warehouse of the Frenchmen--M. Voleur and a fair countrywoman, who was
not Madame Voleur, were proceeding along one of the quiet streets of the
City, in the afternoon, not many hours before the departure of the tidal
train, by which they intended to quit the British metropolis, when that
elegant gentleman was tapped on the shoulder in the politest manner by a
man who turned out, on further acquaintanceship, to be an officer of the
Sheriff of London. The Frenchman was conveyed to the sponging-house over
which this officer presided, despite his protests and the lady's tears.
The creditors, Messrs. Downey and Grabble, had made an affidavit that
the debtor, M. Voleur, was about to leave the country with the view of
hindering and delaying the recovery by them of the money to which they
were entitled; and, upon the strength of this oath, one of the learned
judges had authorised the detention of the Frenchman until he paid the
demand, gave bail for its payment, or liquidated the obligation in
bankruptcy.
Messrs. Voleur and Co.'s agent rushed to the office of a skilful
attorney, who was instructed to do his best for the prisoner. This
gentleman met Mr. Downey and his lawyer in the reluctant lodgings of M.
Voleur, that unlucky man being present. A quarrel was cut short, or
nearly prevented, by considerations of prudence.
M. Voleur's attorney led the discussion into a practical current by
saying to his opponents,
"I tell you plainly, that my client can't put in bail, and he won't lie
in prison. If you don't voluntarily release him, I'll file his petition
in bankruptcy. It was foolish on your part to lock him up. He can't get
the money to pay you while he is here; but if he had his liberty, he
might do so. He's a clever fellow, and will not stop yet awhile, unless
you are silly enough to stop him. If you let him alone, taking care not
to trust him any more yourselves, but not thwarting him or destroying
his credit, you may easily float out in the course of a month or two."
Mr. Downey and his attorney were struck by the ingenuity, if not force,
of the argument, but not quite persuaded to release the debtor.
"Can you offer us any security?" Mr. Downey's adviser asked.
"No," was the terse rejoinder.
"Then I don't see the advantage of liberating your client," added the
creditor's attorney.
The negotiation would have broken off at this point, but for the
Frenchman's ready wit. He had a resource. He had a small contingent
property in France. It was valuable enough to cover the debt of Downey
and Grabble, although not to be easily realised in this country. He did
not like to part with this, his only fortune, to a stranger.
A Frenchman is literally and absolutely nothing, if not always
sentimental, and occasionally lachrymose.
M. Voleur shed tears when he agreed to part with this little contingent
estate to his inexorable creditor; then, having exhausted his natural
emotions, he returned to business, and the negotiation was renewed.
It was ultimately settled, on Downey's giving his assurance, upon the
honour of a gentleman, that he would afterwards do what he could to prop
up the house of Voleur and Enlever--that is, by giving favourable
references as to them--he and his partner should have an assignment made
to them of this contingent estate. The sentimental Frenchman further
stipulated, that when he paid the amount due to Downey and Grabble, as
he expected to do very soon, the creditors should re-transfer the
estate.
The compact was ratified by solemn pledges of honour.
To save appearances, it was arranged that one of the firm of Downey and
Grabble should go to France, pretend to make inquiries about the
respectability of Voleur and Enlever, and telegraph back "all right," as
an excuse fur the liberation of M. Voleur. The reader will see the
necessity for this. Downey and Co. could not venture to speak favourably
of the man they had arrested unless some excuse could be found for an
altered opinion. Downey and Co. would not, of course, tell any body of
the arrest of Voleur, but that ugly fact might withal leak out. How to
reconcile the contents of the affidavit, which led the judge to order
the Frenchman's arrest, with the subsequent eulogiums, was the moral
difficulty to be surmounted.
It is needless to say that the argument of the Frenchman's attorney must
not be repeated, and the security they had obtained must not be
mentioned. The possession of that document was a palpable sign of a want
of that confidence upon which ordinary credit rests. An inquiry on the
spot into the respectability of the French house seemed to all parties
the most effective way of getting up a show of justification for a good
character to be lavished on the swindlers.
Downey started by the next train and boat to Paris. He had for his
companion M. Voleur's madame. This little circumstance was not, I
believe, mentioned to Mrs. Downey, because she had a jealous
disposition.
Within an incredibly short space of time Mr. Downey made all the
inquiries he deemed requisite, and was enabled to despatch the welcome
message, "all right," by the harnessed lightning, as he promised.
Next day Voleur met Downey in the French capital, and the next and the
next were spent in the same place. During this time Voleur and Enlever
introduced the English merchant to theatres, cafés, casinos, and more
recondite places, by way of further evidence of their respectability,
prudence, and commercial trustworthiness.
Downey had gone through all this circle of inquiry, and returned home to
London, before Brown called upon him to ask his opinion of the
Frenchmen. It is a pity that the respectable British merchants, when
they gave Mr. Brown the testimonial by which he lost his goods or his
money, did not expose the bases of their faith in Voleur and Enlever.
They surely ought not to have concealed the security in their
possession, the arrest of their debtor, or a few other small incidents.
I thought the respectable members of the house of Downey and Grabble
deserved punishment as criminals. It appeared, however, that no part of
the criminal code could touch them. As yet, moreover, it was, on the
authority of a lawyer of repute in the City of London, not possible to
recover, by an action at law, the value of the goods supplied to Voleur
and Co. on the strength of their English reference. But I had not yet
finished my investigations.
I soon after this alighted upon a grand discovery. I got hold of all the
confidential correspondence between M. Voleur and the English manager of
their house. This young man, who had been more sinned against than
sinning, also assisted me in tracing the delinquencies of his masters,
and their confederates or supporters.
The correspondence was exceedingly interesting. M. Voleur, who was the
principal correspondent, knew English as well as his mother tongue, or
he was entitled to rank among the highest of French _littérateurs_. The
pathos was fine. The letters had such passages as these: "We are in sore
distress for money." "Buy goods any where; sell or dispose of them any
how; and send us here to Paris the money, or we are ruined quite." Then
there were worldly maxims, that would have done credit to Captain
Barabbas Whitefeather, such as, "Pay no cash. It's a bad principle. Get
every thing on credit." The most unique passages were, however, those
in which the Frenchman explained to his English agent how the
trade-protection societies were to be managed, hoodwinked, or bribed. In
the interests of trade I must, however, conceal this part of the
swindle.
It now appeared to me that, by gathering up all the items of fact, and
uniting the written with the oral evidence, my case against Downey and
Grabble was complete. A solicitor was consulted, and he took counsel's
opinion on the matter. That authority pronounced that the evidence would
not sustain a criminal prosecution, and in truth Mr. Brown did not much
care about that, to him, barren remedy. He wanted to promote the welfare
of society in a mode that would recoup his loss. He wanted to compel
Downey and Grabble to pay the amount they had induced him, solely by
their representations, to trust the Frenchmen. In the way of even this
there were, it was thought, some difficulties.
That eminent old lawyer, Lord Tenterden, had been, many long years ago,
at the pains to provide a statutory immunity for people like Downey and
Grabble. Mr. Brown, as an Englishman, ought to have known the laws of
his country--it is presumed that every man has all the written and the
unwritten, the common, the civil, and the criminal codes engraven on the
tablets of his memory--but Mr. Brown did not know it was requisite for
his safety that the many representations of the English firm should be
written down in unblushing ink. Even if he had known so much as was
requisite for his security, he might have relied upon the mistaken
supposition that Downey and Grabble were truthful men.
In the hope that this case had features which took it from under the
mischievous ægis of Lord Tenterden, in reliance upon a notion that
Downey and Grabble would not dare to allow the cause to reach a public
trial, and also prepared to risk something in the interest of the
mercantile community, Mr. Brown brought his action against these
"respectable" men. It cost him something, did this resolution. He had to
employ first-rate counsel, whose fees were not small. The cause was
defended. Downey and Co. knew that this was but one of a series of
claims, which, under the like circumstances, might arise against them.
At the trial all the facts I have mentioned were clearly established.
The learned counsel who led the plaintiff's case denounced, in terms of
just severity, the conduct of the defendants. The judge, the jury, and
the spectators would have been glad to see financial equity enforced
against the wrong-doers. At the conclusion of the evidence Mr. Brown was
able to offer, the counsel for the defendants argued that he had no case
to answer. He took his stand upon the Act of Parliament. He did not
attempt to deny the merits of the plaintiff's case. He could not answer
the damnatory facts. Upon the dry technical question, whether or not
Messrs. Downey and Grabble were shielded by the obnoxious statute, there
was a long argument, which ended in the judge's expressing an opinion
that he was afraid they were; and the plaintiff was nonsuited.
The respectable house of Downey and Grabble did not long survive its
damaging triumph. It has ceased to appear in the _London Directory_, and
its members have found it requisite to their comfort to emigrate beyond
the limits of a most unenviable notoriety.
MATRIMONIAL ESPIONAGE.
Among the curiosities of my experience I reckon the incidents of the
narrative I am about to relate.
A few years ago, a gentleman of considerable estate, one of the untitled
nobility of England, called upon me, and explained that he had reason to
suspect the fidelity of his wife. I did not recognise the force of these
reasons. The facts on which this gloomy, although partial, faith in the
lady's impurity or falseness had been raised might, with strict literal
accuracy, he described as "trifles light as air."
This suspicion was, however, not to be wholly disregarded by a stranger,
at the first blush of the case. My visitor's station in life, his
intellectual qualifications, and his affection for his wife, appeared
like guarantees that he would not condemn her without cause. He did not,
however, assert with confidence that she was guilty. All he had, or
professed to have, was a doubt. He told me that nothing would give him
more delight than a perfect conviction that he had been under a delusion
about the lady.
Perhaps it would be well to describe somewhat more fully the actors in
this curious little drama. Mr. Percival was the only son of a wealthy
and improving land-owner in the county of Sussex. He had, in
consequence, inherited his father's whole landed estate, together with a
large sum of money, and considerable investments in public funds and
other reliable securities. His education had been well cared for. He
lost his mother when only about fourteen years of age, and his character
had, it is probable, suffered from want of the chastening influences of
maternal care. This was, however, the only defect, if it were a defect,
in his training. His father had anxiously watched the conduct and the
development of his youth. He had been educated at Eton, where he
excelled in more than one branch of study. At Oxford he took honours. He
was a superior type of the class known as "country gentlemen." His
habits were those of a man of culture and a man of fortune.
Mrs. Percival was a lady of good, although comparatively poor, family.
Her father rejoiced in the title of an Irish landlord; but the rent-roll
of the estate was not very considerable, and it needed dexterous
management to keep it from the withering grasp of the Encumbered Estates
Court. Still, out of their slender resources, Mrs. Percival's parents
had given her a superior education. She could draw, she was a skilful
and a good musician, she was an elegant horse-woman, and otherwise
accomplished. Her manners were free and natural,--sometimes a little
child-like or hoydenish. She was a little, and but a little, above the
average stature of her sex; had a graceful mien, and a sweet face. If I
were expert in drawing pen-and-ink sketches, after the manner of a
novelist, I should describe this lady as an almost perfect woman.
The reader will understand that I have, in this description, anticipated
the narrative so far as to let him know more of the lady and the
gentleman than I could learn within a period of two months.
"You will excuse my candour, sir, I hope; but I fail to see the grounds
for your suspicion of your wife."
"I like your candour. It is reassuring. I may be mistaken. I devoutly
pray that I am. You have, I am told, had great experience in such
painful domestic affairs as that I now trouble you with. It is already a
source of much comfort to me that I have consulted you. If you can
remove the horrid doubts which oppress me, I shall esteem you my
benefactor; but let me know the truth, whatever that may be."
I again begged him to be a little more precise than he had been in
detailing the cause of his suspicions.
"In solemn confidence, I may say that we were at a dinner-party at the
house of Mr. Tallboyes, in Seymour Place, the week before last, and it
was impossible to avoid noticing her freedom with young Lord Swellington
and Colonel Foreshore."
"The colonel!" I said; "he is a man of sixty. He has seen much hard
service; and is 'a lion' in every party just now, I have heard. Were not
your wife's attentions the mere courtesies which all true women find
pleasure in bestowing upon age and bravery?"
"That might be; but what do you say about her pleasantries with that
conceited and empty-headed young fop, Lord Swellington?"
"These might be the innocent raillery and badinage of the purest woman.
Ladies sometimes take a cruel pleasure in trifling with, just to
mortify, the fop, in whatever grade of society he may be found."
"I sincerely hope you are right; but, unhappily, these have not been the
only causes of my grief. My wife is too fond of pleasure. We have lately
been at two public breakfasts,--one given by Lady W----, at Kew; and
another by the Marchioness of L----, at Chiswick."
"That--pardon my suggesting, under the most adverse, and at the same
time rational, estimate of human character--betrays only something of
levity, quite consistent with purity of heart and the strictest
rectitude of conduct."
"You are not, I am glad to say, an uncharitable interpreter of human
conduct."
"Indeed I hope not; for although I have seen much wickedness, and a vast
deal of subtle, as well as patent, crime, I have met with many instances
in which unjust suspicions have provoked calamities. But was there any
thing, and if so what was there, in the conduct of your wife to justify
your suspicions about her?"
"Well, she flirted with every gentleman present at each party, young and
old."
"With every one?"
"Yes, or nearly so."
"This is enough to show the groundlessness of your apprehensions. Mrs.
Percival may have been too richly endowed with vivacity, but _my_
suspicion is that her freedom arises, in great part, from her conscious
guilelessness and her moral self-possession."
"Again I say I _hope_ you may be right, and I wrong."
"Why so emphasise that word _hope_? Have you observed any other
instances of what you deem your wife's impropriety?"
"Yes," he replied, with a sigh.
"Relate them."
"The other day my wife induced me to take her to the flower-show held in
the gardens of the Botanic Society, Regent's Park."
"She asked you to take her?" I interposed.
"Yes, and I did so. I yield every thing she desires; and why not, as I
am not certain that her affections wander?"
"Quite correct; but did any thing occur there?"
"Perhaps you deem it nothing. She hung on the arm of Colonel Foreshore
for a couple of hours."
"The old Indian colonel?"
"Yes."
"Well, really, I do not see any thing in that. I happened to be at that
show myself with Mrs. Forrester and a distinguished relative of ours. I
remember that among the flowers were several Oriental plants, which our
florists have succeeded in naturalising. This is one of the most common
incidents of a flower-show."
"I wish I could look upon these things as you do. A single incident of
the kind might not have aroused my apprehensions; but so many, and at
various times furnish a collective evidence impossible to resist."
"How long have you been married?"
"A little more than two years."
"Any family?"
"No."
I was quite convinced, as the reader must be, that there was really
nothing in the conduct of Mrs. Percival to justify the cruel suspicions
of her husband. His employment of me would, I saw, be one of the
absurdest things he could very well do.
Should I allow him to employ me? Ought I to permit myself to be used as
a spy upon his wife's movements--being so firmly convinced, as I was, of
her innocence?
The mystery of this jealousy was capable of a simple explanation. The
lady had been endowed by nature with a somewhat mercurial disposition,
which her education had done little to check. The very scenes in which
her girlhood had been spent had inspired her with a wild or playful
tendency. Nothing in her married life had yet happened to curb or
control the innocent gaiety, or it might be waywardness, of her
disposition. Had her union with Mr. Percival been blessed by offspring
(of which, it is needless to say, there was yet no ground for despair),
it is most probable that at dinner-parties she would have been a less
attractive member, at public breakfasts she would have been less chatty
or facetious, at flower-shows a less anxious inquirer.
But should I, or should I not, undertake to confirm or remove the unjust
husband's suspicions?
Upon this I could not make up my mind. I required time for
consideration. It was arranged that Mr. Percival should see me again in
three days.
During the interval between his first and second visits, I carefully
balanced reasons for and against the engagement, and at length resolved
to accept it. If I did not undertake it, I knew others would, if it were
offered them. If they took it in hand, I was not at all sure that they
would perform their task with becoming delicacy and consideration. I
thought it not improbable that some rude or vulgar man might be
instructed, and that he might, by starting on his inquiry with a
foregone conclusion of the lady's guilt, so interpret what he saw of her
free conduct as to increase her husband's jealousy. On the other hand,
if I undertook the affair, I doubted not the result would be a
vindication of Mrs. Percival in her husband's eyes.
Mr. Percival punctually kept his appointment with me.
He was the first to speak.
"I hope," he said, "you have agreed to assist me?"
"I have."
"Well, I shall feel grateful to you when you have probed the
truth--doubly grateful, if you can prove that my doubts about my wife
are unfounded."
"I expect to earn that double gratitude."
"Be it so," he said, with great emphasis. "It is no drawback on your
professional merits, to my mind, that you have already formed an opinion
that my wife is as good as I could wish her, and that I am a jealous
fool. I should not like to know that you had condemned _her_
beforehand. I am persuaded that you will do your duty faithfully towards
me, and considerately towards her."
I promised him that much.
There was a ball at Almack's the very next day. Mrs. Percival was to be
there, and so was her husband. They would go separately, after the
manner of the _ton_--she in her brougham, and he in his cab.
I did not think Almack's a desirable place to begin my inquiries in. It
would not be easy for me to gain admission into this closest of all
assemblies, although I could have encompassed that, as I had before. I
preferred a stand-point of observation where etiquette was less rigid.
Next week there was to be a grand fancy-dress ball, under a potent body
of lady patronesses, for the relief of starvation in Whitechapel; and
Mrs. Percival, acting under the feeble light of conventional charity,
thought it her duty to buy a ticket (price one guinea, of which an
infinitessimal portion was netted for the indigent), and to largely
patronise her dressmaker and milliner, in proof of her intense sympathy
with the famishing poor.
I attended this ball, and was sickened by its palpable mockery of the
distress it was ostensibly designed to relieve; but I must not get off
the track of my narrative to moralise.
At this ball I saw nothing to justify a suspicion of impropriety on the
part of Mrs. Percival; nor did I at a flower-show which was held in the
grounds of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham; nor at a public breakfast
which the Marchioness of L---- gave in her grounds at Chiswick. A more
private scrutiny of the lady's movements also went to prove her strictly
virtuous in character.
I now got wearied and half-disgusted with my task, and brought it to an
end by reporting to Mr. Percival my absolute conviction of his wife's
innocence and purity. He received my statement without offering any
opinion upon it, and it was evident that he was not quite satisfied with
it. It had, I dare say, weakened his suspicions, but it had not
destroyed them. I was sorry for the imperfect result, but I could do no
more than I had done for his satisfaction.
I often mused and reflected over this curious case. What could have
given rise to these suspicions in the mind of such a man as Mr.
Percival? I set it down to incompatibility of temper. He was a somewhat
studious and retiring man. His wife, although as good a woman as ever
drew breath, was a light and somewhat volatile person. In many respects,
I argued, this is an incongruous union. I thought I saw inevitable
misery for both husband and wife in the future.
About a year after I had finished my proper business with Mr. and Mrs.
Percival, I was waited upon by an eminent London solicitor, who knew
nothing of my former engagement, for the purpose of tracing the retreat
of that gentleman, who had deserted his wife, and was hiding from all
his friends. My visitor, the private solicitor of Mr. Percival, had not
heard from him since or about his flight. It was not supposed that any
violence had befallen him, although it was hard to say what harm might
befall him. His physician had advised that he had been suffering from
one of the thousand forms of one of the hundred branches of that
disorder known by the familiar collective title of insanity. It was a
mild and harmless type of the disease--a species of melancholia. The
friends of the unfortunate gentleman were anxious to discover, and
perhaps secretly watch over, him; at the worst, place him under gentle
and temporary restraint. As he was known to be a man of high and
honourable ambition--very likely to obtain and worthily fill a seat in
Parliament, unless his prospects were marred--publicity, scandal, or
gossip, on the subject of his bereavement, was to be deprecated.
I accepted this engagement, and I thought it desirable to let the
solicitor know of the previous retainer given me by Mr. Percival, so
that he might re-state the facts to the physician, who would thereby
gain some insight into the secret of the gentleman's misfortune.