Mr Davison drove a very peculiar trade. In society he figured as a
man of culture, and of large independent means. He lived in one of
the most costly of the many palatial flats in which opulent London
loves to disport itself, and dispensed his hospitality on a very
lavish and comprehensive scale. Assisted by his wife, a woman who
was very beautiful, and as clever as himself, he gave receptions to
which the titled and untitled flower of English aristocracy thought
itself fortunate to be invited, and spent vast sums in apparently
ostentatious extravagance.
But this extravagance was really the medium by which he found
opportunities of gauging, and of trading upon, the social and
financial position of his hosts of acquaintances, who never dreamed
that the wherewithal of the splendid hospitality at which they
wondered was derived from their own needs.
Mr Davison was really a money-lender on a huge scale, and had at
least half-a-dozen flourishing West-End establishments. At one of
them he traded, under a fictitious name, as a dealer in gold and
silver plate, and at another, under another alias, he made costly
jewellery his principal line. From still another establishment he
drew plethoric profits by lending large sums of money on valuables,
at another he advanced money on real estate at huge interest, and
at one or two others he drove an equally lucrative trade on
somewhat different lines.
But at none of his shops did he ever put in a personal appearance,
though he was actually the guiding spirit of them all. He had one
little room in his flat to which no one was ever allowed to
penetrate except himself and his wife. Connecting this room with
his various establishments was an elaborate system of telephoning,
and from this so-called “study” he was able to direct the
multifarious threads of his vast business.
Add to his acquisitive capacity the fact that he had the power of
winning the confidence of others to an extraordinary degree, and it
will be seen how much more easy it was for him to manage so
complicated a business than for a man with less tact and polish,
or for a man whose wife was inferior to Mrs Davison, who was her
husband’s very double in cunning and suavity.
And then they both had such a clever way of advising their friends
out of their difficulties, that success was a foregone conclusion
with them.
“Do you know, Lady C.,” would be Mrs Davison’s advice to a bosom
friend whose present condition was that of chronic impecuniosity,
but whose future was assured wealth. “If I were you, I would do
just what dear Gerald and I had to do a year or two ago, when we
were at our wit’s end for money, owing to a temporary depreciation
of land values. We knew that all would come right in time, and we
bought a couple of thousand pounds’ worth of jewellery from
Edison & Co. and a thousand pounds worth of gold and silver plate
from Meeson’s.”
“But how could it help you to go several thousand pounds deeper
into debt?”
“My dear Lady C., how unsophisticated you are! We pawned the things
for a thousand pounds at Grinling’s. It’s a capital place for
business of that sort. No questions asked, and no fear of things
being lent on hire, as sometimes happens. You see, we got all that
ready money without laying any out, and paid all up as soon as we
were better off.”
The result of some such talk would be that Lady C. and her kindred
spirits would do a rather tall business with Edison, Meeson, and
Grinling, unconscious of the fact that all three were embodied in
the persons of Davison and his charming, sympathetic wife.
Or the prospective heir to vast estates would forestall his
inheritance by mortgaging his interest at Robson’s estate office at
a ruinous percentage, being advised thereto by his friend Davison.
It was this complicated nature of his business which made Davison so
nervous about employing the police. He didn’t mind trusting us. But
he gave the force more credit for bungling, and preferred to lose
the things, which, after all, were really his own, since they were
not paid for, rather than risk exposure.
Grinling’s didn’t look at all like a pawnshop, and it was, oddly
enough, only patronised by people who knew the Davisons or some of
their friends. To all outward seeming, it was but a middle-class
private dwelling, hardly likely to tempt a gang of burglars. Even
the servants were supposed to be in profound ignorance of the nature
of Mr Grinling’s business, or of the contents of a certain room on
the third storey, into which they were never admitted.
“Do you think Mr Grinling requires a new set of blinds for his
windows?” inquired Mr Bell. “If so, I will send a man to measure
the windows, and to show you patterns.”
Mr Davison had employed Messrs Bell and White before, and understood
my uncle’s drift at once.
“By all means,” he replied. “You will find him prepared to receive
your messenger in an hour.”
Just an hour later Adam Henniker was interviewing Mr Grinling, who
had already been advised of the intended visit. Could the two
manservants have seen the systematic way in which the supposed
blindmaker pried, peeped, and smelled in every corner, and over
every inch of the room from which the theft had been made, they
would have been greatly surprised. As it was they were a little
astonished, for the man actually went into the back area, and
measured the lower windows for outside sunblinds.
“My goodness, I wonder what’ll happen next!” said the housemaid.
“The master must be thinking of getting married, and if he brings
a missis here we shall have to mind our p’s and q’s. Last week the
sweeps and a lot of new furniture, and this week new blinds! We’re
comin’ out, ain’t we?”
“Looks like it. Me and my missis would like to come out, too,” said
Adam Henniker. “But we can’t afford new furniture. The whitewashers
and sweeps is enough for us. Do you have a decent sort of sweep
round here?”
“Oh, yes, he did very well, and was particularly clean. I never knew
a sweep take such pains over a job. He lives round the corner, in
the back street.”
That same evening Adam Henniker imparted his discoveries to me, and
invoked my aid in the matter. He had found certain marks on the
window-sill, spout, and the flooring of the looted room which his
magnifying glass and his sense of smell assured him were produced by
soot, and as soot is generally associated with people whose garments
are habitually covered with it he had no hesitation in deciding that
the sweep must have become suspicious as to the contents of the
closed chamber, and that he had made a very profitable nocturnal
visit to it, aided by the spout, and by the implements of his real
trade.
“I don’t know how the people failed to hear the noise that must have
been made,” continued Adam, “for the man fell and hurt himself
severely. I saw evidences of this in the area. There were some spots
of blood on the ground, and there were marks on the wall. I should
fancy that he must have tied the bag of jewellery on his back, and
that he was coming down the spout again, when he slipped, and was
supported by his trousers until they gave way, and left this piece
of cloth hanging on a nail which projects from the wall. I went to
the sweep’s house, ostensibly to order a chimney to be swept, but
was told that the man had hurt himself at his trade, and was laid
up with a broken leg. It is now your turn to take the matter up.”
I saw no difficulty in doing this, for my work seemed cut and dried.
The next morning witnessed a metamorphosis in my appearance. I
presented myself at the sweep’s house in the garb of a charity
nurse, and said that I had heard there was a man lying ill there,
and was willing to nurse him two or three hours a day. As it
happened, the sweep’s wife was very glad of my services, for though
the fellow’s leg was not broken, he had sustained so many injuries
that I marvelled how he had managed to reach home with his booty.
I concluded that the wife was ignorant of the real cause of her
husband’s accident, and of the robbery, or she would not have
trusted me to sit at the now delirious man’s bedside, while she
attended to her household duties in the room which served as a
kitchen.
It did not take me long to discover that my patient kept a feverish
hold upon a small key. This key fitted a box that stood at the foot
of the bed, and a judiciously administered opiate enabled me to get
it into my possession at a time when Mrs Sweep had gone upon a
lengthy errand.
In five minutes my task was accomplished. I opened the box, withdrew
a well-filled black leather bag, disposed of its contents in my
multitudinous pockets, put the key back in the hand of the sleeping
man, after locking the empty bag in the box again, and was ready to
leave when the woman came back.
My readers will not be surprised to hear that I did not go back
again. But, lest the thief should blame his wife for the loss of his
booty, we caused a letter to be sent to him, in which we asserted
that he had been tracked and followed to his home. “The property has
been returned to Mr Grinling, the rightful owner,” concluded this
letter, “and he has decided not to prosecute you, for your wife’s
sake, so long as you keep clear of dishonest doings in the future.”
Mr Davison was very much astonished to recover his property so
quickly, especially as we gave him no clue to the thief, or a hint
of our modus operandi.
We only advised him to remove his pawnbroking business to safer
premises.
It does not do for private detectives to let their clients know how
simple their business can be on occasion.