hurry, that was no reason for my being so too--accompanied by Riley, I
entered the door at the top of the gangway, where we met the party
coming up. Miss Mary Grant had not had time even to deposit her purse in
her pocket, and Riley seizing her hand took it from her. They saw at
once that they had been watched, and the face of the Miss Mary, whom I
had directed to the scene, paled under my eye. A sign to the porters
behind me brought them ready to help, and the station-master coming
forward, with his assistance we bundled the whole four into the
station-house. A telegraphic message was instantly sent to Burntisland,
calling for the lady who had been robbed to return, and I then proceeded
to search my "party of pleasure." The purse captured contained only 9s.
6d., but from their pockets altogether I took notes to the amount of
£50. And next came an evidence of the strength of that friendship which
exists among this class of people, and which in those four, in
particular, appeared to be so strong and heartfelt only a short time
before. They swore beautiful English oaths that no one of them was known
to the other; and as to the unfortunate Mary, who had the purse, they
all repudiated her, even the dapper Beaumont, who swore that he was an
English gentleman of family, connected distantly--how far, a point of
honour prevented him from condescending on--with the noble family of
that name. But if the unhappy Mary was thus disowned, she could be a
self-sacrifice, for she acknowledged that she did not know them, and
that she had angled on her own hook. We had thus, like a bomb thrown
among combustibles, severed a very close connexion; but then I had the
consolation to think that we would be able to bring them together again
at the bar of the court, where, if they should be once more separated,
they might celebrate the occasion with tears.
It was, I admit, rather an occasion that, on which, helped by the
station-master and the gallant porters, and escorted by an admiring
crowd who wondered at such fine gentry being in the hands of the police,
I conducted my swells to my place of deposit. I'm not sure if we had not
some hurras, though I did not court notoriety of this kind; but the
moment the people got an inkling they were English thieves, the old
feelings between the nations seemed to rise up again--at least I could
see nothing but satisfaction in the faces around us; nor was my
satisfaction less when I introduced my friends to my superior, who
doubtless did not expect the honour of receiving in his chambers four
persons so distinguished, one being no less than a Beaumont--by Jupiter,
5 feet 2 inches, by the line!
The great Jack Cade, after swaying thousands of people, at last fell
into the hands of a very simple clown. So here, as we soon understood, I
had had the good fortune, in a very accidental way, of catching, at the
very commencement of their Scotch career, four of the most celebrated of
the English swells. They were quite well known to the authorities of
London, Liverpool, and Manchester, where they had exercised their skill
with so much adroitness that they had slipt through many well-drawn
loops of the law; and having escaped so often there, where the
detectives are supposed to be so much cleverer than ours, they had some
grounds for the hope, so well expressed by their hilarity, short-lived
as it was, that they would again cross the borders well loaded with
Scotch booty.
Next day Mrs C----n obeyed the telegraph--an instrument, by the by,
which seems to have more command at the end of the wire than spoken or
written words, the more by token, perhaps, that it speaks like old Jove,
through lightning. She at once identified the purse with the 9s.
6d.--yes, that 9s. 6d. which condemned parties who had ravished England
of hundreds, and brought down a pillar of the house of Beaumont. The
trial was just as easy an affair as the capture. Sheriff Hallard, that
judge so steeled against all difference between rich and poor, genteel
or ungenteel, tried them. I figured more than I desired or merited in
his speech--which, by the by, I would like to reproduce, but I fear to
affront the honourable judge's eloquence. There is no harm in an attempt
at shewing my powers of memory, when I give warning that they are feeble
in forensic display, whatever they may be in retaining the faces of
thieves.
"Prisoners, you have been found guilty of robbing from the person. It is
not often that I have to pass sentence on people of your description
from England, but I hope the circumstance of my being a Scottish judge
will not be held to sway me in the discharge of my duty. Yet I am not
sure if the circumstance of your being English men and women is not a
considerable aggravation of your crime. What did Scotland ever do to you
that you should come here, hundreds of miles, to prey upon her unwary
subjects? Was it not rather that you thought her honest and simple
people would become easy victims in hands made expert by efforts to
elude the grasp of English authorities? You forgot, too, that in
comparison of England we are poor, and less able to lose what we earn by
hard labour. But such considerations have small weight with persons of
your description, who, if you can get money to be spent in debauchery,
care little whether it come from the rich or the poor. Now the issue has
proved that you had made a wrong calculation, not only as to the
intelligence and sharpness of our people, but the boldness and
adroitness of our detectives; and I hope you will bear in mind, and tell
your compeers in England, what we fear they sometimes forget, that we
have not renounced our emblem of a thistle--the pricks of which you may
expect to feel, when I now sentence you to sixty days' hard labour. I
am only sorry it cannot be made months,--a period more suited to your
offence. For the advantage you thus gain, you are indebted to that
cleverness in Mr M'Levy and his assistant by which you were so soon
caught; for if you had been allowed to go on, you would have earned the
attention of the High Court, and the privilege of being transported. I
hope you may profit by the lesson he has taught you."
The Club Newspaper.
The sliding scale is so far applicable to us as well as to thieves. As
the latter proceed from crime to crime, the less to the greater--in the
scarlet tint from the lighter to the deeper, so we slide on from trace
to trace till we get to the fountain. And there is this similarity, too,
between the cases. Our beginnings are small, but they are hopeful, and
as the traces increase, we get more energetic and bolder: so with the
thieves; there is an achieved success which leads to the greater
triumph. Nay, I have known the parallel carried further. If we fail in
one attempt, we try again; and I have a case to give, but not just now,
where the urchin Gibbon's first attempt at a till, from which he
appropriated _one farthing_, and for which he was punished by
confinement, was quickly succeeded by a greater triumph, to the amount
of _seventeen shillings and sixpence_. My present case has a
peculiarity, in so far as I contrived to make a _paltry_ theft the lever
whereby to raise up another of a serious description.
In 1840, Mr Ellis, the manager of the Queen Street Club, was exposed to
much trouble, suspicion, and difficulty, by complaint after complaint,
on the part of the officers frequenting and sleeping in the house, that
money, in five and ten-pound notes, had been taken from their
portmanteaus. The case was painful to Mr Ellis in more respects than
one; for although no suspicion could attach to him, yet in all such
concealed robberies, the natural shades that spread everywhere over all
in positions liable to be suspected, require to be elevated or dispersed
by the light of reason, and that light comes always with an effort. Mr
Ellis came to the Office, and I got my charge. I saw at once that the
culprit was one of the waiters; but then there were several in the
house, and I knew all the difficulties of a case of that kind. The wider
spread the suspicion, the less easy the concentration. I would do my
best, and Mr Ellis had confidence at least in my zeal.
Repairing, accordingly, to the Club, one forenoon, I questioned Mr Ellis
as to the habits of the waiters, and, in particular, which of them lived
out of the house. I found that one man, Donald M'Leod, had a house in
Rose Street, with a wife and no children; and in order that I may not
take too much credit to myself, I may state that that man was more
suspected by his master than any of the others. I was now so far on my
way. I called the waiters together in a room with closed doors.
"Now, gentlemen," (that's my polite way) "I have to inform you that
there is a robber among you. Bags and portmanteaus have for a lengthened
period been opened in this house, and sums of money extracted. All who
are innocent will be glad to answer in the affirmative to my question.
Will you consent to your trunks and persons being searched?"
"Yes," answered every one.
"Donald M'Leod," continued I, "an honest married man, with a decent
wife, I have no doubt can have no objection to my going to his house and
taking a look about it--not that I have any suspicion of him because he
lives out of the Club, but that his trunks being at home, I must make
him like the others."
"No objection," replied honest Donald, whose honesty, however, did not
sit so easy upon him as honest Rab's of certain romantic notoriety.
"You will all remain here till I finish my process in the house."
To which last question having got the answer I expected, I went out and
told Mr Ellis to take care that no messenger should, in the meantime, be
allowed to leave the house. The search among the trunks yielded me just
as much as I expected--perhaps a little more, in the shape of certain
love epistles, which might have made a little fortune to the street
speech-criers. What a strange undercurrent, swirling in eddies, does
love keep for ever moving! But what had I to do with love, who only
wanted money,--two things that are so often cruelly separated, but which
should be for ever joined.
I then proceeded to Rose Street, and soon finding my house, I knocked
gently. A quiet, decent-looking woman opened it.
"Are you Mrs M'Leod?"
"Ay," she answered without fear or suspicion, for what did she know of
James M'Levy the thief-catcher?
"Well, my good woman," said I, as I shut the door behind me somewhat
carefully, and afterwards sat down, "you don't know, I fancy, that some
things have been amissing belonging to the gentlemen of the Club?
Donald, no doubt, so far as I know, is innocent; but as all the waiters,
like honest men, have consented that their trunks should be searched, it
is but fair, you know, that I should take a look through your house, to
put them all on a footing of equality."
"And that's right," said she, with really so little timidity, or rather
with so much apparent sincerity, that, if I had not been M'Levy, I would
have thought that Donald was an honest man after all.
With this permission, and under so kindly a sanction, I commenced my
search, by no means a superficial one--perhaps deeper in proportion to
Mrs M'Leod's seeming sincerity. It was not altogether unsuccessful--small
thefts lead on in the scale to big ones, and superficial traces to
deeper. I got some newspapers, one with the Club's address, and putting
them together, said--
"Mrs M'Leod, you will allow me to take these papers; I fancy Mr Ellis
allows Donald, as a favourite, to take away an old one now and then to
amuse him at home, and, perhaps, to read to you."
"Nae doot," said she, "ye dinna fancy Donald wad steal them."
"By no means. I never said it," replied I. I was not bound to say I
never _thought_ it--a little beyond my candour.
So I bade Mrs M'Leod good day, and making my way to the Club, I told Mr
Ellis the result of my search.
"Well," replied he, "you have got something, and you have got nothing."
"Had Donald M'Leod any authority from you to take these papers, and this
one especially directed to the Club?"
"Certainly not; but the matter is so small, that I can't see how
anything can be made of it."
"And you would give up the charge?"
"Yes; it cannot lead to my money."
"Well," said I, "if that is your decision, I bow to it; but I tell you
this, that out of that solitary old newspaper I will get your money.
Will you give me my own way?"
"Well, I have heard so much of your success in desperate cases, I don't
care though I do."
"Agreed," said I.
And without further parley, I went to Donald, who was at the time in the
lobby.
"Donald," said I, "I want you up to the Office."
"Me," replied Donald, with an ounce less blood in his cheek-veins than
he had a minute before, "do you think I'm the robber?"
"I don't say so," said I; "but I want some information from you which I
cannot so well get here."
And Donald, a little reconciled, and with a little of the blood in the
act of returning, took his hat.
When I got him to the Office, I immediately clapped him into a cell, and
locking the door, was under way once more for Rose Street.
"Mrs M'Leod," said I, as the honest Gael opened the door, and shut it,
"I am a little vexed."
"What's the matter? I hope naething's wrang wi' Donald?"
"Why, not much," said I; "I am only troubled about these old useless
newspapers. The authorities up the way--dangerous creatures these
authorities--have taken it into their wise heads that Donald stole the
papers from the Club; nay, they have locked him up in a cell as dark as
pitch, with bread and water for fare, and, I fear, no hope of anything
but judgment and punishment."
"Fearfu' news!" said the woman. "Oh, terrible news! condemn a man for an
auld newspaper!" and hiding her face in her hands, she burst into tears.
I need not say I pitied her, for in reality I did; for at that time I
had not the slightest reason to suppose that she could know that the
papers were not given to Donald, or allowed to be taken as having served
their purpose, and being consequently useless.
"But there's hope," said I.
"Hope!" she cried, "Hope!" as she took away her hands,
"Whaur?--how?--speak, for God's sake!"
"The charge is a small one," said I, "and I have no doubt it would be
scored off, provided the missing money were got. I'm sure you don't have
it; I have searched the house; but perhaps"----
"What?" she broke in, "what?"
"Perhaps you may know through Donald where it is?"
I watched her face, which was now pale. She began to think, and she did
think; for if ever thought came out of a face, it might have been read
in the point of her nose, sharpened by the collapse of the muscles
through fear.
If in this agony she sat a minute, she sat fully five; but I was
patient. I turned my face from her, and looked at nothing, perhaps
because my mind was directed to something. She was under a struggle; I
heard the signs,--the quick breath, the heaving chest, the sobs, the
efforts to suppress them,--still I was patient and pitiful. Sad duties
ours! Yes, we must steel ourselves against human woes; nay, we must turn
nature's yearnings to the advantage of official selfishness. At length,
"Are you sure the newspapers will be scored aff?"
"Sure."
And then another sinking into the battle of her thoughts,--the lips
quivering, the desultory movements of the hands, the jerking from one
position to the other,--at length calmness--the calmness of one whose
agony is over,--a rest of many minutes.
"And you're sure," she said again, as she fixed her eyes upon me, with
such speech in them that my soul revolted at its very wickedness. Must I
admit it? Yes, it is put upon us. A lie is one thing, the keeping deep
down in our hearts the truth another. The one I abhor, the other is a
duty. I knew that the money, if produced, would form a charge in place
of the newspapers. I knew she didn't think this; but I knew also I was
not bound to tell her that she was wrong in not thinking it. Nay, there
are worse cases than mine, that may be and are justified every day. When
robbers are at the window, and you cry, "Bring me the gun," when there
is no gun in the house, you lie; but you are not bound to tell men whose
hands are at your throat that you lie. There are necessities that go
beyond all moral codes, and laugh at them. If this woman knew where that
stolen money was, she was, by her own doing, under the sharp
consequences of that necessity, and must abide the result as an
atonement for an act not perpetrated under that necessity. Behold my
logic! I am at the mercy of the public.
These were not my thoughts at the time; my conduct was merely the effect
of them, and I was simply watchful. At length Mrs M'Leod rose from the
chair,--she stood for a moment firm,--she then went into a closet,
where, having remained a little, she came forth, to my astonishment,
changed; she was dressed--shawl, bonnet, and veil.
"Come with me," she said in a low voice, sorrowful, but without a
tremor.
I said nothing, only obeyed. She shut the door, and proceeding down the
stair, beckoned me to follow her. Not a word was spoken. We got down to
the foot of the stair, then to the street, and I followed her as she
led. We proceeded in this silent way until we came to Frederick Street.
We then went along that street till she came to the area gate of a
gentleman's house; that gate she opened, and going down the stair, she
again beckoned me to follow her. We now stood before the kitchen-door,
at which she rapped. The knock was obeyed, and a young woman made her
appearance.
"Peggy," said Mrs M'Leod in a whisper, which I heard very well, "I ha'e
come for yon."
"Yon!" muttered I to myself; strange Scotch word--something like the
mysterious "it," when applied to a ghost.
"Weel!" replied the girl, "come in."
We both entered, and were led along a dark passage till we came to a
bedroom--no doubt that of the young woman. We entered it, and the
servant, who seemed to be struck with the sympathy of our silence,
proceeded to open a blue trunk, from which she took out a small bundle,
composed of a roll of a red handkerchief.
"There it is," said she, as she put it into the hands of Mrs M'Leod.
We then left the room, returning again to the kitchen, from which we
proceeded into the area.
"There's the siller," said she, as she put the bundle into my hands.
I took the parcel and placed it in my pocket. We mounted the stair, and
Mrs M'Leod left me. It is needless to say that I could not restrain my
curiosity; nor did I try. I went down towards Princes Street Gardens,
and seating myself on the parapet, proceeded to undo the red
handkerchief. I found within a large bundle of banknotes, composed of
tens and fives, and upon counting them found the amount to be £180. Now
I fairly admit I was not satisfied. I wanted something more; and tying
up my bundle I repaired again to Rose Street.
"Mrs M'Leod," said I, as I entered, "it will be necessary that you mark
these notes for me. My masters, the authorities, will not believe I got
them from you unless I get your name to them. Have you pen and ink?"
"Ay," said she, "but I daurna mark them, Donald would be angry."
"But you forget the authorities," said I.
"The authorities!" she repeated, with a kind of a tremble at the very
sound of the word.
"Yes, they may be angry, and you know the anger of the authorities is
very different from that of Donald M'Leod."
"Very true," replied she.
And bringing the pen and ink I got her name to every note. I was _now_
satisfied, and taking the direction of Queen Street, arrived at the
Club, where I saw Mr Ellis.
"How much money was taken altogether?" inquired I.
"Why," said he, "I collected the different complaints, and adding up the
sums found they amounted to £180."
"The Highlanders are a very careful people," said I. "The sum I have
recovered, and which is tied up in this handkerchief, is just £180."
"Recovered!" said he, in astonishment. "Why, I thought it was a forlorn
hope. Where in all the earth did you get it; or rather, I should ask,
how?"
"Just by means of the old newspaper with the name of the Club upon it. I
think I told you that if I took my own way, and not yours, I would get
the cash."
"You did," replied he; "but to be very candid with you, I had no hope,
though I admitted I had faith in your name. But tell me where you got
it, for I am dying to know?"
"I can hardly explain all in the meantime," said I. "I am bent for the
Office, and up for time. But I may inform you that Donald M'Leod is the
man, and we must keep him in custody."
"The newspaper!" again ejaculated Mr Ellis, as if he was in great
perplexity. "How a piece of printed paper should be the means of getting
£180! Was the money marked upon it?"
"No; yet I repeat it was the means of getting your money. Of course I
cannot leave the notes with you. You will get them after Donald receives
his sentence."
And with this I went away, leaving Mr Ellis to divine how the old
newspaper came to have so much virtue. I then proceeded to the Office,
where, having deposited the money, and explained the affair to the
Superintendent, I was asked, "Where is the woman?"
And I knew that this question would be asked of me, and I knew also what
would be my answer.
"Why, sir," said I, "do you really think that I should be the man to
apprehend that woman?"
"Strictly, you should," said he, with a smile; "but if ever there was a
case in which an officer might be passed over for a duty, it is this. I
would rather go for her myself than put this duty on you. I acknowledge
you were justified in the words you used, that the newspapers would be
scored, and that you were entitled to your mental reservation. The
question may be said to be a subtle one, suited to the logic of
casuists, but I affirm that it may be resolved by a sturdy moralist. As
for the rest, you have shewn a feeling creditable to the heart of a
right man, in leaving the apprehension of the woman to another."
Mrs M'Leod was in the evening brought up by my assistant. The two were
tried at the High Court, and Donald was sentenced to seven years'
transportation, while Mrs M'Leod, as being under the iron rule of the
Gael, was acquitted.
A Want Spoils Perfection.
The coming round of extremes, so as to meet and disappear in each
other's ends, is a thing which all must have noticed, and why not I
among the rest? I rather think that in my small way I couldn't have done
what I have done, if I hadn't been a _thinker_, and so I have noticed
the danger of overdoing things. Not only do strong passions, though
good, land in the slough of evil, but overstretched prudence, cold and
calculating, leads to a pretty considerable combustion. Yes, our old
mother says, "Walk in the middle"--on the sides there are pitfalls; and
yet we are never happy if we are not gaping over precipices, and talking
of the picturesque and the sublime. No wonder a few topple over, and
thus add to the picturesque.
When Mr C----, watchmaker in Arbroath, afraid as he was to leave his
stock of watches in his shop, bethought himself of the prudent step of
removing them at night, by a medium exposed to danger, he was just
walking to the _side_. One night in January 1850, his two apprentices,
in pursuance of their master's care, collected all the watches--about
fifty in number--with many other valuable things in silver and gold, and
deposited them in a box, with the view of their being carried to Mr
C----'s dwelling-house, at some distance from the shop. The shop was
then locked up, and one of the lads, swinging the box on his back by
means of a leather strap, proceeded, with his companion alongside of him
as a guard, to the usual safe place of deposit. The night was pitch
dark. Their way lay by a path where the houses were thinly scattered,
and the property was thus placed in a far more dangerous position than
if it had been left in a good safe under lock and key in the shop, also
itself under lock and key, and all under the survey of neighbours--if
not of the police. When some way on their road, up started two men, one
of whom held the companion, while the other, applying a knife to the
strap, undid the box and made off with it in an instant. The other,
letting go his grip of the lad, was also off like a flash of lightning,
and the extreme care of the valuable box was thus superseded by the
effort of a few minutes. The boys were too much stunned to be able to
pursue, even if they had had the courage, or even to bawl, though they
had the common instinct. Like most other premeditated efforts, the thing
was well done; and long before any hue and cry could be got up, the
robbers were far away.
Next day the usual information came fulminating over to
Edinburgh--usual, with the to-be-expected abatement, that no
description could, in the circumstances, be possible. The boys, under
the influence of the fear which paralysed them, could and did give
nothing but a "travestie" of the features of the men. When I read the
confused account,
"Why," said I to the Lieutenant, "these noses, eyes, and chins, are so
like what we see every day, that I might as well take up the Lord
Provost as any one else." And as I had been reading a funny satire of
the man called Lavater, some nights before, I could not help being
humorous in my own blunt way. "Do you know that a great man, Lichtenberg
by name, a queer satirical body with a hunch, raised all Germany into a
laugh, by publishing the figure of a pig with a nicely curled tail, and
marked on one turn of the said tail 'firmness,' on another
'benevolence,' on another 'murder,' all of which went to shew the nature
of the animal, just as Lavater labelled the features of a man's face. So
here we are required to find these two clever fellows, by signs given by
two boys in the dark. I may find the watches, and thereby the men, and
so far the intimation is proper and hopeful, but to expect us to find
the men by their _noses_, is just rather too much."
"You can only do your best, James," said Mr Moxey, looking up at what he
thought wonderfully learned in me.
"Yes, sir," replied I, "but I know no _best_ but detection; without that
the best is the worst."