I cannot explain why the sergeant was thus dealt with; but as much of some other things as I can properly explain, I will.
First, let me say that I had no further interference by the police with my plans for the detection of the real thieves, and that I hunted them down to conviction.
In the second place, I may inform the reader that Mr. Goodwin was no other than analiasfor his Grace the Duke of Nomatterwhere, a nobleman who boasts of a long pedigree, and whose own father was not a little proud of the historic traditions of the house of Nomatterwhere. The living duke has a large rent-roll, an almost infinitessimal portion of which goes to Miss Goodwin, who, although not a sister, is in very intimate relationship towards him. He had reasons of his own, I dare say, for the quiet, or, as I should say, mysterious manner in which his visits to the cottage in the western suburb were shrouded.
TOMMYJOHNSONwas a smuggler of the modern school, about which it is hardly necessary to say more than that it differs considerably from the old or the ideal school. Neither Tommy nor any of his men were the picturesque ruffians that school-boy imagination describes, under the tutelary genius of well-known romancists; nor did they much resemble the full-booted, rollicking giants which low art, in common pictures, invariably makes the bold smuggler.
Tommy, the smuggler chief, was a short, stout, ruddy-faced, good-humoured fellow, who lived much as small tradesmen (of whom he was also one) live in that part of the south of England to which he belonged. Every body, it is said, liked him, and he liked every body—except a revenue-officer.
Of Johnson’s kith and kindred nobody knew, and few cared to inquire, any thing. Whether Tommy was his real name or not, I am uncertain. When on one occasion, being in trouble, he was asked by a local magistrate who his friends (perhaps meaning his relatives) were, jovial Tommy, with a show of distress, replied somewhat as that eccentric child of the Rev. Mrs. Stowe, Topsy, might have done, “that he ’spected he hadn’t got any.” There was, however, too muchmodesty or a little untruth in this. Tommy Johnson had hosts of sympathisers, who were prepared at all times to do him any service in their power. Rumour for many miles about his place of abode gave him credit for being what he really was—a smuggler. Tommy felt it necessary sometimes to vary the compliment, but not always. He never went so far as to repudiate having defrauded the revenue. He was rather pleased to hear folks embody in words the popular theory that there was no harm in robbing the Custom House. He did not care to hide from some people that he did now and then run a vessel clandestinely between a Dutch port and some mysterious point off a craggy side of the Isle of Wight. He, however, usually preferred to be known as a man who had once been in, but now retired from, that business.
Tommy, who was an otherwise prosperous man, once determined that he would indeed give up his perilous and unlawful business or profession.
“My dear,” he once observed to his loving wife, on their return from church one Sunday evening, “I’ll cut smuggling. I’m thinking it’s time I did. We can afford it, you know. This here business, the butcher’s shop, pays; the inn at P—— would honestly pay of itself; and the brickfield turns out right.”
“I wish you would, with all my heart,” his wife replied.
“I will. My mind’s made up.”
“You have said that before, Tommy,” observed his sweet partner; “but you can’t do it. I wish youcould. You must be a smuggler. It’s the fun of it you like, as you say, I suppose?”
“Well, yes, I will. I’ve quite made up my mind. When Idoreally make up my mind to any thing, you know, I do it. I’ll have just one more run, justonemore, and then I drop the game, and stick to the trade on land.”
“That’s what you said the year before last. Do you recollect the time, Tommy?”
Tommy shuddered. He made that promise to himself, and kept it by running a lugger from a port in the Netherlands to one of his points of concealment here. The affair turned out a bad one. The coast-guard discovered the arrival of the boat, seized the craft and its contents, and Tommy Johnson also, and ultimately lodged him in the gaol at Winchester, where he had to undergo a long imprisonment, pending the arrival of the assizes.
That the smuggler then had friends was here demonstrated. The facts were as plain as they could be, but their interpretation or bearing on the question of guilt or innocence was left to the jury, who had the law expounded for their guidance with all possible certainty. Tommy Johnson was acquitted in the teeth of evidence and the strength of a sympathy between himself and every man in the jury-box.
Let me, however, return to the last conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Johnson.
“I would have cut it after that,” he said; “but it cost such a sight of money. What with the loss of the ship, and all the rum, brandy, and hollands, andthe hard money I paid Lawyer Swelling, we were almost ruined. I couldn’t stop then. Neck or nothing, I must go in again; but now we’re on our legs again, thank God! and I’ll drop the game after one more slice of luck.”
Having made this resolution, Mr. Johnson next day proceeded to execute it. He drew out two good round sums of money from different banks; a fine lugger, “a perfect beauty,” as he declared, was soon afterwards bought, and she was in due course freighted with liquors on a neighbouring coast.
I happened, not many weeks after this, to be travelling as an outside passenger by the coach from Cowes to Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, when two revenue-carts, heavily laden, passed us on the road.
“My eyes!” exclaimed my driver; and addressing a man who swayed the whip in the first cart, he inquired, “Whose is that lot?”
“Tommy Johnson’s, we suppose.”
“Poor fellow! unlucky again!” sighed the coachman.
The last venture that was to crown the honest resolution had, then, failed, and worse had to be encountered.
The repentant smuggler was again locked up in Winchester Gaol for a weary succession of months. The case had already been established against him by the clearest evidence. Tommy’s heart dropped. His rotund form became elongated, his cheeks lost their plumpness and their colour, his garments hung loosely about his person, and his mind was ill at ease.
This was the fourth time Tommy Johnson had been put on his trial for a like offence against the laws of his country. Each time his case was, in the opinion of his legal advisers, more desperate than before. The facts were not each time stronger, but the prejudice against the prisoner increased with his reappearance in the dock.
Tommy and his wife resolved that no expense should be spared over the defence. Mr. Swelling, of Gosport, who had been so very successful on former occasions, was again instructed, and told to lay out as much money as he pleased in briefs to counsel. I reckon that he made a fine thing out of this bold modern smuggler. Four hundred pounds sterling were paid to him on account at starting. Another hundred were given him before the gaol delivery came round; and there was a balance yet to be liquidated, for which, however, the attorney agreed to give time. Now, suppose that he gave Mr. Needy, the indefatigable junior counsel, in all 25l.(which is far over the mark), and that Mr. Silkyarn, the eminent leader, got in all 75l.(which is a vast exaggeration), allow 50l.for the slight further costs out of pocket, and it will be seen that the attorney made a handsome profit. But there was yet a balance to be settled.
The days previous to trial were days of anxiety to the smuggler and his wife. Their intensity, of course, increased as they approached the grand ordeal. At last the day arrived on which, for the fourth time in his life, Tommy Johnson was placed on his trial for smuggling in the Assize Court at Winchester.
Again, to the surprise of his own attorney and counsel, he was acquitted.
The explanation of this miscarriage of justice is easily found. The arrest of Johnson caused a sensation through the entire county of Hants. He was, as I have said, a jovial man, and a kind-hearted fellow, in his way. Rumour spread the story of his dashing adventures far and wide—exaggerating and intensifying their commonplace into wild romance. This alone fascinated the public mind. But again, rumour having taken Tommy Johnson under her protection, just as she wantonly injures so many others, she made the very most she could of his merits. Every single act of kindness he had ever performed was magnified a hundredfold, and the common smuggler became a hero. I verily believe that Tommy Johnson could have got a hundred acquittals, at as many consecutive assizes. I don’t believe that a jury could be found to pronounce that awful word guilty to an indictment preferred by the Crown against him.
Tommy Johnson, after his acquittal, returned home, in a condition which an original mind has described as that of a wiser, sadder, and poorer man than he was prior to the last run. He, however, laudably determined not to make another adventure. He would not seek, through new perils, to retrieve his loss. Without any claims to the character of poet himself, he drew philosophy from Hamlet, and resolved to bear the ills he had rather than fly to others which, his lawyers told him, he could not fathom the depths of. He would stick to the safe pursuit of fortune on land, and nottempt the perils of the deep in the way he had done. In one of his soliloquies on this point he observed that he had made money at it, but he was afraid that he had used up his luck. He couldn’t stand those long imprisonments, and he couldn’t always go on dropping thousands into the hands of the coast-guard and the lawyers. On the whole, he was decidedly of opinion that smuggling was objectionable, on many grounds, and for various reasons; so he did in fact at last resolve to give it up—and he kept that promise.
Mr. Johnson, in less than a fortnight (being so anxious, as he said, to get the affair off his mind) wrote to his attorney to ascertain the exact balance due to that able and worthy man. The lawyer answered by a note, which led Mr. Johnson to call at his office with about 150l.in his pocket.
“Well, Mr. Johnson,” observed the attorney, stretching out his hands with frigid cordiality, “sit down. I am glad to see you, Mr. Johnson; very glad indeed. I never thought I should have succeeded in getting you off the last time. You owe a great deal to me and to your excellent counsel, Mr. Needy and Mr. Silkyarn.”
“Oh, yes; I’m much obliged, sir, I assure you,” Johnson interposed, with the hope of abbreviating the homily.
“Of course,” continued the lawyer, “I am bound to do the best I can for my client who is in a difficulty. I am glad that I did succeed in getting you off; but prevention is better than cure, you know, Mr. Johnson.”
“Of course,” exclaimed the impatient client.
“And,” the attorney went on to say, “let me give you a bit of sound advice gratis—moral and religious advice, as well as legal—Mr. Johnson. Let me assure you, that although I dare say you think there is no harm in it, it is as wicked to plunder the revenue as it is to rob a private individual.”
“I can’t see it in that light,” said the unconvicted smuggler.
“It is so, upon my honour,” replied the attorney. “Think over what I now say. Reflect upon the matter, Mr. Johnson, and you’ll see I’m right.”
“Well, that’s an affair for to-morrow. Let me see, what did you say your balance was, sir?”
“Oh, ah! Well, I said I’d take a hundred guineas in final settlement—that is, a hundred and five pounds, Mr. Johnson.”
Johnson counted the money in notes, and handed it to the attorney, who laid it on his table.
A moment’s silence followed.
It was broken by the attorney, who did not quite understand the look of the client; and as he feared that Mr. Johnson might be thinking the costs excessive, Mr. Swelling turned the theme.
“Now, I hope the next time you retain my services, they will be needed for some different purpose. I should like to see you make money, and invest it in land or houses, and let me prepare the deeds.”
“Yes, sir, you shall, when I can get the money to buy the land and houses.”
“Well, till then good by, Mr. Johnson,” said the attorney, rising to bow out his client.
“You forgot, sir, I think, to give me a receipt; and I don’t think I ever had any for the money I paid you in the prison?”
“Oh, very well, Mr. Johnson. Certainly you can have a duly-stamped receipt, if you please; but I hope you don’t suppose that I want to cheat you? I should not like to think you reward my anxious services on your behalf by entertaining such an unjust suspicion of me as that?”
“No, sir. Oh, no. Nothing of that sort. Only, as you were a-saying that it’s as wrong to rob the revenue as it is a private individual, I thought (although I don’t see things quite in that light) that you ought to give me one.”
The attorney’s moral philosophy cost him 7s.6d.
He bit his lip, and sat down; and as penny receipts had not been invented, he wrote on a stamp of the above value a receipt for all the money paid him by the smuggler, who rather enjoyed the joke he had played off on his legal adviser.
ITHINKthat the merchants and traders of England, Scotland, and Ireland, or the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom, might lay out a fair sum of money in a worse mode than by retaining me to illustrate, through my experience, some defective acts of Parliament, under which, as I have seen, frequent palpable and sometimes gigantic villany is perpetrated. Whether this notion of my usefulness to the mercantile community and the State is justified or not by any thing I can show, the reader may judge from the following, which is one sample of a stock in my recollections.
An honest, struggling, and not rich, but moderately successful, trader in the City of London, not long ago, was told that a certain “firm” (Messrs. Voleur and Enlever), who had offices, or a warehouse, not many hundreds of yards from the Mansion House, and somewhat nearer to the cold abode of Gog and Magog, and who had an establishment in Paris, might do business with him in a certain class of goods. The trader, Mr. Brown, although not able to bear losses, and therefore somewhat cautious, was, at the same time, naturally anxious to do business. He inquired the standing of this firm. His friend could not tell him, but said thatother friends of his—Messrs. Downey and Grabble—were traders with these enterprising Parisians; that Downey was the very model of scrupulousness; and that Mr. Brown might go and ask him to say confidentially what he knew about or thought of the Frenchmen. “Downey and Grabble are first-class people, I can assure you. If they say ‘right,’ all is right; and if they say ‘don’t,’ then I say don’t trust Voleur and Enlever, that’s all.” Brown thanked his friend.
Next day, as a matter of course, Brown called at the London office or warehouse of Voleur and Enlever, which, for geographical definiteness, I may also explain was not far from the High Court of Relief, in Basinghall Street. He had samples of his goods in his pocket. The agent and buyer of the French firm was in his proper place behind the counter.
Firstly a formal explanation and inquiry or two passed between these gentlemen.
“What class of goods do you say you can offer us?”
“Alpacas.”
“They will do for the Paris market just now, but we must have them cheap. We don’t want long credit.”
“They are a job lot. I can offer them low for cash or short credit.”
“Our terms are cash at thirty days; but let us see your samples.”
The samples were laid on the counter, critically examined by the intended buyer, and approved. Mr. Brown was also content (subject to references) with the thirty days’ credit.
“Well,” he said, continuing the dialogue, “I am quite satisfied as to the terms of credit; but as this is my first transaction with your house, I should like a reference, which, if quite satisfactory, as I have no doubt it will be, I’ll send in the goods at once.”
“Oh, that’s quite right. Let me see, who shall I give you? Do you know Downey and Grabble?”
“Yes; I know them very well. That reference is quite satisfactory to me.”
“Askthem, then, what they think of Voleur and Enlever.”
Mr. Brown went direct to the counting-house of Downey and Grabble. Both members of the firm were out. He called again, and saw the two members of this very respectable house.
The visitor went direct to the business on which he had called.
“I am told you are dealing with Voleur and Enlever.”
“Yes.”
“They are good, then?”
“We suppose so,” said Downey, in silken tones, “or we should have nothing to do with them;” and as he spoke he turned his eyes upon his partner.
Grabble added, “Perhaps it would be more satisfactory to this gentleman if we showed him our account with the house he inquires about. Here, Clark, let me have the ledger.”
The ledger was brought. It showed a large amount as due from Voleur and Co. to Downey and Co.
“I see,” said Brown, “that you have confidencein them. You’ll, however, excuse my being a little particular. I am a poorer man than you are, and although I am anxious to do business, I must be careful not to make bad debts.”
“What goods are they you have to sell?” inquired Grabble.
“Alpacas,” said Brown.
“Ah, yes; they are wanted in Paris just now. Voleur’s might sell an immense lot of those, I should think. It’s a good opening for you.”
“What credit do they want?” asked Downey.
“Thirty days,” said Brown.
“It’s as safe as the Bank. You are sure to get your money at the end of the month. I know both Voleur and Enlever. They are young men belonging to first-class families, and as sound as Copestakes or Morleys.”
Brown thanked Downey and Grabble, and went on his way to his own little warehouse, rejoicing in the confident belief that he had done a good day’s work—that he had netted a ten-pound note that morning.
The goods were sent in with all convenient speed by Brown to Voleur and Enlever. By their agent the alpacas were not forwarded to Paris,—perhaps because they were needed in the home market. The Paris house had, as Downey and Grabble well knew, a means of disposing of all sorts of textile, or even fictile products, much nearer to the City branch of their operations than the French capital. There was, in the neighbourhood of the London Rialto, “a house” kept by two kind-hearted members of one of the tribes of Israel, inwhich any conceivable quantity of goods that any other firm or house could buy on credit might be taken care of; and these benevolent Hebrews would at all times not only warehouse the aforesaid goods, but they would also oblige trading Gentiles by advances (of course for a consideration, under the name of interest) up to a certain proportion of the value of these goods. Now, reader, don’t call this process by an ugly name. If you have read the former stories in my volume, you will be aware that this mode of disposing of goods is not called pawning. That is an obnoxious word—never breathed among City men, or allowed to taint the air between Temple Bar and Aldgate. This mode of raising cash, and getting off commodities, is called hypothecating. Is it not a nice phrase? The process is undoubtedly sanctified by the title.
Now it so happened that a man who traded in the City of London, and had done business with the firm of Voleur and Enlever, and whose goods had been hypothecated with the Hebrew benefactors, did not admire the process. He had seen his goods, supplied to the enterprising Frenchmen on the strength of one of Downey and Grabble’s oral testimonials, safely housed by the Israelites; and he determined that he would exert his utmost power and influence to prevent other men’s wares, intended for Paris, from a like diversion of their route. This man, by watching and inquiry, found out that the goods lately belonging to Brown, and now the lawful property of Voleur and Enlever, to do as they liked with, had been sent to the hypothecators. He called upon Brown, who he saw had been made a victimof, and gave explanations which reflected upon the character of the houses of both Voleur and their reference. Brown was a little alarmed, but philosophically remarked that the mischief had been done, and there was no help for it. In fact he yet hoped, on the strength of Downey’s testimonial, that the money faithfully promised in thirty days would be paid in due course.
Before the day when Mr. Brown’s money became due, the English branch of the house of Voleur and Enlever was shut up; letters addressed to the chief establishment in Paris were returned through the Dead Letter Office. The firm had become dissolved, the house had run away, and no man could discover its whereabouts.
Mr. Brown saw that his money was lost, unless he could make those rascals Downey and Grabble pay. To this point all his thoughts were directed. He felt quite convinced that these “respectable” traders knew all about their Continental friends, and that it only needed a searching investigation to prove the complicity of the houses through whom he had been defrauded.
At this state of the affair I was employed.
My inquiries soon unravelled the whole plot. It turned upon a simple fact; but the surrounding incidents of the narrative were remarkably unique, and interesting to the mercantile community.
In fact Downey and Grabble were in the first place taken in, and nearly done for; to a large amount, by Voleur and Enlever. The persuasion of the Frenchmen had been more than a match for the craft of those Englishmen, who originally hailed from the county of York.
One day—about a fortnight before Mr. Brown’s visit to the London warehouse of the Frenchmen—M. Voleur and a fair countrywoman, who was not Madame Voleur, were proceeding along one of the quiet streets of the City, in the afternoon, not many hours before the departure of the tidal train, by which they intended to quit the British metropolis, when that elegant gentleman was tapped on the shoulder in the politest manner by a man who turned out, on further acquaintanceship, to be an officer of the Sheriff of London. The Frenchman was conveyed to the sponging-house over which this officer presided, despite his protests and the lady’s tears.
The creditors, Messrs. Downey and Grabble, had made an affidavit that the debtor, M. Voleur, was about to leave the country with the view of hindering and delaying the recovery by them of the money to which they were entitled; and, upon the strength of this oath, one of the learned judges had authorised the detention of the Frenchman until he paid the demand, gave bail for its payment, or liquidated the obligation in bankruptcy.
Messrs. Voleur and Co.’s agent rushed to the office of a skilful attorney, who was instructed to do his best for the prisoner. This gentleman met Mr. Downey and his lawyer in the reluctant lodgings of M. Voleur, that unlucky man being present. A quarrel was cut short, or nearly prevented, by considerations of prudence.
M. Voleur’s attorney led the discussion into a practical current by saying to his opponents,
“I tell you plainly, that my client can’t put in bail, and he won’t lie in prison. If you don’t voluntarily release him, I’ll file his petition in bankruptcy. It was foolish on your part to lock him up. He can’t get the money to pay you while he is here; but if he had his liberty, he might do so. He’s a clever fellow, and will not stop yet awhile, unless you are silly enough to stop him. If you let him alone, taking care not to trust him any more yourselves, but not thwarting him or destroying his credit, you may easily float out in the course of a month or two.”
Mr. Downey and his attorney were struck by the ingenuity, if not force, of the argument, but not quite persuaded to release the debtor.
“Can you offer us any security?” Mr. Downey’s adviser asked.
“No,” was the terse rejoinder.
“Then I don’t see the advantage of liberating your client,” added the creditor’s attorney.
The negotiation would have broken off at this point, but for the Frenchman’s ready wit. He had a resource. He had a small contingent property in France. It was valuable enough to cover the debt of Downey and Grabble, although not to be easily realised in this country. He did not like to part with this, his only fortune, to a stranger.
A Frenchman is literally and absolutely nothing, if not always sentimental, and occasionally lachrymose.
M. Voleur shed tears when he agreed to part withthis little contingent estate to his inexorable creditor; then, having exhausted his natural emotions, he returned to business, and the negotiation was renewed.
It was ultimately settled, on Downey’s giving his assurance, upon the honour of a gentleman, that he would afterwards do what he could to prop up the house of Voleur and Enlever—that is, by giving favourable references as to them—he and his partner should have an assignment made to them of this contingent estate. The sentimental Frenchman further stipulated, that when he paid the amount due to Downey and Grabble, as he expected to do very soon, the creditors should re-transfer the estate.
The compact was ratified by solemn pledges of honour.
To save appearances, it was arranged that one of the firm of Downey and Grabble should go to France, pretend to make inquiries about the respectability of Voleur and Enlever, and telegraph back “all right,” as an excuse fur the liberation of M. Voleur. The reader will see the necessity for this. Downey and Co. could not venture to speak favourably of the man they had arrested unless some excuse could be found for an altered opinion. Downey and Co. would not, of course, tell any body of the arrest of Voleur, but that ugly fact might withal leak out. How to reconcile the contents of the affidavit, which led the judge to order the Frenchman’s arrest, with the subsequent eulogiums, was the moral difficulty to be surmounted.
It is needless to say that the argument of the Frenchman’s attorney must not be repeated, and thesecurity they had obtained must not be mentioned. The possession of that document was a palpable sign of a want of that confidence upon which ordinary credit rests. An inquiry on the spot into the respectability of the French house seemed to all parties the most effective way of getting up a show of justification for a good character to be lavished on the swindlers.
Downey started by the next train and boat to Paris. He had for his companion M. Voleur’s madame. This little circumstance was not, I believe, mentioned to Mrs. Downey, because she had a jealous disposition.
Within an incredibly short space of time Mr. Downey made all the inquiries he deemed requisite, and was enabled to despatch the welcome message, “all right,” by the harnessed lightning, as he promised.
Next day Voleur met Downey in the French capital, and the next and the next were spent in the same place. During this time Voleur and Enlever introduced the English merchant to theatres, cafés, casinos, and more recondite places, by way of further evidence of their respectability, prudence, and commercial trustworthiness.
Downey had gone through all this circle of inquiry, and returned home to London, before Brown called upon him to ask his opinion of the Frenchmen. It is a pity that the respectable British merchants, when they gave Mr. Brown the testimonial by which he lost his goods or his money, did not expose the bases of their faith in Voleur and Enlever. Theysurely ought not to have concealed the security in their possession, the arrest of their debtor, or a few other small incidents.
I thought the respectable members of the house of Downey and Grabble deserved punishment as criminals. It appeared, however, that no part of the criminal code could touch them. As yet, moreover, it was, on the authority of a lawyer of repute in the City of London, not possible to recover, by an action at law, the value of the goods supplied to Voleur and Co. on the strength of their English reference. But I had not yet finished my investigations.
I soon after this alighted upon a grand discovery. I got hold of all the confidential correspondence between M. Voleur and the English manager of their house. This young man, who had been more sinned against than sinning, also assisted me in tracing the delinquencies of his masters, and their confederates or supporters.
The correspondence was exceedingly interesting. M. Voleur, who was the principal correspondent, knew English as well as his mother tongue, or he was entitled to rank among the highest of Frenchlittérateurs. The pathos was fine. The letters had such passages as these: “We are in sore distress for money.” “Buy goods any where; sell or dispose of them any how; and send us here to Paris the money, or we are ruined quite.” Then there were worldly maxims, that would have done credit to Captain Barabbas Whitefeather, such as, “Pay no cash. It’s a bad principle. Get every thing on credit.” The most unique passageswere, however, those in which the Frenchman explained to his English agent how the trade-protection societies were to be managed, hoodwinked, or bribed. In the interests of trade I must, however, conceal this part of the swindle.
It now appeared to me that, by gathering up all the items of fact, and uniting the written with the oral evidence, my case against Downey and Grabble was complete. A solicitor was consulted, and he took counsel’s opinion on the matter. That authority pronounced that the evidence would not sustain a criminal prosecution, and in truth Mr. Brown did not much care about that, to him, barren remedy. He wanted to promote the welfare of society in a mode that would recoup his loss. He wanted to compel Downey and Grabble to pay the amount they had induced him, solely by their representations, to trust the Frenchmen. In the way of even this there were, it was thought, some difficulties.
That eminent old lawyer, Lord Tenterden, had been, many long years ago, at the pains to provide a statutory immunity for people like Downey and Grabble. Mr. Brown, as an Englishman, ought to have known the laws of his country—it is presumed that every man has all the written and the unwritten, the common, the civil, and the criminal codes engraven on the tablets of his memory—but Mr. Brown did not know it was requisite for his safety that the many representations of the English firm should be written down in unblushing ink. Even if he had known so much as was requisite for his security, he might have relied upon themistaken supposition that Downey and Grabble were truthful men.
In the hope that this case had features which took it from under the mischievous ægis of Lord Tenterden, in reliance upon a notion that Downey and Grabble would not dare to allow the cause to reach a public trial, and also prepared to risk something in the interest of the mercantile community, Mr. Brown brought his action against these “respectable” men. It cost him something, did this resolution. He had to employ first-rate counsel, whose fees were not small. The cause was defended. Downey and Co. knew that this was but one of a series of claims, which, under the like circumstances, might arise against them. At the trial all the facts I have mentioned were clearly established. The learned counsel who led the plaintiff’s case denounced, in terms of just severity, the conduct of the defendants. The judge, the jury, and the spectators would have been glad to see financial equity enforced against the wrong-doers. At the conclusion of the evidence Mr. Brown was able to offer, the counsel for the defendants argued that he had no case to answer. He took his stand upon the Act of Parliament. He did not attempt to deny the merits of the plaintiff’s case. He could not answer the damnatory facts. Upon the dry technical question, whether or not Messrs. Downey and Grabble were shielded by the obnoxious statute, there was a long argument, which ended in the judge’s expressing an opinion that he was afraid they were; and the plaintiff was nonsuited.
The respectable house of Downey and Grabble did not long survive its damaging triumph. It has ceased to appear in theLondon Directory, and its members have found it requisite to their comfort to emigrate beyond the limits of a most unenviable notoriety.
AMONGthe curiosities of my experience I reckon the incidents of the narrative I am about to relate.
A few years ago, a gentleman of considerable estate, one of the untitled nobility of England, called upon me, and explained that he had reason to suspect the fidelity of his wife. I did not recognise the force of these reasons. The facts on which this gloomy, although partial, faith in the lady’s impurity or falseness had been raised might, with strict literal accuracy, he described as “trifles light as air.”
This suspicion was, however, not to be wholly disregarded by a stranger, at the first blush of the case. My visitor’s station in life, his intellectual qualifications, and his affection for his wife, appeared like guarantees that he would not condemn her without cause. He did not, however, assert with confidence that she was guilty. All he had, or professed to have, was a doubt. He told me that nothing would give him more delight than a perfect conviction that he had been under a delusion about the lady.
Perhaps it would be well to describe somewhat more fully the actors in this curious little drama. Mr. Percival was the only son of a wealthy and improving land-owner in the county of Sussex. He had,in consequence, inherited his father’s whole landed estate, together with a large sum of money, and considerable investments in public funds and other reliable securities. His education had been well cared for. He lost his mother when only about fourteen years of age, and his character had, it is probable, suffered from want of the chastening influences of maternal care. This was, however, the only defect, if it were a defect, in his training. His father had anxiously watched the conduct and the development of his youth. He had been educated at Eton, where he excelled in more than one branch of study. At Oxford he took honours. He was a superior type of the class known as “country gentlemen.” His habits were those of a man of culture and a man of fortune.
Mrs. Percival was a lady of good, although comparatively poor, family. Her father rejoiced in the title of an Irish landlord; but the rent-roll of the estate was not very considerable, and it needed dexterous management to keep it from the withering grasp of the Encumbered Estates Court. Still, out of their slender resources, Mrs. Percival’s parents had given her a superior education. She could draw, she was a skilful and a good musician, she was an elegant horse-woman, and otherwise accomplished. Her manners were free and natural,—sometimes a little child-like or hoydenish. She was a little, and but a little, above the average stature of her sex; had a graceful mien, and a sweet face. If I were expert in drawing pen-and-ink sketches, after the manner of a novelist, I should describe this lady as an almost perfect woman.
The reader will understand that I have, in this description, anticipated the narrative so far as to let him know more of the lady and the gentleman than I could learn within a period of two months.
“You will excuse my candour, sir, I hope; but I fail to see the grounds for your suspicion of your wife.”
“I like your candour. It is reassuring. I may be mistaken. I devoutly pray that I am. You have, I am told, had great experience in such painful domestic affairs as that I now trouble you with. It is already a source of much comfort to me that I have consulted you. If you can remove the horrid doubts which oppress me, I shall esteem you my benefactor; but let me know the truth, whatever that may be.”
I again begged him to be a little more precise than he had been in detailing the cause of his suspicions.
“In solemn confidence, I may say that we were at a dinner-party at the house of Mr. Tallboyes, in Seymour Place, the week before last, and it was impossible to avoid noticing her freedom with young Lord Swellington and Colonel Foreshore.”
“The colonel!” I said; “he is a man of sixty. He has seen much hard service; and is ‘a lion’ in every party just now, I have heard. Were not your wife’s attentions the mere courtesies which all true women find pleasure in bestowing upon age and bravery?”
“That might be; but what do you say about her pleasantries with that conceited and empty-headed young fop, Lord Swellington?”
“These might be the innocent raillery and badinage of the purest woman. Ladies sometimes take a cruel pleasure in trifling with, just to mortify, the fop, in whatever grade of society he may be found.”
“I sincerely hope you are right; but, unhappily, these have not been the only causes of my grief. My wife is too fond of pleasure. We have lately been at two public breakfasts,—one given by Lady W——, at Kew; and another by the Marchioness of L——, at Chiswick.”
“That—pardon my suggesting, under the most adverse, and at the same time rational, estimate of human character—betrays only something of levity, quite consistent with purity of heart and the strictest rectitude of conduct.”
“You are not, I am glad to say, an uncharitable interpreter of human conduct.”
“Indeed I hope not; for although I have seen much wickedness, and a vast deal of subtle, as well as patent, crime, I have met with many instances in which unjust suspicions have provoked calamities. But was there any thing, and if so what was there, in the conduct of your wife to justify your suspicions about her?”
“Well, she flirted with every gentleman present at each party, young and old.”
“With every one?”
“Yes, or nearly so.”
“This is enough to show the groundlessness of your apprehensions. Mrs. Percival may have been too richly endowed with vivacity, butmysuspicion is thather freedom arises, in great part, from her conscious guilelessness and her moral self-possession.”
“Again I say Ihopeyou may be right, and I wrong.”
“Why so emphasise that wordhope? Have you observed any other instances of what you deem your wife’s impropriety?”
“Yes,” he replied, with a sigh.
“Relate them.”
“The other day my wife induced me to take her to the flower-show held in the gardens of the Botanic Society, Regent’s Park.”
“She asked you to take her?” I interposed.
“Yes, and I did so. I yield every thing she desires; and why not, as I am not certain that her affections wander?”
“Quite correct; but did any thing occur there?”
“Perhaps you deem it nothing. She hung on the arm of Colonel Foreshore for a couple of hours.”
“The old Indian colonel?”
“Yes.”
“Well, really, I do not see any thing in that. I happened to be at that show myself with Mrs. Forrester and a distinguished relative of ours. I remember that among the flowers were several Oriental plants, which our florists have succeeded in naturalising. This is one of the most common incidents of a flower-show.”
“I wish I could look upon these things as you do. A single incident of the kind might not have aroused my apprehensions; but so many, and at various times furnish a collective evidence impossible to resist.”
“How long have you been married?”
“A little more than two years.”
“Any family?”
“No.”
I was quite convinced, as the reader must be, that there was really nothing in the conduct of Mrs. Percival to justify the cruel suspicions of her husband. His employment of me would, I saw, be one of the absurdest things he could very well do.
Should I allow him to employ me? Ought I to permit myself to be used as a spy upon his wife’s movements—being so firmly convinced, as I was, of her innocence?
The mystery of this jealousy was capable of a simple explanation. The lady had been endowed by nature with a somewhat mercurial disposition, which her education had done little to check. The very scenes in which her girlhood had been spent had inspired her with a wild or playful tendency. Nothing in her married life had yet happened to curb or control the innocent gaiety, or it might be waywardness, of her disposition. Had her union with Mr. Percival been blessed by offspring (of which, it is needless to say, there was yet no ground for despair), it is most probable that at dinner-parties she would have been a less attractive member, at public breakfasts she would have been less chatty or facetious, at flower-shows a less anxious inquirer.
But should I, or should I not, undertake to confirm or remove the unjust husband’s suspicions?
Upon this I could not make up my mind. I required time for consideration. It was arranged that Mr. Percival should see me again in three days.
During the interval between his first and second visits, I carefully balanced reasons for and against the engagement, and at length resolved to accept it. If I did not undertake it, I knew others would, if it were offered them. If they took it in hand, I was not at all sure that they would perform their task with becoming delicacy and consideration. I thought it not improbable that some rude or vulgar man might be instructed, and that he might, by starting on his inquiry with a foregone conclusion of the lady’s guilt, so interpret what he saw of her free conduct as to increase her husband’s jealousy. On the other hand, if I undertook the affair, I doubted not the result would be a vindication of Mrs. Percival in her husband’s eyes.
Mr. Percival punctually kept his appointment with me.
He was the first to speak.
“I hope,” he said, “you have agreed to assist me?”
“I have.”
“Well, I shall feel grateful to you when you have probed the truth—doubly grateful, if you can prove that my doubts about my wife are unfounded.”
“I expect to earn that double gratitude.”
“Be it so,” he said, with great emphasis. “It is no drawback on your professional merits, to my mind, that you have already formed an opinion that my wife is as good as I could wish her, and that I am a jealous fool. I should not like to know that you had condemnedherbeforehand. I am persuaded that you will do your duty faithfully towards me, and considerately towards her.”
I promised him that much.
There was a ball at Almack’s the very next day. Mrs. Percival was to be there, and so was her husband. They would go separately, after the manner of theton—she in her brougham, and he in his cab.
I did not think Almack’s a desirable place to begin my inquiries in. It would not be easy for me to gain admission into this closest of all assemblies, although I could have encompassed that, as I had before. I preferred a stand-point of observation where etiquette was less rigid.
Next week there was to be a grand fancy-dress ball, under a potent body of lady patronesses, for the relief of starvation in Whitechapel; and Mrs. Percival, acting under the feeble light of conventional charity, thought it her duty to buy a ticket (price one guinea, of which an infinitessimal portion was netted for the indigent), and to largely patronise her dressmaker and milliner, in proof of her intense sympathy with the famishing poor.
I attended this ball, and was sickened by its palpable mockery of the distress it was ostensibly designed to relieve; but I must not get off the track of my narrative to moralise.
At this ball I saw nothing to justify a suspicion of impropriety on the part of Mrs. Percival; nor did I at a flower-show which was held in the grounds of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham; nor at a public breakfast which the Marchioness of L—— gave in her grounds at Chiswick. A more private scrutiny of the lady’s movements also went to prove her strictly virtuous in character.
I now got wearied and half-disgusted with my task, and brought it to an end by reporting to Mr. Percival my absolute conviction of his wife’s innocence and purity. He received my statement without offering any opinion upon it, and it was evident that he was not quite satisfied with it. It had, I dare say, weakened his suspicions, but it had not destroyed them. I was sorry for the imperfect result, but I could do no more than I had done for his satisfaction.
I often mused and reflected over this curious case. What could have given rise to these suspicions in the mind of such a man as Mr. Percival? I set it down to incompatibility of temper. He was a somewhat studious and retiring man. His wife, although as good a woman as ever drew breath, was a light and somewhat volatile person. In many respects, I argued, this is an incongruous union. I thought I saw inevitable misery for both husband and wife in the future.
About a year after I had finished my proper business with Mr. and Mrs. Percival, I was waited upon by an eminent London solicitor, who knew nothing of my former engagement, for the purpose of tracing the retreat of that gentleman, who had deserted his wife, and was hiding from all his friends. My visitor, the private solicitor of Mr. Percival, had not heard from him since or about his flight. It was not supposedthat any violence had befallen him, although it was hard to say what harm might befall him. His physician had advised that he had been suffering from one of the thousand forms of one of the hundred branches of that disorder known by the familiar collective title of insanity. It was a mild and harmless type of the disease—a species of melancholia. The friends of the unfortunate gentleman were anxious to discover, and perhaps secretly watch over, him; at the worst, place him under gentle and temporary restraint. As he was known to be a man of high and honourable ambition—very likely to obtain and worthily fill a seat in Parliament, unless his prospects were marred—publicity, scandal, or gossip, on the subject of his bereavement, was to be deprecated.
I accepted this engagement, and I thought it desirable to let the solicitor know of the previous retainer given me by Mr. Percival, so that he might re-state the facts to the physician, who would thereby gain some insight into the secret of the gentleman’s misfortune.
We had no clue to Mr. Percival’s whereabouts. Certain facts led us to imagine he had not left this country; but I put myself in communication with the French and Belgian police, as the best mode of tracing him if he had crossed the sea. I had all the provincial papers filed at Peele’s and Deacon’s Coffee-houses critically scanned, so that if any harm befell him I should hear of it. This was a precaution I added to the usual police inquiry through theHue and Cry.
One day I got intelligence through a West-of-Englandpaper that a gentleman, answering to the description of Mr. Percival, had been found wandering along the coast, in a state which indicated mental disorganisation. I lost no time in proceeding to the spot, with the doctor, and with Mrs. Percival, who insisted upon being of the party.
We claimed the poor man, who yielded himself up to our control like an infant. We brought him to London, and took apartments for him in a western suburb, so as to be out of the eye of gossips, and near to that of his physician. It is, perhaps, needless to say that his wife attended on him mainly with her own hands, and would let none but the rudest offices be performed by any other person. Carriage rides, gentle exercise, and tonic medicines told beneficially on the patient day by day; so that in a few weeks, under the doctor’s advice, arrangements were made to take him, in his own yacht, to the north of Europe.
The physician explained to me that the secret of his malady was disappointed or impatient ambition. He was an only son. He had inherited, with his father’s property, that gentleman’s desire to establish a house. He feared that the curse of sterility had fallen on him or his wife, and the constant brooding over this thought had curdled jealousy in his heart.
In the north of Europe Mr. Percival’s mental health was completely restored. On his return to England he called upon me, and thanked me very sincerely for the part I had played in the narrative I have described—stating that if any thing could exceed the claims I had upon his gratitude for the attention Ihad bestowed upon him, it would be the faithful manner in which I had combated and sought to destroy his unfounded suspicions of his wife. A better or nobler woman did not, he said, exist. She had, he feared, impaired her health by her vigilant attention to him during his illness; and the only grief he now had was the apprehension that, beingenceinte, the change of air, and Continental travel, which had just been recommended for her sake, would be inadequate to restore a vigour and tone to her delicate system. I am happy, however, in being able to state that these fears have not been realised. Mr. and Mrs. Percival, who are among the very happiest people in the world (the health of both, in mind and in body, being as nearly perfect as they can be), have two sons, with the prospect of contributing more guarantees against the termination of their pedigree in this generation.
THE END.
London:Levey And Robson, Printers, Great New Street,Fetter Lane.