The hawker of the herrings was not of the class usually seen in
the streets of Edinburgh, where they seldom own more than the
wheel-barrow containing the fish. He was a man of some substance,
having a donkey to draw his cart, and a number of pigs, and a big
garden, in which he worked during his spare hours. The place in which
he lived is a town some miles from Edinburgh, and the time when
the quarrel began the month of July. The quarrellers were a baker
named Dan Coglin, and the herring hawker aforesaid, Jamie Burfoot
by name. The baker was also a man of some means, being in business
for himself, and he would have prospered had it not been for his
uncontrollable temper. Coglin had in his time threatened to murder
every friend and acquaintance in the place, and doubtless in the
heat of his passion really meant to do so, but fresh objects for his
resentment constantly arose to divert him from his purpose. He was
one of those unhappy beings who meet with mighty wrongs, and slights,
and insults every day of their lives, and feel called upon to set
the world right in that respect, no matter at how great a risk to
themselves.
The quarrel took place at the bakehouse door, and was witnessed from
a stairhead above by a tailor named Thomas Elder, who had already had
more than one disagreement with the hot-headed baker.
Burfoot had stopped his donkey cart at the bakehouse door, and
offered some of his herrings for sale. They were fresh herrings, but
that was just the point on which the dispute began. Coglin said they
were stale, and added that Burfoot had cheated him often in the same
way before, adding some lively reflections on his character, from
which it appeared that the herring hawker ought to have been hanged
many years before.
Now, as often happens quite providentially in such cases, only one
of the men was violent. Burfoot was a quiet, canny customer, who
only laughed at the most outrageous of the baker’s remarks. His
character was in no danger from the insane ravings of such a man, and
the herrings were there to speak for themselves. He lifted one of the
finest, and handed it to the baker, saying simply—
“If that isn’t fresh out of the sea this morning I’ll give you the
whole load for nothing.”
This was said laughingly. Coglin took the herring, affected to sniff
at it, and then, with an expression of disgust, threw it back.
Burfoot’s mouth was open, and the pitched herring dived into the
cavity as neatly as if it had really been, what the hawker asserted,
“living.” Burfoot sputtered and choked, while the tailor above,
though wishing the quarrel to go the other way, could not restrain
a burst of laughter at the comical appearance the hawker cut. There
is a limit even to the endurance of a peaceable man. Burfoot no
sooner was free of the unexpected mouthful than he wildly grabbed
a handful of herrings from the cart, and battered them, as fast as
he could fire them, in the direction of the baker’s head. Coglin
retreated and closed the bakehouse door, and after some storming and
threatening Burfoot picked up the missiles he had used, tossed them
back into the cart, and drove on, shouting “Fine fresh herrings!”
Four or five of them, which had been dashed in at the open door at
the retreating baker, that worthy gathered up and complacently put
into a dish in the oven for his dinner. He was in a good temper,
for he thought he had got decidedly the best of the quarrel. He was
to change his mind next morning. Coglin’s business was a small one,
and, except at specially busy times, he did all his baking himself.
He was therefore the first and only one on the spot next morning.
The hour was an early one, but it was quite light, and he noticed at
once that something was wrong. The principal window to the bakehouse
had been raised, and the lower sash left wide open. The circumstance
excited his curiosity and surprise, but did not at first greatly
concern him. There was little of value in the bakehouse for thieves
to take, and he thought the raising of the sash might be only the
trick of some mischievous boy. He unlocked the door and got inside,
looked around the place, and then groaned and cursed to his heart’s
content. The batch for his early baking had been carefully “set” the
night before, that is, the dough had been carefully mixed in a wooden
trough, covered over with a board and some empty sacks, and left to
“rise.” It had not risen as he had expected, for the coverings had
been removed; his bakehouse “bauchles” had been stuck into the soft
mass, with all the shapes and biscuit markers, and a dirty can of
sugar and water, with its paint-brush, with which he anointed cookies
when they came hot from the oven, added on the top. That was not all.
A bag half-full of flour, which generally stood in a corner, had been
dragged forward and turned out on the floor, while into the white
heap had been poured his whole supply of barm.
When he had quite exhausted his stock of language, Coglin rose, and,
closing the window and door, made his way to the chief constable’s
house, where he roused that worthy man out of bed, and insisted upon
him dressing and coming to see the wreck.
The constable came and examined all, and then very naturally asked
who had been quarrelling with the baker. With a man of Coglin’s
disposition it would have been safer to ask whom he had not been
quarrelling with. Coglin went over the names of some of his foes,
but, having had the best of the slight affair with the herring
hawker, he never thought of naming Burfoot.
The constable made no great progress with the case, and I suspect
did not exert himself much, as there was general rejoicing over the
baker’s calamity, which was thought to be well deserved. Finding
this to be the case, Coglin insisted on having a detective brought
from Edinburgh. The case was important, he declared—nothing but
a conspiracy conceived and executed by half of the town’s folks,
including a magistrate and several leading town councillors, and
he would have the law to them though he should have to call in the
aid of the Home Secretary himself. Accordingly I went down to look
at the place, and was greatly amused by Coglin’s wild statements of
his troubles and daily martyrdom. In looking over the bakehouse,
I chanced to notice on the board which had been used to cover the
“batch,” or “sponge,” a number of herring scales—almost enough to
convey the idea of a hand-print.
I said nothing of the circumstance till I had examined the window
sash, and found two similar hand-prints of herring scales there also.
“Are you in the habit of handling herring often?” I asked, to which
he gave a prompt response in the affirmative.
“Oh, yes; there’s often as many as two dozen dishes of them here in
the morning to be fired in the oven.”
“And you take toll of a herring out of each?” I laughingly observed.
“No, no, I never touch them,” he hastily returned; and then I showed
him the herring scales on the board and the window sash. He looked
grave enough for some moments, and then burst out into a ferocious
“Aha!”
It was all he said for a few moments, but it clearly indicated that
the herring scales had suggested a great idea to him. What the idea
was I soon knew, for he proceeded to describe the encounter with
Burfoot, and ended by boldly affirming that the herring man and no
other was the author of the outrage. The inference seemed a very fair
one, and after getting a description of the quarrel, I decided to
see after the herring man. The result of my investigations in that
direction was absolute failure, so far as bringing home the guilt to
Burfoot was concerned. I not only got clear proof that Burfoot on the
night and morning of the outrage had been out of the town altogether,
but that he had been confined to bed and too ill to move out of the
house. Nothing could be clearer than the evidence on this point;
and when I had finished I was convinced that, whether Burfoot had
planned the outrage or no, he at least could not have been the actual
perpetrator.
Nothing more seemed to come of the herring scales, and I reported the
result to Coglin, who received it with a burst of abuse.
“And you call yourself a detective?” he scornfully shouted, and his
private opinions which followed are not worth recording.
“I believe that is what I am called, and what I earn my bread by,” I
quietly returned.
“Well, I’ll tell you what you are!” he shouted, working himself
nearly black in the face; and he then proceeded to declare that I had
been bought over by his enemies, and that he would now trust, not to
the police or the law for redress, but to himself. He looked so like
a maniac in his rage and fury, that I did not trouble to reply, but
left him and got back to Edinburgh, where other work soon drove the
recollection of the baker’s petty affair out of my head.
Coglin’s detective work did not begin where mine left off. He had
quite settled in his own mind who was the guilty one, and his only
difficulty was to decide on what punishment should be meted out to
the herring hawker. Many plans suggested themselves, but they mostly
had the objectionable feature of bringing the self-appointed judge
and executioner within reach of the law. At length a chance remark of
Burfoot—who, all unconscious of impending evil, was still on friendly
terms with the baker—prompted him to a scheme as ingenious as it was
diabolical. A son and heir had been born to Burfoot, and he gleefully
told the baker that he should soon hold a party of rejoicing over the
event, when the christening could conveniently take place. He did not
invite Coglin to form one of the party, but that oversight did not
distress the baker.
“I wish I could poison the whole of them,” was his inward comment as
he turned to his bakehouse, and out of that remark sprang the great
scheme.
Coglin of course knew something of the baking of fancy bread, and
the same evening, as soon as his ordinary work was over, he set to
and made a fine christening cake. He was careful to cover up the
windows and every chink in the door before beginning. In making up
the cake he hesitated long between some arsenic which he had got for
the rats in the bakehouse and another powerful drug as a seasoning;
but, having made his choice and hurried up the cake, he waited and
watched the firing of it as eagerly and attentively as if a Princess
Royal had been intended as the joyful recipient. The cake did not
rise well, probably owing to the queer spicing it had got, but Coglin
chucklingly decided that the sugaring would cover that. He snowed it
over with a preparation of white sugar, and then flowered it over the
corners and edges with pink, and finished up by lettering it boldly
in sugar as “A Present from Edinburgh.”
When the cake was finished, he covered it with a strong wrapper of
brown paper, and addressed it to “James Burfoot, Fishdealer,” adding
the name of the town in which they both lived, and the words “_per_
rail—carriage paid.” He was careful, in writing the address, to
disguise as much as possible his handwriting, and, it is needless to
add, he did not as usual put a printed label on the parcel bearing
his name and address.
Next morning he considerably astonished his son Bob, a boy of twelve,
by telling him that he needed him to go an errand.
The command was an awkward one for Bob, who had arranged with two
companions to spend the day at a town not far off, at which there
were to be races, and no end of shows and sports. Bob accompanied
his father to the bakehouse about as nimbly as a murderer going to
execution.
Above the cover bearing the name and address, Coglin had tied a
wrapper of paper to conceal the address, and inside that had placed
a sixpence wrapped in paper to pay the carriage. The parcel thus
arranged he sternly placed in Bob’s hands.
“You’re to take that to Edinburgh, and hand it in at the railway
parcel office. They’ll find the address and the money inside.
You’re to say nothing—just put down the parcel and walk out; do you
understand?”
“Could I not take it to the railway station here?” sulkily returned
his son. “It’ll go just as well.”
“No! You’re to go to Edinburgh, and ask no questions, or I’ll half
murder you!” cried Coglin. “It’s a present, and the—the customer
doesn’t want the folk to know who sent it, or where it comes from.”
“And am I to walk all the way to Edinburgh?” groaned the boy,
ruefully.