Criminals vary in character and degree of guilt as much as the leaves
of the forest do in form and colour, but there is always a large
number whom no one of experience ever expects to reform. They are the
descendants of generations of thieves; they have known nothing else
from babyhood, and will know nothing else till they are shovelled
into the earth. It would be far cheaper to the country to keep them
in perpetual imprisonment, but so many objections can be raised to
such a scheme that I question if it will ever become law.
To this class belonged Peter Boggin, otherwise known as “Shorty.” He
had received this name not so much on account of his height, which
was medium, as on account of his temper, which was of the shortest. I
question, indeed, if Shorty would ever have been in prison at all but
for his temper.
Shorty’s boon companion and working pal was a quiet, lumpish-looking
fellow named Phineas O’Connor. Phineas, when his tongue was loosened
by drink, was wont to assert that he was descended from the Irish
Kings, and therefore had been derisively dubbed “The Fin.” He was a
still man, rather sullen, and not lacking in deadly ingenuity, as
will appear before I have done.
Among the many schemes proposed or tried by Shorty and The Fin
was one for entering a big house in the New Town, occupied by a
fashionable family much given to receiving company. The Fin had noted
this circumstance, and had also ascertained beyond a doubt that
the family were really, and not apparently, wealthy. By following
the line of houses with his eye to one of the common streets of
Stockbridge, close by, The Fin then decided that to enter the upper
part of the major’s house would not be difficult. The place was
marked and watched for some time before the opportunity occurred, as
no intimation of his intention regarding parties was ever sent by the
major to either Shorty or The Fin.
One evening, when the season was at its height, and the nights
conveniently long and dark, the two, when taking their customary
stroll for inspection, found the house lighted from top to bottom,
and the longed-for party in full swing. The usual dinner hour they
knew was six o’clock, and, as that hour was approaching, Shorty
set out for a tour of inspection in the next street, while The Fin
patiently waited for the dinner gong to sound.
The first warning had been given by the gong when Shorty returned
and reported the road clear, and the two took their way to the next
street, where they ascended a common stair, and by standing on the
railing at the top managed to reach the hatch leading to the roof, by
Shorty climbing up on The Fin’s shoulders and then pulling his helper
up as soon as he had forced the hatch and reached the low den between
that and the slates. There was another hatch yet to force—that which
led out on to the slates—and to reach that the two had to crawl
along in a stooping position, carefully feeling with their feet
for the cross beams lest they should suddenly plunge through the
lath and plaster into the room below. In crawling along thus they
felt and passed the water cistern which supplied the whole tenement
beneath them, which stood as close in under the slope of the roof as
its height would admit of. Getting open the upper hatch proved no
difficult task, and then they tossed up who should get out and make
his way along the housetops to the major’s house.
The lot fell to Shorty, and he got out and patiently worked his
way along the slates and over ranges of chimney cans to the more
aristocratic street hard by. When he reached the attic windows of
the major’s house he looked at his watch and decided that the whole
household and all the guests must then be busy downstairs, the
dinner in full swing, and the servants too excited and flurried to
think of coming near the bedrooms or upper flats. One of the attics,
presumably occupied by the servants, had its window open, and Shorty
had merely to raise the sash a little higher to pass within and have
the free range of the whole of the house but the area and first flat.
An experienced man, Shorty did not hurry with the task. He went over
the trunks of the servants first, but found nothing worth lifting but
a small gold brooch and a silver ring. The ring was not worth two
shillings, and Shorty was at one moment inclined to toss it back into
the box, but he changed his mind and took it with him. He should have
left it. Leaving the servants’ room, with many an inward imprecation
on them for keeping bank books instead of money in their boxes,
Shorty softly ranged through all the other rooms and bedrooms within
his reach, and soon had quite a respectable pile of plunder gathered
into his capacious coloured cotton handkerchief. He took nothing but
articles of jewellery and the contents of two ladies’ purses, which
he found in one of the bedrooms; and among the articles there chanced
to be a very heavy gold chain—either a bailie’s or a provost’s chain
of office. Although the haul was a fair one, Shorty was dissatisfied,
for he had expected to get something out of the plate chest in the
tablemaid’s room. He found the room and the chest in it conveniently
open, but inconveniently empty. All the plate was on the dinner
table, or downstairs ready to be placed there, and Shorty, forgetting
that he owed his ease and success to the dinner and guests, was
ungrateful enough to curse both. Even thieves are never content.
In leaving by the attic window Shorty was careful to close the window
after him, a circumstance which afterwards led to some confusion on
our part, as the servants, finding it thus closed, declared most
positively—probably to screen themselves from blame—that the window
had not only been closed, but firmly fastened on the inside. This
statement led us to think that, during the confusion of the party,
the thief might have entered by the front door and made his escape
in the same manner. There was some hunting and examination in the
direction of the roof, and the hatch in the adjoining street was
found to have been forced, but at the time that led to nothing. Had
we even guessed at the curious incident which had followed Shorty’s
exit on to the roof our action would have been very different. It is
these unlooked-for events which continually trip up the most astute.
We suffered by the slip, but we did not suffer alone.
When Shorty got out on the slates, carrying his handkerchief of
valuables, he found something more deserving of cursing than the
dinner—namely, a clear sky and a tolerably bright moon. Speaking
rapidly and energetically under his breath, he crawled along, keeping
on the safest side of the roof till he could do so no longer, having
to go forward to make his way over a range of chimney cans. As chance
would have it, at the same time he glanced anxiously down on the
steep street running down towards that spot, and saw the policeman
of the beat looking, as he fancied, in his direction. Not only did
the officer look, but he made some motion with his hand, and crossed
the road as if to come nearer.
“Spotted!” cried Shorty, with an oath; and the rest of the journey
across the roofs to the hatch where The Fin awaited him was performed
in “the best time on record.” As a matter of fact the policeman had
neither seen Shorty nor made a motion in his direction, but Shorty
hurriedly explained the position to his chum, and after a brief
council of war they rid themselves of the plunder, dropped through
the inner hatch, and escaped downstairs, by the backdoor, across some
greens. They took separate routes, certain that they were being hotly
pursued, and got into hiding at once.
A few hours later the robbery was discovered and reported at the
Office. As in few cases of the kind, we were able to take down a
pretty full and accurate list of the articles stolen, including,
of course, the silver ring of the servant and the heavy gold chain
already noticed.
With this list, and the knowledge that so many of the articles were
easily identifiable, I had little doubt but we should soon lay hands
on either the thief or part of the plunder. I was mistaken. None of
my “bairns” showed an overflow of money; not the slightest sign of
“a great success” appeared anywhere; and none of those had up on
suspicion had heard of the deed. Some of them strongly asserted that
the whole thing was a sham, and really done by an amateur—one of the
servants or some of her followers. One of the boldest to assert this
was Shorty himself, whom I had invited to accompany me to the Office,
and who had followed me with an alacrity which caused my hopes to
sink at once to zero. As for The Fin, he was not a man of words, and
only scowled, and told us to hurry with our investigations, as he
did not care for the Lock-up, and wanted back to his den. We did not
hurry particularly, knowing that both were safer and more harmless
under lock and key than at liberty, but events hurried for us in a
manner anticipated neither by them nor us. While the two worthies
were still in our keeping, I chanced one day to call upon an honest
jeweller who dealt in the precious metals, and was shown by him a
piece of a heavy gold chain which he had that day bought from a lad
whose name and address was in his book. The piece was about eighteen
inches long, and at one end showed a clean cut, as if it had been
either clipped through with strong shears or cut with a chisel, half
of the severed link being still attached to the chain. It was fine 22
carat gold, and so uncommon-looking that the jeweller had questioned
the seller closely as to how it came into his possession.
“He said that it had belonged to his mother, and they had had it for
years locked away, but, seeing that it was of no use, they thought of
having it made into a brooch,” continued the jeweller. “He was just a
working lad,—not at all like a thief,—so I believed him, and paid him
for it according to weight and quality.”
“Why did he not have it made into a brooch?” I sceptically inquired.
“Because there was not enough of it to make one such as he desired,
and none of those I offered him in exchange pleased him.”
“I daresay not,” I dryly returned, and then I decided to take the
piece of chain over to the major’s, and at the same time hunt up the
lad who had sold the old gold. The result of my visit to the major’s
was that the piece of chain was strongly believed by that gentleman
to be part of that taken from his house, and the hunt for the lad who
had sold it proved only that the young rascal had given a false name
and address.
So much was gained, however, for we were a step nearer the criminal,
as we imagined. We had a full description of his age and appearance,
and there was a strong probability that, being a novice, he would not
stop short at his first attempt to dispose of the plunder. A very
stringent order was issued to all the jewellers likely to be visited,
but as it turned out, the order was not needed, for, not many days
later, the lad again appeared with another piece of gold chain to
sell.
“We’ve found the other piece at the bottom of a drawer,” he said,
“and we thought you might give more for it, as it might be joined on
to the first piece and sold as a chain, instead of being melted down
as old gold.”
Scarcely able to believe his eyes, the jeweller asked him to sit
down while he went into the back shop to assay the gold. He did
not set about the task with great alacrity, but contented himself
with sending an apprentice out by a side door with a message to the
Central Office, while he stood and watched the lad through the glass
door. The message was handed to me, and I went to the shop at my
smartest.
As I entered I saw the lad seated in the front shop in the overalls
of a working joiner. At the same moment the jeweller came from the
back shop with the piece of chain in his hand.
“A piece of old gold which this lad wants me to buy,” he observed,
and then, while the lad started and glanced at me, I, with apparent
carelessness, and without looking in his direction, took from my
pocket my little staff of authority, as if to polish up with my
sleeve the silver crown. The lad’s eyes became fixed on that in a
kind of fascination, and when I took the bit of chain and glanced
full in his face, I was not astonished to find him deadly pale, and
almost tottering on his legs.
“Where did you get it?” I demanded, and then, after a feeble grip at
the counter, he sat down, looking ghastly indeed.
“At home; it’s my mother’s,” he stammered; then he seemed to think
better of it, for he hastily added, “No—I found it.”
“Imphim; where the Hielantman found the tongs—at the fireside, eh?” I
returned, after cautioning him. “Did you find any other things in the
same place?”
“No.” It was a lie. I saw that, but then it was meant more as a
dogged refusal than a denial. A reaction had come to his terror; he
had pondered the position for a moment, and decided to take shelter
in silence.
“Where do you live?”
“I’d rather not say,” was the tardy answer.
“Very well; work at anything?”
“Yes; I’m a joiner.” He appeared to regret the admission, for he bit
his lip the moment he had said it.
“Apprentice or journeyman?”
“Apprentice. I’ll be out with my time next year.”
“Maybe you will,” I significantly answered; “meantime you’d better
come with me and see what the Fiscal has to say to it.”
He objected most strongly to have his wrist fastened to mine, but the
jeweller happened just then to address me by name, and my prisoner
collapsed and submitted to the degradation. We had no great distance
to go, but the road seemed long enough to him, for, though anything
but an honest-looking fellow, I guessed rightly that it was his
first experience of the handcuffs. At the Office he took refuge in
silence, or tried to screen himself with absolute falsehood. He gave
a false name; would give no address; denied that he had a mother
living; would not say for whom he worked; and altogether emitted
as stupid a declaration as any one could well have done. I believe
he meant well—he meant to screen himself from further trouble; to
save his friends from disgrace along with him; and to keep the
knowledge of the scrape into which he had fallen from his employer
and acquaintances generally; but then every liar has exactly the same
excuse.
It was simply a little more work for me, and as the task was
gradually accomplished, the facts revealed seemed to point to his
guilt with no uncertain finger.
The discovery of his identity was made simply enough by his mother
coming to the Office next morning to report her son missing. He
had been absent all night, and had not returned to his work on the
previous afternoon, and she was greatly distressed and concerned for
his safety. It was the mention of the trade he followed, and the name
and address of his employer, which first gave me the idea that we
had the missing son; and when she was shown our prisoner he did not
appear at all grateful for the boon, but swore at her in a manner in
which no mother should be addressed, and which would have put many a
professional criminal to the blush.
The mother appeared stunned and stupefied by the discovery that she
had helped to rivet fetters on him, and that he was likely to be
tried for housebreaking with an alternative charge of theft. How the
charge came to assume this form is the most striking and curious
feature of the case. As soon as I got the two addresses I went first
to the home of the prisoner, Alfred Scott, and searched in vain for
the rest of the plunder; then I went to his employer’s workshop, and
unearthed the treasure-trove from a most ingenious hiding-place under
a pile of wood which took us ten minutes to remove. Everything was
there but the gold chain and the servant’s silver ring, and the whole
were still wrapped up in Shorty’s spotted cotton handkerchief, which
unfortunately did not bear either name or address. But this discovery
was not the most important made at that place. From Scott’s master we
learned that our prisoner, along with a journeyman, had been employed
making some alterations or repairs in the major’s house about six
months before the robbery. The natural inference then was that he
upon that occasion had provided himself with casts of some of the
keys, and so prepared to commit the robbery—hence the framing of the
charge on the serious lines I have indicated.
As soon as these facts were made plain, and when the major had
identified Scott as one of the joiners who had worked in his house, I
went to Shorty’s cell and said that we had got the thief, and that in
all probability he and The Fin would be soon at liberty.
Shorty received the news not with the satisfaction I had expected,
but with a stony stare which seemed to me absolutely idiotic. He made
no remark of any kind, and showed neither gratitude nor resentment.
It turned out, however, that he and The Fin did not get off so
easily, but were convicted and sent for thirty days to prison for
“loitering with intent.”
Meanwhile Scott persisted in his fatal and blundering silence, and
his case came on for trial. He pleaded “not guilty,” and the case
went to proof, when the evidence, which, link by link, appeared
to demonstrate his guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt, took him
completely by surprise. There was the selling of the chain; his
contradictions and prevarications; the finding of the plunder, and
the fact that he had worked on the premises—all damning.
The summing up of the evidence had been completed, and the jury
were about to find him guilty without leaving the box, when Scott
excitedly asked to be allowed to make a statement in his defence.
“I am innocent of either theft or housebreaking—such crimes never
entered my head,” he tremulously declared. “If I’ve done wrong at
all it was only in not giving up the articles when I found them. I
was sent to a land in H—— Street to repair the fastenings on the
hatches leading to the roof, which had been broken by the sweeps or
some one. The landlord had been ordered by the police to have them
repaired, and I was sent to do it. There were two hatches—one at the
head of the stair, and one in the roof; and in the loft between was a
cistern. It is a big one, and stands at the side of the loft. I had
to get a candle to see my way across the beams, and when I was coming
back, after putting on a new hasp, I saw something like the corner of
a cotton handkerchief in the space behind the cistern. It just caught
my eyes as I was passing, and I went round and pulled it out, and
found in it all the things I am accused of stealing. I had no idea
they were stolen, or how long they might have been hidden there, and
I thought I might keep them.”
This statement produced no impression either upon the Bench or the
jury, or, if it did, the impression was damaging to the accused. In
the first place, there was an air of romance about his story—it
looked like another ingenious lie—and did not account for the plunder
being left there, or give any clue to the real thieves. Then, even
supposing the strange statement to be true, it still left Scott
self-convicted of a serious crime—appropriating to his own use what
he perfectly well knew did not belong to him. Without hesitation
the jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to six months’
imprisonment, it being his first offence.
And he was innocent! what a shame! some one exclaims. Well, I don’t
know. He was not innocent in intention. He was actually a thief,
though not the actual first thief, and he suffered a just punishment.
And now to return to Shorty and The Fin. It does not appear that
these amiable gentlemen met Scott in prison, or, if they did, that
they exchanged confidences on the case which interested them so
deeply, and in their seclusion the newspapers were not regularly
placed upon their breakfast table, even had they been blessed with
the ability to read them. It was agreed that Shorty should go over to
the hide and get the plunder, while The Fin went to a safe reset to
arrange about its disposal. This programme worked perfectly in all
but one trifling item—the finding of the plunder. Shorty did himself
up with soot to resemble a chimney-sweep, and with a ladder and the
proper key of the hatch got up to his hide behind the cistern, only
to groan and curse over the fact that the cotton handkerchief and
its contents were gone. The truth flashed on him at once—some one
had found the plunder. Shorty was as much enraged as if he had been
robbed. While he stood there cursing, something bright caught his
eye between the beams behind the cistern, and, stooping down, he
picked up the servant’s silver ring—the sole remnant of the valuable
plunder, which had in some way fallen out of the cotton handkerchief.
Shorty was so furious that he was near pitching it as far as he could
throw, but again that fateful second thought came to restrain him,
and he put it into his pocket and returned to The Fin, to whom he
related the facts, with the exception of the finding of the ring. The
Fin, as I have noticed, was a silent man. He heard the whole with
open eyes and shut mouth, and Shorty was himself too much enraged to
notice that The Fin was displeased and suspicious. Some men would
have stormed, and taunted, and uttered their suspicions, and even
fought over it, but that was not The Fin’s style. He uttered no
reflection, but when Shorty left him, The Fin took the precaution of
following him.
Being newly out of prison, Shorty’s funds were low, and he went
to the reset who had just been visited by The Fin, and managed to
extract two shillings out of him in exchange for the servant’s silver
ring. Every article of the plunder was by that time known to The Fin,
having been frequently described by Shorty, and more particularly
this ring, which Shorty had been so near leaving behind.
Scarcely had Shorty got into a public-house and exchanged one of the
shillings for some brandy, when The Fin was up at the reset’s house
demanding to know what Shorty had sold, and how many pounds sterling
he had got for it. The reset, rather staggered, at last declared
that Shorty had sold only the silver ring, and showed the trinket in
confirmation.
The Fin did not believe a word of it, but he was a still man, and
said nothing. Before three hours were gone he was with me, and had
given me such information regarding another feat of Shorty’s that
at last I drew a long breath of satisfaction, for I was sure of a
conviction and a good long sentence.
As soon as I had taken Shorty—not without a fight—The Fin regretted
his hastiness. He saw that if Shorty got a long sentence, he, The
Fin, would perhaps never get near him for vengeance, whereas, had
he allowed him to remain at liberty, a quick shove down some stair
or toss out at some window when Shorty was drunk would have settled
the whole business. The Fin’s regret did not last long, for before
many hours he was in the cells too, Shorty having in turn revealed
some awkward facts which seemed likely to put The Fin as long out of
harm’s way as himself. These expectations were fully verified shortly
after, when they both received sentence of seven years’ penal, and
were duly removed to the penitentiary.
And now I come to the bit of tobacco pipe, which will prove how
a mean and insignificant trifle often comes into the world to
accomplish a great work, and confer a blessing on all mankind. Every
one who knows anything of prison life can understand how a bit of
an old tobacco pipe is valued by convicts shut off from tobacco
for years. The smallest crumb of it, having the faintest taste of
nicotine, is treasured and passed from prisoner to prisoner, to be
sucked and finally broken up and chewed to its inmost recesses. It is
worth twenty times its weight in gold to them. When The Fin had spent
a year in prison in almost absolute silence, he got into hospital
for some trifling complaint, and so ingratiated himself with the
doctor that he was once or twice allowed into the laboratory. There
by some means he had managed to secrete a minute quantity of a deadly
poison, which he inserted into the hole in a piece of old tobacco
pipe shank. This bit of tobacco pipe he concealed till he was again
among the working convicts. He and Shorty were tacit foes, but this
difficulty The Fin got over in a manner worthy of the cause. Once,
when the warder was approaching, and a search possible, he managed,
in sight of Shorty, to conceal the bit of tobacco pipe in a place
easily accessible to his old pal, and then, when the danger was
past, forgot to go back for it until Shorty had had a chance of
appropriating the treasure. Not many minutes later Shorty took a fit
and dropped dead among the convicts.
Every one was horrified and astonished, till one of the warders
noticed a smell of tobacco about the mouth of the dead convict, and
fished out of his clenched teeth the bit of tobacco pipe. It was then
supposed that part of the pipe shank had been bitten off by Shorty
and drawn back into the windpipe so as to cause his death; and he
duly occupied his six feet of prison soil.
And was The Fin convicted and hanged? Not a bit of it. He lived out
his sentence and was released, and went about long enough to boast
of his deed, though I am bound to confess that few believed him, and
the general opinion was that Shorty died of the bit of tobacco pipe
without the poison. However, The Fin claimed all the credit, and
insisted that he was not to blame for the result, seeing that he did
not administer the poison, and that Shorty, in appropriating what
he knew was not his own, committed a grave offence against convict
society, and could not complain if he suffered for the crime.
The Fin should have been a lawyer, and with education might have
risen to be one, had he not been soon after choked by an overdose of
shebeen whisky.