“Stick by her. She is a noble girl. Marry her when she comes out;
for, when she could sacrifice so much from love of her mother, what
would she not sacrifice for her husband!”
He thought the advice good enough to act on, and I believe has never
regretted his choice.
M^cSWEENY AND THE MAGIC JEWELS.
A kick from a brute having iron toe-plates on his boots had placed
me on the sick, or rather the lame, list, and so the scientific
gentleman, with his strange story of robbery, was referred to
M^cSweeny. The gentleman, who was well known as an author and
student, and whom I may here name Mr Hew Stafford, insisted that
none but the very cleverest and most acute detective on the staff
could properly follow and understand the almost supernatural events
connected with the robbery of the jewels, and as my chum’s opinion
has always been that he answers to that description, and every one
else was busy, he was allowed to take the case in hand.
“I’m Detective M^cSweeny, at your service, sur,” he said, bowing
stiffly, as the old gentleman blinked at him through his spectacles.
“I daresay you’ll have read my experiences? They are published in
books, and that’s how some call me the great M^cSweeny.”
“No, I have not had that pleasure,” politely responded Mr Stafford.
“I never heard the name before.”
“Ah, I know how that is,” returned M^cSweeny, with alacrity. “It’s
because a kind of assistant of mine puts his name to the books. Ye
see, sur, I’m troubled wid a kind of stiffness in me right hand, and
writin’s bothersome to me, so I let him do it. His name’s M^cGovan,
and he gets all the praise and all the money for the books, which I
wouldn’t mind at all, at all, if he didn’t try to make me look as
small as possible. If ye believe him, I can’t do a dacent job without
him. For a story-teller, I’ll back him agin all the world.”
“Yes, I think I have heard his name, but I never look at that kind of
literature,” wearily answered Mr Stafford.
“An’, good for you, sur; for the lies that’s in it—especially about
me—no wan knows better than meself; but it’s no use me saying
anything, for paiple believe every word he writes. He drives his own
carriage, while I’ve to walk on futt. Never moind! I’ve the pull on
him in cleverness. Give me your difficult job, and see if I don’t run
down the thafe better than a dozen M^cGovans rolled into wan.”
“I understand—you mean that he is but a lame detective?”
“He is that,” said M^cSweeny, with a twinkle in his eye, as he
thought of the kick which had laid me up. “If there’s a lame
detective annywhere in the world this minit, it’s him.”
“Then I am delighted to have met you instead,” exclaimed the innocent
Mr Stafford, “for of all the mysteries that ever were brought here to
unravel, none could be more incomprehensible than the robbery which
has brought me here. You can understand how valuables might go where
there are hands to take them,—servants or professional thieves,—but
for jewels to vanish before one’s eyes in a locked room, with windows
fastened, and not a living creature near, seems as nearly impossible
as anything I can imagine, yet that is exactly the case which I have
brought to you.”
“Nothing at all—nothing at all to us,” said M^cSweeny, with the most
unbounded confidence in himself. “Just go over the whole story, and
I’ll soon put it all to rights.”
“Well, I am, as you probably know, a bachelor, and live out at
Newington in a self-contained house of my own. My servants are a
housekeeper, a kitchen-maid, and good-for-nothing page—a boy of
thirteen, who eats his own weight of food every day, and torments
the life out of me generally. I must tell you at once, however, that
it is quite impossible that any of these three servants can be the
thief.”
M^cSweeny smiled knowingly to himself, but made no remark. He had
already decided that the good-for-nothing page-boy was the thief.
“You will understand how it is impossible that the servants could be
involved, when you learn the circumstances,” pursued Mr Stafford. “A
young relative of mine is getting married, and, as I am not exactly
a poor man, I decided upon giving her a handsome present. I said
nothing about my intention to anyone, but went to the bank and drew
£200.”
“£200,” said M^cSweeny, gravely noting down the facts, with a severe
official frown on his brow, in imitation of some peculiarity of my
own.
“With that money in my pocket I went over to Princes Street, and
bought, in a first-class jeweller’s, a necklace, brooch, and
ear-rings. They were set with diamonds and pearls, and, I believe,
full value for the money I paid for them, which was only a pound
or two less than I had drawn from the bank. They were very pretty
trinkets, and, though no admirer of such things generally, I could
not help looking more than once at these. I mention these facts just
to let you understand that they were _bona-fide_ jewels, paid for
at the highest price, and bought from a man above suspicion, and
no trick affairs made up in some magic way to deceive the eyes or
fingers, and then vanish into gas or air before one’s eyes. After I
had paid for the jewels they were put into a small casket covered
with morocco and lined with velvet, and this casket, wrapped in
paper, was placed in my own hands, and carried by me to my own home.
I still said nothing of my purchase to anyone. The page-boy was
in the hall as I entered, but the casket was at that moment in my
coat pocket, and he could not possibly have guessed that I carried
anything uncommon. I left my hat, and umbrella, and boots in the
hall, and went straight up to my study. This room is always closed
with a check-lock, and no one can enter it during my absence. There
is no furniture in the room which could screen any person from sight.
When you enter the room you see at a glance all that is in it—my
book-case, my writing-table, and a sofa and four chairs. There is
a fire and fire-place, of course, but no one could conceal himself
there, as the grate is a small register one, and the fire was blazing
up when the magical disappearance took place. I always light the fire
and trim it myself, and the page never gets further than the outside
of the door when he fills and brings up the coal scuttle. The floor
is covered with one piece of wax-cloth, so there are no crevices
or holes into which any small trinket could drop or roll. You are
following me clearly, I hope?”
“Yes, sur—as clear as day,” answered M^cSweeny, with rather less
confidence in his tones.
“Well, on entering the room, I knocked up the fire, put on fresh
coals, and then seated myself before my writing-table, directly
in front of the fire. I took out the casket of jewels and placed
it on the table before me. The door, you will remember, was shut,
and cannot be opened from the outside except by me, who carry the
only key. I could see all the room, and both door and window, and
am certain no human being but myself was in that room. I thought I
should like to have another look at the trinkets, and opened the
casket and laid them out, one by one, on the writing-table before
me. I felt them—touched them—turned them over, and in every possible
manner was convinced that they were exactly as I had received them
from the maker. Now listen. After I had admired them for some little
time, I replaced them in the case, which was fitted with grooves to
hold them. I did not close the case, but began to reflect on the
possible weal or woe which might await the young girl who was to
receive them. While thus reflecting, my eyes left the table for a few
minutes, and rested on the window and the distant green hills and
clear sky. I was in what is called a brown study for perhaps five
minutes. When I awoke from that reverie, and brought my eyes back to
the table, the jewels were gone!”
“Gone?” echoed M^cSweeny, incredulously.
“Yes, gone—casket, and necklace, and brooch, and ear-rings had
vanished bodily, leaving not a trace of their existence before me on
the mahogany table.”
“You’d drapped them on the flure, mebbe?” suggested M^cSweeny, whose
hair was beginning to rise on end.
“Not at all, though, like you, I thought at first that that was
possible,” calmly continued Mr Stafford. “I looked at my feet, over
the table, under the table, and into every drawer and cranny about
the table. I did not find them. I tried the door; it was firmly
closed. The window the same. I felt every pocket. All in vain. The
jewels and the case were gone.”
“Ay, but how? There must have been some greedy fingers to take them,”
said M^cSweeny, who seemed to instinctively guess the suggestion that
was coming.
“Perhaps not,” said the old gentleman, as calmly; “a spirit hath not
flesh or bones. Did you never hear of evil spirits?”
M^cSweeny almost jumped to his feet, and fumbled apprehensively with
his red scalp.
“Faith have I,” he answered, with a shudder, thinking probably of
the “Spirit Rappers” described in “Strange Clues.” “If it’s a good
healthy ghost of the owld-fashioned kind your going to mintion, it’s
all right, but your table-rapping ones I’ll have nothing to do with.”
“I don’t profess to say what kind of spirit took them,” solemnly
replied Mr Stafford, “but it must have been a covetous spirit. I’ve
told you all I know of the affair. The jewels are gone, and that’s
exactly how they vanished. I could not ask the servants about them,
for they never saw them, and were not near me at the time. I don’t
feel inclined to lose them, yet I am certain that no human hand took
them.”
“Rats, mebbe?” hopefully suggested M^cSweeny.
“No; there is not a hole in the room.”
“A jackdaw then—it might have come down the chimney.”
“Impossible. I must have heard it, and seen it. No; the jewels
disappeared right under my nose, without a sound. I leave you to
solve the mystery and recover the property.”
M^cSweeny had asked for a difficult case, and now that he had got
one he was bound to express himself highly elated at the apparently
unsolvable mystery. He volubly promised the robbed gentleman not only
that he would speedily lay the thief by the heels, but that, spirit
or no spirit, he would recover the property as well. His inward
resolve, of course, was that if he found himself making no progress
with the case, he would shove the finishing of it on me, while, if
by some rare stroke of good luck he did succeed, the greater renown
would attach to his efforts on account of his emphatic declarations.
Full of these assurances, he accompanied Mr Stafford out to that
gentleman’s house at the South Side, and was taken up to the room in
which the jewels had so magically disappeared. He got Mr Stafford
to sit down in the exact spot and attitude he had occupied when the
robbery took place. When this had been done, and every part of the
room examined, M^cSweeny was more puzzled than ever. His reason told
him most emphatically that the valuables could not have gone without
hands, and yet he could not suggest even to himself how fingers could
have got at them. There was not a crevice in the room—the house was a
modern one, and therefore could not have any invisible stairs, doors,
or passages in the walls; and even if these had existed, he could
not conceive it possible for anyone to enter the room and remove the
jewels before the owner’s eyes, and he sitting there wide awake,
looking straight before him. However, he had promised great things,
and by his confident looks, and winks, and nods hinted at greater,
so all he could now do was to take refuge in a little boldness. In
entering the house he had got his eye on the page-boy, who was in
the act of stuffing something out of sight into one of his pockets.
As M^cSweeny reached the boy’s side a whiff of the page’s breath
ascended to his nostrils, and seemed to point to the cause of the
hurried act of concealment.
“Tobacco, the young spalpeen!” was M^cSweeny’s mental exclamation.
“The boy that can smoke is fit for anything. Just wait a minit, my
jewel, and I’ll frighten the very sowl out of ye.”
Having inspected Mr Stafford’s study, and made nothing of the work,
M^cSweeny had no difficulty in working himself up into a fit of rage
against the page.
“Just ring the bell, plase, for that boy in the tight jacket and
buttons,” he said to Mr Stafford when they had returned to the
sitting-room. The bell was rung, and the page appeared, when
M^cSweeny grandly requested to be left alone with the quaking boy.
Mr Stafford accordingly withdrew, when M^cSweeny elaborately took
from his pocket first a note-book and pencil, and then a pair of
handcuffs, which he clanked noisily down on the table before the
boy’s eyes.
“Now, you boy—your name?” he sternly began.
“William Lister, sir,” said the page, visibly alarmed.
“Well, William, I’m the great detective M^cSweeny, and I’ve come here
on a great case. You know what I can do to you, I suppose?”
“Ye—ye—yes, sir,” stammered the page, nearly crying, and shaking on
his legs.
“Now look me in the face, sur,” and M^cSweeny grabbed the boy
suddenly by the arm, and forced him down on his knees—no very
difficult task—while he chained him with his fierce eyes. “Now, sur!
you’ve been robbing your master!”
“No—no—no—sir!” cried the boy, clasping his hands in an agony of
terror, and beginning to howl.
“You tuck them; I can see it in your eye,” sternly returned
M^cSweeny. “Now, where have ye hid them? Out with it, or off to jail
ye go!”