“My name’s M^cGovan, and I want you to go with me as far as the
Police Office, about that affair on the Calton Hill.”
A wonderful change took place in his face the moment I uttered the
words—a change which, but for the grave nature of the case, would
have been actually comical; his “potty” white cheeks became red, and
his red snub-nose as suddenly became white.
“Well, do you know, that’s curious!” he at length gasped; “but I
was just coming up to the Office now, in case I should be suspected
of having a hand in it. I had a quarrel with Anderson, and said some
strong things, I’ve no doubt, in my passion, but of course I never
meant them.”
I listened in silence; but my mental comment, I remember, was, “A
very likely story!”
“I was coming up to say what I can prove—that I was at the other
end of the town that night, and home and in my bed by a quarter to
eleven,” he desperately added, rightly interpreting my silence.
I became more interested at the mention of the exact hour; for I had
ascertained beyond doubt that Anderson had not left the public-house
and parted with his friend till eleven o’clock struck. He had, in
fact, been “warned out,” along with a number of bar-loafers, at
shutting-up time.
“Did any one see you at home at that hour?” I asked, after cautioning
him.
“Yes, the wife and bairns.”
“Imphm.”
“You think that’s not good evidence; but I have more; I was in a
public-house with some friends till half-past ten; they can swear to
that; and they went nearly all the road home with me,” he continued
with growing excitement. “Do I look like a murderer? My God! I could
swear on a Bible that such a thing was never in my mind. Don’t look
so horrible and solemn, man, but say you believe me!”
I couldn’t say that, for I believed the whole a fabrication got up in
a moment of desperation; and little more was spoken on either side
till we reached the Head Office, where he repeated the same story
to the Fiscal, and was locked up. I fully expected that I should
easily tear his story to pieces by taking his so-called witnesses
one by one, but I was mistaken. His wife and children, for example,
the least reliable of his witnesses in the eyes of the law, became
the strongest, for when I called and saw them they were in perfect
ignorance both of Burge’s arrest and the fact that he expected to be
suspected.
They distinctly remembered their father being home “earlier” on
that Friday night, and the wife added that it was more than she had
expected, for by being in bed so early Burge had been able to rise
early on the following morning and finish some work on the Saturday
which she had fully expected would be “disappointed.” Then the men
with whom he had been drinking and playing dominoes up to half-past
ten were emphatic in their statements, which tallied almost to a
minute with those of Burge. Burge had not been particularly flush
of money after that date, but, on the contrary, had pleaded so hard
for payment of the work done on the Saturday that the man was glad
to compromise matters and get rid of him by part payment in shape of
half-a-crown. The evidence, as was afterwards remarked, was not the
best—a few drinkers in a public-house, whose ideas of time and place
might be readily believed to be hazy, and the interested wife and
children of the suspected man; but in the absence of condemning facts
it sufficed, and after a brief detention Burge was set at liberty.
About that time, among the batch of suspected persons in our keeping
was a man named Daniel O’Doyle. How he came to be suspected I
forget, but I believe it was through having a deal of silver and
some sovereigns in the pockets of his ragged trousers when he was
brought to the Office as a “drunk and disorderly.” O’Doyle gave a
false name, too, when he came to his senses; but then it was too
late, for a badly-written letter from some one in Ireland had been
found in his pocket when he was brought in. He was a powerfully-built
man, and in his infuriated state it took four men to get him to the
Office. He could give no very satisfactory account of how he came by
the money in his possession. He had been harvesting, he said, but
did not know the name of the place or its geographical position,
except that it was east of Edinburgh “a long way,” and he was going
back to Ireland with his earnings, but chanced to take a drop too
much and half-murder a man in Leith Walk, and so got into our hands.
On the day after his capture and that of his remand O’Doyle was “in
the horrors,” and at night during a troubled sleep was heard by a
man in the same cell to mutter something about “Starr Road,” and
having “hidden it safe there.” This brief and unintelligible snatch
was repeated to me next morning, but, stupid as it now appears to
me, I could make nothing of it. I knew that there was no such place
as “Starr Road” in Edinburgh, and said so; and as for him having
hidden something, that was nothing for a wandering shearer, and
might, after all, be only his reaping hook or bundle of lively linen.
O’Doyle was accordingly tried for assault, and sentenced to thirty
days’ imprisonment, at the expiry of which he was set at liberty and
at once disappeared. My impression now is that O’Doyle was never
seriously suspected of having had a hand in the Calton Hill affair,
but that, being in our keeping about the time, he came in for his
share of suspicion among dozens more perfectly innocent. If he had
had bank-notes about him it might have been different, for I have
found that there is a strong feeling against these and in favour of
gold among the untutored Irish, which induces them to get rid of them
almost as soon as they chance to receive them.
So the months passed away and no discovery was made; we got our due
share of abuse from the public; and the affair promised to remain as
dark and mysterious as the Slater murder in the Queen’s Park. But for
the incident I am now coming to, I believe the crime would have been
still unsolved.
About two years after, I chanced to be among a crowd at a political
hustings in Parliament Square, at which I remember Adam Black came
in for a great deal of howling and abuse. I was there, of course, on
business, fully expecting to nip up some of my diligent “family” at
work among the pockets of the excited voters; but no game could have
been further from my thoughts than that which I had the good fortune
to bag. I was moving about on the outskirts of the crowd, when a face
came within the line of my vision which was familiar yet puzzling.
The man had a healthy prosperous look, and nodded smilingly to me,
more as a superior than an inferior in position.
“Don’t you remember me?—John Burge; I was in the Anderson murder, you
mind; the Calton Hill affair;” and then I smiled too and shook the
proffered hand.
“How are you getting on now?”
“Oh, first rate—doing well for myself,” was the bright and
pleased-looking answer. “Yon affair was a lesson to me; turned
teetot. when I came out, and have never broke it since. It’s the best
way.”
It seemed so, to look at him. The “potty” look was gone from his
face; his cheeks had a healthy colour, and his nose had lost its
rosiness. His dress too was better. The glossy, well-ironed dress
hat was replaced by one shining as if fresh from the maker, and
the threadbare frock coat by one of smooth, firm broadcloth. He
was getting stouter, too, and his broad, white waistcoat showed a
pretentious expanse of gold chain. He chatted away for some time,
evidently a little vain of the change in his circumstances, and at
length drew out a handsome gold watch, making, as his excuse for
referring to it, the remark—
“Ah, it’s getting late; I can’t stay any longer.”
My eye fell upon the watch, as it had evidently been intended that
it should, and almost with the first glance I noticed a deep nick in
the edge of the case, at the back. Possibly the man’s own words had
taken my mind back to the lost watch of the murdered tailor and its
description, but certainly the moment I saw the mark on the case I
put out my hand with affected carelessness, as he was slipping it
back to his pocket, saying—
“That’s a nice watch; let’s have a look at it.”
It was tendered at once, and I found it to have a white china dial
and black figures. At last I came back to the nick and scrutinised it
closely.
“You’ve given it a bash there,” I remarked, after a pause.
“No, that was done when I got it.”
“Bought it lately?”
“Oh, no; a long time ago.”
“Who from?”
“From one of the men working under me; I got it a great bargain,”
he answered with animation. “It’s a chronometer, and belonged to an
uncle of his, but it was out of order—had lain in the bottom of a sea
chest till some of the works were rusty—and so I got it cheap.”
“Imphm. There has been some lying in the bargain anyhow,” I said,
after another look at the watch, “for it is an ordinary English
lever, not a chronometer. Is the man with you yet?”
“No; but, good gracious! you don’t mean to say that there’s anything
wrong about the watch? It’s not—not a stolen one?”
“I don’t know, but there was one exactly like this stolen that time
that Anderson was killed.”
In one swift flash of alarm, his face, before so rosy, became as
white as the waistcoat covering his breast.
Then he slowly examined the watch with a trembling hand, and finally
stammered out—
“I remember it, and this is not unlike it. But that’s nothing—hundreds
of watches are as like as peas.”
I differed with him there, and finally got him to go with me to
the Office, at which he was detained, while I went in search of
Anderson’s widow to see what she would say about the watch.
If I had an opinion at all about the case at this stage, it was that
the watch taken was not that of the murdered man. I could scarcely
otherwise account for Burge’s demeanour. He appeared so surprised
and innocent, whereas a man thus detected in the act of wearing such
a thing, knowing its terrible history, could scarcely have helped
betraying his guilt.
My fear, then, as I made my way to the house of Anderson’s widow, was
that she, woman like, would no sooner see the mark on the case than
she would hastily declare it to be the missing watch. To avoid as far
as possible a miscarriage of justice, I left the watch at the Office,
carefully mixed up with a dozen or two more then in our keeping, one
or two of which resembled it in appearance. I found the widow easily
enough, and took her to the Office with me, saying simply that we had
a number of watches which she might look at, with the possibility
of finding that of her husband. The watches were laid out before
her in a row, faces upward, and she slowly went over them with her
eye, touching none till she came to that taken from Burge. Then she
paused, and there was a moment’s breathless stillness in the room.
“This ane’s awfu’ like it,” she said, and, lifting the watch, she
turned it, and beamed out in delight as she recognised the sharp nick
on the back of the case. “Yes, it’s it! Look at the mark I told you
about.”
She pointed out other trifling particulars confirming the identity,
but practically the whole depended on exactly what had first drawn my
attention to the watch—the nick on the case. Now dozens of watches
might have such a mark upon them, and it was necessary to have a much
more reliable proof before we could hope for a conviction against
Burge on such a charge.
I had thought of this all the way to and from the widow’s house. She
knew neither the number of the watch nor the maker’s name, but with
something like hopefulness I found that she knew the name of the
watchmaker in Glasgow who had sold it to her husband, and another
in Edinburgh who had cleaned it. I went through to Glasgow the same
day with the watch in my pocket, found the seller, and by referring
to his books discovered the number of the watch sold to Anderson,
which, I was electrified to find, was identical with that on the
gold lever I carried. The name of the maker and description of the
watch also tallied perfectly; and the dealer emphatically announced
himself ready to swear to the identity in any court of justice. My
next business was to visit the man who had cleaned the watch for
Anderson in Edinburgh. I was less hopeful of him, and hence had left
him to the last, and therefore was not disappointed to find that he
had no record of the number or maker’s name. On examining the watch
through his working glass, however, he declared that he recognised
it perfectly as that which he had cleaned for Anderson by one of the
screws, which had half of its head broken off, and thus had caused
him more trouble than usual in fitting up the watch after cleaning.
“I would have put a new one in rather than bother with it,” he said,
“but I had not one beside me that would fit it, and as I was pressed
for time, I made the old one do. It was my own doing, too, for I
broke the top in taking the watch down.”
I was now convinced, almost against my will, that the watch was
really that taken from Anderson; my next step was to test Burge’s
statement as to how it came into his possession. If that broke down,
his fate was sealed.
When I again appeared before Burge he was eager to learn what had
transpired, and appeared unable to understand why he should still
be detained; all which I now set down as accomplished hypocrisy. It
seemed to me that he had lied from the first, and I was almost angry
with myself for having given so much weight to his innocent looks and
apparent surprise.
Cutting short his questions with no very amiable answers, I asked the
name and address of the man from whom he alleged he had bought the
watch. Then he looked grave, and admitted that the man, whose name
was Chisholm, might be difficult to find, as he was a kind of “orra”
hand, oftener out of work than not. I received the information in
silence, and went on the hunt for Chisholm, whom I had no difficulty
whatever in finding at the house of a married daughter with whom
he lodged. He was at home when I called,—at his dinner or tea,—and
stared at me blankly when I was introduced, being probably acquainted
with my face, like many more whom I have never spoken to or noticed.
“I have called about a watch that you sold to Burge the tailor, whom
you were working with some six months ago,” I said quietly.
The man, who had been drinking tea or coffee out of a basin, put down
the dish in evident concern, and stared at me more stupidly than
before.
“A watch!—what kin’ o’ a watch?” he huskily exclaimed. “I haena had a
watch for mair nor ten years.”
“The watch is a gold lever, but he says you sold it to him as a
chronometer which had belonged to your uncle, a seaman.”
Chisholm’s face was now pale to the very point of his nose, but that
did not necessarily imply guilt on his part. I have noticed the look
far oftener on the faces of witnesses than prisoners.
“What? an uncle! a seaman!” he cried with great energy, turning an
amazed look on his daughter. “I havena an uncle leeving—no ane. The
man must be mad,” and this statement the daughter promptly supported.
“Do you mean to say—can you swear that you never sold him a watch of
any kind—which was rusty in the works through lying in a sea-chest?”
“Certainly, sir—certainly, I can swear that. I never had a watch to
sell, and I’ll tell him that to his face,” volubly answered Chisholm,
whose brow now was as thick with perspiration as if he had been doing
a hard day’s work since I entered. “Onybody that kens me can tell ye
I’ve never had a watch, or worn ane, for ten year and mair. I wad be
only owre glad if I had.”
I questioned him closely and minutely, but he declared most
distinctly and emphatically that the whole story of Burge was an
invention. I ought to have been satisfied with this declaration—it
was voluble and decided, and earnest as any statement could be—but
I was not. The man’s manner displeased me. It was too noisy and
hurried, and his looks of astonishment and innocence were, if
anything, too marked. I left the house in a puzzled state.
“What if I should have to deal with _two_ liars?” was my reflection.
“How could I pit them against each other?”
Back I trudged to the Office, and saw Burge at once.
“I have seen the man Chisholm, and he declares that he not only did
not sell you a watch of any kind, but that he has not had one in his
possession for upwards of ten years.”
Burge paled to a deathly hue, and I saw the cold sweat break out in
beads on his temples.
“I was just afraid of that,” he huskily whispered, after a horrible
pause. “Chisholm’s an awful liar, and will say that now to save his
own skin. There must have been something wrong about the way he got
it. I was a fool to believe his story. I remember now he made me
promise not to say that I had bought the watch from him, or how I got
it, in case the other relatives should find out that he had taken it.”
“Indeed! Then you have no witness whatever to produce as to the
purchase?” I cried, after a long whistle.
“None.”
“Did you not speak of it to anybody?”
“Not a soul but yourself that I mind of.”
“Well, all I can say is that your case looks a bad one,” I said at
last, as I turned to leave him. “By the by, though, what about the
chain? Did you buy that from him too?”
My reason for asking was, that the chain was a neck one, not an
albert, and, of course, had not been identified by the widow of
Anderson.
“No, I had the chain; I had taken it in payment of an account; but he
wanted me to buy a chain, too, now that I remember.”
“What kind of a chain? Did you see it?”
“No; I said I did not need it; but I would look at the watch. He
wanted a pound for the chain, and eight for the watch. I got it for
£5, 10s., and then he went on the spree for a fortnight.”
“A whole fortnight? Surely some one will be able to recall that,” I
quickly interposed, half inclined to believe that Burge was not at
least the greater liar of the two. “His daughter will surely remember
it?”
“I don’t know about that,” groaned Burge, in despairing tones.
“That man takes so many sprees that it’s difficult to mind ane frae
anither.”
I resolved to try the daughter, nevertheless, and after getting from
Burge, as near as he could remember, the date of the bargain, I left
him and began to ponder how I could best get an unvarnished tale from
this prospective witness. While I pondered, a new link in this most
mysterious case was thrown into my hands.
We had been particularly careful after the arrest of Burge to keep
the affair secret, but in spite of the precaution, an account of
the arrest, altogether garbled and erroneous, appeared in the next
day’s papers. From this account it appeared that we were confident of
Burge’s guilt, and were only troubled because we could not discover
his accomplices in the crime, and on that account “were not disposed
to be communicative,” as the penny-a-liner grandly expressed himself.
The immediate result of this stupid paragraph, which seemed to book
Burge for the gallows beyond redemption, was a letter from the West,
bearing neither name nor address, it is true, but still written
with such decision and vigour that I could not but give it some
weight in my feeble gropings at the truth. This letter was placed
in my hands, though not addressed to me particularly, just as I was
wondering how to best question Chisholm’s daughter about her father’s
big spree. The letter was short, and well-written and spelled, and
began by saying that Burge, whom we had in custody on suspicion of
being concerned in the robbery and murder of Anderson, was perfectly
innocent; that the whole of the facts were known to the writer, whose
lips were sealed as to who the criminal really was, and who only
wrote that he might save an innocent man from a shameful death. The
post-mark on the letter was that of a considerable town on the Clyde,
or my thoughts would inevitably have reverted to Chisholm as the
author or prompter. With the suspicion of this man had come at last
an idea that he was in some way mixed up in the crime; yet he did not
look either strong enough or courageous enough to be the murderer.
Quite uncertain how to act, I left the Office, and wandered down in
the direction of Chisholm’s home. It was quite dark, I remember,
and I was ascending the narrow stair in hope that Chisholm might by
that time be out of the house, when a man stumbled down on me in the
dark, cursing me sharply for not calling out that I was there. The
man was Chisholm, as I knew at once by the tone of the voice, and how
I did not let him pass on, and make my inquiries at the daughter,
is more than I can tell to this day. I merely allowed him to reach
the bottom of the stair, and then turned and followed him. At the
bottom I watched his figure slowly descending the close towards the
Back Canongate till he reached the bottom, when he paused and peered
cautiously forth before venturing out. The stealthy walk and that
cunning look forth I believe decided me, coupled with the decided
change in the tone in which he cursed me in the dark from the smooth
and oily manner in which he had answered my questions during the day.
I would follow him, though wherefore or why I did not trouble to
ask. About half-way down the South Back Canongate, where the Public
Washing House now stands, there was at that time an open drain which
ran with a strong current in the direction of the Queen’s Park. As
it left the green for the Park, this drain emptied itself down an
iron-barred opening in the ground, and made a sudden dip downwards of
twenty or thirty feet on smooth flag-stones, which carried the water
away into the darkness with a tremendous rush and noise. So steep was
the gradient at this covered part of the drain, and so smooth the
bottom, that miserable cats and dogs, doomed to die, had merely to be
put within the grating, when down they shot, and were seen or heard
no more.
I followed Chisholm as far as this green, which he entered, and then
wondered what his object could be. That it was not quite a lawful
one I could guess from the fact that he so often paused and looked
about him that I had the greatest difficulty in keeping him in sight
without myself being seen. At length he came to the opening in the
wall where the open drain ceased and dipped into the iron bars with a
roar audible even to me, and then with another furtive look around,
and before I had the slightest idea of what he was intending to do,
he put his hand in his pocket, drew something forth, and threw it
sharply into the roaring, scurrying water. A moment more and my hand
was on his arm. He started round with a scared cry, and recognised
and named me.
“What’s that you threw down the drain?” I sternly demanded, without
giving him time to recover, and tightening my grip on his arm.
“Oh, naething, naething, sir—only an auld pipe that’s nae mair use,”
he confusedly stammered.
“A pipe!” I scornfully echoed. “Man, what do you think my head’s made
of? You didn’t come so far to throw away a pipe. Were you afraid
that, like some of the cats the laddies put down there, it would
escape and come back again?”
He tried to grin, cringingly, but the effect was ghastly in the
extreme.
“No, no, Maister M^cGovan; I was just walking this way ony way, and
thought I wad get rid o’ my auld pipe.”
“More like, it was a gold albert,” I sharply said, getting out the
handcuffs. “If I had only guessed what you were after I might have
been nearer, and prevented the extravagance. You’re unlike every one
else in the world, throwing away good gold while others are breaking
their hearts to get it. Come, now, try your hand in these; and then
I’ll have to see if the burn will give up your offering.”
He was utterly and abjectly silenced, and accepted the bracelets
without demur, which led me to believe that my surmise was a hit. The
tailor’s gold albert, supposing Burge’s story to be true, was all
that remained unaccounted for, and its possession now was frightfully
dangerous. What more natural, then, that Chisholm should take alarm
at my visit, and hasten to dispose of it in the most effectual
manner within his reach? If he had put it through the melting pot,
and I had arrived only in time to see the shapeless nugget tossed out
of the crucible, he could not have given me a greater pang; but of
course I did not tell him that. I expected never to see it again, and
I was right, for the chain has never been seen or heard of since. My
thoughts on the way to the Office were not pleasant; afterthoughts
with an “if” are always tormenting; and mine was “If I had only
seized him before he reached the drain, and had him searched.” Then
he was so secretive and cunning that I had no hope whatever of him
committing himself to a confession. In this I made the error of
supposing him entirely guilty. I forgot the case of “Cosky” and
“The Crab Apple,” who were only too glad to save their necks at the
expense of their liberty. Chisholm, though cunning as a fox, was a
terrible coward, and as we neared the Office he tremblingly said—
“Will I be long, think ye, o’ getting oot again?”