"Never mind, dear George; we're not thieves; they have searched my house
in every part, but they have found nothing."
"Now," observed the officer, "don't say any thing that'll injure
yourselves while I'm with you. I don't want you to criminate yourselves.
Only mind, I shall give all that I hear as evidence; and I don't mind
saying that I don't like the look of things. 'Found nothing!' well, if
that sort of talk ain't thieves' patter, I don't know what is. I ain't
found nothing yet; but if I get a remand, won't I find nothing!"
Mr. Goodwin shuddered. Miss Goodwin was eloquent in the form of
denunciation.
The gentleman, by the time of the arrival of the party at the
station-house, had recovered his self-possession. He demanded the means
of communicating with a solicitor. This was afforded him. He chose the
name of a well-known criminal practitioner, one of the cleverest and one
of the most respectable of his class.
The professional man recognised his client. He had before been employed
as the agent of that client's family solicitor in a prosecution.
Within ten minutes after the arrival of the lawyer at the station, the
door of Mr. Goodwin's cell was opened, and that gentlemen with his
attorney were shown into the head private apartment of the officer who
lives on the premises. Miss Goodwin was also looked after with as much
tenderness during her stay in this urban hostelry.
After a short further interview between the attorney and gentleman, and
a few words with the lady in compulsory waiting, a conference was held
between the magistrate, his learned clerk, and the attorney.
Mr. and Miss Goodwin were then next shown into his worship's private
room, and the brother and sister were liberated on their own
recognisances.
Nothing further was done in the case against the occupants of the
suburban cottage. Nothing was done by that lady and gentleman against
any other person for setting the law in motion against them. The
vigilant sergeant got promoted. On what theory and by what influences,
let the reader guess. Was it as a reward for past clever and prudent
service? Was it the price of perpetual silence? Was it the seal upon a
mystery?
I cannot explain why the sergeant was thus dealt with; but as much of
some other things as I can properly explain, I will.
First, let me say that I had no further interference by the police with
my plans for the detection of the real thieves, and that I hunted them
down to conviction.
In the second place, I may inform the reader that Mr. Goodwin was no
other than an _alias_ for his Grace the Duke of Nomatterwhere, a
nobleman who boasts of a long pedigree, and whose own father was not a
little proud of the historic traditions of the house of Nomatterwhere.
The living duke has a large rent-roll, an almost infinitessimal portion
of which goes to Miss Goodwin, who, although not a sister, is in very
intimate relationship towards him. He had reasons of his own, I dare
say, for the quiet, or, as I should say, mysterious manner in which his
visits to the cottage in the western suburb were shrouded.
THE ATTORNEY AND THE SMUGGLER.
Tommy Johnson was a smuggler of the modern school, about which it is
hardly necessary to say more than that it differs considerably from the
old or the ideal school. Neither Tommy nor any of his men were the
picturesque ruffians that school-boy imagination describes, under the
tutelary genius of well-known romancists; nor did they much resemble the
full-booted, rollicking giants which low art, in common pictures,
invariably makes the bold smuggler.
Tommy, the smuggler chief, was a short, stout, ruddy-faced,
good-humoured fellow, who lived much as small tradesmen (of whom he was
also one) live in that part of the south of England to which he
belonged. Every body, it is said, liked him, and he liked every
body--except a revenue-officer.
Of Johnson's kith and kindred nobody knew, and few cared to inquire, any
thing. Whether Tommy was his real name or not, I am uncertain. When on
one occasion, being in trouble, he was asked by a local magistrate who
his friends (perhaps meaning his relatives) were, jovial Tommy, with a
show of distress, replied somewhat as that eccentric child of the Rev.
Mrs. Stowe, Topsy, might have done, "that he 'spected he hadn't got
any." There was, however, too much modesty or a little untruth in this.
Tommy Johnson had hosts of sympathisers, who were prepared at all times
to do him any service in their power. Rumour for many miles about his
place of abode gave him credit for being what he really was--a smuggler.
Tommy felt it necessary sometimes to vary the compliment, but not
always. He never went so far as to repudiate having defrauded the
revenue. He was rather pleased to hear folks embody in words the popular
theory that there was no harm in robbing the Custom House. He did not
care to hide from some people that he did now and then run a vessel
clandestinely between a Dutch port and some mysterious point off a
craggy side of the Isle of Wight. He, however, usually preferred to be
known as a man who had once been in, but now retired from, that
business.
Tommy, who was an otherwise prosperous man, once determined that he
would indeed give up his perilous and unlawful business or profession.
"My dear," he once observed to his loving wife, on their return from
church one Sunday evening, "I'll cut smuggling. I'm thinking it's time I
did. We can afford it, you know. This here business, the butcher's shop,
pays; the inn at P---- would honestly pay of itself; and the brickfield
turns out right."
"I wish you would, with all my heart," his wife replied.
"I will. My mind's made up."
"You have said that before, Tommy," observed his sweet partner; "but you
can't do it. I wish you could. You must be a smuggler. It's the fun of
it you like, as you say, I suppose?"
"Well, yes, I will. I've quite made up my mind. When I _do_ really make
up my mind to any thing, you know, I do it. I'll have just one more run,
just _one_ more, and then I drop the game, and stick to the trade on
land."
"That's what you said the year before last. Do you recollect the time,
Tommy?"
Tommy shuddered. He made that promise to himself, and kept it by running
a lugger from a port in the Netherlands to one of his points of
concealment here. The affair turned out a bad one. The coast-guard
discovered the arrival of the boat, seized the craft and its contents,
and Tommy Johnson also, and ultimately lodged him in the gaol at
Winchester, where he had to undergo a long imprisonment, pending the
arrival of the assizes.
That the smuggler then had friends was here demonstrated. The facts were
as plain as they could be, but their interpretation or bearing on the
question of guilt or innocence was left to the jury, who had the law
expounded for their guidance with all possible certainty. Tommy Johnson
was acquitted in the teeth of evidence and the strength of a sympathy
between himself and every man in the jury-box.
Let me, however, return to the last conversation between Mr. and Mrs.
Johnson.
"I would have cut it after that," he said; "but it cost such a sight of
money. What with the loss of the ship, and all the rum, brandy, and
hollands, and the hard money I paid Lawyer Swelling, we were almost
ruined. I couldn't stop then. Neck or nothing, I must go in again; but
now we're on our legs again, thank God! and I'll drop the game after one
more slice of luck."
Having made this resolution, Mr. Johnson next day proceeded to execute
it. He drew out two good round sums of money from different banks; a
fine lugger, "a perfect beauty," as he declared, was soon afterwards
bought, and she was in due course freighted with liquors on a
neighbouring coast.
I happened, not many weeks after this, to be travelling as an outside
passenger by the coach from Cowes to Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, when
two revenue-carts, heavily laden, passed us on the road.
"My eyes!" exclaimed my driver; and addressing a man who swayed the whip
in the first cart, he inquired, "Whose is that lot?"
"Tommy Johnson's, we suppose."
"Poor fellow! unlucky again!" sighed the coachman.
The last venture that was to crown the honest resolution had, then,
failed, and worse had to be encountered.
The repentant smuggler was again locked up in Winchester Gaol for a
weary succession of months. The case had already been established
against him by the clearest evidence. Tommy's heart dropped. His rotund
form became elongated, his cheeks lost their plumpness and their colour,
his garments hung loosely about his person, and his mind was ill at
ease.
This was the fourth time Tommy Johnson had been put on his trial for a
like offence against the laws of his country. Each time his case was, in
the opinion of his legal advisers, more desperate than before. The facts
were not each time stronger, but the prejudice against the prisoner
increased with his reappearance in the dock.
Tommy and his wife resolved that no expense should be spared over the
defence. Mr. Swelling, of Gosport, who had been so very successful on
former occasions, was again instructed, and told to lay out as much
money as he pleased in briefs to counsel. I reckon that he made a fine
thing out of this bold modern smuggler. Four hundred pounds sterling
were paid to him on account at starting. Another hundred were given him
before the gaol delivery came round; and there was a balance yet to be
liquidated, for which, however, the attorney agreed to give time. Now,
suppose that he gave Mr. Needy, the indefatigable junior counsel, in all
25_l._ (which is far over the mark), and that Mr. Silkyarn, the eminent
leader, got in all 75_l._ (which is a vast exaggeration), allow 50_l._
for the slight further costs out of pocket, and it will be seen that the
attorney made a handsome profit. But there was yet a balance to be
settled.
The days previous to trial were days of anxiety to the smuggler and his
wife. Their intensity, of course, increased as they approached the grand
ordeal. At last the day arrived on which, for the fourth time in his
life, Tommy Johnson was placed on his trial for smuggling in the Assize
Court at Winchester.
Again, to the surprise of his own attorney and counsel, he was
acquitted.
The explanation of this miscarriage of justice is easily found. The
arrest of Johnson caused a sensation through the entire county of Hants.
He was, as I have said, a jovial man, and a kind-hearted fellow, in his
way. Rumour spread the story of his dashing adventures far and
wide--exaggerating and intensifying their commonplace into wild romance.
This alone fascinated the public mind. But again, rumour having taken
Tommy Johnson under her protection, just as she wantonly injures so many
others, she made the very most she could of his merits. Every single act
of kindness he had ever performed was magnified a hundredfold, and the
common smuggler became a hero. I verily believe that Tommy Johnson could
have got a hundred acquittals, at as many consecutive assizes. I don't
believe that a jury could be found to pronounce that awful word guilty
to an indictment preferred by the Crown against him.
Tommy Johnson, after his acquittal, returned home, in a condition which
an original mind has described as that of a wiser, sadder, and poorer
man than he was prior to the last run. He, however, laudably determined
not to make another adventure. He would not seek, through new perils, to
retrieve his loss. Without any claims to the character of poet himself,
he drew philosophy from Hamlet, and resolved to bear the ills he had
rather than fly to others which, his lawyers told him, he could not
fathom the depths of. He would stick to the safe pursuit of fortune on
land, and not tempt the perils of the deep in the way he had done. In
one of his soliloquies on this point he observed that he had made money
at it, but he was afraid that he had used up his luck. He couldn't stand
those long imprisonments, and he couldn't always go on dropping
thousands into the hands of the coast-guard and the lawyers. On the
whole, he was decidedly of opinion that smuggling was objectionable, on
many grounds, and for various reasons; so he did in fact at last resolve
to give it up--and he kept that promise.
Mr. Johnson, in less than a fortnight (being so anxious, as he said, to
get the affair off his mind) wrote to his attorney to ascertain the
exact balance due to that able and worthy man. The lawyer answered by a
note, which led Mr. Johnson to call at his office with about 150_l._ in
his pocket.
"Well, Mr. Johnson," observed the attorney, stretching out his hands
with frigid cordiality, "sit down. I am glad to see you, Mr. Johnson;
very glad indeed. I never thought I should have succeeded in getting you
off the last time. You owe a great deal to me and to your excellent
counsel, Mr. Needy and Mr. Silkyarn."
"Oh, yes; I'm much obliged, sir, I assure you," Johnson interposed, with
the hope of abbreviating the homily.
"Of course," continued the lawyer, "I am bound to do the best I can for
my client who is in a difficulty. I am glad that I did succeed in
getting you off; but prevention is better than cure, you know, Mr.
Johnson."
"Of course," exclaimed the impatient client.
"And," the attorney went on to say, "let me give you a bit of sound
advice gratis--moral and religious advice, as well as legal--Mr.
Johnson. Let me assure you, that although I dare say you think there is
no harm in it, it is as wicked to plunder the revenue as it is to rob a
private individual."
"I can't see it in that light," said the unconvicted smuggler.
"It is so, upon my honour," replied the attorney. "Think over what I now
say. Reflect upon the matter, Mr. Johnson, and you'll see I'm right."
"Well, that's an affair for to-morrow. Let me see, what did you say your
balance was, sir?"
"Oh, ah! Well, I said I'd take a hundred guineas in final
settlement--that is, a hundred and five pounds, Mr. Johnson."
Johnson counted the money in notes, and handed it to the attorney, who
laid it on his table.
A moment's silence followed.
It was broken by the attorney, who did not quite understand the look of
the client; and as he feared that Mr. Johnson might be thinking the
costs excessive, Mr. Swelling turned the theme.
"Now, I hope the next time you retain my services, they will be needed
for some different purpose. I should like to see you make money, and
invest it in land or houses, and let me prepare the deeds."
"Yes, sir, you shall, when I can get the money to buy the land and
houses."
"Well, till then good by, Mr. Johnson," said the attorney, rising to bow
out his client.
"You forgot, sir, I think, to give me a receipt; and I don't think I
ever had any for the money I paid you in the prison?"
"Oh, very well, Mr. Johnson. Certainly you can have a duly-stamped
receipt, if you please; but I hope you don't suppose that I want to
cheat you? I should not like to think you reward my anxious services on
your behalf by entertaining such an unjust suspicion of me as that?"
"No, sir. Oh, no. Nothing of that sort. Only, as you were a-saying that
it's as wrong to rob the revenue as it is a private individual, I
thought (although I don't see things quite in that light) that you ought
to give me one."
The attorney's moral philosophy cost him 7_s._ 6_d._
He bit his lip, and sat down; and as penny receipts had not been
invented, he wrote on a stamp of the above value a receipt for all the
money paid him by the smuggler, who rather enjoyed the joke he had
played off on his legal adviser.
SWINDLING ACCORDING TO ACT OF PARLIAMENT.
I think that the merchants and traders of England, Scotland, and
Ireland, or the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom, might lay
out a fair sum of money in a worse mode than by retaining me to
illustrate, through my experience, some defective acts of Parliament,
under which, as I have seen, frequent palpable and sometimes gigantic
villany is perpetrated. Whether this notion of my usefulness to the
mercantile community and the State is justified or not by any thing I
can show, the reader may judge from the following, which is one sample
of a stock in my recollections.
An honest, struggling, and not rich, but moderately successful, trader
in the City of London, not long ago, was told that a certain "firm"
(Messrs. Voleur and Enlever), who had offices, or a warehouse, not many
hundreds of yards from the Mansion House, and somewhat nearer to the
cold abode of Gog and Magog, and who had an establishment in Paris,
might do business with him in a certain class of goods. The trader, Mr.
Brown, although not able to bear losses, and therefore somewhat
cautious, was, at the same time, naturally anxious to do business. He
inquired the standing of this firm. His friend could not tell him, but
said that other friends of his--Messrs. Downey and Grabble--were
traders with these enterprising Parisians; that Downey was the very
model of scrupulousness; and that Mr. Brown might go and ask him to say
confidentially what he knew about or thought of the Frenchmen. "Downey
and Grabble are first-class people, I can assure you. If they say
'right,' all is right; and if they say 'don't,' then I say don't trust
Voleur and Enlever, that's all." Brown thanked his friend.
Next day, as a matter of course, Brown called at the London office or
warehouse of Voleur and Enlever, which, for geographical definiteness, I
may also explain was not far from the High Court of Relief, in
Basinghall Street. He had samples of his goods in his pocket. The agent
and buyer of the French firm was in his proper place behind the counter.
Firstly a formal explanation and inquiry or two passed between these
gentlemen.
"What class of goods do you say you can offer us?"
"Alpacas."
"They will do for the Paris market just now, but we must have them
cheap. We don't want long credit."
"They are a job lot. I can offer them low for cash or short credit."
"Our terms are cash at thirty days; but let us see your samples."
The samples were laid on the counter, critically examined by the
intended buyer, and approved. Mr. Brown was also content (subject to
references) with the thirty days' credit.
"Well," he said, continuing the dialogue, "I am quite satisfied as to
the terms of credit; but as this is my first transaction with your
house, I should like a reference, which, if quite satisfactory, as I
have no doubt it will be, I'll send in the goods at once."
"Oh, that's quite right. Let me see, who shall I give you? Do you know
Downey and Grabble?"
"Yes; I know them very well. That reference is quite satisfactory to
me."
"Ask _them_, then, what they think of Voleur and Enlever."
Mr. Brown went direct to the counting-house of Downey and Grabble. Both
members of the firm were out. He called again, and saw the two members
of this very respectable house.
The visitor went direct to the business on which he had called.
"I am told you are dealing with Voleur and Enlever."
"Yes."
"They are good, then?"
"We suppose so," said Downey, in silken tones, "or we should have
nothing to do with them;" and as he spoke he turned his eyes upon his
partner.
Grabble added, "Perhaps it would be more satisfactory to this gentleman
if we showed him our account with the house he inquires about. Here,
Clark, let me have the ledger."
The ledger was brought. It showed a large amount as due from Voleur and
Co. to Downey and Co.
"I see," said Brown, "that you have confidence in them. You'll,
however, excuse my being a little particular. I am a poorer man than you
are, and although I am anxious to do business, I must be careful not to
make bad debts."
"What goods are they you have to sell?" inquired Grabble.
"Alpacas," said Brown.
"Ah, yes; they are wanted in Paris just now. Voleur's might sell an
immense lot of those, I should think. It's a good opening for you."
"What credit do they want?" asked Downey.
"Thirty days," said Brown.
"It's as safe as the Bank. You are sure to get your money at the end of
the month. I know both Voleur and Enlever. They are young men belonging
to first-class families, and as sound as Copestakes or Morleys."
Brown thanked Downey and Grabble, and went on his way to his own little
warehouse, rejoicing in the confident belief that he had done a good
day's work--that he had netted a ten-pound note that morning.
The goods were sent in with all convenient speed by Brown to Voleur and
Enlever. By their agent the alpacas were not forwarded to
Paris,--perhaps because they were needed in the home market. The Paris
house had, as Downey and Grabble well knew, a means of disposing of all
sorts of textile, or even fictile products, much nearer to the City
branch of their operations than the French capital. There was, in the
neighbourhood of the London Rialto, "a house" kept by two kind-hearted
members of one of the tribes of Israel, in which any conceivable
quantity of goods that any other firm or house could buy on credit might
be taken care of; and these benevolent Hebrews would at all times not
only warehouse the aforesaid goods, but they would also oblige trading
Gentiles by advances (of course for a consideration, under the name of
interest) up to a certain proportion of the value of these goods. Now,
reader, don't call this process by an ugly name. If you have read the
former stories in my volume, you will be aware that this mode of
disposing of goods is not called pawning. That is an obnoxious
word--never breathed among City men, or allowed to taint the air between
Temple Bar and Aldgate. This mode of raising cash, and getting off
commodities, is called hypothecating. Is it not a nice phrase? The
process is undoubtedly sanctified by the title.
Now it so happened that a man who traded in the City of London, and had
done business with the firm of Voleur and Enlever, and whose goods had
been hypothecated with the Hebrew benefactors, did not admire the
process. He had seen his goods, supplied to the enterprising Frenchmen
on the strength of one of Downey and Grabble's oral testimonials, safely
housed by the Israelites; and he determined that he would exert his
utmost power and influence to prevent other men's wares, intended for
Paris, from a like diversion of their route. This man, by watching and
inquiry, found out that the goods lately belonging to Brown, and now the
lawful property of Voleur and Enlever, to do as they liked with, had
been sent to the hypothecators. He called upon Brown, who he saw had
been made a victim of, and gave explanations which reflected upon the
character of the houses of both Voleur and their reference. Brown was a
little alarmed, but philosophically remarked that the mischief had been
done, and there was no help for it. In fact he yet hoped, on the
strength of Downey's testimonial, that the money faithfully promised in
thirty days would be paid in due course.
Before the day when Mr. Brown's money became due, the English branch of
the house of Voleur and Enlever was shut up; letters addressed to the
chief establishment in Paris were returned through the Dead Letter
Office. The firm had become dissolved, the house had run away, and no
man could discover its whereabouts.
Mr. Brown saw that his money was lost, unless he could make those
rascals Downey and Grabble pay. To this point all his thoughts were
directed. He felt quite convinced that these "respectable" traders knew
all about their Continental friends, and that it only needed a searching
investigation to prove the complicity of the houses through whom he had
been defrauded.
At this state of the affair I was employed.
My inquiries soon unravelled the whole plot. It turned upon a simple
fact; but the surrounding incidents of the narrative were remarkably
unique, and interesting to the mercantile community.
In fact Downey and Grabble were in the first place taken in, and nearly
done for; to a large amount, by Voleur and Enlever. The persuasion of
the Frenchmen had been more than a match for the craft of those
Englishmen, who originally hailed from the county of York.