[Illustration: CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
Fourth Series
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.
NO. 729. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1877. PRICE 1½_d._]
A BUNCH OF KEYS.
I am a professional man, and reside in the West End of London. One
morning some few months back, my assistant on coming to attend to his
duties produced a bunch of keys, which he informed me he had just
picked up at the corner of a street leading from Oxford Street.
'Hadn't they best be handed over to the police?' suggested my
assistant. I wish to goodness I had at once closed with his suggestion;
but I didn't, much to my own cost, as will be presently seen.
'Well, I don't know,' was my answer. 'I rather think it will be a wiser
plan to advertise them, if the owner is really to have a chance of
recovering them; for to my mind, articles found in that way and handed
over to the police are rarely heard of again.'
An advertisement for the _Times_ was duly drawn up and sent off for
insertion. It merely stated where the keys had been picked up, and
where the owner of the bunch could have it returned to him on giving
a proper description. The next morning the advertisement appeared;
and though I half expected that some applications might be made later
on in the same day, it passed over quite quietly. But the following
morning I had a foretaste of the trouble that awaited me so soon as the
postman had deposited my letters in the box and given his accustomed
knock. A glance at my table shewed me that my correspondence was very
considerably beyond its average that morning. The very first letter I
opened was in reference to the advertisement; and before I had gone
through the collection I found there were over twenty applications
for the bunch of keys in my possession. Some of the writers took the
trouble to describe the keys they had lost; but none of them were in
the least like those that had been picked up by my assistant. Some did
not take the trouble to give any description at all, or to state if
they had been in the part of the town where the keys were found; and
a few boldly claimed them on the strength of having dropped a bunch
miles from the spot indicated in the advertisement!
By the time I had got through my letters and my breakfast, my
servant came to tell me that my waiting-room was already full of
people--'mostly ladies,' he said--though it was nearly two hours
before the time I was accustomed to see any one professionally. With a
foreboding that a good deal of worry and a loss of much valuable time
was in store for me, I entered my consulting-room, and gave orders that
the ladies should be admitted in the order of their arrival. They were
all applicants for the keys; and out of the sixteen persons that were
waiting, fourteen were ladies. The two gentlemen were soon despatched.
They _had_ lost keys, near the spot for anything they could tell; but
on being satisfied that what had been found did in no way agree with
the description of what they had lost, they apologised for the trouble
and went at once.
But it was no such easy matter to get rid of my fourteen
lady-applicants. Some of them were for inflicting upon me a narration
of family affairs that had not the most remote connection with the
business in hand. A few kept closely enough to the subject on which
they had come; but would not take a denial that the keys in my
possession were not the least like those they said they had lost; and
it was only at the sacrifice of some of my usual politeness that I was
able to get rid of them. Not one of the morning's arrival could make
out anything like a fair claim, and one or two owned that they had not
even been in the quarter where the keys were found on the day specified.
More letters, more applicants, came as the day wore on; and I began
heartily to repent of my well-meant desire to benefit my fellow-mortals
by taking the trouble to find out the rightful owner of a lost article.
I was just on the point of giving orders to my servant to put off all
further applicants until the following morning, when he ushered in
a comfortable-looking lady of middle age, who proceeded straight to
business by at once describing with the greatest accuracy the bunch of
keys that had given me so much anxiety that day; and assuring me that
she had passed the spot indicated in the advertisement on the morning
they were found.
'Nine keys on the bunch, all Chubb's patent; three very small ones,
five of various sizes, and one latch-key longer than any of the others.'
The description was perfect. Some of the other applicants had curiously
enough been right as to the number, but wrong as to description.
I at once told my lady visitor that I had no doubt the keys were hers;
and that I was ready to hand them over to her. But I ventured to add
that it would give me greater security were she to permit my assistant
to accompany her to her residence, and there, in his presence, to
open the different locks to which the keys belonged. To this proposal
not the smallest objection was raised. She begged I would call my
assistant, as she had a cab waiting at the door. The direction was
given to some place in Bloomsbury, and they drove off. In less than an
hour my assistant returned. He stated that the lady opened the street
door with the latch-key, and that the other eight keys opened desks,
writing-tables, cash-boxes, &c.--all quite correct and satisfactorily.
The expense of the advertisement was of course paid.
Congratulating myself that this troublesome business was well over, and
mentally resolving that another time, under similar circumstances, I
should act on my assistant's suggestion, and hand such matters over to
the police, I gave orders that all applicants that might come were to
be told that the rightful owner had been found and that the keys were
disposed of.
Two days passed, and I had almost dismissed the whole affair from my
mind. On the morning of the third day my attention was attracted by
an altercation going on between my servant and an irate lady--well
advanced in years--to whom he refused admittance. Anxious to
escape disturbance, I gave orders that she should be shewn into my
consulting-room, where I presently went to see what she wanted.
'I want to know why you never answered my letter about the bunch of
keys you advertised as having found, and which I lost? I have come for
them now.'
'But, madam, none of the letters described the keys accurately, and I
was therefore not bound to notice any of the written applications that
reached me.'
'Not describe them properly! But I _can_ describe them; they were nine
in number on the bunch.'
'So far, that is right, madam. Proceed with your description.'
The description was entirely wrong; and I told her so. I told her,
moreover, that the rightful owner had been found, who had not only
described the keys properly, but who had taken my assistant to her
house and had used each individual key in his presence. I added that
if she were not satisfied, I could furnish her with the address of the
lady to whom the keys had been given up, and that she might call and
try to establish her claim if she fancied she had one.
She was very far from being satisfied. She wanted to argue the matter
further and, as I feared, to an unreasonable length. I told her firmly
I could waste no further time on her; whereupon she left vowing
vengeance.
The threats of the old lady did not much disturb me; but they were not
altogether so unmeaning as I supposed, for in two days thereafter a
summons was handed into me, demanding my presence at the police court
of the district, to answer for my refusal to deliver up to the rightful
owner property belonging to her, which I owned to having found, but
refused to account for.
That I was very much annoyed may be easily supposed; but at the same
time I could not help being somewhat amused, bearing in recollection
how I had tried to satisfy the unreasonable dame, who had evidently
more money than wit, seeing she was ready to waste it on so hopeless a
case.
I duly made my appearance before the worthy magistrate, whom I happened
to know slightly, and who could not restrain an amused grin when I was
called forward. My assistant accompanied me as a matter of course.
The old lady had engaged a smart lawyer, who did his best in trying
to make out a case; but his client rather weakened his statement by
her inconsequential answers to both her counsel and the magistrate.
My answer was easy. I shewed how the prosecutrix had utterly failed
in describing the keys. I told that the rightful owner had rightly
described them; and I put my assistant into the box to prove his having
seen every key in the bunch fitted into its proper lock.
'Were you passing along Oxford Street on the morning that this bunch of
keys was found?' asked the magistrate of the old lady.
'I was that way in an omnibus in the afternoon,' was the answer.
'But the keys in question were found in the morning, and were lying on
the pavement,' remarked His Worship.
'Ah, I don't know how that might be,' said my persecutor; 'but I know I
lost a bunch of keys.'
'Well, the case is dismissed; and you must pay expenses.' And so ended
the case.
Now I have no doubt the old lady, though so wrong-headed in the claim
she set up against me, had really lost a bunch of keys on the day my
assistant made his--for me--unlucky find. Nor do I for a moment doubt
the fact of some of the other applicants having also lost keys on
the same day and perhaps near the same spot. But the applications by
letter and personally numbered altogether not far short of fifty; and
it may be set down as a moral certainty that they did not all lose,
each of them, a bunch of keys on that particular day, and in Oxford
Street--without being particular as to the spot. My theory is, that
some of them had probably got their pockets picked of their keys while
travelling by omnibus, and could not of course tell exactly where they
lost them. Others may have simply mislaid their keys, and jumped to
the conclusion that they were lost. Some others, I fear, had not lost
keys at all, but merely came to my place out of idle curiosity. All of
them, I know, gave me more trouble than I ever hope to have again in an
affair of the kind.
[We can hardly say that the foregoing narrative, to call it so, is
overstrained. It points to a marvellous want of logical precision in
reasoning which is far from uncommon. Some years ago, in these pages,
we mentioned a droll case within our own experience. One day we chanced
to find a brooch, and advertised the fact in the newspapers. Next day
a lady called on us to say that she had lost a ring, and asked if we
knew anything about it. 'Madam,' was our reply, 'you must understand
that it was a brooch we found, and not a ring.' 'O yes, that maybe
so; but I thought as you were in the way of finding things, you might
perhaps have seen something of my ring.' A very pretty example this of
want of common-sense. Our advice to all who happen to find any article
of value on the street is, to take it at once to the police office,
where it may be reclaimed by the owner. Those who will not take this
trouble, should let the article alone. Finding does not constitute
ownership. We knew a gentleman, now deceased, who in the course of his
life punctiliously refrained from picking up any article of value on
the street, as the article was not his, and he might have been brought
into trouble. This was being too fastidious, for it was allowing the
article to be appropriated by possibly some dishonest person. True
kindness and true honesty consist in lodging the article found, at the
police office, whence, if no owner casts up within twelve months, it
will be sent to the finder, whose lawful property it becomes.--ED.]
THE LAND OF THE INCAS.
Peru recalls to every thoughtful student of history not only the
half-barbaric splendour of the empire of the Incas, but the vanished
prestige and glory of their Spanish conquerors. The gorgeous figure
of Pizarro, the stately hidalgo, the successful captain, the ruthless
soldier of fortune, meets us still at every step in the once rich
Indian empire he won for Spain. On that low swampy mangrove-fringed
stretch of coast, a tangled maze of vines and flowering creepers, the
half-famished Castilian adventurer landed in 1524. And here, where the
full tide of the Pacific rolls in upon the beach in columns of snowy
foam, he, in 1535, founded Lima, the 'city of the kings.'
To examine the cities of the Incas, their ruined palaces, and other
objects of note in this interesting region, was a task undertaken and
carried out by Mr Squier, whose researches have been embodied in a
volume entitled the _Land of the Incas_, the perusal of which enables
us to offer the following items to our readers.
The coast of Peru is arid and barren, lined with guano islands, which
although adding little to the charm of the scenery, are found as
lucrative to-day as the mines of Potosi and Pasco were in the heyday
of Spanish greatness. Thanks to this useful but unfragrant compost,
Pizarro's city of the kings is still rich and flourishing, though the
veins of silver are exhausted, and the golden sands no longer glitter
with the precious ore, which fired the Spanish breasts of old with such
fierce cupidity. It is very unhealthy, and although in the tropics,
the climate for six months in the year is extremely damp and almost
cold. Lima, which stands in an earthquake region, is built so as to
sustain the least possible damage from the ever recurring shocks of
those alarming phenomena. The private houses are never more than two
stories in height. They have flat roofs and projecting balconies, and
are constructed (one can hardly say built) of cane, plastered with mud,
and painted in imitation of stone. Most of them have courts with open
galleries in the Moorish style, extending along the four sides; and
many of them have towers, from which, in addition to the surrounding
scenery, an extended view of acres of flat roofs may be obtained--the
said flat roofs being piled with heaps of refuse, filth, and all manner
of abominations; very often they are used as poultry-yards, and here
the buzzards, which act as scavengers in all the South American cities,
roost at night.
The furniture in the better class of these wicker and mud-built
dwellings is often very fine: antique plate, velvet hangings, costly
mirrors, and family portraits, that smile or frown upon you with
all the charm or vigour the brush of Vandyke or Velasquez was able
to impart. The _pasios_ or public walks are planted with trees, and
the arcades, which are lined with fine shops, are a very favourite
promenade. The inhabitants of Lima of all grades are remarkably fond of
flowers, particularly of roses, which they contrive to keep in bloom
all the year round. 'Roses,' Mr Squier says, 'bloom in every court and
blush on every balcony, and decorate alike the heavy tresses of the
belle and the curly shock of the zamba.'
Bull-fights are a favourite amusement, and so is cock-fighting,
although it is no longer, as formerly, practised in the public streets.
The markets are well supplied, especially with fruit and vegetables.
Fish is good and the butcher-meat of fair quality. The luckless
traveller in Central America who could get nothing but chickens
and turkeys to eat, and was afraid at last that his whiskers would
transform themselves into feathers, may go to Lima with all safety, as
a medium-sized turkey there costs twenty dollars in gold. The cookery
is Spanish in its character, and consists much of stews savoury with
oil and garlic and pungent with red pepper.
Twenty miles from Lima is Pachacamac, a sacred city of the Incas,
where once stood a gigantic temple, dedicated to a deity of the same
name, the supreme creator and preserver of the universe. The ruins of
two large wings of this temple still remain, one of which contains a
perfect well-turned arch, which is so rare a feature in American ruins
that Mr Squier says 'it is the only proper arch I ever found in all my
explorations in Central and South America.' Pachacamac was the Mecca
of South America; and its barren hills and dry nitrous sand-heaps are
filled with the dead bodies of ancient pilgrims, who travelled from
all parts of the country to lay their bones, not their dust, in this
hallowed spot. 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' has no meaning here; the
dead body does not decay, but is dried and shrivelled into a mummy. Mr
Squier had the curiosity to open the shroud of what may once have been
perchance an Aztec belle. The body, which was that of a young girl,
was in a sitting posture, supported on a workbox of braided reeds, in
which were rude specimens of knitting, spindles for weaving, spools of
thread, needles of bone and bronze, a small bronze knife, a fan, and
a set of curious cosmetic-boxes formed of the hollow bones of a bird.
These were filled with pigments of various colours, and were carefully
stopped with cotton. Beside them was a small powder-puff of cotton
for applying them to the face, and a rude mirror formed of a piece of
iron pyrites highly polished. There was also a netting instrument and
a little crushed ornament of gold intended to represent a butterfly.
The long black hair, still glossy as in life, was braided and plaited
round the forehead, which was bound with a fillet of white cloth
adorned with silver spangles. A silver bracelet hung on the shrunken
arm; and between the feet was the dried body of a dead parrot, a pet
no doubt in life, and sacrificed to bear its mistress company into the
dread unknown land of spirits.
In the fertile valley of Canete, amid rich sugar-plantations, Mr Squier
found vast pyramidal buildings, rising stage upon stage, with broad
flights of steps winding round them to the summits. While sketching
amid a maze of these massive shattered adobe walls, our author was
startled by seeing three men suddenly leap over a low wall into the
vivid sunshine before him. 'God and peace be with you!' he said as
calmly as he could, instinctively divining that his best cue was to
appear as cool as possible. 'God and peace be with you!' responded the
bandits, for such they were; and after a little bullying, an amicable
parley ensued, which had for its object the acquisition of Mr Squier's
breech-loading rifle, a weapon which kindled in the bosom of Rossi
Arci, the robber chief, an ardent, but with all due deference to Mr
Longfellow, a wasted affection, for he did not obtain it. Four weeks
afterwards, Mr Squier saw the swollen disfigured corpse of this bandit
captain exposed to public view in one of the principal streets of Lima.
At Truxillo our author came across a treasure-hunter, one Colonel La
Rosa. This man spent his whole life in burrowing like a mole among
the old ruins in search of buried gold, gems, silver goblets, or any
other relic of antiquity which he could turn into money. Under his
guidance, Mr Squier visited a great pyramid called the Temple of the
Sun, and the extensive, interesting, and well preserved ruins of Grand
Chimu. Here he found vast halls, the walls of which were covered with
arabesques, and wide corridors from which spacious rooms diverged. The
walls of these apartments were bright with vivid and delicate colours;
and Colonel La Rosa shewed him where in the midst of them he had found
a walled-up closet filled with vessels of gold and silver placed in
regular layers one above the other, as if they had been hidden there in
some dire emergency. Two vaults were also discovered filled with silver
cups and goblets. The silver of which these vessels were composed was
much alloyed with copper, and was so much oxidised that it had become
exceedingly brittle. Mr Squier obtained possession of two of the cups.
They have the appearance of being hammered out of a single piece of
metal, are as thick as ordinary tin-plate, and are both adorned by the
representation of a human face, with clearly cut features and a large
aquiline nose.
About a hundred yards to the westward of the excavations which have
revealed the half-buried palace of the ancient princes of Chimu, is a
low broad mound, which has been found to be a necropolis, filled with
bodies richly clad and covered with gold and silver ornaments. Many of
the heads of the dead bodies found by Colonel La Rosa were gilt and
encircled by bands of gold; and one body, that of a woman, was covered
with thin sheets of gold, and wrapped in a robe spangled with silver
fishes. Warlike weapons and agricultural implements, knives, war-clubs,
lance-heads, and spear-points, with spades and mattocks of different
shapes, all of bronze, are found abundantly in the vicinity of these
ruins; as are also specimens of excellent pottery, on which are
modelled with spirit and fidelity representations of birds, animals,
fishes, shells, fruit, vegetables, and the human face and form.
Leaving Chimu reluctantly, Mr Squier travelled down to the coast, along
which he sailed, examining the coast ruins at Calaveras and other
places, till he reached Arica, the port of Tacna.
This is peculiarly an earthquake region; and some of these subterranean
convulsions are terrible to a degree which we dwellers in a temperate
clime can scarcely even imagine. A notably dreadful and destructive
earthquake was that of 1868, which shook to its base all the adjacent
country. It was first noted in Arica about five o'clock in the morning,
its premonitory symptoms being immense clouds of dust, which were seen
slowly advancing across the plain in dusky columns at a distance of
about ten miles.
Nearer and nearer they came; and in the awful pause of dread expectancy
that ensued, the distant snowy peaks of the Cordilleras were observed
to nod and reel, as if executing some horribly suggestive cyclopean
dance. Gradually this impulse extended itself to the mountains nearer
to the town, till the huge _morro_ or headland, a little to the left of
it, began to rock violently to and fro, heaving with sickening lurches,
as if about to cast itself loose into space, and always bringing to
again, like a hard bestead ship in a driving tempest. As it worked
back and forward, huge fragments of stone detached themselves from its
cave-worn surface, and fell with deafening crash into the surf below;
while under and above all, like a subdued monotone of horror, was a
prolonged incessant rumble, now like the roll of distant thunder, but
ever and anon at irregular intervals swelling into a deafening crash,
like the discharge of a whole park of artillery.
As far as could be seen, the usually solid earth was agitated by a slow
wave-like motion, which became first tremulous, and then unspeakably
violent, throwing half of the houses into heaps of ruins, and yawning
into wide chasm-like fissures, from which mephitic sulphurous vapours
issued. Shrieks and groans of anguish filled the air, a mournful
interlude shrilly resounding at intervals above the subterranean
thunder, as the terrified crowd rushed to the mole, to seek refuge
on board the vessels in the harbour. Scarcely had they reached this
hoped-for haven of safety, when the sea, treacherous as the heaving
land, glided softly back, and then rushing forward with a terrific
roar, submerged the mole with its panting terror-stricken occupants,
and poured on in a foaming flood over the prostrate town, where it
completed the havoc the earthquake had begun. It then rushed back
almost more suddenly than it had advanced, the whole fearful deluge
occupying only about five minutes. Again and again the earth quivered
and shook, as if about to rend asunder and drop into some unfathomable
abyss below, and again the sea dashed forward as if in frantic fury,
and then as suddenly recoiled, the last time shewing a perpendicular
wall of water forty-five feet high, capped by an angry crest of foam.
This tremendous wave swept miles inshore, where it stranded the largest
ships then lying in the harbour, one of them a United States frigate.
In Arica Mr Squier equipped himself for a journey over the Cordilleras.
Nothing can exceed the savage wildness of these mountains, or the
difficulties and dangers of the long narrow passes that intersect
them. Mr Squier says: 'I have crossed the Alps by the routes of the
Simplon, the Grand St Bernard, and St Gothard; but at no point on
any of them have I witnessed a scene so wild and utterly desolate
as that which spreads out around La Portada.' It is the very acmé
of desolation--treeless, shrubless, bare of grass, with scarcely a
lichen clinging to the rugged sides of the huge cliffs. Pile upon pile
towering to the sullen skies, rise ridges of dark-brown hills bristling
with snowy peaks, from several of which long trails of smoke stream
lazily out upon the air, shewing where the pent volcano surges in
ominous life beneath the wintry wastes of snow.
Descending from the Cordilleras, Mr Squier examined Tiaguanuco, the
Baalbec of the New World; and from thence proceeded to Cuzco, the
City of the Sun, the ancient capital of the Incas, which abounds with
memorials of their vanished greatness. Here stood a magnificent temple
of the sun, which was lined throughout with plates of gold, two of
which, preserved as curiosities, were shewn to Mr Squier. The huge
stones composing this and other massive buildings which yet remain are
cut and fitted together with a precision which has been equalled, but
never surpassed. So accurately do they fit, that it is impossible to
pass the finest-bladed knife between their edges.
In close proximity to these splendid ruins, sometimes under their
very walls, our author found rude circles of stone, such as still
exist at Stonehenge and in other parts of Great Britain, and in
Brittany. Bidding adieu to Cuzco and its suggestive relics, Mr Squier
in his journey to the coast passed over a stupendously high swinging
bridge formed of cables of braided withes. This dreadful rope-edifice
swung freely in space between two gigantic cliffs, which guarded
like twin sentinels the rush of the deep and rapid Apurimac, one of
the head-waters of the Amazon. It was something worse than the most
breakneck defile among the Cordilleras. 'Never,' says our author,
'will I forget this experience. I can see still the frail structure
swaying at dizzy height over a dark abyss filled with the deep hoarse
roar of the river. My eyes grew dim, my heart faint, my feet unsteady
as I struggled across, not daring to cast a look on either hand.' It
was no wonder that the nerves of one of the party, an artist, were
so shaken that he declared that rather than set a foot upon it, he
would swim across the Apurimac. This he did, and found the water so
delightfully cool and pleasant, that he resolved to prolong his bath,
and placed the bundle containing his clothes and shoes on a convenient
cliff, whence a perverse gust of wind blew them into the water. Long
he pursued them, with no result except the conviction that he had lost
them irrecoverably and his way as well. In this condition, foodless,
garmentless, he wandered about for three days in pathless thickets.
His feet were cut and bleeding; and his body, scratched and torn, was
scorched all day by a blistering sun, and so chilled at night by the
cold breezes that he was glad to bury himself in the warm sand. On the
fourth day he staggered, faint with fatigue and hunger, to the door
of an Indian hut, and the inhabitants mistaking him in his ghastly
squalor for the incarnate genius of fever, which they dread above all
things, half killed with stones what little life was left in him before
they would listen to his story.
Mr Squier's researches abundantly shew that, possessing no written
language, the Incas have impressed their history in characters which
yet remain upon the scenes of their former glory. Their greatness
may be traced in the splendid ruins of their temples and palaces.
Their civilisation is abundantly proved by their bridges, roads,
caravansaries, reservoirs, aqueducts, and perfect and extensive system
of irrigation, by means of which vegetation was carried in terraces
thousands of feet up the steep hill-sides, and the now desert coast
blushed like a garden with the profuse luxuriance of the tropics. One
may well ask, which were the barbarians, they or the Spaniards who soon
made a Sahara of that which they found a Goshen? Their great fortresses
bristling on every hill-side teach us alike the vastness of their
military power and their great resources. Of their internal polity we
catch a suggestive glimpse from their ample prisons; and we learn how
they lived as we turn over curiously their household and agricultural
implements, or mark with mute surprise the exquisitely fine texture of
some mummy shroud, or the delicate carving on some long-buried goblet,
or the graceful form and excellent workmanship of some fragile relic
of earthenware. We can even make a guess, as we look at their burial
towers and tombs, at the current of national thought on one important
subject. They who laid the dead so carefully, so tenderly to rest,
believed that in the far-off world of shadows the soul would live again.
A CAST OF THE NET.
THE STORY OF A DETECTIVE OFFICER.
CHAPTER III.
There was nothing for me to do, that I could see, for a day or two,
beyond improving my acquaintance with the factory hands, and keeping
my eyes open generally; and in pursuance of this latter branch of the
business, I got up very early on the following morning, and sat for
an hour or two after daylight in the arbours or boxes I have so often
mentioned. There was one great charm about the _Anchor_. It was low
and dirty, decaying and disreputable, and the landlord was a drinking
fellow, utterly bankrupt and hopeless, who troubled himself about
nothing. His potman was sottish also, and too accustomed to riff-raff
and queer doings of every kind to trouble himself about me; so I was
thoroughly at my ease. All I saw which appeared worthy of notice was
that the ill-tempered ferryman rowed out alone to the ship I have
spoken of, and disappeared round its bows. I watched for some time, but
did not see him come out into midstream; but just before I gave up my
watch, he came into sight again. Whether he had crossed after rowing up
a bit and had come back, or whether he had been lying all the time just
hidden by the ship, of course I could not say.
I had told the potman that I was in hope of seeing a friend of mine
who was going to Australia and had half promised to take me with him.
I consequently shewed a great deal of interest in the craft, and asked
him lots of questions about them. This morning I guessed that the ship
(the ferryman's ship), was an Australian liner; and this was just the
joke for the potman, who laughed till his beery cheeks shook again
at my mistaking a slow old Dutch trader for an Australian liner. He
was quite severe in his way of poking fun at me; but he ought to have
pitied my ignorance, not ridiculed it--and so I told him.
I thought I would pass away the morning by going over to T---- and
watching Mr Byrle's house. I had learnt that he was to be from home
all day; Miss Doyle had told me so herself; so I knew _she_ knew it
also; and if she had any suspicious visits to pay, or queer company to
receive, now was the time: that was evident. Accordingly, I went to
T---- by rail as before, starting in the rain; but luckily, just as I
got there it cleared up and the sun came out. To give me a chance of
learning something, I got asking my way to a lot of places I didn't
want to go to, just by way of starting a conversation, you know; and
the man I pitched upon was employed in the goods shed of the railway,
but did not seem to have much to do just then; and when I asked him if
he could spare time to run across to the public-house with me, he said
yes, he thought he could; and he did.
We could see Mr Byrle's house from this place, so it answered as well
for me as any other; and while I was talking to the porter, I saw a
tall young fellow, good-looking, but rather flash-looking too, go past,
and in three or four minutes I saw him ring at the gate of Mr Byrle's
house.
'Hollo!' I says to my railway friend, 'isn't that Sims Reeves? Does he
come down here to give lessons?'
He was no more like Sims Reeves than I am, but his was the first name I
could think of.
'Sims Reeves!' says the porter; 'why that's young Mr Byrle, as gives
his father no end of trouble. You wouldn't see him there, only the old
gent is off somewhere for a while. He went from our station last night.'
'Indeed!' I said (and then I saw the young man go into the house); 'and
what's the quarrel about?'
'Oh, his goings on,' said the railway man. 'Why, I have heard that his
father has paid thousands on his account; and if he hadn't paid one
time pretty heavily too, this young fellow would have been in Newgate
for forging his governor's name. He's agoing abroad, I believe; and a
good riddance too, I say.'
'And what does he do at the house when his father is away?' I asked;
and I really felt that our conversation was getting quite interesting.
'Well, it's the old story; a lady's in the case,' said the porter.
'There's a niece there that's over head and ears in love with Mr
Edmund--that's his name--and he pretends to be equally sweet on her.
But if she had seen only as much of him as we have seen at this here
station, she would never---- There's my foreman agoing into the shed!
Excuse me.' With that the railway-man finished his pint and was off.
I considered a minute, and then decided I was as well off where I was
as anywhere; so I borrowed yesterday's _Morning Advertiser_ of the
barmaid, and sitting down where I could watch the house, pretended
to read. If any one had watched me, he must have thought I was most
remarkably interested in the Money Market, for I had that part of the
paper folded towards me without changing for a good half-hour. At
the end of that time the door of Mr Byrle's house was opened and the
son came out. I was ready for a start after him, let him go in which
direction he might; but he came towards the _Railway Tavern_, my post;
straight on, nearer, nearer he passed my door. I peeped out after him,
and saw him actually come into the tavern, entering by another door the
compartment of the bar next to mine!
I was in the common place; he was in one of those divisions where
'Glasses only are served in this department;' and so on. There was some
one there already, for I had heard the occasional clink of a spoon and
glass, and a cough; but there wasn't more than one, for I had heard no
voices. I now heard some one speak; I judged it to be young Mr Byrle,
and I was right.
'Hollo, skipper!' he said, 'what have you been doing to your face? Have
you been fighting?'
'Fighting!--Well, never mind my face; I don't want to talk about that;
I shall settle that account some day,' said a voice. (_I_ knew what
voice; _I_ knew what was the matter with the man's face.)
His surly tone seemed to shut young Mr Byrle up on the subject, for he
gave a sort of forced laugh and said no more about it. 'When do you
sail?--for certain now. I must know to an hour to-day, for I don't like
what I hear of things,' said Mr Byrle.
'Don't speak so loud,' said the other; 'you can never tell who is
listening;' and there he was more thoroughly right than he suspected.
However, they dropped their voices so completely after this, that
though I sat right up against the partition, I could hear nothing more
than a stray word or so, out of which I could make no sense, until at
last Mr Byrle said: 'Time's about up, skipper.'
'I suppose so,' said the other. 'Well, you feel quite confident about
her then; her courage won't fail, you think?'
'_Her_ courage fail? Ha, ha! skipper,' said Mr Byrle; 'you don't
know her, or you wouldn't say that. She'll come with the material,
you'll see. From first to last she's never wavered; and look what a
penetrating mind she has got!'
'Yes; she's clever, I think,' says the skipper.
'Clever!' Mr Byrle repeated, with a deal of contempt in his
voice--'clever! Who but her would have found out the scheme'----
'Hush!' said the skipper, stopping the young man, just as his
conversation was getting, I may say, instructive and important. Then
Edmund Byrle said his train was due, and posted off to the station.
A minute or so after I heard the skipper put down his glass as though
he had emptied it, and then he too left. I followed at a little
distance, and got into the same train with him, and got out with him,
and still following, saw him go to the ferry, pick out, as I knew he
would, the surly waterman; and I saw him rowed to his own ship, where
the waterman left him and then rowed over to the other side. Very good.
Then the skipper had gone to T---- specially to meet Edmund Byrle;
and Edmund Byrle had gone there specially because his father was away;
and---- Then I couldn't follow it up any further.
I went boldly into the _Yarmouth Smack_, and not seeing Tilley anywhere
about, I asked for him under the agreed name, and was told he had gone
to work on Byrle's wharf; not for the firm, but for some lighterman
who frequented the public-house. This looked well; and if I got taken
on, as I expected, the next Monday, I thought it would be very odd
if between us we didn't find something out. Yet my interest in the
business seemed dying away, or drifting into altogether a new channel,
for I could not believe for a moment that Miss Doyle and Edmund Byrle,
and the skipper and the sulky ferryman, were all linked in with
stealing a few paltry brass fittings.
I crossed over before the old ferryman came back, and had my dinner in
the tap-room of the _Anchor and Five Mermaids_. It wasn't a nice place
for a dinner, and I was always partial to having my things neat and
tidy, which was by no means the rule at the _Anchor_, and the company
was not to my standard. I was late to-day, so I missed the factory
hands; and there were only two men in the room with me; one was a
costermongerish-looking rough in a velveteen coat and fur cap, which
was about all I could see of him, for he was asleep all of a heap in a
corner. The other was a man who had his dinner in a newspaper, and took
it out, whatever it was, with his fingers, till he had finished it and
then went away.
I was glad when he was gone, and I had the room as I may say to myself;
so I sent my plate away, called for a little drop of rum-and-water (the
only thing you could get fit to drink at the _Anchor_), and lighting
my pipe, sat with my feet on the fender, to have a good smoke and a
good hard think. I had sat there perhaps half-a-dozen minutes, and
had fairly settled down to my thinking, when a low voice said: 'Mr
Nickham!' My name! It was a very low voice which spoke, but the roar of
an elephant couldn't have startled me more. In an instant it flashed
upon me that my disguise was seen through and all my plans understood.
Robinson Crusoe was not so staggered when he saw the foot-print on the
sand as I was on hearing these two familiar words. I turned round,
and there was that miserable-looking rough that I thought had been
asleep, standing up and making signs to me. He was a regular rough and
no mistake, with short hair, an ugly handkerchief twisted round his
neck; his nose had been broken at some time or another, and he looked a
complete jail-bird. 'Mr Nickham!'
It was he that spoke; no mistake about it this time; and he put his
hand up to the side of his mouth to keep the sound straight.
'Who are you?' said I; for you know I didn't like to answer to the name
at once, in case he wasn't certain.
'My name is Wilkins--Barney Wilkins,' said the man. 'But you won't
recollect me by that p'raps; though I've been through your hands,
sergeant; but I giv some other name then. You got me twelve penn'orth
for ringing in shofuls.' (He meant that he had been sent to prison for
twelve months for passing bad money. I wasn't surprised to hear it;
he looked fit for that or anything bad. But if he got it through me,
why he should speak to me now was beyond my comprehension.) 'I knowed
you directly I see you, sergeant,' he says, coming nearer, but still
speaking in the same hoarse whisper as at first; 'and though you're a
tight hand, you're fair and square, and acted as such by me when you
copped me. You are down here on business--you're after some rare downy
cards. Now ain't you, sergeant?'
'If you know,' I said, 'what do you ask me for? And if you think I am
what you say, you don't suppose I shall tell you my business, do you?'
'Sergeant,' he says, coming nearer still, 'you fought a man in the
street last night, and giv him a thorough good licking. You was the
only man there as would take the part of a poor gal as wasn't doing no
harm to nobody; and I respect you for it, sergeant; I do. That gal was
my sister--my young sister, as has been like a child to me, and was so
tidy and pretty that I was proud on her, and hoped---- Well, sergeant,
whatever we are, we all have our feelings; and Sergeant Nickham, I'll
do you a good turn. Look here!' With this he crept quite close and put
his mouth almost to my ear. I watched him carefully, being much puzzled
by his actions, yet I had seen such unexpected things occur in the
police that I was quite ready to hear something of consequence from
him. 'You are down here about that Bank paper, what is said to be all
got back, but which you know it isn't. You are on the right parties,
and it does you credit; but you'll never get them nor the paper without
_me_.'
He stopped here, to see what I would say; but though I was ten times
more surprised than ever, I kept my countenance, and only said: 'Well?'
In point of fact I didn't know what _to_ say.
'I've been used bad, Mr Nickham,' he went on. 'I've had a lot of
trouble and risk about that there paper. I got it from B----, and
took the money for it to him, honest; and have been as near took
with it in my possession as anythink. Twice the slops (he meant the
police; 'slops' is what we call 'back-slang,' a rough sort of spelling
the words backwards)--'twice they have come into my place when the
stuff was there. Once I was sitting upon it done up like bundles of
rabbit-skins. Now he gives me (the party wot I am down on)--he gives
me five pounds, and I can't get no more out of him. And you see there
ain't no reward out.'
'No, not regularly, Barney,' I said; 'but there's no doubt at all that
any man coming forward would be very handsomely considered by the Bank
people.'
'He might be, if he'd got anybody like you to speak for him,' says
Barney. 'But you know, Mr Nickham, that I am wanted for a lot of things
by the bobbies; and I have been through the mill so often, that without
I've got a friend I don't half like touching 'em again. But you're fair
and square, and you licked the fellow last night; and I'm told you can
box better than even Tom Sayers could; and if that's so, I'll trust
you. And this here man won't give me more than five pounds; and he has
settled with a regular fence, a sort of Dutch-Yankee skipper, what
pretends to command one of them traders out there.'
'Yes, yes,' I said; 'the man I fought last night. I know him.'
'_Him!_' almost screeched the man (although, mind you, he never once
forgot his hoarse whisper); 'was it him you licked? Sergeant Nickham,
I'd go through fire and water for you now, for I hate and despise that
wretch; and if I had got a chance to do it safely, I'd have'---- He
checked himself very sudden here, as if what he was going to say wasn't
exactly the sort of thing to say to a detective. 'I see you are on the
right lay,' he begins again; 'but I tell you he has settled with that
skipper to have the stuff put on board, if it ain't already there; and
then he'll go with it to whatever foreign port the craft comes from.'
'And who is he,' I asked, 'who has arranged with the skipper?'
'Ah, Mr Nickham,' says Wilkins, with a very cunning look, 'as if you
didn't know! Haven't you been on the lurk round his house for two days
past? Wasn't you there this morning?'
Egad! I saw it all now! You might have knocked me down with a feather.
I could hardly help saying something which would have shewed my
astonishment; but I choked it down, and quite determined to keep
the upper hand with him, I said as cool as I could: 'Now, Wilkins,
no beating about the bush, or making me help you out. If you've got
anything to say, any name to mention, out with it like a man, and I'm
your friend. You understand me.'
'Fair and square you are, Mr Nickham,' says Barney; 'and so you'll find
me. That young Mr Byrle has got the paper, and he means to go out with
the trader. There is people over in Holland awaiting anxious for it;
and if once they gets hold of it, it's all U. P. with our bank-notes.
Now, I don't know where the paper is; if I had known, bust me if I
wouldn't have blowed the gaff long ago!'
He meant that he would have exposed the whole transaction, and I
noticed that this declaration did not quite agree with his anxiety
to have a friend on his side, a point on which he had dwelt so much
before; but that didn't signify.
'Now, Mr Nickham,' he went on, 'you must board the craft when the paper
is shipped, if it ain't there yet.'
'It ain't there yet, my man,' I said, remembering what had dropped from
Edmund Byrle, that 'she would come on board with the material.'
'Then I think it will be to-night,' he continued; 'for a sail-maker as
has been at work aboard her says she drops down the river to-morrow;
and I think by what I can learn in other quarters, he is right.'
I thought so too, and at once made up my mind that the meeting at the
_Railway Tavern_ was to settle about shipping the paper.
'I can give a pretty good guess at the man they will engage for the
job,' says Wilkins.
'I know him,' I said; 'a tall, sulky-looking, bony-headed old fellow,
with a game eye.'
'Why, Mr Nickham,' says Wilkins, 'you're a wonder, a perfect wonder!
You're a credit to the force, and Sir Richard ought to hear of it!
Why, that's the man, the very man; and here have you only been down
two days, and know all about it! Keep your eye on him after dark, and
you're all right.'
We had some more talk after this; and then he pretended to go to sleep
in his corner again, and I went out.
I went straight into the City and saw some of our chief people, who
sent over to the Bank. They would not chance my going there, for fear
of somebody seeing me that had better know nothing about it. The gents
from the Bank could hardly believe their ears, and the compliments they
paid me, to be sure! It was decided that everything was to be left in
my hands, and I was provided with letters to the right parties at the
water-side. But I need not go into any further particulars of that kind.
I was not going to trouble myself any more just now about the pilfering
at Byrle & Co.'s factory; as far as I was interested in it, the thieves
might take boilers, wheels, chimneys, and all. I took up my post in the
old arbours, and there, though the rain came steadily down, I sat. I
managed to get a pretty dry corner; and with a little of the _Anchor's_
rum-and-water and my pipe, I made myself tolerably comfortable while I
sat and watched the Dutch trader. I was well screened from the sight of
any one below, or else my corner would not have suited; and although I
could hear the steps and the voices of the people going to the ferry,
and could have touched them by leaning over, yet they could not see me.
The bony ferryman, in his tarpaulin coat and hat, was there this
afternoon; and very sloppy and miserable all the boats looked; and as
the tide fell lower and lower, the great broad bed of river-mud grew
broader, and the path to the ferryboat grew longer, and still I kept my
watch, and meant to keep it. I must own, however, that I did not expect
to see anything worth notice, for what could there be? But sometimes,
you know, in our business, it is as necessary to watch to make sure
there is nothing being done, as it is to make sure that some important
movement is going on.
There was an oyster-smack not fifty yards from me as was left on the
shingle or mud when the tide went down; and there was a man smoking
his pipe on the deck of that oyster-smack, just as I was smoking mine
in the arbour; and when night came, and the river got dark, and you
couldn't make anything out of it but a great black space, with a hollow
sound of the wind moaning over it and of the water lapping on the shore
as the tide rose again--then there was a lantern burning on the deck
of that smack, and there was a similar lantern burning in my arbour;
but the light was shewn open on board of the smack, and mine was a
dark-lantern (so was the other) with the light hid. But I was perfectly
well aware that the man aboard that smack never took his eyes off me
while it was light, and that after dark he watched to see if I shewed
my lantern. I didn't shew it; but if I had, there would have been a
Thames police galley and five armed constables alongside of that hard
in a couple of minutes.
AN EXTRAORDINARY PROJECT.