SOMEtime ago a robbery was perpetrated in the mansion of Lord H——, which is situated in one of the squares of Belgravia. The thieves made a tolerably successful and remunerative haul. They cleared out the whole of the plate, and also much of the jewelry, which chiefly belonged to Lady H——, and was of enormous value.
How the thieves obtained access to the premises did not for a long while seem at all clear. Appearances on the surface warranted a belief that one or more of the servants of his lordship or her ladyship had aided and abetted the robbery. But there was no scintilla of what is called legal evidence to justify or warrant that suspicion. Nobody attached to the household was therefore arrested on the charge; but a reward was offered for the discovery of the offenders, and ordinary police vigilance was exhausted in the endeavour to track the delinquents.
Weeks and months (about three months) rolled by, and nobody was brought to justice.
His lordship was irritated beyond measure by this failure of justice. He one day went to his solicitors, declaring that he would spend half his fortune, if necessary, in order to secure the offender and his adequate punishment.
What share in the production of this decision Lady H—— may have had I do not know, but I have a notion that she had much to do with it; for it is certain beyond all doubt that the loss of her jewelry preyed upon her spirits, and exasperated her to the last pitch of intensity. Being rather shrewishly inclined, she would, I verily believe, have inflicted summary vengeance on the stoutest of the thieves if she could have clutched him.
Lord H——’s solicitors were somewhat annoyed at the failure of the police in the discovery of the criminals. They communicated with me upon the subject, and I at length was employed.
It was a teasing and difficult job. It gave me ten times more trouble than many a greater and more important business. Yet, having undertaken it, I was determined to go through with it. I would not, I felt, be baffled.
For a long while I could obtain no clue. At length I did get a scent of my prey, and from that moment the result was certain, although it could only be overtaken by a circuitous and uneven track.
I at length hunted down the principal delinquent.
The whole robbery had been effected by one man and one woman. The woman fled as soon as the man was arrested. I might have secured her before, but in doing so must have lost the man. Her arrest would have given him notice of his peril; and, in truth, I was almost careless about the female’s escape if I could catch her companion.
Lord H—— was more exasperated than ever when he ascertained who the criminal was; although he assured his solicitors, as they informed me, that he had not the slightest knowledge of the man, nor did he suppose the delinquent had any knowledge of him beyond that which all thieves of London might have in common of a nobleman.
I suspected that some mysterious cause inspired this desire for vengeance in his lordship, besides the natural influence of his loss upon his mind. That was sufficient to account for much revengefulness, but it did not appear to me an adequate motive for the sudden increase of such an emotion since the disclosure of the identity of the criminal. I do not, however, know that my suspicions were correct. It is possible that they were incorrect.
The offender was brought before the magistrate, in the usual course, and remand upon remand was applied for and obtained. The prisoner’s attorney resisted the application with all his argumentative power and force of advocacy, but in vain. The prosecution was thought by the bench to be entitled to every opportunity for discovering their property, and so involving the prisoner in the evidence of his guilt as to render his escape through the meshes of the law impossible.
At length the case was brought home with sufficient clearness to the prisoner, not only to warrant his committal for trial, but to secure his conviction when that trial took place. He was accordingly committed.
Next sessions a true bill was found against the prisoner by the grand jury of the Central Criminal Court,and in due course the prisoner was placed in the dock, to go through the great ordeal in connexion with this case.
The court was somewhat crowded. The incidents of this robbery had attracted public attention. The value of the plate, the rareness of the gems, the neatness and completeness of the exploit, had all combined to invest the case with an air of public importance.
In the court, awaiting the trial with greedy anxiousness, were Lord and Lady H——.
In the gallery was a female, attired in costly raiment, enriched by here and there a jewel of considerable value. She was, perhaps, one of the handsomest women in London; and her beauty was of that order usually denominated “sweet.” There was an apparent gentleness and amiability of expression underlying the traces of deep and painful emotion which something then transpiring, or anticipated, had aroused.
The eyes of this elegantly attired and beautiful female rested entirely upon Lord and Lady H——, who together occupied seats upon the bench on the right hand, a short distance from the judge, and who were prominent marks of observation for other persons beside this interesting female.
The case then before the court was a tedious trial for perjury, in which there was a mass of conflicting evidence. The tasks of judge and jury were rendered peculiarly difficult by the tangled mass of fact and fiction which the skill of the prosecution and the dexterity of the defence had laid before the court. To the parties interested in the next case—that of the platerobbery—no doubt this protracted evidence was very irksome, as well as to the man in the dock, whose liberty trembled in the balance of this conflicting testimony, or the discrimination of his fellows the jurymen.
Simultaneously with the latter portion of this trial for perjury, the counsel for the defence, Mr. Sergeant Ponderous and Mr. Anthony Stuffgown, were engaged in a consultation with Mr. Wheedle, the prisoner’s attorney.
A communication had been made to the latter “gentleman according to Act of Parliament,” the night before. It was a letter written by the fair spectator in the gallery of the court, who had also had an interview with Mr. Wheedle that morning.
The position she then occupied in court had been selected for her by the prisoner’s legal adviser. He had calculated with tolerable precision where his lordship would sit, and he wished her to be within the range of his vision, without being too prominent to the disinterested spectator.
The prisoner’s attorney had, in this consultation, explained to the counsel his stratagem, or intendedcoup de théatre. The learned sergeant and his learned junior considered the idea a good one, and may be said to have approved it; although, as they explained, it was no part of their professional duty to offer an opinion upon it. When the consultation was ended, the counsel returned into court, one taking his seat and the other hanging listlessly on the railing of the counsels’ boxes.
Mr. Wheedle was on the staircase of the court,watching its two modes of egress, and awaiting the effect of his little stratagem.
An usher received a three-cornered note from the hands of somebody, addressed to Lord H——, with a small gold coin, and a request that he would put the half-sovereign in his own pocket, and hand the note to his lordship unseen by her ladyship.
The note ran thus:
“Gallery of the Old Bailey,“July 19th, 185-.“My Lord,—For Heaven’s sake, don’t prosecute my brother, and kill your faithfulClara!”
“Gallery of the Old Bailey,“July 19th, 185-.
“My Lord,—For Heaven’s sake, don’t prosecute my brother, and kill your faithfulClara!”
His lordship cast his eyes to the gallery, and for the first time in that place he beheld the form and features of a lady not unknown to him, but one he had very frequently met elsewhere. Those eyes, and the recognition of the writer, were too much for the nobleman’s delicate sensibilities. His face became as pale as chalk. He trembled almost as violently as a man attacked by St. Vitus’s dance. He swooned immediately after he had thrust the missive unseen into one of his pockets.
This event caused what the reporters for the daily journals described as “a painful sensation” in court. His lordship was removed in his carriage to his residence in —— Square, Belgravia, without uttering more than one sentence.
That sentence he so uttered was an instruction to his solicitor to get the trial postponed.
The trial for perjury, after a short interval, was proceeded with, and ended in the prisoner’s acquittal.
Whereupon Mr. Keeneye, as one of the counsel for the prosecution, rose after a conference with his learned brother retained for the defence, and, addressing his lordship, begged that, owing to the sudden illness of the prosecutor, the trial of the prisoner might be postponed. The prisoner’s counsel felt, they said, some difficulty in resisting the application after what they had seen, but added, that they thought the prisoner, who had done nothing to cause his lordship’s illness, was entitled to be liberated on bail. The judge, after glancing at the depositions, said he did not see that the accused had any such claim, and declined to attach that condition to the adjournment of the case, as prayed for by the prosecution.
Clara, who from the gallery beheld all that had gone on, and who devoured every word that had been uttered by the lawyers and the bench with greedy ears, maintained a wonderful show of self-possession, but was stirred by the intensest and most anxious thought. She left the court when this decision had been arrived at in her brother’s case; he being, indeed, quite unconscious up to this moment as to what had taken place in his absence, and, when it was explained to him, being left ignorant for the time of its cause.
Next session the prisoner was again brought up for trial. His lordship attended—but not her ladyship. She was induced to remain at home by the solicitude of her husband, who apprehended the effect upon her of the fetid atmosphere of the court. Althoughhe had been up to the day first appointed for the trial resolutely bent upon securing to the prisoner the weightiest punishment he could get inflicted, he was now prepared to recommend the prisoner to mercy.
The evidence, which in the briefs as originally delivered to counsel disclosed a complete chain of proof, was remodelled. They now contained a narrative which set forth the difficulties of the theory for the prosecution, and went far towards explaining away the points against the accused. The briefs for the defence, which as originally delivered set forth no possible answer to the charge, now contained a theory which reconciled the evidence as it stood, or was expected to stand, with a possibility of the innocence of the accused.
A witness for the prosecution did not answer to his name when called; and the reader may be informed that this witness had gone beyond the jurisdiction of any English tribunal. The result was, that the prosecution broke down, and the culprit was liberated.
The explanation of this miscarriage of justice is simple. Pretty Clara was the mistress of the noble lord. He had indeed seduced her some years before, and she had been living since then (unknown to his wife) under his lordship’s protection. She was the sister of the prisoner. She was innocent of all participation in or knowledge of the robbery. For many years she had not seen that brother. They were orphans. They had both been thrown upon the world at a very early age to earn their own bread. She, when not more than fourteen years of age, had beenplaced in one of the West-End millinery houses, and had won a promotion to the counter of a shop in Oxford Street. He had occupied a situation in a City warehouse, but had never obtained a promotion by the exercise of any industry or fidelity on his part.
Brother and sister had both diverged from the paths of virtue in different ways and at different times, and had been for a period of six years unknown to each other. Neither cared to let the other know his or her whereabouts, pursuits, and mode of life. What had become of her, the reader knows. Of him it is necessary to say, that he robbed his employers, who forgave what they correctly believed to be a first offence, but discharged him without a character. From step to step he travelled deeper and deeper into the mazes of criminality, until he got inextricably involved with associates in various cases of fraud, larceny, and burglary.
The mode in which the robbery had been effected was very simple. The prisoner had won over the affections of a servant in Lord H——’s household, and used the information he thus obtained to effect, with her connivance, if not her assistance, the crime for which he afterwards stood charged at the Old Bailey. This, however, was not his first appearance in that court. He had been there on a former occasion, and had, as on this day, been acquitted by a flaw in the evidence against him. The sister, through whose instrumentality he now escaped, became acquainted with his last crime and peril by a newspaper, which, in noticing the cases laid before the grand jury, mentioned,as a fact discovered by the prosecution, the real name of the accused, and one or two instances of his early career, sufficient to prove his identity with her lost brother.
From the moment when Clara made this discovery, it had become impossible for her to get access to his lordship. Her first thought was to throw herself at his feet, and ask, as the only disinterested favour she had sought at his hands, and as the highest reward for her dishonour—a brother’s liberty. Foiled in this, her woman’s wit suggested a communication with the attorney for the defence. She had no difficulty in ascertaining who had that task allotted to him, and she met Mr. Wheedle, who arranged with her the stratagem which proved so successful.
This little episode was followed by one or two circumstances that the reader may be put in possession of. Lord H——, who was by no means a strong-minded man, accepted the incident as a warning of Providence. He would not for a trifle risk the enmity of her ladyship, to whom he was somewhat attached, and he dreaded the notoriety of his own criminal association with the prisoner’s sister. He resolved to be virtuous, and carried out that resolution by a financial arrangement with his mistress, through the family lawyer. She, who had not been further tainted by sin than in her illicit connexion with the prosecutor, used the means now placed at her disposal in a way that enabled her to gain an honest and creditable livelihood henceforth. Her brother tried to dothe same; but that wish was broken down by the constant interference with his good resolutions from old associates. He also tried various modes, like his sister, for obtaining an honest livelihood; but the impossibility of maintaining an incognito rendered this impracticable. Ever and anon he encountered former “friends,” who reviled his intentions, and frustrated them. It was a good joke, they told him, that notion of his of working for a livelihood. “Did he,” they asked ironically, “really think of turning honest? What a funny idea!” they exclaimed. They persecuted him in various modes. They would demand money from him, and if he hesitated they would threaten to “split” or “peach” upon him. He had to give them on such occasions all he had, and promise more than he had or could perform as the price of their forbearance. Dogged on every hand, and finding it impossible to earn an honest livelihood in this country, he fled from it, with the aid of money supplied him by his sister and brother-in-law (for by this time Clara had become the wife of a good-natured, easy-going fellow, who held an appointment in her Majesty’s Customs); and I lost sight of him amid a crowd of steerage passengers on board an emigrant ship bound for Australia, where I hope he is now living as a creditable member of society.
OFall scoundrels in society, there are none so bad as disreputable or dishonest lawyers—unless it be unprincipled doctors. And I think that the palm of villany, if there be such a thing, might be claimed by a few of the latter class in any competition with the former. There is no limit to the mischief, and no fathoming the depths of crime which a surgeon may commit. Few men, perhaps, have also such ample opportunities for eluding detection. It is fair to say that I believe the crime of dishonesty, or malfeasance, is rare among that most honourable profession of medicine and surgery; but the exceptions, although few, are terrible.
“Doctor, you have been very good to me,” said an old woman, “and I have done wrong to you, and hope you will forgive me, and be kind to me; for I am a poor lone old woman, with no friend in the world but you, doctor.”
The doctor smiled blandly at the compliment here paid him.
This old woman was a pauper patient. The doctor attended her by order of the relieving-officer of the —— Union; the locality of which, it is enough for the reader to know, was on the south side of the metropolis.
The doctor had been many years a parish surgeon;and at this time he was also the medical attendant at the workhouse of the union. He was accounted a successful man. He was in large practice, but his gains were not commensurate with the extent of his business; and owing to a somewhat large family, with expensive habits of his own and his wife’s, he had not made, after all, very much way in the world. I think I may describe him as a poor doctor, although he lived in a big house and kept up a liberal establishment. Yes; I may call him poor. There were unmistakable, although negative, signs of comparative poverty. He kept no carriage, and had to trudge on foot from the beginning to the end of his daily rounds. He rarely indulged in the luxury of a cab, which, I take it, showed either an extreme prudence, not consistent with some other habits I have mentioned, or very straitened circumstances.
“Yes, Goody, I hope I have been kind to you, and I will be kind, as I know a doctor ought to be to all his patients, but especially to all the poor and old ones.”
I ought to have mentioned, incidentally, that the doctor had obtained a reputation for his urbanity to all people, and his especial affection to the poor.
“Doctor,” she exclaimed; “ah, I have something on my mind. I don’t think I have acted properly by you. Will you forgive me?”
As she spoke these latter words her wretched crone-like features betrayed a ghastliness which appalled the surgeon, and he could scarcely, for several moments, answer her.
“You will forgive me, doctor, won’t you?”
“Forgive you, Goody! What have I to forgive you?”
“Oh, it was very wrong to deceive you.”
“But how have you deceived me?”
“Oh, it was very wicked.”
“Why, what’s the matter? What do you mean?”
As the doctor uttered this last interrogation, in soothing accents, he drew a chair near to the old woman, and, in the extremeness of his urbanity, or with the desire of a confessor to lighten the load that weighed upon her conscience, as he so drew his chair by her side, he actually took her lean and withered hand in his.
“Come, tell me all about it, Goody. In what way have you wronged me? In what deceived me? In what respect acted as a poor woman should not?”
“Well, doctor,” she stammered, in reply to this kind and confidential inquiry, “indeed I have a fortune.”
The doctor started.
“Pray don’t expose me. I shall die if I am found out. Kill me, doctor, if you won’t forgive me.”
“A fortune! and you for so long have been living on charity; obtaining relief and medical attendance from the union! Oh, that is wicked indeed!”
At this moment there passed through the doctor’s mind a thought more wicked than any of the thoughts or acts of the pauper patient. He was then walking the streets of London, attending his patients, earning his own bread and his family’s bread by the sufferanceof a Christian usurer, who had obtained judgments against him on bills of exchange, and who extracted, as the price of what he called forbearance, enormous interest and costs for a disreputable attorney, who (let me say in confidence) I have reason to know divided them with his client. The bitter poverty of the man was his strong temptation.
“Could I manage to get this woman’s property into my hands?” he asked himself.
“No!” was the answer of his conscience.
“It would be an enormous blessing to me if I could get a little money just now, and pay off that infernal Tompkins, who threatens and harasses my life during the twenty-four hours in every day; whose sheriff’s officer ghost haunts my steps from the moment I leave my door in the morning till the moment I return at night; who disturbs my repose at home, and the fear of whom disturbs my sleep. If I could get the use of the money, I would repay it. To wrong this wretched pauper would be a crime I am incapable of; but to use the money of the old sinner for a while, and make it up again, would do nobody any harm. I will try if I can get it.”
Such was the train of thought, interrogation, and reply, and of resolution, which passed through the mind of the doctor, with more rapidity than it has passed under the eye of the reader.
“My good woman, as you say, you have acted very wrongfully, not alone towards me; but you have, in that respect, done a great injustice towards me. By what means can I live and maintain my familythan by the exercise of my profession? If you could have paid my fees, you should have done so. I would willingly have attended upon you as long as you lived, without charge, if your necessities had required it; but as you could pay, I think you ought to have paid.”
“Doctor, it is but little I possess, and I have always been afraid of spending it or reducing it. It is only 500l.that I have; and if I lost it I should lose my all. How do I know that I shall not want it, every farthing? And I have a son, for whom I have kept it these ten years. Where he is now I don’t know. He left England in a ship for the Indies. He ran away from his home during his father’s lifetime, and I believe he helped to break my husband’s heart. But he used to write me long, long, and such nice letters; and used to tell me that he would come home some day. It is a very long while since I heard from him, and maybe he is drowned. But I don’t think he is. Sometimes I dream of him, and in my sleep I think I hear a voice telling me that I shall see him again. When he comes home I will give him all I have, and I am sure he will be kind to his old mother, and keep me happy and comfortable as long as I live.”
While the old crone thus garrulously related the secret of her miserly thrift, the doctor was pondering over a scheme which he had already matured.
“Well, my good woman,” he said, “it is not my business to tell upon you. I will not bring you into disgrace. I will not reproach you. From me, at least, you shall suffer nothing.”
“Thank you, dear, kind, good doctor!”
“Will you not pay me something on my account?” he inquired.
“Oh, yes, doctor.”
As she spoke she rose from her seat and went to a cupboard, from which she took a little box and unlocked it. In this box were contained two savings-bank books. How extremely cunning this old lady had been! How well, for one in her position, and at her age, did she understand that difficult rule of prudently investing money! She laid these books before the doctor, again imploring him not to let any body know of her hoard.
“I will give you 10l., doctor,” she said, “as soon as I can draw it out from the savings-bank.”
“I am much obliged to you,” observed the surgeon meekly.
The old woman was struck, perhaps flattered, by the comparative humbleness with which the doctor acknowledged the proffered money. That acknowledgment reduced him to something like the level of his patient. The confidence at this moment became that of friends; and, when the sea of conventionality had been bridge over, the two talkedtête-a-tête.
The doctor pointed out to the old woman the perils she ran, by fire, robbery, or other accident, of having her books destroyed, and the evidence of her investment, or that investment itself, obliterated. She listened to this demonstration with greediness and anxiety. She saw the force, not to say truthfulness or disinterestedness, of the suggestion. He pointed out to her the comparative profitlessness of the mode of investment she had selected. He told her that money was worth twice, thrice, fourfold, or even tenfold, under careful, judicious management, the amount she was receiving for it.
The greediness of the old woman was aroused. There is nothing so tempting to the over-thrifty and penurious or miserly person as the offer of large interest. This is a weakness they share with the common usurer, who is met with in the ordinary walks of society. I believe it would be possible to cheat an ordinary Jew bill-discounter, or the most subtle and acute of Christian usurers, by the temptation of large interest, and a little manipulation of their great ruling instinct of greediness.
The pauper patient, before this interview had been concluded, entreated her good kind doctor to lend her the benefit of his extreme practical sagacity, great worldly experience, and unmistakable judgment, in the investment of the moneys which had been saved up by her. After a little hesitation, he agreed to comply with her request.
Within a fortnight the money was withdrawn from the savings-banks in which it had been distributed, in order to evade those regulations which prevent more than a certain sum being at any one time invested in any one bank. And after being withdrawn from this channel, it was placed in the hands of the surgeon, for him to lend or employ as he might deem expedient, and upon those securities that would yield a larger return.
The doctor used the money thus intrusted to himin payment of claims which pressed upon himself, and in reduction of his own embarrassments. He paid the old woman, or rather carried to her account, an interest of twenty per cent. per annum with the greatest regularity; and his conscience was satisfied by a belief that he was conferring upon her an essential benefit, by enabling her to obtain this liberal usufruct in preference to the scanty dole of interest she had been receiving. He satisfied scruples, or rather prevented her distrusting him, by from time to time showing her bills of exchange, documents, or papers, which he called bills of sale, and slips of paper which he denominated scrip, railway shares, &c. &c., all of which, he explained to her, were bringing interest at a rate more than four times that she had been previously obtaining.
Goody thus learned to regard the doctor, who alone possessed her secret and stood in the relation of her confessor, as her best and sincerest friend. She occasionally rewarded him, as she thought, by purchasing little presents for his children, and by an occasional visit to the hosier’s or glover’s to make some slight purchase for his own benefit or comfort.
After two years or thereabouts had rolled away, Goody, whose physical infirmities increased, whose mental knowledge became more and more warped, whose miserly vices had become more intense, also became dissatisfied with the irregular mode in which she obtained the charity upon which she continued to live, while in her imagination she saw her investment increase.
One day the doctor called upon her, to explain thatthe interest upon a railway debenture fell due to-morrow, and 4l.15s.had been thus obtained, which he was prepared to either hand over to her or hold for her investment. She told him she would much rather that he kept all of it except a shilling, which she needed for some purpose, and which sum he gave her. He promised to lay out this further amount, as he had laid out all the rest, in a way to increase its store.
“There,” she then continued to say, “I have been thinking that I feel very lonesome and very uncomfortable here by myself, and I should like to get into the house.”
“What! the union workhouse?”
“Yes, doctor.”
“I am afraid it cannot be done.”
“Oh, I am so sorry. I wish it could. Can’t you manage that for me, doctor?”
“Well, you see, Goody, somebody might find out that you have money, and I might be ruined if it were to transpire that I had assisted you, or even suffered you to become an inmate of the workhouse, and to live out of the ratepayers’ money.”
The old woman was crest-fallen. The idea which she had nursed for many months seemed dashed to pieces. Her hopes were destroyed.
The doctor continued: “I am afraid it would be hardly right, Goody.”
“Nobody could know that I had money, doctor, unless you told them.”
“I should not, of course, think of disclosing it, and perhaps, after all, it might not be so very great a crimefor me to let you take your own course. Only, mind, I won’t help you. My conscience will not let me do that. It would ruin me, if found out. No, Goody; if you can get into the house, I will not be the man to tell upon you; but you must get in by yourself.”
The doctor by this time had begun to tremble, lest every moment the old woman should demand the delivery up of her securities, and should discover that he had used the greater portion of her money. He knew that he could not recover or replace it. He was at his wits’ end oftentimes to determine what he should do in such an emergency. He therefore liked the idea of this old woman’s going into the house, where he knew she could get, because the additional falsehood and imposture of her position would be an added security for her silence. While there, she would hardly dare to claim from him the money or the documents. He would have far less difficulty in maintaining the secret of his fraud upon her than he had hitherto done.
It will be enough to further state that the old creature made application for admission into the union workhouse, and that the relieving-officer investigated her case; that a report was laid before the board of guardians; and that, without much difficulty, she obtained an order of admission. So the fraud upon the ratepayers was effected and prolonged; so the doctor’s crime was further concealed.
The old pauper was accustomed in the house, and out of the house when permitted to go beyond its walls, to laud the praises of her kind doctor, who, on his visits to the place, would inquire after her,who would find her very often ailing, and who very frequently ordered her luxuries that did not fall to the lot of other paupers not so cared for.
Three years rolled away, and during this time the pauper grew richer and richer (as she thought) out of the usufruct of her savings. The doctor all the while continued with growing certainty to look upon the fund he had employed for his own advantage as money he would never be called upon to replace. He had only to keep up the deception a little longer, and the real owner of that fund would pass into her grave unnoticed and unknown.
One day the old woman obtained her customary leave of absence, and wandered beyond the usual track of her accustomed visitations when so liberated. She called first upon the doctor, and obtained from him a small sum of money—a few shillings—and afterwards among the places she visited was the miserable home of an old acquaintance. Here she took dinner and tea, and after tea drew out the money, which she said had been given her by her dear kind friend the parish doctor, and insisted upon standing treat for her companion.
About nine in the evening a conversation took place between the two women.
“Goody,” said her friend, “you know I don’t want to hurry you. You know I am very glad to have you here. I am very fond of you; but it is getting late; and if you don’t make haste, you will get shut out,”
The speaker was what is called a little the worsefor liquor, and Goody was more than a little intoxicated.
She spluttered out in reply something about not caring for the porter, or the relieving-officer, or the board of guardians, or the overseers, or the church-wardens, or any body. That if she was late, it did not matter, and that she would not stand any of their nonsense. That if she was late, why—she was late. If she could not get in the house, she must stay out; and if they did not care to keep her, why, she could keep herself.
“What nonsense you talk! What would you do, at your time of life, to keep yourself? Why, if they were to turn you out, you must starve. You could not work, and you have not got any thing to live upon.”
“Oh, haven’t I, though!” the old woman incoherently exclaimed. “That is all you know about it. I don’t care for them all. Dr. Jalaype has got my money. He takes care of it for me. Why, I tell you, I have got a fortune; that is, I mean he has got it keeping for me. I have got more than a thousand pounds. Is not that a fortune? Would not you like to have it, old girl? I dare say the chairman of the board would like to have it, but he won’t. No, that he sha’n’t. I won’t go back to the house. I will stop here. There, go and get a quartern more gin.”
With the shilling now produced another quartern of gin was fetched, and the old lady imbibed a further quantity, and got considerably worse, and was soon reduced to a state of beastly, hopeless, and helpless intoxication.
After having drunk themselves into this condition, the two wretched creatures left the scene of their dissipation and endeavoured to toddle in the direction of the workhouse. They had not gone far, when two riotous boys, returning from their work to their homes, saw them reeling, and began to poke fun at them. The female pauper, smarting under a rude juvenile insult, endeavoured to rush forward and seize one of the delinquents, but instead of effecting the capture of the offender, fell flat on her face. Her companion endeavoured to pick her up, but rolled over; and while the sympathetic woman maundered, in her intoxication, words of consolation to the disfigured pauper, a policeman came up, and, observing their condition, took them both to the station-house.
Next morning, on being brought before the magistrate, they told an artful tale, which that worthy functionary accepted as true, about having met an old friend, who treated them to a half-quartern of gin (they were sure it was no more), and it overcame them. They were discharged with an admonition, and toddled off to the house, at the gate of which they parted,—the one to find her home, like an independent woman; the other to sneak into her ward, and bear the gibes of her associates as best she might.
It was some time before these women could meet again. When they did so, among other things, they talked about the fortune. Goody the pauper would have liked to have said nothing about the matter, but her companion was not to be put off in that way. She had a principle which led her to argue that whatpeople said in their cups might be regarded as their most sincere belief, and that the words uttered in drunkenness had a truth not always attaching to the words of soberness. She persisted in her inquiries, and the result was that the pauper Goody took her friend into confidence.
“Why, you see here,” she said, “nobody knows what may turn up. I have been a lone woman these many years. I have got a son, leastways I believe I have, and some dayhemay turn up, you see. I love that boy, and I have screwed and contrived for him; and in case any thing should happen to me, why I should like to have a little money by me; so I saved and put my money in a savings-bank. But, then, one day I told the doctor about my money, and he told me not to let it be there. I asked if so be he would be so kind as to look after it for me, which he said yes, he would do so. So I gave the money to him, and he lays it out, and gets me the best interest for my money, and I place that interest along with the money, which makes the money bigger, do you see, every year. I have done this for many years, and now I have no doubt I have got hard upon a thousand pounds.”
“Lor! You don’t say so?”
“Yes, ’pon my honour, I have.”
“Well, I wish I had got a hundred pounds, that’s all I know.”
“A hundred is not much,” said Goody, whose ideas were prone to expand on financial theories.
In this way the couple chatted, until Goody’s friend became almost as wise as Goody herself upon the matter of the investment, and the doctor’s fiduciary relationship became equally well known to two females as it had previously been known to one.
Now, it is said that women cannot keep a secret. I believe this doctrine is not to be accepted or taken as a rule without exceptions. But it is certain that Goody’s friend prattled and tattled long and pertinaciously, although in solemn confidence, to a variety of people. At last the fact or fiction of the pauper’s fortune became known to Mr. Doe, a popular baker, and chairman of the board of guardians of the union which had the honour of maintaining out of its public funds the wealthy pauper.
Mr. Doe was a man of independent mind. How he won his way, as he frequently had occasion to say, to the distinction of a member of the vestry and chairman of the board of guardians, was by his own talents (sometimes he said genius), and his untiring energy, and his uncompromising honesty. He was not the man to overlook any abuse; he was the last man in the world to permit a fraud to go unnoticed or unpunished. When he heard of the case of this female pauper with a fortune, he determined to sift it to the last. He told the story as he received it to his colleagues or subordinate members of the board of guardians; and a sub-committee was appointed to investigate the matter. The clerk to the board was directed to write to the doctor demanding from him an explanation. Upon that the board dropped the subject for a fortnight, in order that, as Mr. Doe said, every body might have ample opportunity for their proper defence against the grave charges he had to make against them.
The doctor still held his situation of medical adviser and attendant to the workhouse.
The female pauper was unfortunately ill, and at the time when this outcry arose she was an inmate of the infirmary or sick-ward. The doctor was then in attendance upon her.
When the surgeon received the letter, he was of course naturally amazed. Long-continued success and concealment had led him to confidently believe it was unknown to any body but himself that he held the money. How the secret had leaked out he could not tell or guess. A conversation, which he found no difficulty in obtaining, with the patient did not help the solution of the mystery; for she, like an old sinner that she was, denied having mentioned the thing to a living soul. She affected to be as much in the dark as he was as to the mode in which the intelligence had reached the board. She did not affect to be, but really was, terribly alarmed by the discovery. The doctor heightened that alarm by telling her she would be prosecuted and punished; no doubt sent to the treadmill; or, it might be, transported for fraud upon the board of guardians. He told her that the only course for her to adopt was one of entire secrecy. She must deny every thing; she must declare she had never said that she had money; utterly deny that he had received any from her for any purpose; and if she did so, he would back her statement up by declaring that he had none of her money in his control. Thepoor deluded wretch saw that she was placing herself entirely in the hands of her doctor, and that he might turn round upon her; or at least she thought so. But still, as between the treadmill and transportation, she hesitated to run the risk of the doctor’s possible fraud upon her.
The meeting of the board took place. The doctor, in reply to the letter sent him, wrote a short pithy answer, declaring the statement touching him and the female pauper and patient to be a flimsy fabrication, which he thought it beneath him to answer in detail. He gave his unqualified denial, and should do no more. As for entering on a defence against such accusations, why, his character was before the world, and he left the guardians to judge the mere probability of such a statement as that which had been made by somebody to his discredit. If the guardians felt inclined for any further information, perhaps he might be disposed to give it; but his present opinion was, that he should not.
The female pauper on being brought up before the guardians for examination,—or, to speak more correctly, a deputation of the board, or its committee, waited at her bedside,—she stoutly denied every thing. She declared most solemnly that she had no money, and asked the inquirer, if she had such money, would she be there, in that wretched infirmary, on their bed, in unsavoury pauperism, and taking the noxious workhouse physic? One member of the deputation was convinced that the chairman had led them on a wild-goose chase: that the woman had no such fortune ashad been represented; that the whole affair was a bag of moonshine. Another had no opinion at all; he said, in frankness, that he did not know what to make of the matter; and a third had a notion directly contrary to the first, and thought the ratepayers had been swindled for a long while; that the chairman of the board was quite right, and that the matter ought to be further looked into.
It unfortunately happened between the date of this inquiry of the baker and the deputation that the pauper died. Poor creature! she expired under the treatment of her friend and conspirator against the ratepayers,—the Workhouse Doctor. That death was a godsend to him, for it practically stopped all further investigation.
The chairman of the board of guardians, Mr. Doe, at the meeting when the report of the committee was brought up, expressed himself dissatisfied; he said he thought he smelt a rat; he had his suspicions that the doctor had got the woman’s money; he was sure, almost certain, that the ratepayers had been robbed. He would like to have the whole thing out, and at once. He did not like that evasive letter of their surgeon’s; he should like that gentleman brought before them at once, and be asked to explain. If he came, and did explain, well and good; Mr. Doe would not object to apologise when he had been convinced that he had been in the wrong. Until he was so convinced, he should hold his own opinion, and vindicate it. The upshot of the whole investigation of this worthy, and energetic, and prosperous, and dignified tradesman was, that the surgeon was sent for by a special messenger, and that he attended their deliberations at the board meeting I have last referred to. He manifested a lofty spirit of mock dignity. He protested against the outrage to which he had been subjected by their suspicions and by their demand, and by having him arraigned before them like a criminal at a public tribunal. He did not know that he was doing at all right in noticing these charges; but concluded by laying his hand melodramatically upon his heart, offering many objurgations, and ultimately, in the most familiar way, offering to prove—as he did prove, to the satisfaction of the majority, and the dissatisfaction of the minority, of the board—that the tattle of the chairman’s informant was a tissue of falsehood, or the wild imaginings of a lunatic.
The sequel to the whole of these incidents and this investigation was a resolution, passed by a majority of the board, expressing confidence in their medical officer, embodying an opinion that he had been unjustly aspersed, and requesting him to continue to bestow upon the paupers of the union under the control of that board of guardians his eminent services and truly Christian-like mercies.
MR. FRANKLINwas a solicitor in good practice at the West End of London, having offices at —— Chambers, Regent Street, and a private residence near Fulham. He was a man of somewhat peculiar habits, although very shrewd, able in his profession, and generous towards his friends—who were not a few. His domestic life had been far from comfortable. He had been separated from his wife, through incompatibility of temper; and that lady, with one of her children, lived in a distant part of the metropolis, upon a liberal allowance from his purse.
This description will cover the life and pursuits of Mr. Franklin during a series of about fifteen years. All this while, and probably much earlier than the beginning of this epoch, he saved a considerable portion of his earnings, and invested it with that success a prudent lawyer was able to command. He was not, it is true, what is called a speculative or “enterprising” man. He was rather a plodding or hard-working man. He had a notion that lawyers ought not to engage in risks, lest they should be tempted, in the frenzy of greed, or to cover some unusual loss, to use the money which clients might by necessity or choice leave in their hands. He never made “lumps of money,” but grew rich by slow degrees, as the accumulated instalments of his frugality were piled on each other, and as the usufruct thereof, year by year, swelled the total of his husbanded gains.
At the head of his staff or firm was a managing clerk; and at the top of his rather small establishment in the country was a housekeeper. In both these persons Mr. Franklin had the utmost confidence. That comfortable feeling, I suppose, grew out of long experience; but it was not one I found it possible to share on my first introduction to these worthy persons. The clerk exhibited all the salient features of his calling. He was cunning, reticent, and conceited. I dare say he was faithful to his master. Fidelity is a peculiar merit of the attorney’s clerk. I have known many in my time, but never knew one treacherous to his master; and never heard, on reliable authority, of one who betrayed a client’s secret. I have often had occasion to know that bribes have been offered to the wretched copyist, whose earnings have probably not averaged a pound per week; and to office-lads, whose wages were but a few shillings—bribes equal to at least a quarter’s honest income—but not a secret could be extracted in this mode. I have often mused on this phenomenon, but never could fully understand the exact relation between the cause and the effect. The reader is perhaps a better psychologist than I am, and can explain it. I leave the fact in his hands, or head—merely vouching for it as a fact. As I have said, there was this faithful clerk at the head of the staff in Mr. Franklin’s office.
The housekeeper who presided over the domesticeconomy of the lawyer’s dwelling was a very ordinary sort of person. She was somewhere about forty-eight or fifty years of age. She was rather tall, and somewhat bulky in form. Her features were a little harsh, her voice was not one that could be described as musical, and her manners were not of that order denominated ladylike. She also was a faithful servant—or at least she very often told me so, and I have no evidence to the contrary. She declared to me, soon after my introduction to her, that she had never robbed the good man (that is, her then late master) of a penny. She had always laid out his money to the best advantage, never got a commission from the tradesmen who supplied butter, cheese, eggs, or other comestibles; and, in fact, never plundered him after the manner of her sisterhood. She was in fact—I take it for granted, and ask the reader to assume—a model housekeeper.
This is a censorious and scandalmongering age. I cannot, I fear, rely upon it that my pages may not fall into the hands of some one or two persons always ready to suspect and say ill of their neighbours. Let me, therefore, at once clearly and emphatically state, that no relationship whatever subsisted between Mr. Franklin and this lady but the ostensible one of master and servant. On this head there ought to be no doubt.
Mr. Franklin one day, after a short illness, died.
The fact of his death was almost immediately communicated to his relatives and friends, who mingled a few natural and conventional tears over his dead body, which, in due course, was interred, without needless pomp or ceremony, in a churchyard not far off.
After and before the funeral much surprise was expressed at the non-discovery of a will.
Had he made a will, or had he died intestate? On that head there was much speculation, and many decided opinions formed. Some folks argued that it was very foolish for a lawyer, above all men in the world, to leave his intentions undisclosed, and bequeath a negative legacy of trouble, distrust, suspicion, heart-burning, and social war among his acquaintances and kindred. They didn’t think he could do it. Others contended that there was nothing remarkable in a solicitor’s not making a will. These persons may be divided into two classes. One lot cynically remarked that shoemakers’ children were usually worse shod than other brats; that the offspring of tailors were to be usually known by the seediness of their costume; that publicans never drank the liquors they vended; that parsons rarely illustrated, by their practice the virtues they taught in their pulpits; and that a lawyer should betray a crowning want of prudence was not, therefore, wonderful. This was the reasoning by which some were led up to the belief that Mr. Franklin had certainly not made a will. Another lot sneered at this circumlocutory and unsatisfactory process of argument. They said that the thing was plain enough. The deceased was a lawyer. He well knew, and was satisfied with, the arrangements made by the wisdom of the legislature for the distribution of the personal estate of intestates. Against all this speculation there was,however, the unswerving and oft-repeated declarations of the managing clerk, who said that his late master did, about two years before his death, make a will. The draft thereof was in the handwriting of Mr. Franklin. He had also engrossed or copied it for the executors with his own right hand. The attestation had, however, been made by that faithful clerk and by “that rascal Edwards,” a junior clerk, whose skill in the imitation of autographs had secured him gratuitous and comfortable board and lodging at Portland.
If the deceased made a will, where could it be? That was a knotty and interesting question. In its solution nobody took a deeper interest than the housekeeper. If it could be found, it would. She was as sure as of the fact of her existence (and of this, as she had never heard the Berkleyian theory propounded, she had not the slightest shadow of a doubt), that it would secure her the reward of long and meritorious servitude. The relatives and friends, who desired to find a will, and thought she might aid in its discovery, promised to reward her if her faith were not justified by the document when it turned up. The clerk was also zealous in searching for it every where that his sagacity pointed out as its probable lurking-place. Neither will nor draft of a will could, however, be found. The office and the house were ransacked. The safe, all the tin cases, drawers, and bundles of papers, were critically examined without success. Suspicion, it is needless to say, was rife. It must have been destroyed, was the conclusion almost uniformlyarrived at; and the delinquent was marked out by the imagination of several.
The lawyer’s only son, who had been a riotous youth, and a sore trouble to his father, was the suspected criminal. It was notorious that this young man had drawn heavily upon his parent from time to time. He did not like the honourable profession of the law, and, in order to accommodate his taste, Mr. Franklin had paid considerable premiums to men of repute in other professions; but the student, or apprentice, forfeited the money thus paid at different times for his benefit. He had twice robbed his father of large amounts. The lawyer’s patience and affection had apparently been exhausted some time before his death. The son, deprived of all allowance by which to sustain an idle life, was ultimately compelled to gain his living in a comparatively humble position, and when the father died he was earning a pound a week in a merchant’s counting-house. Mr. Franklin, junior, who lodged with his mother, heard of his loss as soon as that lady did. He at once threw up his engagement, under the vague belief that a fortune had been dropped into his lap. He practically took possession of the offices and the house of the deceased, and had abundant opportunities of getting rid of any document obnoxious to his interests. Uncharitable rumour, therefore, set down as fact that this young man, had ascertained that an indignant parent had cut him off with or without the proverbial shilling; that the missing will was the instrument by which his just punishment had been effected; that he had discovered the will, and in it hisfate; and that, in order to get the benefit of the statutable distribution of the estate, he had destroyed both the document and the draft thereof.
About a fortnight after Mr. Franklin’s death I was instructed to probe the mystery of this lost will. It was chiefly desired that I should find the will itself; but that was thought a hopeless task. The next thing desired was, that I should get clear evidence of its former existence, its provisions, and bequests. It was also desired that I should get evidence enough to sustain a prosecution against the young man.
My task, which appeared almost hopeless, and not likely to be profitable, turned out short, easy, and satisfactory.
A brief investigation of overlooked circumstances informed me that Mr. Franklin had “protected” a young woman, who, in consequence thereof, bore him two children. This attachment he had managed to conceal from all his friends and acquaintances; and some of them were greatly scandalised at the discovery of such an offence against social morals. I called on this lady, and in my first interview went right through the mystery of the will’s concealment. The poor creature was awfully embarrassed by my inquiries, and immediately I thought it wise to let her know the real object of my visit, she fancied herself a delinquent. “Upon my word, sir,” she said, “I didn’t take it. He gave it me. He told me to keep it until he died, that it would be my only protection after his death, and that I was only to give it up to Mr. Thistlethwayte.” I saw the whole design of the late Mr. Franklin. I askedher to let me see it. She replied by an entreaty that I would not take it from her, for she asked, “What will become of me and my dear children if I lose it?” It was plain that the unsophisticated woman knew nothing of legal formalities, and hugged the paper as though its mere possession would obtain the money it set apart for her. I promised her that I would not deprive her of it; that I would certainly aid, rather than frustrate, the intentions of the father of her children. Of its contents she could know nothing beyond the general statement of the deceased—that all her future protection was bound up in its provisions. The will had been handed to her in a closed envelope. The wax was unbroken when she laid the packet before me.
How to act did not require a moment’s consideration on my part. It was not my duty, and it was repugnant to my feelings, to place this young woman at a disadvantage. In finding the will I had done more than was hoped for, and all that could be expected from me. I advised her at once to consult a respectable solicitor; and she went with me to the office of a gentleman in the neighbourhood—a total stranger to me, except by reputation.
The erring son of the deceased was cleared from suspicion; the will was proved at Doctor’s Commons, and the intentions of the testator were faithfully carried out.
One of the persons largely interested in the residuary estate of the deceased, which formed its bulk, was much grieved because of the depositary chosen byMr. Franklin for the safe custody of his will. “It is not,” said this person, “as if he had left the creature a large sum of money. I don’t complain of the provision he has made for the unfortunate children, but he might have spared us the humiliation of asking her for the will. Why could he not have left that in the custody of some one of the respectable people to whom he has given the principal part of his fortune?”
The explanation was, “Why, don’t you see, my dear madam, that although the creature had but a small interest in the estate, that interest depended entirely upon the preservation of the document. As the bulk of the property was distributed by the testator nearly the same as the law would of itself have distributed it, he had small occasion to make a will at all, except to provide for the creature and her offspring. He chose the safest of all places in which he could deposit it, as of course he did not wish it destroyed by any of those respectable people, who would not have been much concerned if the mother and her little ones had been left absolute paupers.”
“Do you mean to suggest that either of us would have destroyed the document?”
“Certainly not; but I apprehend that the deceased thought it quite as well to preserve you all from temptation.”
LITTLEmore than five years ago, a series of robberies on a grand scale was perpetrated at the West End of London. There was hardly a tradesman of note who did not suffer from these depredations, which for a long while baffled all the skill and vigilance of the police.
After a lapse of perhaps six months from the formation of the belief that these robberies were the result of a concerted action by the rascaldom of the metropolis, the victims and their friends formed themselves into a committee, and I was retained to investigate the affair.
As the matter had by this time assumed great importance, I employed five or six assistants, and systematically went to work. The police were also on the alert, and special instructions were given from Scotland Yard that they should coöperate with me, or practically, I may say, act under my instructions.
It would be tedious to relate all the disguises and stratagems which I assumed and devised. It must suffice to say, that half a dozen men went through more variations in their appearance than the chameleon, and were nearly or quite ubiquitous during the investigation.
I saw that a gang had to be crushed. I knewthat success or failure was but an issue of time and money. Of the former I could give and get as much as the associated tradesmen would pay for. Of the latter there would, I believed, be no stint. The parties affected, and liable to be affected, by the operations of the gang, were prepared to lay out all the cash needful to secure the punishment of the criminals.
The job was not a light one. We made a few mistakes, to the injury, however, of no one who had a character worth keeping. We got at times on wrong tracks. We were often on the heels of the thieves, and yet failed to grasp them. We were none of us faint-hearted, or lacking in patience. Each trip only made us walk the more carefully. Each blunder only made us wary. Each divergence only made us examine the supposed clues with greater nicety.
One morning a police constable and one of my men came to me with news.
“We have a clue, sir,” said police constable U 99.
“That’s well. What is it?” I observed.
“At least we think we have,” said my assistant.
“I told him of it. I found it out,” added the constable.
“No, don’t say that. I had most to do with it.”
“How do you make that out?”
“Well, how much did you know about it before I told you of it?”
“And how much did you know when you told me of it?”
I saw that there was a pretty quarrel brewing between this pair of worthies, and I tried to stop it;but that was not so easy a task as the reader may at first be inclined to suppose. If I put a restraint on my assistant for the sake of peace, I might be incidentally puffing up the constable’s vanity, and wantonly injuring the laudable pride of my own staff. If I attempted to curb the policeman, I might drive him off to Scotland Yard, where the clue would be followed up, and my own professional credit with the tradesmen injured. I must put up with a little of this altercation, and endeavour to soothe the irritation of both.
The fact is, that somebody—an omnibus driver, I believe—had told the police officer that something he was accustomed to see was “a jolly rum affair.” The policeman, being on the beat along which my man had to travel, and knowing him, repeated his information, and echoed the ’busman’s opinion in his own vernacular. My assistant joined in the opinion already expressed, and went beyond it.
“It is a rum affair, as you say,” observed my man. “I think,” he added, “that it’s a clue to what we very particularly want to find out. You come up to the governor with me to-morrow, when you’re off duty, and I’ll introduce you. If we turn it to account, mind, he’ll not be unhandsome. He’ll make it worth your while, thatIwarrant.”
They then chatted over the business, and I dare say my assistant let the officer into the secret of our instructions far enough to aid his comprehension of the gravity of the effects to which this clue might lead.
“What, then, was this clue?” I dare say asks the always impatient reader.
It was a small matter. It did not seem to point directly at the information I wanted, but many a real clue has not been more definite or reliable than that now to be followed to its end. It was a little nut, which required cracking. There might be in it the kernel I wanted, or there might not.
With nothing like regularity of time or periodicity, but with great frequency, a shabby hack brougham might be seen about or after dusk proceeding along a road leading through a western reach of the metropolis into the most picturesque western suburb. My clue began with the vehicle at the north-eastern corner of the Green Park, and ended just on the eastern entrance to the village of ——. It was a suspicious fact that this hack brougham was not driven by the same man throughout the entire distance. One driver was met about half way on the road, when he alighted from the box, and handed the whip to the person (always the same) who met him.
The brougham was one of those registered at Somerset House as a cab. It was a private vehicle, which appeared like the property of some indigent postmaster or jobber.
Where could this vehicle go to and come from?
Among the difficulties in our case was that of tracing the goods. It was, I confess, not a little remarkable that no part of the goods could be traced. We had searched all the most notorious “fences.” I do not think there was one known place in which goods of the kind in question would be brought that we had not examined. Could this brougham be themeans of conveying the plunder in small quantities to and from its place of concealment to the place or places of conversion into money? Those were questions we determined to solve.
A diligent watch was set at stages from the Green Park to ——.
Next evening the carriage did not present itself, nor the next; but on the third evening it was seen to emerge from a lane in Piccadilly, near to a street in which there is an inferior livery-stable. It was now followed and kept in sight during its entire journey. I saw the driver changed.
I critically scanned the hirsute visage of the rider.
Just outside the village of ——, on the high road, there stood, and yet stands, a cottage residence, in not the finest state, with coachhouse and stabling for more carriages and horses than the occupant seemed to make use of. The house was, I may also explain, shut out from the view of travellers by a close wooden paling, a high gate, and a tall, dense, leafy hedge.
At this cottage the brougham stopped. The rider alighted, and the servant placed the horse and vehicle in the outbuildings allotted to them, which were entered by the rear.
All this looked to me very suspicious. I determined, however, to pursue my inquiries. There was not yet enough evidence, in my own opinion, to justify an application for a search-warrant, and less justification for any one’s arrest on a criminal charge.
Inquiries in the village and neighbourhood elicited not much; but the few scraps of fact that we did gettended to fortify a suspicion that here was a depôt of the plunder.
The tradespeople were pumped, but those wells of gossip or scandal were nearly dry. The truth was, this cottage neither excited remark by ostentation, nor the reverse. What it required, it ordered and paid for. The trade done with its inmates by the shopkeepers who were honoured with their patronage was not large enough to arouse the envy of their rivals. It may astonish some people, who are tormented by scandal, to know that rumour may be either avoided or “manipulated,” if you know how to go about the task.
While I was engaged in these inquiries, with two of my assistants, the man who had the words with the policeman, as described, had another, and what he called “a jolly row,” with that officer. The matter was, I believe, through this, mentioned at the headquarters of the metropolitan police, and the authorities took it up.
An active sergeant of the detective police called upon me, and asked for information, which I thought myself scarcely at liberty to refuse to give, so gave it. He forthwith set to work, and got warrants to search the premises and arrest the inmates.
The time he selected for pouncing on the suspects was twelve at night.
That evening the shabby brougham turned out of the livery-stables, wended its way through slush and traffic along Piccadilly, and at about the usual spot the driver was changed. Away the brougham went again, at a slightly accelerated pace, as though the horse’s head was lightened. The party alighted at the cottage, and the stable was occupied as before.
About half-past twelve o’clock a body of police effected an entrance into the cottage by the rear. The whole of the small household was aroused. Great was the consternation of Miss Goodwin, and her brother was nearly killed by alarm. Of the rest not much different can be said. Groom and coachman (one person), housekeeper and general servant (also one person), who completed the human establishment, were awfully frightened.
The highly intelligent sergeant insisted upon ransacking the house, searching the stables, and exploring the garden. In the mean time the lady, gentleman, and servants were told to consider themselves in custody.
In vain the gentleman protested against this outrage, and sometimes gently threatened to bring down all the vengeance of the law upon his sister’s tormentors. The sergeant treated the threat with disdain, and ridiculed the claim of his prisoner to kinship with Miss Goodwin. All entreaties, menaces, expostulations, and threats were answered by references to his duty, or intimations that he knew what he was about.
The search and exploration revealed nothing. The officer was sorely disappointed, but not yet discomfited. He saw that, at all events, he was safe if he went on, and that if he turned back he might expose himself to the charge of negligence. There was enough that was wrong, more than sufficient that was mysterious, to cover any excess of vigilance, or any stretch of duty. So on he resolved to go.
When Mr. Goodwin was told that he must accompany the officer as his prisoner, and that the lady must also share that inconvenience, they again put forth every form of remonstrance. All were useless. The officer was inexorable and unbelieving. He rudely expressed his disbelief of the assertion that the fair tenant of the cottage was a pure and innocent young lady, of small independent estate, and that the visitor was her brother and guardian. Those explanations, he said, might do for the magistrate to-morrow, but they would not do for the police.
There was no getting out of the awful mess. Mr. and Miss Goodwin were removed by the sergeant, under his warrants, to the chief metropolitan police station, and there confined in vulgar cells.
At times during the wretched journey to London the prisoners were defiant, and at others they sank into despair.
Once, on the way to the metropolis, the lady remarked to her companion,
“Never mind, dear George; we’re not thieves; they have searched my house in every part, but they have found nothing.”
“Now,” observed the officer, “don’t say any thing that’ll injure yourselves while I’m with you. I don’t want you to criminate yourselves. Only mind, I shall give all that I hear as evidence; and I don’t mind saying that I don’t like the look of things. ‘Found nothing!’ well, if that sort of talk ain’t thieves’ patter, I don’t know what is. I ain’t found nothing yet; but if I get a remand, won’t I find nothing!”
Mr. Goodwin shuddered. Miss Goodwin was eloquent in the form of denunciation.
The gentleman, by the time of the arrival of the party at the station-house, had recovered his self-possession. He demanded the means of communicating with a solicitor. This was afforded him. He chose the name of a well-known criminal practitioner, one of the cleverest and one of the most respectable of his class.
The professional man recognised his client. He had before been employed as the agent of that client’s family solicitor in a prosecution.
Within ten minutes after the arrival of the lawyer at the station, the door of Mr. Goodwin’s cell was opened, and that gentlemen with his attorney were shown into the head private apartment of the officer who lives on the premises. Miss Goodwin was also looked after with as much tenderness during her stay in this urban hostelry.
After a short further interview between the attorney and gentleman, and a few words with the lady in compulsory waiting, a conference was held between the magistrate, his learned clerk, and the attorney.
Mr. and Miss Goodwin were then next shown into his worship’s private room, and the brother and sister were liberated on their own recognisances.
Nothing further was done in the case against the occupants of the suburban cottage. Nothing was done by that lady and gentleman against any other person for setting the law in motion against them. The vigilant sergeant got promoted. On what theoryand by what influences, let the reader guess. Was it as a reward for past clever and prudent service? Was it the price of perpetual silence? Was it the seal upon a mystery?