_Extracted from the Correspondence of the London Police._
FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE, OF THE DETECTIVE POLICE, TO SERGEANT
BULMER, OF THE SAME FORCE.
London, 4th July, 18--.
SERGEANT BULMER,--This is to inform you that you are wanted to assist in
looking up a case of importance, which will require all the attention of
an experienced member of the force. The matter of the robbery on which
you are now engaged you will please to shift over to the young man who
brings you this letter. You will tell him all the circumstances of the
case, just as they stand; you will put him up to the progress you have
made (if any) toward detecting the person or persons by whom the money
has been stolen; and you will leave him to make the best he can of the
matter now in your hands. He is to have the whole responsibility of the
case, and the whole credit of his success if he brings it to a proper
issue.
So much for the orders that I am desired to communicate to you.
A word in your ear, next, about this new man who is to take your place.
His name is Matthew Sharpin, and he is to have the chance given him of
dashing into our office at one jump--supposing he turns out strong
enough to take it. You will naturally ask me how he comes by this
privilege. I can only tell you that he has some uncommonly strong
interest to back him in certain high quarters, which you and I had
better not mention except under our breaths. He has been a lawyer's
clerk, and he is wonderfully conceited in his opinion of himself, as
well as mean and underhand to look at. According to his own account, he
leaves his old trade and joins ours of his own free will and preference.
You will no more believe that than I do. My notion is, that he has
managed to ferret out some private information in connection with the
affairs of one of his master's clients, which makes him rather an
awkward customer to keep in the office for the future, and which, at the
same time, gives him hold enough over his employer to make it dangerous
to drive him into a corner by turning him away. I think the giving him
this unheard-of chance among us is, in plain words, pretty much like
giving him hush-money to keep him quiet. However that may be, Mr.
Matthew Sharpin is to have the case now in your hands, and if he
succeeds with it, he pokes his ugly nose into our office as sure as fate.
I put you up to this, sergeant, so that you may not stand in your own
light by giving the new man any cause to complain of you at
headquarters, and remain yours,