her husband
was in Bergen upon the very day on which the telegram from Scarborough
had been despatched.
My next business I decided must be to find the present whereabouts of
the “Odd Trick,” but before setting out to do so I had a point of some
importance to consider. Every one who has studied criminology knows
that each individual criminal has certain methods which are repeated
with very little variation in consecutive crimes. The circumstances
may so vary as to cause the features of the crime to have a different
aspect from the feature of any previous crime, but the methods pursued
are generally the same.
The criminal classes are almost invariably creatures of habit. The fact
that a certain method--be it adopted for the purpose of committing a
crime, concealing a crime, or of effecting the criminal’s escape--has
proved successful in the past is to them the strongest possible reason
for again adopting the same method. They associate that method in
their thoughts with what they call their luck, and shrink from having
to depart from it. Hence the detective-psychologist should be quick to
get what I may--with no sinister meaning in regard to after events--be
allowed to call the “hang” of the criminal’s mind, and to discover
the methods which, though varying circumstances may necessitate their
being worked out in varying ways, are common to most of his crimes.
The detective who can do this has his antagonist at a disadvantage. He
is like the hunter who knows that the hare will double, or that this
or that quarry will try to set the hounds at fault and seek to destroy
the scent by taking to the water. And just as the hunter’s acquaintance
with the tricks of the quarry assists him to anticipate and to
forestall the poor beast’s efforts to escape, so the detective who has
taken a criminal’s measure, and discovered the methods upon which he
works, can often turn the very means which are intended to effect an
escape into means to effect a capture.
I need not point out to the observant reader that Mullen’s one anxiety
in all his movements was to cover up his traces. He could be daring and
even reckless at times, as witness this fact of his having gone away
in a boat, which, should his connection with Mrs. Burgoyne leak out,
would, as I have already said, be the very first object of inquiry. It
would seem, in fact, as if, so long as he had satisfied himself that
he had left no “spoor” behind, he preferred adopting a bold course to
a timid one, as for instance when he openly proclaimed the murder of
Green to be the handiwork of Captain Shannon by leaving a declaration
to that effect folded up in a bottle which was attached to the body.
How he had accomplished that particular crime I did not know, but I had
the best of reasons for knowing that he had left no sign of himself
behind. Carefulness in covering up his traces was indeed the key-word
to his criminal code, and perhaps was the secret of the success with
which he had hitherto carried out his designs. Given any fresh move on
his part, and some cunning scheme for obliterating the trail he had
left behind--for cutting the connecting cord between the past and the
present--might be looked for as surely and inevitably as night may be
looked for after day.
I had--more by luck than by subtlety--traced Mullen to the boatyard at
Gravesend, but there I lost sight of him completely. He had taken the
“Odd Trick” away with him the same evening, I was told, and had gone
down the river, but what had become of him afterwards there was not
the slightest evidence to show. To go down the river in search of him
seemed the natural and only course, but I was beginning by this time
to get some insight into my adversary’s methods, and felt that before
asking myself, “Where has Mullen gone?” I should seriously consider the
question, “What method has he adopted for covering up his traces?”