“About three weeks after the trial probably.”
“What? how? will three weeks be the sentence?” he stammered in
confusion.
“No; but that is the interval generally allowed between sentence and
hanging.”
“Good God, man! They canna hang me!” he exclaimed, nearly dropping on
the street with terror.
“Wait. If I get that chain out of the drain it will hang you as sure
as fate,” I grimly replied. I was rather pleased at being able to say
it, for I was snappish and out of temper.
“But I never killed the tailor; never saw the man,” he exclaimed,
evidently fearfully in earnest.
“I’ve nothing to do with that; it all depends on what the jury
think,” I shortly answered, and then we got to the Office, and he
made a rambling statement about being taken up innocently, and was
then locked up.
My immediate task was to have the drain explored, but that was all
labour thrown away. The rush of water had been too strong, and the
chain was gone, buried in mud and slime, or carried away to sea. I
soon had abundant evidence that Chisholm had been on the spree for a
fortnight about the time stated by Burge, but my intention of weaving
a complete web round him was stayed by a message from himself, asking
to see me that he might tell all he knew of the watch and chain. He
did not know that I had failed to get the chain, or he might have
risked absolute silence.
“Ye ken, I’m a bit of a fancier of birds,” he said, in beginning his
story.
“Including watches and chains,” I interposed.
“I was oot very early ae Sunday morning, for however late I’m up on
a Saturday, I can never sleep on Sunday morning,” he continued, with
a dutiful grin at my remark. “I gaed doon by the Abbey Hill to the
Easter Road, and when I was hauf way to Leith I saw a yellow finch
flee oot at a dyke where its nest was, and begin flichering along on
the grund to draw me away frae the place. Cunnin’ brutes them birds,
but I was fly for it, and instead o’ following it, and believing
it couldna flee, I stoppit and begoud to look for the nest in the
dyke. But before I got forrit I had kind o’ lost the exact place. I
searched aboot, wi’ the bird watchin’ me geyan feared-like a wee bit
off, and at last I found a hole half filled up wi’ a loose stane. Oot
cam’ the stane, and in gaed my haund; but instead o’ a nest I fund a
gold watch and chain; and that’s the God’s truth, though I should dee
this meenit.”
“Did you mention the finding to any one?”
“No me; I didna even tell my daughter, for I kent if it was fund oot
I might get thirty days for keeping it up. I had an idea that the
watch had been stolen and planted there, or I might have gaen to a
pawnshop wi’ it. It was kind o’ damaged wi’ lying in the dyke, so at
last I made up a story and sellt it to Maister Burge.”
“You are good at making up stories, I think?” I reflectively observed.
“I’m thinkin’ there’s a pair of us, Maister M^cGovan,” he readily
returned, with a pawky dab at my ribs.
But for his coolness and evident relief at getting the thing off his
mind, I should have set down the whole as another fabrication. But
when a man begins to smile and joke, it may be taken for granted that
he does not think himself in immediate danger of being hanged. His
story, however, might have availed him but little had I not chanced
to turn up my notes on the case at its earlier stages, and found
there the hitherto meaningless words muttered by Daniel O’Doyle.
“Starr Road” muttered in sleep might be but a contraction of Easter
Road, or be those actual words imperfectly overheard. Then there were
the words about something being “hidden safely there,” and the whole
tallied so closely that I was at last sure that I was on the right
track. These additional gleanings made me revert to my anonymous
correspondent in the west. It was scarcely likely that I should be
able to trace him; but he spoke in his note of the guilty one being
a person or persons outside of himself—known to him. This lessened
my interest in him personally, but made me think that if I visited
the town I might get hold of O’Doyle himself, which would be quite
as good, if not better. I accordingly went to the place, in which
there is a public prison, and as a first step called on the police
superintendent. An examination of the books at length sent me in the
direction of the prison, in which a man answering the description,
and having O’Doyle for one of his names, had been confined on a
nine months’ sentence for robbery. I was now in high spirits, and
quite sure that in the prisoner I should recognise the O’Doyle I
wanted; but on reaching the place I found that a more imperative
and inexorable officer had been there before me in shape of death.
Immediately on getting the answer I made the inquiry, “Did he make
any statement or confession before he died?” This was not easily
answered, and before it could be, with satisfaction, a number of the
officials had to be questioned, and then I found that O’Doyle had
been attended, as is usual, in his last moments by a Catholic priest.
This gentleman was still in the town, though not stationed in the
Prison, and knowing something of the vows of a priest, I despaired
at once of extracting anything from him, but became possessed of a
desire to have a look at his handwriting. Accordingly I sent him
a polite note requesting him to send me word when he would be at
liberty to see me for a few minutes’ conversation. I fully expected
to get a written note in reply, however short, but instead I got a
message delivered by the servant girl, to the effect that her master
was at home, and would see me now. I grinned and bore it, though it
is not pleasant to feel eclipsed in cunning by anyone. I went with
the girl, and found the priest, a pale, hard-worked looking man,
leaning back in his chair exhausted and silent, and certainly looking
as if he at least did not eat the bread of idleness. I felt rather
small as I introduced myself and ran over the case that had brought
me there, he listening to the whole with closed eyes, and a face
as immovable as that of a statue. When I had finished there was an
awkward pause. I had not exactly asked anything, but it was implied
in my sudden pull up, but for a full minute there was no response.
At last he opened his eyes—and very keen, penetrating eyes they
were—and, fixing me sternly with his gaze, he said—
“Did you ever come in contact with a Catholic priest before Mr
M^cGovan?”
“Frequently.”
“Did you ever know one to break his vows and reveal the secrets of
heaven?”
“Never.”
“Do you think one of them would do it if you asked him?”
“I think not.”
“Do you think he would do it if you threatened him with prison?”
“Scarcely.”
“Or with death—say if you had power to tear him limb from limb, or
torture every drop of blood from his body?”
“I don’t know—I shouldn’t like to try.”
“Then what do you come to me for?” he sharply continued, with a
slight tinge of red in his pale cheeks. “Am I, think you, more
unworthy than any other that has yet lived?”
“No, I should hope not,” I stammered; “and I did not come expecting
you to reveal what was told you in confession——”
“What then—you wish to know if I wrote that letter maybe?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll be satisfied that I speak the truth when I answer?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll ask no more?”
“I’ll ask no more.”
“Then I didn’t. Bridget, show the gentleman out.”
I was so staggered and nonplussed that I was in the street before
I had time to ponder his reply. I was convinced then, as I am now,
that the priest spoke the literal truth; how then had the letter been
written? Certainly not by O’Doyle himself. Was it possible that a
third person could have got at the information?
Back I went to the jail, and by rigid questioning discovered that at
the time of O’Doyle’s death there was one other person, a delicate
man of some education, in the hospital, who complained of pains in
the head, and of having grown stone deaf since his incarceration.
This man had been set at liberty shortly after, and made no secret
of having malingered so successfully as to get all the luxuries of
the hospital instead of the hard labour of the other prisoners. There
was then an excited and prolonged conversation between this man and
the priest I had visited; and as they were of the same faith I have
little doubt but the father had bound him down in some way to keep
secret what he had chanced to overhear of O’Doyle’s confession. This
at least was my theory, and a peculiar flash of the priest’s eyes
when I afterwards hinted at the discovery convinced me that I was not
far off the truth.
Chisholm, for his bird-nesting experiment, got thirty days’
imprisonment, and Burge, after about a month’s detention, was
discharged.