PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.
Mr. Barton is at breakfast in his snug little house down Brompton way.
Mr. Barton enjoys his breakfast, and eats largely. Mrs. Barton does the
same. It may be here observed that Mr. Barton enjoys all his meals, and
that Mrs. Barton in this particular strictly follows his example. And
yet there was nothing in Mr. Barton’s appearance to lead an observer to
believe that he cared particularly for his meals or was a great eater.
He was a large boned, ungainly, awkward man, with long ill-shaped limbs;
he carried himself stiff and upright, and moved his head as if his gaunt
long neck were encased in a stiff military stock. His hair had been
black and bristly, but it was now thin and grey; his cheeks were closely
shaved, and his face was hard and passionless. Altogether, Mr. Barton’s
appearance was not prepossessing. He was a man whose age it would have
been next to impossible to guess, but he really was about fifty-five.
Mr. Barton was a Scotchman. He had come up to London young, and had,
through the interest of some relations, obtained a situation in the
Detective Police, at that time known as the Bow Street Runners; and a
sharp, active, intelligent detective he turned out. The stiffness, which
he had now so long put on that it had become a second nature to him, was
originally assumed when engaged in London upon ordinary duties, in order
to render detection the more difficult when he was in disguise. Although
somewhat heavy and uncouth in appearance, he was a young man active and
lissome, and, as he had shown on several occasions when he had been
found out, and had been obliged to fight for his life, was possessed of
great strength as well as activity. But situations like these were not
Mr. Barton’s forte; he could, if necessary, fight desperately for his
life, but he was by no means fond of putting himself into positions
where such an eventuality was probable. The authorities at Bow Street
were well aware of this weakness, and generally selected him in
researches in which shrewdness and patience were required rather than
courage. In these they knew he was to be thoroughly relied upon, and
would hunt down his game with the unerring sagacity of a hound. Even
here he failed sometimes, losing his clue unaccountably, and that just
at a time when success seemed certain. The authorities happened upon one
of these occasions to obtain proofs that it was not his sagacity but his
honesty which had been at fault, and that a heavy purse had proved
sufficient to render his eyesight temporarily defective. Thereupon Mr.
Barton was dismissed the force in disgrace. This was fifteen years back;
soon after that time he had married.
Mrs. Barton’s figure was in the strongest possible contrast to that of
her husband. She was a large woman and enormously stout. Mrs. Barton was
a Jewess, the widow of a Hebrew clothier in Houndsditch, who had left
her a small fortune. She had been very handsome when young, but not the
slightest trace of her good looks remained in her fat, coarse face. She
was nearly as old as her husband, but there was not a white hair in the
black bands on her low square forehead. What had induced Mrs. Barton to
marry her present husband was a riddle which none of her friends could
solve. It seemed, however, that he had been employed in some enquiry in
which her late husband was interested, and she was a woman who could
keenly appreciate the shrewdness and energy of the rather uncouth
Scotchman. At any rate, when the days of mourning had expired, the widow
signified her willingness to lay aside her weeds in his favour. As
Robert Barton had just left the force, and was looking out for a fresh
opening, he gladly accepted her offer, although even at that time, at
five-and-thirty, the widow was, to say the least, large, and her good
looks had completely flown. Indeed, he hesitated not a moment. He had
saved up some money, and with that and the widow’s fortune and
connection, he thought he saw his way very clearly before him. It is
true that her friends were extremely angry with her for marrying a
Christian; she became as it were excommunicate, and cut off from all
participation in the service of the synagogue. This feeling, however, in
no way interfered with their willingness to work with her in business,
and as she had been a popular woman among her class during the lifetime
of her first husband, her connections, with the exception of a few of
the strictest set, soon forgave her her marriage out of the pale. A few
weeks after his marriage Mr. Barton opened an office in the City, which
he entitled “Barton’s Private Research and Detection Office.” In a very
short time he began to do a good business, and once or twice made
especially happy hits—succeeding in tracing stolen property, and in
ferreting out an absconding clerk—when the regular detective force had
given up the task in despair. After this his success was a certainty,
and it was soon apparent that he had means of obtaining information
altogether beyond the ordinary police sources of intelligence. Here it
was that Mrs. Barton’s connection came into play. The whole of the
agents he employed belonged to her persuasion, and so numerous and
active were they, that scarce an attempt was made to pass a stolen note
without Barton being informed of it. Even on the Continent, at Hamburg
and other places where Jews congregate, he had numerous correspondents;
and as most of the stolen property was likely, sooner or later, to find
its way there, the information with which he was furnished enabled him
frequently to make the most surprising captures in England. It must not
be supposed that these men betrayed themselves or each other, or that
they restored stolen property which they had purchased. They simply let
him know that they had become possessors of it, and gave him such clues
as would enable him to trace the thief. Besides this they arranged
through him the terms for restoration of bills, and various other
securities, and even for the recovery of bank-notes. There were, indeed,
occasional murmurs heard against him. It seemed, men said, that although
Barton was certain to bring the guilt home to the smaller class of
delinquents, pilfering shop-boys, forgers for small amounts, or
defaulting collectors, yet in cases of great importance, where perhaps
the absconding clerk had made off with very large amounts, his zeal in
following upon the scent, though apparently very great, was rewarded
with singular ill-success.
Robert Barton’s business was not confined to the discovery of frauds;
many of his researches were of a far more complex and delicate nature.
Wives who sought missing husbands; broken-hearted fathers, missing
daughters; claimants to property, who set him to work to find the lost
link in their chain of evidence; husbands and wives who sought proofs of
each other’s infidelity:—all came to Mr. Barton, and on the whole they
were well satisfied with him. In these researches he seldom took any
active part, contenting himself with sitting in the office, holding the
threads of all the nets which his active subordinates were spreading
round their victims. Occasionally, however, when the fit took him, or
the affair was too important to be trusted to any hands but his own, he
would put on a disguise, lay aside his stiff carriage, and transforming
himself so completely that no one would recognise him, sally out upon
his search.
“What have you got to-day, Barton—anything important?”
Robert Barton took out his pocket-book and examined the entries.
“Marriage certificate between John Rogers and Mary Hare, somewhere about
1792, probably in London. That’s a mere matter of sending circulars to
all the parish clerks, offering a reward.—Register of baptism of William
Pollard, 1822. Liverpool or Manchester.—Trace and recover notes and
bills in Borough Bank robbery. That, of course, I cannot move in at
present. It is a large sum, and I have no doubt, from the lot I believe
are in it, that the notes will go over to Hamburg. I must write to Levy
there to get hold of them and hold them for a time, and then I must find
out how much they will give for them.—John Bell, cashier, Latham and
Prodgers’, defaulter; determined to punish; offer £400. I shall soon lay
him by the legs.—Evidence against Mr. Halfall, Bristol. That is rather a
delicate matter. I must send Isaacs down, he is just the man for that;
the fellow is so good-looking, he gets round the servant girls in no
time. It is just nine, I must be off.”
“Mind, Barton, don’t forget sharp six is the dinner-hour; you were ten
minutes late yesterday, and the joint was overdone.”
In a few minutes Mr. Barton was on the roof of his ‘bus on his way to
the city. As he went along he sat grave and immoveable, scrutinizing the
passers-by, as if he considered they all possessed secrets he might be
some day called upon to investigate.
Mr. Barton’s office was in one of the narrow streets leading off
Cheapside, and consisted of two rooms on the first floor, the one a
general waiting-room, the other his private office. In the former two
lads were at work at a desk, copying from the “Gazette” the bankrupt and
insolvent list.
“Has any one been here?”
“One gentleman, sir; he left his card.”
Mr. Barton looked at it. “Did he say he would call again?”
“He left word would you go round directly you came in.”
The card was that of the manager of a large banking firm.
“Ask any one who calls to wait, I shall not be gone many minutes,” and
Mr. Barton took his way to the Bank.
On his sending in his name, he was at once shown into the manager’s
room. The manager, an elderly man with spectacles, was evidently at the
present time considerably ruffled and put out.
“Take a seat, Mr. Barton. A very unpleasant business has taken place,
very much so, indeed. One of our clerks has made away with a great deal
of money; we do not yet know the particulars; we only found it out
yesterday afternoon. We sent for one of the books which he kept, as we
wished to compare it with another; on doing so we discovered some
extraordinary discrepancies; we sent down to him, but he was gone—had
left immediately the book was taken up to us. We sent up to his house,
but of course he had been in and gone out again. We put the police on
his scent last night, but as I was coming up to town this morning, I
remembered that you knew his face, as he was several times at your
office about that case of forgery you followed up for us; his name was
Symes—David Symes.”
“I remember, sir, a fair young man.”
“Just so; we shall offer two hundred pounds reward for his capture.”
“Very well, sir,” Mr. Barton said, “I will lose no time. I will
telegraph down to my agents in Liverpool and Southampton. The police are
sure to watch Dover and Folkestone, and I will myself see about the
London shipping. If he is still in the country, depend upon it we shall
catch him, sir.”
“Reuben,” Mr. Barton said to one of the lads in his office, upon his
return, “go at once and see Jonah Moss and Levi, and tell them to go to
all the slop shops in Houndsditch and eastward, and find out if a young
man of about thirty, fair, with bluish eyes, and very little whisker,
looking like a gentleman, bought any sea clothes down there last night.
If so, bring me a description.”
“You need not trouble yourself, Mr. Barton,” a man said, coming into the
office. “Perhaps I can give you the information you want.”
Mr. Barton looked at him steadily, then opened the door leading into the
inner office, motioned to the man to enter, followed him in, and closed
the door carefully after him. He then took another steady observation of
his visitor. He was dressed as a sailor, with a few little bits of
finery, a chain and rings, such as foreign sailors affect. He was
swarthy and dark, with black hair falling in little curls. He was the
beau ideal of a sailor from the shores of the Mediterranean.
“A very good get-up, Mr. Symes,” Mr. Barton said quietly, “really very
creditable; pass muster very well in the street, but would hardly
deceive anyone on the watch for you. Don’t you think it is just the
least bit rash for you to come here?”
“Rash! not a bit of it,” the man laughed; “the very best thing I could
do.”
“I suppose you know I have just come from the Bank.”
“Quite so, Mr. Barton, I was watching for you. I felt sure they would
put you after me, so I waited till you had been there and got
instructions, and then I thought I would come in and hear all about it.”
“You are a cool hand, certainly,” Mr. Barton said, in a tone of
admiration.
“Well, you see I have been for some time looking things in the face and
making my calculations. I knew, of course, that it must come out, sooner
or later, and I think I have made myself pretty well master of
everything which could bear upon my chances. As I felt sure they would
put you on me I inquired all about your way of doing business.”
“And what was the result of your investigation?” Mr. Barton asked,
rather grimly.
“Why, you see,” the man said, carelessly, “here I am. And now to
business. How much have they offered you?—a hundred pounds?”
“Two hundred,” Mr. Barton said.
“I am sure I feel it a compliment. Two hundred pounds! Well, now look
here. I have taken a big sum altogether, but it has been over a long
time, and has gone pretty nearly as fast as I got it. My luck on the
turf has been really a caution. So I don’t get off with much in the end,
only a few hundred pounds, but I tell you what, I will give you five
hundred pounds to let me go.”
Mr. Barton hesitated, and sat thoughtfully for nearly a minute, and then
he said, “The three hundred you offer me more than they do is not
sufficient to cover the risk.”
“Nonsense, man, there is no risk in the matter, as you know as well as I
do.”
“But suppose, Mr. Symes, that the police catch you, how then?”
“Ah! but the police must not catch me. It’s precisely for that that you
are going to take the extra three hundred. It will be your part of the
business to throw them off the scent, you will find that an easy job
enough.”
“How am I to be paid? that is, supposing I agree to this?”
“I will tell you. I have five hundred and fifty pounds standing as a
deposit in the Joint Stock Bank, in the name of Rogers; here is the
pass-book. When I paid it in, a year ago, I said that I should probably
draw it out in a lump for investment. I have written a letter here to
the manager, saying that I have given a cheque for five hundred—at least
I have left the figures blank at present, and that I shall be obliged if
he will fill up and return my pass-book, and let me know the amount
remaining to my credit. So that he will be prepared for the cheque when
it is presented. In what name shall I fill it in?”
Mr. Barton thought for a minute, and then said, “John Halfourd; he is a
lawyer, it will be better through him, we do business together.”
David Symes filled up the cheque.
“I have dated it the day after to-morrow,” he said. “I sail to-morrow in
the ‘Louisa,’ for America. She warps out of the docks this evening. Put
the police on the track of the Australian ships. I depend on you to do
this. If I am taken, I shall, of course, stop the payment of the cheque.
Good-morning, Mr. Barton.”
“Good-morning, Mr. Symes, a pleasant voyage.”
And the ex-clerk went down the street, whistling gaily.
“That is a monstrous clever fellow,” Mr. Barton said, admiringly; “cool
as a cucumber. It is as well, before I do anything else, to see if this
money really is at the Bank. There, Reuben, run round with this
pass-book to the Joint Stock, and ask them to be good enough to see if
it is all right, and then bring it back here. Don’t say who you come
from, but do it in a regular way of business.”
While the boy was gone, Mr. Barton sat thinking deeply, till he returned
with the message that the book was correct with the exception of the
interest, which could not be added unless the book was left.
“Is Aaron Solomons here, the man who came from Liverpool yesterday?”
“Yes, sir, he is in the outer office. And am I to see about what you
told us before, about the buying the outfit?”
“No, Reuben, that matter is arranged. Tell Solomons to come in here.”
The man entered. He was a well-made, good looking fellow.
“Solomons, when are you thinking of going back to Liverpool?”
“To-night, Mr. Barton.”
“You have never been much in London before, have you?”
“No, sir, I only came up for a week at the time——”
“Yes, Solomons, at the time you assisted at that little affair at the
goldsmith’s—there, don’t look nervous, man. I have kept your secret as
long as this, and you may rely upon it, that as long as you remain
faithful to my interests, I shall continue to do so. Then you are sure
that the police don’t know you?”
“Quite sure.”
“Very well, then I will tell you what I want. Get yourself up as a
gentleman; have you clothes?” The man nodded, and Mr. Barton went on.
“Put on moustaches if you like; don’t put on any jewellery about you,
but look plain and straightforward. Drive in a Hansom to Clinton’s Bank,
and ask to see the manager. Introduce yourself as Mr. Herbert Parker, of
25, Sloane Street, Knightsbridge. The house is really empty at present,
but I have got the name put into the red books; it is useful having a
name or two which no one else can claim. Say to the manager that you
have been intimate for some years with David Symes, a clerk in their
Bank, and that some time since he borrowed a hundred pounds of you;
mention that you called at his house this morning, and found him gone,
and the place in confusion, and that you heard a rumour that he had
absconded.”
The man had been taking notes as Mr. Barton went on. He asked now, “What
was Symes’s address?—you have not told me.”
“123, Brompton Square. Say you came down to the Bank at once, to inquire
if anything was really wrong with Symes; mention that you have heard him
say that he intended to go out some day to his friends in Australia. Do
you quite understand all that, Solomons?”
“Quite,” the man said, repeating from his notes the instructions he had
received. “After that?”
“After that, the manager is pretty certain to ask you if you would be so
good as to go round to the police-station, and tell them what you think
are the reasons why Symes will make for Australia. Get him to give you
his card, and then go to the police-station, and tell them you have been
to the Bank, and, at the manager’s request, came round to give them the
information.”
“Is that all, Mr. Barton?”
“Yes, I think so, Solomons, except that you had best go off by the first
train after you leave the police-station. Here are fifteen pounds for
your trouble.”
The man hesitated a little. “One question, Mr. Barton. Does the man
Symes really go to Australia?—I suppose you are working to get him
away?”
“Why do you ask, Solomons?”
“I ask because, if he is not going to Australia, I do not think you have
hit on the safest plan.”
“No, Solomons?—what is your idea? I know you are a sharp fellow, let me
hear it, man.”
“Well, Mr. Barton, I should think that in any case the police are safe
to have a strong suspicion that it is a plant. Now, if I just get up a
little bit flashy—not too strong, you know—they will suspect it still
more, and they will be sure to send down to Sloane Street, and find out
that No. 25 is empty, and Mr. Herbert Parker is unknown. Now, where does
Symes sail for—America?” Mr. Barton nodded. “Very well, if I go and tell
the same story, only putting in America for Australia, they will be safe
to think that it is a plant, and that I have been sent down to put them
on to the American ship while he gets off in an Australian.”
“Very good, indeed, Solomons; very good. I shall double what I promised
you, and make it thirty pounds, and if you are inclined in a month or so
to come up here from Liverpool, I will promise you a good berth. But it
is time for you to be at work. Remember, you are very likely to be
closely watched when you leave the police-station, so take a four-wheel
cab, and leave your bag in it, and change your things as you go to the
station. Don’t take the cab all the way, but pay him beforehand, and
tell him to stop whenever you get into a lock, so that you can slip out
and join in the crowd without being noticed; then take another cab to
the station, and take your ticket only as far as Crewe: get out there,
and go on by the next train.”
Events turned out as Solomons had predicted. The police had been all day
closely watching the ship “Louisa,” which, with several others, was
lying in the stream ready for a start in the morning; but in the evening
word came down that from information obtained during the day, there was
no doubt that David Symes was not going to America, as had been
supposed, but to Australia or some other part. Consequently, the sharp
watch which had been kept up over the “Louisa” all day was relaxed, and
the vigilance of the police was directed to the other vessels preparing
for a start. The foreign sailor, therefore, who was going out as a
passenger in her to New York to take command of a French vessel lying
there, passed under their eyes almost unheeded, and by eight o’clock
next morning, the “Louisa,” with all sail set, and a strong ebb tide
underneath her, was running past Woolwich, to stop no more till she
furled her sails in New York harbour.
Mr. Barton was very busy all day, sitting like a spider in his den, and
throwing his threads skilfully abroad to entangle the human flies;
which, some buzzing gaily in the sunshine unsuspicious of danger, some
hiding in nooks and corners, were yet equally sure, sooner or later, to
be caught in the meshes.
At a quarter to five Mr. Barton left his office and took his way
homeward, in great content at the day’s proceedings.
“Rachel,” he said to his wife, on entering, “we will have a bottle of
that old crusted port to-day.”
“That means you have done a good day’s work, Robert?”
“Yes, indeed; the best I have done this many a month. Five hundred
pounds clear.”
“That is good indeed, Robert. What was it—a cross, I suppose?”
“Just so, Rachel. One very seldom makes five hundred in a day’s work by
working on the square.” And Mr. Barton told his wife with great glee the
day’s incidents. “Four more years, Rachel, and we shall give it up. By
the way, that puts me in mind of something,” and he consulted his
pocket-book. “It is rather more than six months since I called to see
that boy. I will go in there to-morrow night.”
“I suppose, Barton, you cannot do anything with him till he gets of
age?”
“Nothing, Rachel; there are only four more years to wait now. That
pulled off, we shall be able to retire comfortably.”
“We should not do badly if we gave it up now.”
“By no means, Rachel; but as he will be worth to us at least ten
thousand pounds, it will pay very well to go on another four years. Of
course I shall make my bargain with him, and get a deed drawn up and
signed, before I tell him who he is, and I am sure he would give his
ears to be a gentleman.”
“It was certainly a good idea of yours, Robert, and does you great
credit. Suppose, in honour of the occasion, we have two bottles of that
old port, instead of one.”