The fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with the strange air of
simplicity, began, with a rustic smile, and in a soft, wheedling tone of
voice, to relate the Butcher’s Story, thus:
“It’s just about six years ago, now, since information was given at
Scotland Yard of there being extensive robberies of lawns and silks
going on, at some wholesale houses in the City. Directions were given
for the business being looked into; and Straw, and Fendall, and me, we
were all in it.”
“When you received your instructions,” said we, “you went away, and held
a sort of Cabinet Council together?”
The smooth-faced officer coaxingly replied, “Ye-es. Just so. We turned
it over among ourselves a good deal. It appeared, when we went into it,
that the goods were sold by the receivers extraordinarily cheap—much
cheaper than they could have been if they had been honestly come by. The
receivers were in the trade, and kept capital shops—establishments of
the first respectability—one of ’em at the West End, one down in
Westminster. After a lot of watching and inquiry, and this and that
among ourselves, we found that the job was managed, and the purchases of
the stolen goods made, at a little public-house near Smithfield, down by
Saint Bartholomew’s; where the Warehouse Porters, who were the thieves,
took ’em for that purpose, don’t you see? and made appointments to meet
the people that went between themselves and the receivers. This
public-house was principally used by journeymen butchers from the
country, out of place, and in want of situations; so, what did we do,
but—ha, ha, ha!—we agreed that I should be dressed up like a butcher
myself, and go and live there!”
Never, surely, was a faculty of observation better brought to bear upon
a purpose, than that which picked out this officer for the part. Nothing
in all creation, could have suited him better. Even while he spoke, he
became a greasy, sleepy, shy, good-natured, chuckle-headed,
unsuspicious, and confiding young butcher. His very hair seemed to have
suet in it, as he made it smooth upon his head, and his fresh complexion
to be lubricated by large quantities of animal food.
——“So I—ha, ha, ha!” (always with the confiding snigger of the foolish
young butcher) “so I dressed myself in the regular way, made up a little
bundle of clothes, and went to the public-house, and asked if I could
have a lodging there? They says, ‘yes, you can have a lodging here,’ and
I got a bedroom, and settled myself down in the tap. There was a number
of people about the place, and coming backwards and forwards to the
house; and first one says, and then another says, ‘Are you from the
country, young man?’ ‘Yes,’ I says, ‘I am. I’m come out of
Northamptonshire, and I’m quite lonely here, for I don’t know London at
all, and it’s such a mighty big town?’ ‘It _is_ a big town,’ they says.
‘Oh, it’s a _very_ big town!’ I says. ‘Really and truly I never was in
such a town. It quite confuses of me!’—and all that, you know.
“When some of the Journeymen Butchers that used the house, found that I
wanted a place, they says, ‘Oh, we’ll get you a place!’ And they
actually took me to a sight of places, in Newgate Market, Newport
Market, Clare, Carnaby—I don’t know where all. But the wages was—ha, ha,
ha!—was not sufficient, and I never could suit myself, don’t you see?
Some of the queer frequenters of the house, were a little suspicious of
me at first, and I was obliged to be very cautious indeed, how I
communicated with Straw or Fendall. Sometimes, when I went out,
pretending to stop and look into the shop-windows, and just casting my
eye round, I used to see some of ’em following me; but, being perhaps
better accustomed than they thought for, to that sort of thing, I used
to lead ’em on as far as I thought necessary or convenient—sometimes a
long way—and then turn sharp round, and meet ’em, and say, ‘Oh, dear,
how glad I am to come upon you so fortunate! This London’s such a place,
I’m blowed if I an’t lost again!’ And then we’d go back all together, to
the public-house, and—ha, ha, ha! and smoke our pipes, don’t you see?
“They were very attentive to me, I am sure. It was a common thing, while
I was living there, for some of ’em to take me out, and show me London.
They showed me the Prisons—showed me Newgate—and when they showed me
Newgate, I stops at the place where the Porters pitch their loads, and
says, ‘Oh dear,’ ‘is this where they hang the men! Oh Lor!’ ‘That!’ they
says, ‘what a simple cove he is! _That_ an’t it!’ And then, they pointed
out which _was_ it, and I says ‘Lor!’ and they says, ‘Now you’ll know it
agen, won’t you?’ And I said I thought I should if I tried hard—and I
assure you I kept a sharp look out for the City Police when we were out
in this way, for if any of ’em had happened to know me, and had spoke to
me, it would have been all up in a minute. However, by good luck such a
thing never happened, and all went on quiet: though the difficulties I
had in communicating with my brother officers were quite extraordinary.
“The stolen goods that were brought to the public-house, by the
Warehouse Porters, were always disposed of in a back parlor. For a long
time, I never could get into this parlor, or see what was done there. As
I sat smoking my pipe, like an innocent young chap, by the tap-room
fire, I’d hear some of the parties to the robbery, as they came in and
out, say softly to the landlord, ‘Who’s that? What does _he_ do here?’
‘Bless your soul,’ says the landlord, ‘He’s only a’—ha, ha, ha!—‘he’s
only a green young fellow from the country, as is looking for a
butcher’s sitiwation. Don’t mind _him_!’ So, in course of time, they
were so convinced of my being green, and got to be so accustomed to me,
that I was as free of the parlor as any of ’em, and I have seen as much
as Seventy Pounds worth of fine lawn sold there, in one night, that was
stolen from a warehouse in Friday Street. After the sale, the buyers
always stood treat—hot supper, or dinner, or what not—and they’d say on
those occasions ‘Come on, Butcher! Put your best leg foremost, young
’un, and walk into it!’ Which I used to do—and hear, at table, all
manner of particulars that it was very important for us Detectives to
know.
“This went on for ten weeks. I lived in the public-house all the time,
and never was out of the Butcher’s dress—except in bed. At last, when I
had followed seven of the thieves, and set ’em to rights—that’s an
expression of ours, don’t you see, by which I mean to say that I traced
’em, and found out where the robberies were done, and all about
’em—Straw, and Fendall, and I, gave one another the office, and at a
time agreed upon, a descent was made upon the public-house, and the
apprehensions effected. One of the first things the officers did, was to
collar me—for the parties to the robbery weren’t to suppose yet, that I
was anything but a Butcher—on which the landlord cries out, ‘Don’t take
_him_,’ he says, ‘whatever you do! He’s only a poor young chap from the
country, and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!’ However, they—ha, ha,
ha!—they took me, and pretended to search my bedroom, where nothing was
found but an old fiddle belonging to the landlord, that had got there
somehow or another. But, it entirely changed the landlord’s opinion, for
when it was produced, he says ‘My fiddle! The Butcher’s a pur-loiner! I
give him into custody for the robbery of a musical instrument!’
“The man that had stolen the goods in Friday Street was not taken yet.
He had told me, in confidence, that he had his suspicions there was
something wrong (on account of the City Police having captured one of
the party), and that he was going to make himself scarce. I asked him,
‘Where do you mean to go, Mr. Shepherdson?’ ‘Why, Butcher,’ says he,
‘the Setting Moon, in the Commercial Road, is a snug house, and I shall
hang out there for a time. I shall call myself Simpson, which appears to
me to be a modest sort of a name. Perhaps you’ll give us a look in,
Butcher?’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘I think I _will_ give you a call’—which I
fully intended, don’t you see, because, of course, he was to be taken! I
went over to the Setting Moon next day, with a brother officer, and
asked at the bar for Simpson. They pointed out his room, upstairs. As we
were going up, he looks down over the bannisters, and calls out,
‘Halloa, Butcher! is that you?’ ‘Yes, it’s me. How do you find
yourself?’ ‘Bobbish,’ he says; ‘but who’s that with you?’ ‘It’s only a
young man, that’s a friend of mine,’ I says. ‘Come along, then,’ says
he; ‘any friend of the Butcher’s is as welcome as the Butcher!’ So, I
made my friend acquainted with him, and we took him into custody.
“You have no idea, Sir, what a sight it was, in Court, when they first
knew that I wasn’t a Butcher, after all! I wasn’t produced at the first
examination, when there was a remand; but I was, at the second. And when
I stepped into the box, in full police uniform, and the whole party saw
how they had been done, actually a groan of horror and dismay proceeded
from ’em in the dock!
“At the Old Bailey, when their trials came on, Mr. Clarkson was engaged
for the defence, and he _couldn’t_ make out how it was, about the
Butcher. He thought, all along, it was a real Butcher. When the counsel
for the prosecution said, ‘I will now call before you, gentlemen, the
Police-officer,’ meaning myself, Mr. Clarkson says, ‘Why Police-officer?
Why more Police-officers? I don’t want Police. We have had a great deal
too much of the Police. I want the Butcher! However, Sir, he had the
Butcher and the Police-officer, both in one. Out of seven prisoners
committed for trial, five were found guilty, and some of ’em were
transported. The respectable firm at the West End got a term of
imprisonment; and that’s the Butcher’s Story!”
The story done, the chuckle-headed Butcher again resolved himself into
the smooth-faced Detective. But, he was so extremely tickled by their
having taken him about, when he was that Dragon in disguise, to show him
London, that he could not help reverting to that point in his narrative;
and gently repeating, with the Butcher snigger, “‘Oh, dear!’ I says, ‘is
that where they hang the men? Oh, Lor!’ ‘_That!_’ says they. ‘What a
simple cove he is!’”
It being now late, and the party very modest in their fear of being too
diffuse, there were some tokens of separation; when Serjeant Dornton,
the soldierly-looking man, said, looking round him with a smile:
“Before we break up, Sir, perhaps you might have some amusement in
hearing of the Adventures of a Carpet Bag. They are very short; and, I
think, curious.”
We welcomed the Carpet Bag, as cordially as Mr. Shepherdson welcomed the
false Butcher at the Setting Moon. Serjeant Dornton proceeded:
“In 1847, I was dispatched to Chatham, in search of one Mesheck, a Jew.
He had been carrying on, pretty heavily, in the bill-stealing way,
getting acceptances from young men of good connexions (in the army
chiefly), on pretence of discount, and bolting with the same.
“Mesheck was off, before I got to Chatham. All I could learn about him
was, that he had gone, probably to London, and had with him—a Carpet
Bag.
“I came back to town, by the last train from Blackwall, and made
inquiries concerning a Jew passenger with—a Carpet Bag.
“The office was shut up, it being the last train. There were only two or
three porters left. Looking after a Jew with a Carpet Bag, on the
Blackwall Railway, which was then the high road to a great Military
Depôt, was worse than looking after a needle in a hayrick. But it
happened that one of these porters had carried, for a certain Jew, to a
certain public-house, a certain—Carpet Bag.
“I went to the public-house, but the Jew had only left his luggage there
for a few hours, and had called for it in a cab, and taken it away. I
put such questions there, and to the porter, as I thought prudent, and
got at this description of—the Carpet Bag.
“It was a bag which had, on one side of it, worked in worsted, a green
parrot on a stand. A green parrot on a stand was the means by which to
identify that—Carpet Bag.
“I traced Mesheck, by means of this green parrot on a stand, to
Cheltenham, to Birmingham, to Liverpool, to the Atlantic Ocean. At
Liverpool he was too many for me. He had gone to the United States, and
I gave up all thoughts of Mesheck, and likewise of his—Carpet Bag.
“Many months afterwards—near a year afterwards—there was a Bank in
Ireland robbed of seven thousand pounds, by a person of the name of
Doctor Dundey, who escaped to America; from which country some of the
stolen notes came home. He was supposed to have bought a farm in New
Jersey. Under proper management, that estate could be seized and sold,
for the benefit of the parties he had defrauded. I was sent off to
America for this purpose.
“I landed at Boston. I went on to New York. I found that he had lately
changed New York paper-money for New Jersey paper-money, and had banked
cash in New Brunswick. To take this Doctor Dundey, it was necessary to
entrap him into the State of New York, which required a deal of artifice
and trouble. At one time, he couldn’t be drawn into an appointment. At
another time, he appointed to come to meet me, and a New York officer,
on a pretext I made; and then his children had the measles. At last, he
came, per steamboat, and I took him, and lodged him in a New York Prison
called the Tombs; which I dare say you know, Sir?”
Editorial acknowledgment to that effect.
“I went to the Tombs, on the morning after his capture, to attend the
examination before the magistrate. I was passing through the
magistrate’s private room, when, happening to look round me to take
notice of the place, as we generally have a habit of doing, I clapped my
eyes, in one corner, on a—Carpet Bag.
“What did I see upon that Carpet Bag, if you’ll believe me, but a green
parrot on a stand, as large as life!
“‘That Carpet Bag, with the representation of a green parrot on a
stand,’ said I, ‘belongs to an English Jew, named Aaron Mesheck, and to
no other man, alive or dead!’
“I give you my word the New York Police-officers were doubled up with
surprise.
“‘How do you ever come to know that?’ said they.
“‘I think I ought to know that green parrot by this time,’ said I; ‘for
I have had as pretty a dance after that bird, at home, as ever I had, in
all my life!’”
“And _was_ it Mesheck’s?” we submissively inquired.
“Was it, Sir? Of course it was! He was in custody for another offence,
in that very identical Tombs, at that very identical time. And, more
than that! Some memoranda, relating to the fraud for which I had vainly
endeavoured to take him, were found to be, at that moment, lying in that
very same individual—Carpet Bag!”
Such are the curious coincidences and such is the peculiar ability,
always sharpening and being improved by practice, and always adapting
itself to every variety of circumstances, and opposing itself to every
new device that perverted ingenuity can invent, for which this important
social branch of the public service is remarkable! For ever on the
watch, with their wits stretched to the utmost, these officers have,
from day to day and year to year, to set themselves against every
novelty of trickery and dexterity that the combined imaginations of all
the lawless rascals in England can devise, and to keep pace with every
such invention that comes out. In the Courts of Justice, the materials
of thousands of such stories as we have narrated—often elevated into the
marvellous and romantic, by the circumstances of the case—are dryly
compressed into the set phrase, “in consequence of information I
received, I did so and so.” Suspicion was to be directed, by careful
inference and deduction, upon the right person; the right person was to
be taken, wherever he had gone, or whatever he was doing to avoid
detection: he is taken; there he is at the bar; that is enough. From
information I, the officer, received, I did it; and, according to the
custom in these cases, I say no more.
These games of chess, played with live pieces, are played before small
audiences, and are chronicled nowhere. The interest of the game supports
the player. Its results are enough for Justice. To compare great things
with small, suppose LEVERRIER or ADAMS informing the public that from
information he had received he had discovered a new planet; or COLUMBUS
informing the public of his day that from information he had received,
he had discovered a new continent; so the Detectives inform it that they
have discovered a new fraud or an old offender, and the process is
unknown.
Thus, at midnight, closed the proceedings of our curious and interesting
party. But one other circumstance finally wound up the evening, after
our Detective guests had left us. One of the sharpest among them, and
the officer best acquainted with the Swell Mob, had his pocket picked,
going home!