The old street porter appeared at the Central Office one winter
morning, but refused to reveal his business to any one but me. I
had been delayed a little beyond my usual time by other work, but
Corny Stephens patiently sat there the whole time. He appeared to
know me, too, for the moment I entered the “reception-room” he rose
and deferentially touched his forelock. He was an old man, very thin
and bloodless, with poverty shining out of every bit of his meagre
clothing and decayed boots. He wore at his lapel the polished badge
of a licensed street porter, and over his shoulder had slung a hank
of frayed rope, apparently as aged and weak as himself. It is not
unlikely that I had seen him often before, but my interest is not so
strong in honest folks, and, as he belonged to that healthy majority,
I did not remember noticing him particularly. He was blue with cold,
but the hand touching his forelock trembled violently, not so much
with cold as strong excitement.
“It’s your help I want, sir,” he said, when I had tried to dispel the
awe and dread with which he seemed to regard me, “and mebbe I can
give you some news that’ll be of use to you; only I’m afeared I might
get mixed up in it myself. I’ve been honest for sixty years now, and
it would be mighty hard to be mistook for a thafe and a villain now.”
These words put me upon my guard, and while he was speaking them I
was reading his face closely. Listening to the specious stories of
rogues makes one suspicious of everything. He did not suffer under
the ordeal, but I still made no sign, merely asking him to go on.
“Do you know a man called Micky Hill?” he abruptly resumed.
I started a little, for Micky had been in my thoughts more than once
lately. I knew him, of course—a convict and ticket-of-leave man, who
had already endured two long terms, and who knew me just as well as
I did him, and never passed me without an impudent grin, as much as
to say, “Your mighty smart arn’t you—why don’t you get hold of me?”
Micky had small eyes set deep in his head, and every twinkle of them
was full of cunning. I believe those eyes of his irritated me more
than the man himself. I hated them from the depths of my soul.
“Yes,” I quietly answered, “what of him?”
“Well, it’s him I’d like to see with your bracelets on,” answered
Corny with fearful energy, “to see booked for ten years, as he will
be, I’ve no doubt, if you can prove a good case agin him.”
“You’ve quarrelled with him, then?” I remarked, with some surprise at
the association of an honest man with a thief.
“Not me,” cried the old porter, with warmth. “Ye don’t think I’d
speak to the likes of him? But he’s brought me bitter sorrow, and
it’s only fair he should suffer for it. I think I can do that, and
do you a good turn at the same time, sur, and him never be a bit the
wiser. There was a grocer’s broke into down at Greenside last week,
was’nt there? and a lot of brandy and things took?”
“Ah! did he do that?” I cried, for it was in connection with that
very case that Micky’s name had cropped up in my mind, coupled with
the fear, I confess, that I should never bring the crime home to him.
Micky did a deal in shebeening, and who more likely to find a use for
strong spirits which cost him nothing? but experience told me that
he would never be the dolt to keep the plunder where any connection
between it and himself could be traced.
“Will no harm come on me or mine if I tell ye all I know?”
tremblingly inquired Corny.
“Had you anything to do with the affair yourself?” I sharply demanded.
“No, by me immortal sowl, no!” cried the old man, “I’d sooner
drop dead with starvation than rob any one of a hap’orth. But my
son Pat—he’s a labourer, sur, and been out for two months with the
frost—he has been too much in Micky’s company—mebbe you’ve seen
him—and it’s him I’m afeard for. He got fourteen days just for being
in Micky’s company, yet he won’t keep away from the villain. My
belief is, Micky has throw’d a charm over him, and Pat’s being led
off his feet without the power to help himself. Oh, sur, it’s an
awful thought to me and to his sister, that would give the very heart
out of her own breast to keep him straight.”
There could be little doubt of his sincerity now, for his whole heart
was in his eyes, and he had broken down pitifully as he spoke. I now
dimly understood the case, for it was not the first by many dozens
which had come in my way.
“Tell me all you know, and I will do what I can for you, though I can
promise nothing,” I said, thinking that the son might be involved
more than the father was aware.
“I’m content with that, sur,” he gratefully responded, “for I hear
there’s thaves that think your word surer than the bank. But it’s not
much I do know. There’s an empty place in the court down there where
Micky lives. It used to be a coal-house, but nobody uses it now, and
the roof’s nigh dropping to pieces. Well, I believe if you go to that
place and get the door open, and dig up the dross, you’ll find a good
deal of what was tuck out of the grocer’s. I think Micky did the job,
but anyhow he has a key that opens that place, and nobody but him
ever gets a finger near the stuff.”
“How did you find out all that?” I promptly demanded. “Did your son
tell you?”
“Him tell me? Do you think Pat ’ud betray any one, even a
black-hearted villain like Micky Hill? No, he’s too honourable,
though Micky, I’ll swear, wouldn’t have any such scruples. Must I
tell you how I found it out?”
“You’d better, if only to save your own character, and take all
suspicion away from yourself.”
“Well, then, his sister Annie heard him speak it all in his sleep.”
I whistled aloud, and the glance I turned on the trembling old man
was one more of pity than pleasure. Before the son could have been
so full of the knowledge as to be oppressed by it in his dreams,
he must have been very deeply involved—probably one of the actual
perpetrators—and in that case how could I possibly save him? At the
moment I heartily wished that the old man had never come near me. If
only he and Micky were in the job, and I nipped up the elder rogue,
I knew for certain that he would at once suspect treachery, denounce
Pat, and put proof in our hands as well. And then another difficulty
immediately occurred to me—even if we searched the cellar and found
there the stolen goods, how would that bring conviction on Micky? He
had not the shed rented, but had cunningly taken possession unknown
to any one, and probably entered it only by night when no one was
likely to see him. Altogether the case seemed a knotty problem, and
I had to send away Corny with less encouragement and hope than he had
looked for. If the old porter had known what awaited him outside, his
trembling and fears would have been increased rather than diminished,
for in an entry in the close was snugly ensconced the very man he had
been denouncing.
Micky did not allow himself to be seen, but followed the old man
down to the Cowgate, and there allowed him to be some distance along
before he made up to him and addressed him.
“Fine morning, Corny,” he said, with a wicked leer, which struck the
old man with a nameless dread.
“Is it, then?” he hotly retorted; “then you’ll see to keep away from
me.”
“Where have you been so early?” asked Micky, smiling and looking more
wicked than ever.
“Where you’ll——” The Irish blood of the old man was up, and the two
words were out before he knew. He checked himself, however, and
walked off without a word more.
But the worst was now known to Micky. He now _knew_ that he had in
some way, incomprehensible to himself, been betrayed. His suspicions
could fall on none but his partner, the porter’s son, and on him he
resolved should fall the full brunt of the punishment. He abused
himself roundly for taking such a greenhorn into his confidence,
but, on the whole, thought that he had so managed matters as to
keep his own skin safe. The porter’s son being out of work, was not
difficult to find; but Micky was rather surprised to find that his
most ingenious hints and questionings did not for a moment disconcert
or disturb Pat Stephens. He began to think the labourer more cunning
than himself, when in reality the other was a perfect child in
comparison. The apparent innocence of Pat only added to Micky’s rage
and hatred, and, taking the labourer home with him, he told him
vaguely of some one having seen him going to his hide, and pressed
upon Pat the key of the cellar, with the request that as soon as it
was dark he would go to the shed and bring out certain bottles which
Micky was in need of for the concoction of the peculiar “fire water”
which he doled out as whisky. Quite unsuspicious, Pat took the key
and carried it about with him all day; and late that night, when all
was quiet in the court, he went to the shed, unlocked the door, and
was busy digging up the stuff when we entered and offered to help
him. He dropped the spade at once, and then dropped himself right
into the grave of coal dross he had made, where he sat helplessly
staring at us, speechless with astonishment and terror. We had
been watching the place since nightfall from a safe hide close by,
and were as much astonished at our capture as the cowering culprit
himself.
I had made sure that none but Micky himself would have the run of
that cellar, and was intensely chagrined to find in our clutches
only a rather stupid-looking fellow, who had not even the daring to
attempt resistance or make a dash for liberty.
“What’s your name?” I demanded, while the others rapidly unearthed
the contents of the hide.
“Patrick Stephens,” he nervously answered.
“Good gracious! you don’t mean to say that you are the porter’s son?”
I exclaimed, more vexed than I cared to show.
He nodded, but then perhaps conscious that he had said too much, he
took refuge in silence. Behold the stupidity of the man; just when
speaking would have benefited him he closed his mouth. I asked him
what he was doing there; if he had been sent by any one, and how he
accounted for some of the bottles bearing the address of a Greenside
grocer; but to all these questions he remained perversely dumb. He
had not the slightest suspicion that Micky had betrayed him, still
less that he owed his capture to his own tongue and his anxious
father. His idea was that he had been suspected by us, watched and
followed to the place, and thus captured in the ordinary course of
events. Finding him so stubborn, I sent him to the Office in charge
of the others, leaving a man to guard the plunder till it could
be taken away in a barrow, while I went up to Micky’s house and
considerably surprised him by telling him to get up and come with
me—for the cunning rascal had, for the sake of appearances, got into
bed, where he stared at me, the very picture of virtuous innocence.
He showed every one of his yellow teeth in that devil’s grin of his
when I sharply repeated the command, and then I inwardly guessed
that I should have some trouble in getting him convicted. My hope,
however, was strong in the porter’s son, who, I was convinced, was
by far the more innocent of the two, so I snapped the bracelets on
Micky with apparent zest, and he was locked up till morning, when I
again visited Pat, and found him as obdurate as before. I had still
one resource—the old porter, and to him I went as soon as I could get
away.
His distress—and that of his daughter, who appeared to keep house for
them—was overwhelming, and, not unnaturally, the heaviest of their
reproaches fell upon me.
“You tuck him away after promising that you would do your best to
save him and ketch the other villain!” cried the old man, with bitter
tears. “Saints above us! and I’ve been the means of sending me own
heart’s blood to prison. Och! och! the curse of Heaven be on me for
that, and may the tongue that betrayed him wither in me head!”
“I may save him yet, if you can only get him to speak—if you can get
him to denounce Micky. Could you not prove an _alibi_ for the night
of the robbery?”
The old man paused in his lamentations to think for a moment, and
then honestly confessed that the night of the robbery and that which
followed were two on which he was certain his son was not at home.
I had therefore no doubt but Pat had actually been engaged in the
robbery, which had been executed in a clumsy and haphazard fashion,
quite in keeping with the two men in custody. I got the porter to see
his son in prison, but the effort was made in vain, for Pat would not
open his mouth. Tears, prayers, and entreaties were showered upon
him in vain, and the only thing which moved him was his old father
lifting his hands to invoke the curse of heaven upon his ungrateful
head.
“Don’t, father, dear!—don’t,” he piteously cried, grasping through
the bars at the feeble arms of his father as they were about to be
upraised; “don’t say the black words, for sure I’ve an oath on me
sowl, and I can’t break it!”
“Well, well, poor lad!” and the father struggled no more. “May the
Almighty give ye strinth to throw id off;” and so they parted, and
the misguided victim went unflinchingly to his trial. There was not
the smallest tittle of evidence to connect Micky with the crime, and
after a short detention he was liberated. Pat was tried shortly after
at the High Court, and sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment.
“Oh, Patrick dear! it’s somebody else should be in your shoes this
day,” came like a “keen” from among the audience as he was led out;
and the cry seemed to unman him a little, for it came from his sister.
Some time after, when the circumstances had faded a little in my
memory, I was over in the jail seeing a prisoner who worked near Pat.
I noticed the porter’s son, whose head was now closely cropped, and
his appearance considerably changed by the prison dress, and, half
recognising him, I said dubiously—
“Well, what are you in for?”
“It’s yourself should know that, sur,” he said, with a sad smile.
“I’m Patrick Stephens. Could I have a word with you, sur?”
“Yes, if you look sharp about it,” was my answer, for my time had
nearly expired.
I expected that he had thought better of the case which had landed
him there, and was ready to denounce Micky, but in that I was
mistaken. He had not a word to say on that point; his sole concern
was for his father and sister.
“When Micky was in on suspicion he found out that it wasn’ me, but my
father or my sister, that betrayed the hiding-place,” he said to me
in a hurried whisper. “He’s sorry now that I was took, but he’s mad
agin them, and has sworn to be even with them. You’ve no idea what a
divil he is when he takes it into his head. Now, sur, if you’d only
take the hint and watch him and them, for though they are as honest
as the babe unborn, he’ll get them into a scrape as sure as he’s
sworn it.”
“Ah, it’s easy getting into scrapes,” I significantly rejoined,
glancing at his oakum heap and his prison garb; “the difficulty is to
get out of them.”
“Sure, I know what ye mane, sur,” he returned, with a slight flush
of shame, “but since I’ve been in here I’ve got a mighty load off me
sowl, and, if I’m spared to get out, please the Lord, I’ll never take
it on again.”
I thought of a certain road being paved with good intentions, but
said nothing. There was one chance in a thousand that Pat’s might
hold good. Even if the thought only comforted him in his seclusion, a
blessing was gained.
I questioned him further on the matter he had placed before
me, and learned that the information had reached him through a
newly-incarcerated prisoner. I could not but admire through the
whole revelation the quick intelligence of Micky in piecing together
facts which to anyone else would have indicated nothing. From the
mere excited exclamation of old Corny, and that of the sister in the
Court-room, he had gathered that it had been intended to trap him and
save the porter’s son. He knew that as well as if I had revealed to
him the whole particulars of my interview with Corny. I began to envy
Micky his quickness. But though he was just the man to thirst for
revenge, I did not think that he would interfere with the old street
porter, and it is probable I said so to Pat at the time, and his
warning would speedily have been forgotten but for the curious events
which followed.
A month or two after my interview with Pat his father was accosted
while on his stance by a well-dressed man having the appearance of a
commercial traveller, and asked to carry a rather heavy portmanteau
to a certain address. The job was executed with alacrity, and
liberally paid for. A few days later the same man hired Corny, after
dark, to carry a box to another part of the town, paid him with the
same liberality, and told him he might need him again soon.
The occasion came only two days later. The man, who was well dressed,
and always carried an ivory handled umbrella in his hand and a
cigar in his mouth, stopped the old porter on the street, and in an
off-hand way asked him if he could carry some crystal and china from
a house at the south side to an address at the opposite end of the
city. Of course the porter was eager and willing.
“The only awkward thing is that I won’t be there till nearly nine
o’clock,” said the man; “would that be too late for you?”
“Sorra a bit, sur,” was the ready response. “Any hour will suit me,
more by token there’s no wan likely to be needing me so late.”
Punctually at the hour named, Corny appeared at the place—a common
stair in Clerk Street. As he was ascending the stair in search of the
name furnished by his employer, that gentleman appeared descending
the stair, and carrying in his arms a good-sized square parcel.
“I was beginning to think you had forgotten me,” he pleasantly
observed to the old porter, “and was afraid I should have to send the
things over in a cab, at the risk of getting half of them broken.”
Corny apologised for the trouble he had given, adjusted the bundle to
his own shoulders, and prepared to go.
“You will get half-a-crown, which I left for you when you deliver
them,” said the man graciously, “and there is little danger of you
breaking anything, as they are all carefully packed in soft goods.”
Corny was pleased with the explanation, for the weight of the bundle
did not suggest china or crystal to him, and in taking and adjusting
it to his ropes, he had heard not a single clink or rattle from
within. He went his way with the load, while his employer reascended
the stair and was gone. Corny was not a robust man by any means, so
it was past ten o’clock before he reached his destination. Then he
found that there had been some mistake in the address, for he could
not find any one who expected such a consignment, or answered to the
name he sought. After trailing about for half an hour, Corny was
reluctantly compelled to turn southward once more, with the intention
of returning the load to its owner. But there a fresh difficulty
awaited him. He found the stair easily, but in the whole land could
discover no one answering to the name given him by his employer.
Corny got a good deal of abuse, indeed, for rousing some of the
tenants out of bed, and as he was now thoroughly knocked up with his
weary trailing, he resolved to let the matter rest till morning, and
turned his face homeward.
Now, at that moment, by a curious train of circumstances, I was
sitting in Corny’s house patiently waiting for him. That very
afternoon I had been passing down one of the closes, when my eye
caught a bright-coloured and new shoulder shawl decorating a woman
moving in the same direction.
“Hullo, Bess,” I said, stopping short, “let me have a look at your
shawl.”