useless,) we began to force it--a circumstance that really added to my
satisfaction, as every wrench and thump must have gone home to the
hearts of the intruders, now fairly caught in a novel man-trap. Nay,
with the constables at the outer door, I didn't care what noise we made,
provided we were not annoyed by curious neighbours; and then, to make
the play more exciting, we heard them as busy with the front door trying
to get _out_, as we were with the back one endeavouring to get _in_.
Forced at length, and a rush in in the dark, the noise making the
thieves desperate, so that their energies to force the front door might
rather be termed fury. They succeeded, just as we were at their back;
and in consequence of the door being in two halves, and one starting
open while the constables' eyes were fixed on the other, Lang bolted, at
the moment that Thomson was embraced by a powerful constable. Another
constable was off immediately in pursuit of Lang; and such was my
weakness, that when I saw Thomson struggling ineffectually in the grasp
of the officer, one whom I had so often sighed for in secret, and eyed
in openness, that I took him from the man with that kind of feeling that
no person ought to have the honour of holding him but myself.
By this time Mr Brown was down among us in great consternation.
"Ah!" said he, "I see the reason now of your having told me to carry the
society-box up-stairs."
"I fear that would have been nothing to your loss," replied I, "if we
hadn't been as sharp as we have been. All's right."
Mr Brown's fears were appeased, and we then marched our gentlemen up to
the Office, in which procession, so honoured by the presence of Hugh
Thomson, I enjoyed one of my triumphs. Lang was sought for during weeks,
but could not be found; and here I have to recount one of my wonders.
One dark evening when I was acting the night-hawk out near the Gibbet
Toll, I had gone considerably beyond that mark, and was returning.
Dalkeith is a kind of harbour of refuge for the Edinburgh thieves when
the city becomes too hot for them, and I had some hopes of an adventure
on this road, otherwise I would not have been there at that hour, for it
was late. The road to Portobello is also a hopeful place at times; but
on that night I had some reasons, known only to myself, (and it was not
often surmised where I was at any time,) for preferring the southern
opening. Well, sauntering along I met a young fellow, but it was so
dark that, at the distance of two or three yards, you could scarcely
recognise anybody. I had a question ready, however, that suited all
comers.
"Am I right for the city?" said I.
"Right in," was the reply.
And seeing the man wanted to be off, I darted a look at the side of his
face. It was Lang's; and I suspected he had recognised _me_ before I did
_him_, for he was off in an instant on the way to Dalkeith, and I must
take to my heels in pursuit, or lose him. I immediately gave chase, and
a noble one it was, though the night was as dark as pitch, and every
step was through liquid mud.
Lang was a good runner, and had, I fancy, confidence that he would
escape, and that which he had to escape from might very well grease the
heels of even a lazy fellow. He ran for freedom, that dear treasure of
even a thief's soul; and I ran to deprive him of it, a feeling as dear
to a detective. The race became hot and hotter, and I could see only the
dark outline of the flying desperado, and I heard the sound of his rapid
steps as the voice of hope. By the side of the road one or two people
stood, and seemed to wonder at the chase, but no one ventured to
interfere. We had run a mile and a half with no abatement of the speed
of either, so that we were about equal, and if this continued we might
run to Dalkeith; but this issue was rendered improbable by the fact,
quite well known to me, that a _pursued criminal_, with a clever officer
after him, may almost always be caught by loss of breath. The impulse
under which he flies is far more trying to the nerves than that which
impels the officer to follow, and hence it is that criminals are so
often what is called "run down." The same remark is applicable to a
chase of animals. Fear eats up the energies, the lungs play violently,
and exhaustion is the consequence. And so it was here. I gained as time
sped, and at length I heard the grateful sound of the blowing lungs. He
felt his weakness, and the old bravado getting up, he stopt all of a
sudden, and waited for me.
"Why, man," said I, "you have just to walk back again; so what's the
use?"
"No use," he replied, doggedly; "only if you hadn't caught me I would
have been well on to Dalkeith."
Plunging my hands into his coat-pocket, I pulled out a bundle of
picklocks.
"Not cured yet?" said I.
"No," replied he, "and never will. You have spoiled a good job at
Dalkeith with your d----d dodging."
"Are you a member of a Dalkeith society, too, Lang?" I retorted,
good-naturedly.
"Something better," said he; "I might have had £10 in my pocket before
morning, if you hadn't come between me and my game."
We began our walk homewards. I didn't require to take hold of him. We
had measured our powers, and he knew he had no more chance in flight
than in personal conflict, and he walked quietly enough. I would put my
handcuffs to use, however, at the Gibbet Toll, to provide against the
dangers of alleys favourable to a bolt. I remember I tried him on the
soft parts, in regard to the society-box, reminding him that he was
robbing the widow and the fatherless.
"Humph! what have I to do with the widow and the fatherless? I am an
orphan myself, and there is a difference besides, for your widow and
fatherless have friends, because they have characters, and I don't know
but they are better cared for than I, who have neither the one nor the
other. I am bound to a trade, as that trade is bound to me, and I must
live or die by it. So there's no use for your blarney about widows and
orphans. All you have to do is to take me up, and get me condemned and
imprisoned, and I will be the same man when I come out."
No doubt he would; and why should I have doubted, who scarcely, in all
my experience, could hold out my finger and say, "There's a man whom I
have mended, and he is grateful to me for having been hard with him?" No
wonder I am weary of my efforts at penal reformation.
I believe the nine months' imprisonment awarded to these three
desperate fellows only steeled them to dare the committal of crimes
deserving transportation for as many years. How true it is, that the
current of vice and criminality proceeds, both in its ebb and flow, on a
"sliding scale."
The Miniature.
It is not often that I have had to deal with irregular criminals, by
which I mean those that are not moulded and hardened in infancy and
early youth, but who, from some inherent weakness of nature have, by the
force of example, or the spur of unlawful gratifications, been
precipitated--sometimes against the silent admonitions of their better
genius--into a breach of the laws. I have said already that those whom
Mr Moxey used to call "abnormals" are comparatively few, and it is not
difficult to see how it should happen that their cases are the most
painful exhibitions of misery that can be witnessed in this--to most, I
fear--very miserable world. In the normals the heart is all in one way.
Seldom is there any conscience stirring to produce the terrors of
retribution; nay, the conscience is often completely reversed, so that
the struggle of pain or anxiety, if it exists, is between the impulse of
selfishness and the check imposed by the restraining laws. If a regular
thief is sorry for anything, it is for being detected before he has
enjoyed the fruit of his ingenuity or violence. There are only two
powers in opposition--self, and the world. God is not feared, simply
because He is never thought of; religion has no sanction, because it is
not known. In the irregulars again, their heart is divided between God
and the devil. Yes, that's my blunt way of putting it. And we may
naturally look for some misery, I think, where the poor sensitive mind
of the human creature is made the theatre of a contest between such
powers.
In September 1850, Mr M----o, solicitor in Regent Terrace, had his bank
account in the National Bank operated upon by a forged cheque to the
extent of £195. So far as I remember, the forgery was not discovered at
the time: nor did the startling intelligence come to him singly--at
least it did not remain long single, for there was a crop of minor
fabrications that started up like lesser evils round a great one. The
forger, whoever he might be, had begun in a small way, as these
abnormals generally do--boggling at the first step, then another as the
terror waned and the confidence increased, then another and another,
till primed for the great leap at length taken. The small cheque-books
often kept by gentlemen in the names of their children with the Savings
Bank, for the purpose of inducing habits of care and economy, were
forged to the effect of abstracting such accumulations of the little
daughters as £3 10s., and thereby--small sums and small sufferers--and
then came the great feat on the great victim. How true a history of the
progress of vice--the sliding scale of crime; fear leading passion to
prey upon the weak and helpless, and passion throwing off fear, to rush
headlong upon the strong!
At first there was a great obscurity as to the depredator. It was with a
recoil that Mr M----o thought of his clerks, until suspicion began to
be raised by the fact of the absence from the office of one of them, of
the name of William L---- O----, who (as usual) seemed to be the very
last on whom the mind of a confiding master could fix as the author of
an act so treacherous, heartless, and cruel. The determination was at
length come to, that he should be secured, and the charge of doing so
was committed to me. I got my description, and how true it is that
almost every case of the kind presents marks of personal aspect the very
reverse of those we would expect; nay, I would say that, with the
exception of a _side look_, expressive of fear, there is nothing about
the face of a criminal that would imply either one thing or another as
to the existence of tendencies towards even the _greater_ crimes. Hence
the common expressions, "Who would have supposed it?" "He was so unlike
it," and so forth; all perfectly true. I have seen a devil with the meek
face of an infant not less often than I have witnessed the softness and
smoothness of infancy overlying nerves of steel leading to
powder-pouches of fury and revenge. So be it; but I would not give a
very long or very decided squint for all your fanciful expressions of
this devilry or t'other; and so in this case. I had enough of marks;
but I soon learned that I was now, or later, sure of my man, for I
ascertained that, like most other novices, he had taken to drink, to
keep up his nerve and down his shame--a resource which throws a
sought-for personage into my hands the quickest of any. He had changed
his lodgings, and for a time I could only find traces of his fiery
passage through taverns, as he flew, sometimes trembling with drink and
horror, from one to another, seeking from a fiend, whose gift is
delirium, that peace which can only be got from one who behind a rough
providence hides a smiling face. His friends, who knew nothing of the
charge against him, told me that he had gone with the quickness of a
shot into this wild life, and that they considered him mad. I knew
otherwise. I deemed that his disease was not remorse, though all such
fits are placed to the account of that mysterious power; he was simply
under the despair of terror, and as the impulse of fear is the quickest
of all passions to take the wind out of a man, I had no doubt I would
overtake him between the fiend's temple and the suicide's death-bed.
Nor was my expectation long delayed. The search among the lodgings was
difficult; he must have changed in lucid intervals, for he cleared away
so effectually all behind him, that no one could tell me where he now
lived. But at length I discovered his retreat. Placing a couple of
constables at the foot of the stair for fear of a window-drop, I
ascended to his room, at the door of which I placed my assistant. It was
not a case for premonition by knocking, so I opened the door, which was
merely on the lock-catch, and behold my sporter of the little
Savings-Bank portions! He was sitting at a table, with a glass and
bottle before him; but I could mark from the state of the bottle that
his potations at this time had only commenced; nor was I blind to the
conviction that the drink-fever was still careering through his veins;
the old signs so familiar to me--the trembling hands--the flush--the
tumid swellings at the top of the cheeks--the hare-brained eye, with its
lightnings of fear.
I doubt if he knew who I was, but he needed no personal knowledge of me
to quicken an apprehension that responded, no doubt, to every movement,
even to that of a mouse. The first look of me bound him to the
easy-chair,--not made for terror-ridden criminals these rests,--to which
he fixed himself by hands grasping the soft cushioned arms; his mouth
gaped quite open, so that I could even see his parched tongue, as it
quivered like a touched jelly-fish, and his eye shot like a fox's when
the hounds rush on him with their yell. I am not exaggerating--I doubt
if any one can in such a case; at least all language appears to fall far
short in depicting the real state of a man in this young offender's
position. Even the best describers in such cases are only botchers. We
see only physical conditions,--mere palpable signs given in the flesh;
nor know aught of the spirit, with its agonising recollections of
home,--father, sisters, brothers,--hopes once entertained of a
successful future to shed happiness upon them,--all blasted and
destroyed, and the only contrast a jail and ignominy.
Yet amidst all this I had a calm part to play.
"You are Mr William L---- O----?"
"Yes."
"You were clerk to Mr M----o, of the Regent Terrace?"
As I uttered the words, I saw in an instant a change come over him, of a
kind I have often noticed in people merely nervous from temperament and
not drink. He clasped the arms of the chair more firmly, his trembling
ceased as if in an instant, and his eye became steady. Yes, the energy
of the instinct of self-preservation shot up through the drink-fever,
confirmed his nerves, and prepared him for an onset. I have seen fear
run into firmness like the congelations of a liquid metal; but such
appearances, which I have learned to understand, never in any case shook
my suspicions.
"Yes," replied he; "and what then?"
"Not much," said I, "in so far as I am interested, but something in so
far as Mr M----o and his young daughters are concerned."
"I have left his employment, and do not intend to go back," was the
answer, framed to avoid the main chance.
"I am not going to take you back to _your_ office, but rather to take
you up to _ours_, with a view to get some explanation of certain
forgeries on the National and Savings Banks, perpetrated by some one."
"Then _get_ that some one," said he, waxing firmer.
"I am just going to take him," replied I, a little nettled, and taking
out my handcuffs.
The sight of these produced another effect, which may be said to be
inconsistent with human nature. For my part, I don't know what human
nature is, except just so far as I see it, and I never saw much
consistency in it. The attempt to be firm, against the nervousness
produced by his week's drunkenness, seemed to give way, as if suddenly
let loose by the opening of some unseen aperture, and the effort to say
something strong was changed into a kind of hysterical laugh--something
like the cackle of a goose, and dying away into loud breathings. This
was the mere going down of the barometer; it got up again on the courage
side.
"I deny all knowledge of these forgeries," he cried.
"Well," said I, "it will only put us to a little trouble in proving it.
In the meantime, accept the handcuffs."
To this I got no reply. He seemed to be struggling for stronger words of
defiance, but they would not come at his bidding, and I heard nothing
but a jabber, which expressed nothing but determination. I called in my
assistant, and while he lay back in the chair we put on the
cuffs--observing, as I have done before, the clenched hand, with the
perspiration in the act of oozing out between the rigid fingers. Can any
man imagine the fearful agony that could effect this, or the state of
that conscience-riven and bursting heart?
Having raised him up, a little bit of romance introduced itself into
this very prosaic affair, and, as it did not come out at the trial, was
never known. He was standing by the side of a bureau, and suddenly he
snatched with his left hand a _miniature_ (that indispensable
appurtenance of the romance-wrights), and placed it in his breast.
"What is that?" said I.
"The portrait of my mother," he said, and the tear stood in his eye.
"Let me see it," said I, taking hold of it; and examining it, I found
that he had told me what was false. It was the portrait of a young
woman, not above twenty years of age, with long black ringlets--exceedingly
beautiful, of course--they all are in the velvet-coated case; but as I
am no despiser of a good face, I may admit she was really a fair
creature,--ay, even as regards beauty, such a one as a man with more
_love_ than _duty_ would even forge for.
"Why," said I, "this is the portrait of a young lady. Why did you tell
me a lie?"
He paused for a moment. His heart got big, all his hardness had gone,
and with a choking voice he said, "I don't want it to be known that she
was connected with me, or ever saw me. So for God's sake give it me
back."
I saw the impolicy of complying with this request, and put the miniature
in my waistcoat pocket.
"No," said I, "you deny the forgery, and this face may lead me to a
witness!"
"Never!" he cried, "she is too innocent to know aught of evil."
"Be it so," said I; "I will make no improper use of it, and whatever may
happen, I promise to return it to you."
With this he seemed satisfied,--and we took him up to the Office, where
he was locked up in a cell, with but little light, and where, I fear, in
the dark hours he would see, in the magic lantern of a criminal's fancy,
many more familiar faces than that of the mysterious original of the
portrait. A mother's, at all events, would not fail to be illuminated
there.
Somewhat troublesome as the apprehension of this unfortunate young man
had been, it was far more easy than to procure the proper evidence to
support an indictment. It turned out, to the annoyance of the
authorities, who had no doubt of his guilt, that the imitation of the
handwriting of Mr M----o was so skilfully executed, that the cheat was
almost too much for the engravers. Forgery is, in this respect, a
peculiar kind of crime. You may prove that the forger drew the money;
but what then, if he was the person that ought to have drawn it for his
master? Then, of whatever respectability the proprietor of the forged
name, he is only a witness on his own behalf. Suppose the imitation
_inimitable_, where are you? Yet it is to be confessed that so fine a
case seldom happens, so that what I have said about the devil's limp is
true here. It seems to be almost beyond the power of a human being to
write the name of another in all respects so like that it cannot be
detected, even although he has been in the practice of doing so several
times a-day for years. But what is still more wonderful, as I've been
told--for I am now speaking much from hearsay--it is even more difficult
to imitate a rude and illiterate hand than a learned one; just as if
Providence cared more for the poor, who cannot so well guard and protect
themselves against such attempts.
The indictment was, however, prepared and served, and as the case was
now more in the hands of the engravers, I had little to do with it; but
I could not get quit of my portrait. There it was, still in my waistcoat
pocket, just as if I had been some love-smitten swain, doing the
romantic, notwithstanding my advanced years; so, thought I sometimes, if
I had dropt down dead, or hung myself on a tree, or thrown myself over
the Dean Bridge, as wiser men have done before me, what a story might
have been founded on this miniature, and how appropriate for a woodcut
stuck in front of my works! Doubtless some italic letters would have
been in request by the printer:--"This great man hanged himself for
love. The object of his affections was never known, and must remain a
mysterious secret till that time when all things shall be revealed."
But even such thoughts as these had passed away. One night I went home
late. I lighted my gas and sat down by the fire, in one of those
reveries which have always taken possession of me when alone; very
unlike other people's reveries, I suspect--for while these are occupied
about catching money, or sweethearts, or fame, and sometimes the faces
of departed friends, mine never had any other object than the catching
of men. From a dream of this kind, and far removed from the case of the
young man O----, I heard my door open, and, looking up, saw before me
the figure of a fine tall young woman, muffled up in a cloak, and with a
veil drawn closely under her chin, and held there by a gloved hand. Even
I was amazed; for though I have had strange visitors, there was a
something about this one that I am not much in the habit of seeing, at
least within the walls of my humble dwelling--something of style and
breeding so much above my Bess M'Diarmids and my Jean Brashes, that I
was put off my calculations as to character.
"Are you Mr M'Levy?" said she, in a clear silvery voice.
"Ay, ma'am, at your service."
"It was you, I think, who apprehended the unfortunate young man, Mr
L---- O----?"
"Yes."
"When you took him away from his lodgings, did you see about him the
miniature of a young female?"
"Yes," replied I; and here my practical character began to shew signs of
activity. I suspected my mysterious visitor had under her veil the fair
face from which that miniature had been painted, and my detective
instincts carried my hand to my waistcoat pocket.
"Now, my young lady," said I, "we have a peculiar curiosity about
concealed things. If you will shew me your face, I will tell you whether
this miniature I hold in my hand is the one you are inquiring after."
"That I dare not do," replied she, with a tremble.
"Then I cannot shew you the picture," said I.
"Would money move you?" said she.
"Not unless gold could cut or dissolve steel," replied I.
"Ah, then, I am miserable indeed!" she said. "I would not for the whole
world that my friends, who are of rank, should know that the miniature
of their relative had been found in the possession of a forger."
"I see no occasion for that coming out," said I; "the picture is of no
use at the trial, and I can prevent every chance of such a circumstance
obtaining publicity."
"Oh, Heaven bless you for the words!" she cried. "Can I trust you?"
"Yes," said I; but becoming again official, and not relishing the idea
of being _done_ by a female, I could not help adding, "But if you can
have faith in my promise as regards the _picture_, why do you doubt me
as respects the _original_?"
"I cannot--I dare not," she ejaculated, as she held the veil more
firmly. "Adieu! I trust to your pity for one who truly deserves
compassion."
And my mysterious visitor departed. I never heard or saw more of her;
but I have since frequently thought of that lovely face, as portrayed no
doubt truthfully in the miniature, and formed numerous conjectures:--the
disappointed hopes, it might be, of early affection,--the bleeding
heart, brooding in secret over the shame of such a connexion,--or,
stranger still, the misplaced sympathy of a woman's love clinging with
mistaken tenacity to the unworthy object, notwithstanding the
disgraceful crime of which he had been convicted,--these and many others
have often passed across my mind as the mysterious visit occurred to me.
Nor is it possible to contemplate this affair without wondering at the
fatality of the youth, with beauty if not rank in his power, and yet
preying on the portions of children.
I have only to add, in conclusion, that the unfortunate young man was
found guilty, and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation,--a life
of misery entailed, and everything worth living for obscured and
forfeited, by the unprincipled and criminal desire of display and
prodigality. What a lesson for those holding confidential positions
against listening for a moment to the insidious wiles of the tempter!
The Wrong Shop.
It is only a state of _civilisation_ that can produce so strange a
relation as that between detectives and robbers. In any other condition
of society it is inconceivable, for love is almost always mutual, and
hatred reciprocal in rude states; and it is not very easy to conceive a
condition where one party follows and seeks from a spirit of
well-wishing, and another curses and flies from a spirit of hatred. If
there is any one we wish to see more than another, it is a robber; and
if there is any creature out of the place of four letters a robber
wishes to be away from, it is an officer of the law. It may seem strange
enough if I should be able to give a case where this was reversed, in a
manner which has sometimes forced from me a laugh.