(A CURIOSITY IN CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.)
The case of the tailor, Peter Anderson, who was beaten to death near
the Royal Terrace, on the Calton Hill, may not yet be quite forgotten
by some, but, as the after-results are not so well known, it will
bear repeating.
Some working men, hurrying along a little before six in the morning,
found Anderson’s body in a very steep path on the hill, and in a
short time a stretcher was got and it was conveyed to the Head
Office. The first thing I noticed when I saw the body was that one
of the trousers’ pockets was half-turned out, as if with a violent
wrench, or a hand too full of money to get easily out again; and
from this sprang another discovery—that the waistcoat button-hole in
which the link of his albert had evidently been constantly worn was
wrenched clean through. There was no watch or chain visible, and the
trousers’ pockets were empty, so the first deduction was clear—the
man had been robbed.
Robbery, indeed, appeared to me, at this stage of the case, to have
been the prime cause of the outrage, and an examination of the body
confirmed the idea. The neck was not broken, but there were marks of
a strangulating arm about the neck, and the injuries about the head
were quite sufficient to cause death. These seemed to indicate that
two persons had been engaged in the crime, as is common in garroting
cases—one to strangle and the other to rob and beat—and made me more
hopeful of tracking the doers. On examining the spot at which the
body had been found, I found traces of a violent struggle, and also
a couple of folded papers, which proved to be unreceipted accounts
headed “Peter Anderson, tailor and clothier,” with the address of his
place of business. These might have given us a clue to his identity
had such been needed, but his wife had been at the Office reporting
his absence only an hour before his body was brought in, and we had
only to turn to her description of his person and clothing to confirm
our suspicion.
Anderson, on the fatal night on which he disappeared, had
unexpectedly drawn an account of some £10 or £12 from a customer, and
in the joy of receiving the money had invited the man to an adjoining
public-house to drink “a jorum,” and one round followed another until
poor Peter Anderson’s head was fitter for his pillow than for guiding
his feet. On entering the public-house—which was a very busy one,
not far from the Calton Hill—Anderson, I found, had gone up to the
bar, and before all the loungers or hangers-on pulled a handful of
notes, and silver, and gold from his trousers’ pocket, saying to his
companion—
“What will you have?”
Afterwards, when they got into talk, they adjourned to a private
box at the back; but it was there I thought that the mischief had
been done. Anderson had a gold albert across his breast, and might
be believed to have a watch at the end of it; but the chain, after
all, might have been only plated, and the watch a pinchbeck thing,
to a thief not worth taking; but the reckless display of a handful
of notes, gold, and silver, if genuine criminals chanced to see
it, was a temptation and revelation too powerful to be resisted.
The man who carried money in that fashion was likely to have more
in his pockets, and a gold watch at least. If he got drunk, or was
likely to get drunk, he would be worth waiting and watching for;
so, at least, I thought the intending criminals would reason, never
dreaming of course of the plan ending in determined resistance and
red-handed murder. Your garroter is generally a big coward, and will
never risk his skin or his liberty with a sober man if he can get one
comfortably muddled with drink.
There was no time to elaborate theories or schemes of capture. A gold
watch and chain valued at about £30, and £14 in money, were gone.
A rare prize was afloat among the sharks, and I surmised that the
circumstance would be difficult to hide. The thief and the honest
man are alike in one failing—they find it difficult to conceal
success. It prints itself in their faces; in the quantity of drink
they consume; in the tread of their feet; the triumphant leer at
the baffled or sniffing detective, and in their reckless indulgence
in gaudy articles of flash dress. I went down to the Cowgate and
Canongate at once, strolling into every likely place, and nipping
up quite a host of my “bairns.” I thought I had got the right men
indeed when I found two known as “The Crab Apple” and “Coskey” flush
of money and muddled with drink, but a day’s investigation proved
that they owed their good fortune to a stupid swell who had got
into their clutches over in the New Town. Coskey, indeed, strongly
declared that he did not believe the Anderson affair had been managed
by a professional criminal at all.
“If it had been done by any of us I’d have heard on it,” was his
frank remark to me.
I was pretty sure that Coskey spoke the truth, for in his nervous
anxiety to escape Calcraft’s toilet he had actually confessed to
me all the particulars of the New Town robbery by which his own
pockets had been filled, and which afterwards led to a seven years’
retirement from the scene of his labours.
The hint thus received prepared me for making the worst slip of all
I had made in the case. I went to Anderson’s widow to get the number
of the watch, and some description by which it might be identified.
She could not tell me the number or the maker’s name; she could only
say that it had a white dial and black figures, but declared that she
would know it out of a thousand by a deep “clour” or indentation on
the back of the case.
“I was there when it got the mark,” she said, “and I could never be
mistaken if the watch was put before me. A thief might alter the
number, but nobody could take out that mark, for we tried it, and
the watchmaker could do nothing for it. My man was working hard one
day with the watch on, when a customer called to be measured. The
waistcoat he wore wasn’t a very bonny one, and he whipped it off in
a hurry, forgetting about the watch, which was tugged out, and came
bang against the handle of one of his irons. The watch was never
a bit the worse, but the case had aye the mark on it—just there,”
and the widow, to illustrate her statement, showed me a spot on the
back of my own watch, and then so minutely explained the line of the
indentation, its length and its depth, that I felt sure that if it
came in my way I should be able to identify it as readily as by a
number.
This would have been all very well if her information had there
ended, but it didn’t.
“You are hunting away among thieves and jail birds for the man that
did it,” she bitterly remarked, “but I think I could put my hand on
him without any detective to help me.”
“You suspect some one, then?” I exclaimed, with a new interest.
“Suspect? I wish I was as sure of anything,” she answered, with great
emphasis. “The brute threatened to do it.”
“What brute?”
“Just John Burge, the man who was working to him as journeyman two
months ago.”
“Indeed. Did they quarrel?”
“A drunken passionate wretch that nobody would have any thing to do
wi’,” vehemently continued the widow, waxing hotter in her words
with every word she had uttered, “but just because they had been
apprentices together Peter took pity on him and gave him work. They
were aye quarrelling, but one day it got worse than usual, and I
thought my man would have killed him. It was quite a simple thing
began it—an argument as to which is the first day in summer—but in
the end they were near fighting, and after Peter had near choked
him, Burge swore that he would have his life for it—that he would
watch him night and day, and then knock the ‘sowl oot o’ him in some
dark corner, before he knew where he was.’ That was after the master
and the laddies had thrown him out at the door and down the stair;
and for some days I wouldn’t let Peter cross the door. But he only
laughed at me after a bit, and said that Burge’s ‘bark was waur than
his bite,’ and went about just as usual. And all the time the wicked,
ungrateful wretch was watching for a chance to take his life.”
“Why did you not tell us of this quarrel at first?” I asked, after a
pause.
“Because I thought you detectives were so sharp and clever that you
would have Burge in your grips before night, without a word from me;
but you’re not nearly so clever as you’re called.”
“But he never actually attacked your husband?” I quietly interposed,
knowing that wives are apt to take exceedingly exaggerated views of
their husband’s wrongs or rights.
“Oh, but he did, though. He came up once, not long after the quarrel,
and said he had not got all the money due to him, and tried to murder
Peter with the cutting shears.”
“Murder him? How could he murder him with shears?” I asked, with
marked scepticism.
“Well, I didn’t wait to see; but ran in and gripped him by the arms
till my man took the shears from him. The creatur’ had no more
strength than a sparry, though he’s as tall as you.”
“No more strength than a sparrow?” That incidental revelation
staggered me. It seemed to me quite impossible that a weak man could
have been the murderer of Anderson, unless, indeed, he had had an
accomplice, and that was unlikely with a man seeking mere revenge.
For a moment I was inclined to think it possible that Burge might
have tracked his victim to the hill and accomplished the revenge,
and that afterwards, when he had fled the spot, some of the “ghosts”
haunting the hill might have stripped the dead or dying man of
his valuables; but several circumstances led me to reject the
supposition—wisely, too, as it appeared in the end. Burge, the widow
told me, was a tall man, with a white, “potty” face, and a little,
red, snub-nose, and always wore a black frock coat and dress hat. I
took down the name of the street in which he lived—for I could get
no number—and turned in that direction. In about fifteen minutes I
had reached, not the street, but the crossing leading to it, when I
met full in the face a man answering his description, and having the
unmistakable tailor’s “nick” in his back.
“That should be Burge,” was my mental conclusion, though I had never
seen him before. “If he’s not, he is at least a tailor, and may know
him,” and then I stopped him with the words—
“Do you know a tailor called John Burge who lives here-about?”
“That’s me,” he said, with sudden animation, taking the pipe from his
mouth, and evidently expecting a call at his trade, “who wants me?”
“I do.”
“Oh,” and he looked me all over, evidently wondering how I looked so
unlike the trade.