THE FAMILY BIBLE.To men of business or wealth, accustomed to handle large sums of money, bank-notes for large sums—such as £50 or £100—suggest nothing but convenience of handling and counting. With those who never owned £50 in their lives it is very different. The sum represented seems fabulously great—a fortune in itself. And then the thing is so small—a little oblong square of paper—so compressible—so thin—that the second stage—that of temptation—easily follows. Fifty or a hundred pounds in gold would be a good weight to carry, and a sum difficult to conceal; but a slip of paper! how many cunning and impenetrable places of hiding could be devised in a few minutes for that?I have to give here the adventures of three £50 bank-notes. These notes had been paid to Mr George Lockyer, a builder, who dabbled a little in money lending, by a friend in quittance of a bond on some property. The payer of the money was but a working man, else the transaction would probably have been settled with a cheque; and the fact that this man was in working clothes had an important bearing upon the whole case, apart from the absence of a cheque altogether. The money had been drawn from the bank, but neither the teller who paid over the notes nor the receiver of them thought of noting the numbers.Mr Lockyer, however, though anything but a careful or methodical man in regard to money, chanced to notice the number of the top note, from the fact that it was formed of two twenties, thus—“2020.”The notes were scarcely opened out—they were quickly counted—the necessary papers handed over to the payee, and the whole transaction, and some friendly conversation as well, was all over in about fifteen minutes.When the payee was gone, Mr Lockyer lifted the lid of his desk, and carelessly placed the notes, folded in three, on the top of some papers, intending to take them out in a short time, and bank them on his way home to dinner. He did not take them out or bank them—he forgot all about them. About half an hour later he left the little office, locking the door after him, and taking the key with him.This little office was part of a small erection attached to the building yard. That part which Mr Lockyer used as an office was not above ten feet square. It was fitted up with two desks, as at times the builder employed a clerk, but at that time was entered by no one but himself, or any callers he might have to receive while there.The remainder of the erection was used as a kind of tool-house, and was fitted all round with shelves. This apartment entered from the building yard, and at one time the door between the two places had been open, but now it was not only closed and locked, but crossed on the tool-house side by the shelves aforesaid. This door had not been open for years, and the builder had not even a key for the lock. The other door, and that now in use, entered from the street, close to the gate of the yard.Mr Lockyer remained away from his office during the whole afternoon, the reason being that he found some friends waiting him, and had no particular press of business to call him away. Late in the evening, however, he remembered suddenly of the three £50 notes left so carelessly in his desk at the office, and started up and whispered to his wife that he would have to go out on business for half an hour.“I have left some money in the place which should have been in the bank or here,” was his explanation, “and I must go and get it, for the place is a mere shed;” and as the word “money” rouses the strongest instincts of some wives, he was suffered to depart in peace.He reached his office in ten minutes, and found it to all appearance exactly as he left it. It was then quite dark, but he was so sure of the spot on which he had placed the three notes that he did not trouble to strike a light, but merely raised the lid of the desk and groped for the notes. His fingers did not touch the soft, greasy papers, but the harder and smoother pile of accounts which had been beneath them. He groped and groped; he struck a light—first only a match, then the gas—but in vain. The three bank-notes were gone.“Did I leave them here? Did I not put them in my pocket?” was his first wild thought, followed by a hurried groping and searching for his pocket-book.The notes were not there. Then he distinctly remembered placing them in the desk, and the fact that he had never removed them. He searched the whole desk, turned out every scrap of paper and article that it contained, carefully examined the room from floor to ceiling, turned over everything in the other desk, and finally sat down with his hands in his pockets, thoroughly baffled and puzzled. He had locked the notes in that small apartment; the key had never been out of his pocket, yet, on returning a few hours later, he found that they had vanished.The builder glared about him in a state of great excitement, imprecating under his breath, and heartily abusing himself for his carelessness, though he had done the same often before with impunity. While he sat thus vainly seeking a solution his eye fell upon the disused door. There was no key to it that he knew of, and the outer door of the tool-house, entering from the yard, he felt sure was locked. Still there was a possibility of entrance in that direction, and that fact set the builder a-thinking. But one man had the entry of that tool-house—a disabled mason, named John Morley, whom out of charity he kept employed about the yard. Morley had injured himself permanently by lifting a heavy weight, and could do little but look after the things in the yard, and give them out as they were wanted by the men. Mr Lockyer had known him nearly all his life, and had never found him to do a dishonest action. Yet still the fact remained that there was a man, very poorly paid—his wage was 12s. a week—having a wife and two bairns to keep, and with a possible means of access to the missing money. Might the money not have been taken in a moment of strong temptation even by a man like John Morley, reputed sterling and honest?“If he has taken it, I can hardly blame him,” was the generous reflection of the builder. “They have a sair struggle to make ends meet, I’ve no doubt; and I was a fool to leave the money lying about. But I never knew him to have a key for that door, and how could he possibly knew that the money was there, even if he had a key? I had better act cautiously, as much for my own sake as for his and his family’s. I must say nothing to the police or any one till I see John himself.”Mr Lockyer had been kind to his yard-keeper; he had all but supported the man and his family during Morley’s illness; then he had devised how he could employ him at some nominal task by way of making the man feel less dependent; and lastly, he had promised to assist him and his family to join a brother abroad who was in a more flourishing condition and had promised him work suited to his bodily strength. The builder, therefore, could scarcely believe that the man he had so helped and shielded could return the kindness by robbing him of £150; and he locked up his office and turned in the direction of the yard-keeper’s home, resolved to be as guarded in his words as possible, so as not to hurt the man’s feelings. Mr Lockyer was a man who had risen—a bluff, hearty, generous-hearted fellow—and had always a lenient hand for a working man in difficulties.Morley’s home was a cellar in Buccleuch Street—a dingy, damp hovel, lighted by a grating under a shop window. The place was not far from the yard, and therefore was speedily reached by the builder. Morley was at home, smoking by the fire, and the bairns were playing in a corner. The wife was out washing, as she often was, in order to eke out their income.Morley looked a good deal surprised at the visit, and scarcely asked his employer to enter. Mr Lockyer, however, walked in and seated himself, and, after a few preliminary words, saidabruptly—“John, was there anybody about the yard this afternoon?”How Morley looked it is impossible to say, for the light was only that of the fire, and his back was towards it.“No, sir,” he answered very readily.“Nor in the tool-house?” continued his employer.“No; it’s been lockit a’ day,” said Morley, decidedly.“You’re sure?”“Quite sure, sir.”There was an awkward pause, and then Morley, with a slight tremor in his tones,said—“Is there onything wrang?”“Yes; I left three notes—bank-notes for £50—in my desk when I went away to dinner, and they were gone when I got back half an hour ago.”“Impossible!” The man looked shocked and astonished, but there was nevertheless a something constrained or unusual in his manner which the builder did not like. “Naebody could get into the office by the tool-house,” Morley hastened to add; “that door hasna been open for years, and the key’s lost. Besides, there’s the shelves in the road.”“How could they get in, then?” cried Mr Lockyer. “The front door was locked, and the key in my pocket; and it’s not likely that they would pick the lock in broad daylight in the front street.”“Oh, thieves are clever now-a-days,” observed Morley; “they’re fit for onything.”“They may be, but that’s a little beyond the ordinary,” drily returned his master. “How were they to know I had left the money in my desk, or how long I would be away?”“Ah, that’s it!” said Morley.“Doyouknow anything about it?” said Mr Lockyer at last, with an effort.“Me! Do you think I’m a thief?” said Morley, flushing up. “If you do, you’re welcome to search the house now.”“Oh, I daresay!” sneeringly returned his master, liking his yard-keeper’s manner less than ever. “It would be easy finding three notes, wouldn’t it, if you liked to hide them well? I might as well look for a needle in a haystack. No, no, Morley; I don’t say you took them, or that you didn’t, but they’re to be found, and I’ll leave that to the men that are bred to the trade—the police or the detectives.”“Yes, they’re the best hands at that,” said Morley feebly.No strong and indignant protestations of innocence; no hot words, or tears, or reproaches; nothing but that meaningless answer, and that look of guilt and fear.“The man’s a thief if looks are to be trusted,” thought the builder. “If it turns out so, I’ll never be kind to mortal being again.”Mr Lockyer had done a foolish thing; he had let the man know he was suspected; but in the action he had been prompted by the best of intentions. He had failed in these, and he now did the next best thing to redeem the mistake—he came to us with news of the robbery. He described the circumstances of the robbery and the position of the place much as I have put them down, and concluded by stating it to be his firm belief that Morley was either himself the thief, or knew how the clever robbery had been accomplished. I agreed with him, but blamed him strongly for going near the suspected man.“It is the money you are most anxious to recover, and yet you go and put the man on his guard. You may make up your mind now that you will never see the notes again. They will either go into the fire, or be put away in some hiding-place far beyond our reach.”“That’s nice comfort to a fellow,” observed the builder ruefully. “Is there anything you can do?”“Oh, yes; we can do our best to make up for your blunder, by hunting for both the thief and the notes; but I have told you what is most likely to be the result.”I had no expectation of making anything by a search in Morley’s house, but I thought it advisable that the form should be gone through, if only that I might study the man’s face the while. I could have gone and done it there and then, but deemed it best to wait till morning.There was a possibility, as Mr Lockyer suggested, of Morley repenting of his act and returning the plunder in the night time, and, besides, by delaying till morning, we might take him unexpectedly. Of course I afterwards regretted the delay; we always do when we find ourselves disappointed in results.Morley appeared as usual at the yard before six o’clock, and made no allusion to the interview of the night before beyond asking his master, when he appeared about eight o’clock, “if he had got any word of the missing money.”He got a very curt and ungracious answer, and spoke no more. At the breakfast hour, when Morley locked up the yard and went home, I was waiting near the spot with two assistants skilled in searching. We just allowed John to enter his house and get comfortably seated at his porridge, when we knocked and were admitted. He did not seem greatly disturbed when I gave my name and showed the search warrant.“You didna need a warrant to search my house,” he said boldly. “I tellt the maister that he was welcome to search it whenever he liked.”He sat down and finished his porridge with evident zest and appetite, while we turned over every article in the little den of a house. The place had not been disturbed so much for many a day. Morley’s wife seemed much more distressed at the charge than he, and assisted us with the greatest eagerness and anxious concern. We found no trace of the notes, and Morley’s manner convinced me that they were not in the house. He was too cool and careless. Had they been hidden there—however securely or effectively—he could not have concealed some perturbation when we came near the spot or grew “hot” in our little game of “hide and seek.” Just once did I notice anything like a change in his expression of face. When we had turned over everything in the house, I chanced to say to MrsMorley—“These are all the things you have, I suppose?”“Oh, yes, sir,” she earnestly answered. “Since John rackit himsel’ we’ve had to make shift with less and less.”While she thus spoke, I saw her eye run round the room as if in search of something; then she began poking about with the aid of one of our lanterns, and finally she turned to her husband and said in a kind ofwhisper—“Where’s the famil——”She did not get the sentence finished, nor even enough of it to be intelligible to me. Morley was standing close to her, and whether he kicked her on the leg, or trod on her toe, or merely gave her a look, I cannot tell, but he checked her speech most suddenly and effectually. I just saw enough and heard enough to make me suspicious, for the den was dark, and I was not expecting the words so unguardedly uttered by the wife. The last word sounded to me like “fummel,” and I racked my brains for many an hour after to discover what on earth a “fummel” was. I had no doubt at allnowof Morley’s guilt, and, of course, I could have arrested him; but what good would that have done? There was no evidence whatever to support the charge, and likely to be none with Morley locked up in prison. Besides, I now felt tolerably certain that the notes were not destroyed, but concealed in the “fummel”—whatever that meant. I wanted badly to find that “fummel,” and reasoned that I was more likely to do so with Morley moving about in freedom than with him cooped up in prison. The secret of the hiding-place was known to Morley alone; that was quite evident to me from the eagerness of the wife to assist me, and help to prove her husband’s innocence, and also by the simplicity with which she had let out the remark about the “fummel.” I determined to draw off my men, with so many apologies that Morley should think himself quite safe from further trouble or suspicion. To confirm this impression, I directed his master to take no further notice of the matter, and to keep him in his employment as usual, which was done.I now had Morley carefully watched during the hours he was free from his work. I changed the men occasionally, and never watched him myself, that he might not take alarm, but nothing came of the watching. Morley never once attempted to change a fifty pound note, never appeared a penny richer than before the robbery, and never went near any place likely to be used for the concealment of the notes. The only thing that concerned me was the fact that he was preparing to leave the country, nor could I make that a ground for suspicion, as he had begun those arrangements long before the date of the robbery. At length I grew impatient, and took to relieving the men watching him after dark, as then there was little chance of him recognising me. Morley generally took a solitary stroll after partaking of his frugal supper, and on one of these occasions he stopped before a broker’s in the Potterrow, a place suspected to be a kind of “wee pawn”—that is, an unlicensed pawnbroker’s. Morley looked in at the window first, then all round him, and then walked into the shop, and was soon engaged in a violent altercation with the boy in charge. He stormed, and he threatened, and he swore, and I could see his arms moving about more energetically than those of a preacher “dingin’ the poopit cushion a’ to bits,” but I was afraid to venture near enough to hear the words and understand their meaning. At length he left the shop in a furious and excited state, volubly threatening to “send the police” to them. I was strongly tempted to offer my services, but, being curious to learn the cause of the dispute, I allowed the blustering man to depart, and then entered the shop. The boy was a smart young shaver named Tim Cordiner, and knew me perfectly.“What did Morley kick up such a row about?” I asked.Tim put on an air of simplicity andsaid—“Who’s Morley?”“That man who was here just now.”“His name isn’t Morley—it’s Peter Mackintosh,” said Tim, with an air of superior knowledge.“Oh, is it? I beg your pardon,” I returned, with a fine-drawn sneer, which Tim perfectly appreciated. “Well, what was he in such a state about?”Tim fenced cunningly, but finding me in dead earnest, was forced at last to say—“He’s in a state about something which he sold to my father, and wants now to buy back again. He says the agreement was that it was to be kept for a month, to give him a chance to buy it back. Did you ever hear the like? We’re not allowed to do that,” the monkey solemnly added, “it would be as bad as keeping a ‘wee pawn.’”“Oh, come now, Tim, don’t try that with me; play ‘the daft laddie’ with somebody else,” I laughingly returned. “What was the article he sold or left with you?”“A Bible—a Family Bible——”“Good gracious!”“Ay, you may say that. Bibles is a drug in the market; and to expect us to keep one when we had a chance to sell it! Family Bibles is out of fashion now—can’t get the price of the binding for them—and the last we had lay for a year in the windy.”“And so you sold this one?” I said quietly, having got time to think during Tim’s speech. “Who was the buyer?”“Blest if I can tell—seemed a sort of ‘revival,’” by which Tim meant a “revivalist,” a name given to a sect of religious enthusiasts then newly started in Edinburgh. “Was it you who sold the Bible to him?”“Yes, that’s why that man kicked up the row. He says my father knew it wasn’t to be sold. I wasn’t to know that, and I was glad to get rid of it. The ‘revival’ was near not taking it because the Family Register was cut out—tried to beat me down two shillings for that. Religious folks are always the biggest screws.”“You must be terribly religious then,” I calmly remarked to Tim, for I knew that that youthful precocity could drive a bargain which would have drawn a blush to the cheeks of the biggest rogue of a broker who ever bartered and sold.Tim grinned delightedly at the tribute to his genius.“Would you know the ‘revival’ again?” I asked, beginning to think I was fairly done at last.“Oh, fine. I’ve seen him before, giving away tracts on the streets. He left me one, after buying the Bible and trying to beat me down two shillings.”“Have you got it now?”“No; I used it to light the gas—it saved a match, you know.”I thought if any one was likely to save money and die rich that one was Tim, but I was to change my opinion soon by discovering that the smart young broker was as great a spendthrift as he was a screw. After some further conversation I warned him to say nothing to Morley of my visit, should that worthy return, as I had no doubt he would, to see Tim’s father. I am doubtful if Tim kept his promise. Certainly if any one offered him a shilling to break it, the promise would instantly kick the beam.After the visit to Tim the suspected yard-keeper seemed a good deal depressed. He went back once, and had a hot quarrel with Tim’s father, threatening the police again, but failing to fulfil that threat. He said the Bible must be got, and the broker promised to do his best—which meant nothing.In the meantime I had been much occupied in thought about Tim himself. His answers to me had appeared frank and truthful enough, but a dire suspicion that it was possible for the monkey to cheat and deceive even me crept into my mind. I discovered that Tim was squandering money right and left, quite unknown to his father. He sometimes went to Portobello, or Leith, or Musselburgh with his companions, and spent a day there, Tim always paying the entire expense, like a lord of the land.Could it be possible that Tim was himself the purchaser of that Family Bible, and the “revival” merely a creation of his vivid imagination?So strong a hold did this idea take of my mind that I gave up watching Morley, and turned my undivided attention to Tim. I could not find that he had changed a £50 bank-note, but I did discover that he had been seen with two twenties. I, therefore, only waited till he should be out with his friends for a day’s squandering, and then I pounced on him in the midst of his jolity. Tim appeared mightily crestfallen, but grandly demanded to know what was the charge against him. I replied by asking where he got all the money he had been spending. His reply staggered me a little.“What! is it my father who has set you on to this?”Now, why should Tim blurt out that? To me it implied that Tim had taken the money from his father. I threw out a hint about a Family Bible being a good bank to draw from. Tim looked puzzled, and really did not seem to grasp the idea. I did not enlighten him with an explanation, but I myself was enlightened next day by his father, who had discovered that his smart son had broken in on a hoard of his own, and lessened it by nearly £60. He nevertheless did not wish to charge Tim with the robbery, but merely requested that that clever monkey might be handed over to him for punishment.I could not oblige him, though he promised that the chastisement should bring Tim as near the grave as he would ever be without entering it. I had now to put the matter before Tim in a plain, straightforward question—“Had he or had he not lied about the sale of that Family Bible?”He loudly protested his truthfulness, and offered to help me to find the buyer.“How can you do that when you say he left neither name nor address?” I impatiently returned.“Oh, we could easily find him at some of the revival meetings,” was Tim’s quickwitted reply. “He’ll be at the door giving out tracts when the meeting breaks up. I know his face fine.”I stared at Tim, and then spoke out the thought that flashed across my mind. “Tim, if you don’t turn out a thief, you’ll maybe be a detective some day.”“A detective!” he echoed, with a merry twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, no, Mr McGovan, I haven’t enough wickedness in me for that.”Tim and I went to a revival meeting that night together. By going together I mean to imply that we were closely attached to each other—by a pair of handcuffs. Tim could not have gone forward to the penitent form though he had been ever so strongly inclined. We did not need to wait till the close, nor look out for a tract distributor, for one of those who rose to address the meeting was instantly identified by Tim as the buyer of the Family Bible. The lad was quite young, and had on his face as he spoke a look of etherial happiness and rapt delight which could never have been assumed. I think I see that fair face before me now. It looked noble, exalted, thrilling—just such a face as we could imagine smiling at the stake, and breathing forth forgiveness and peace amidst the roaring of the flames.When the address was over, the young man had occasion to move through the hall and past the place where we sat. I touched him on the arm, and drew him out to the door. He promptly admitted that he had bought a Family Bible, second-hand, from the boy before him. He had it at home, but though he had used it twice every day in his home, he declared most earnestly that he had found nothing in it. At my suggestion we walked with him to his home. He was evidently unmarried, for the home was presided over by his mother, a quiet, respectable-looking widow.The Family Bible I sought occupied a place of honour in the little home, and the owner had only to point to it and tell me to take it down with my own hands. I opened the book, and he quietly informed me that the only alteration I should find would be at the beginning, where he had inserted a new leaf as a Family Register.I turned to the leaf and read there his own name, and quite a recent date, in the column of “Births,” with the words below—“Saved from wrath by the mercy of Jesus Christ.” Without a remark I sat down and turned over every single leaf in that book, but found nothing. When I had finished, and was in despair, I happened to notice that the paper pasted against the inside of the back board did not correspond in colour and texture with that on the front board. A little examination revealed the cause. The lining of the back board was simply one of the fly-leaves pasted down at the edges. I passed my fingers over the pasted leaf. There was a feeling of something below. I took out my pen-knife and ran the point into the sheet and round the pasted edge—the whole family, and Tim in particular, looking on with goggling eyes. When I turned back the leaf, I found it glazed and yellow on the under side, like that inside the front board, but I found also other three slips of paper neatly ranged above one another, flat against the board of the Bible—three £50 bank-notes. The owner of the Bible looked simply and truly surprised. Tim looked terribly disappointed and chagrined.“If I had known they were there, I’d never have sold it so cheap,” he blurted out.“Maybe not at all?” I suggested; and Tim did not deny the soft impeachment.The notes were readily identified by the builder by the number “2020” which one of them bore; but when we came to look for Morley, he had vanished. From another country he afterwards sent a detailed confession of the circumstances which led to the crime. The payer of the money was dressed as a working man, and asked at the gate for Mr Lockyer. Morley at once conceived a suspicion that the man had come after the post of yard-keeper, and applied his eyes and ears to the inner door in the tool-house to ascertain the truth. He saw the notes placed in the desk, and the temptation followed, for he had found a key shortly before in the tool-house which fitted the lock perfectly. After taking the notes he dropped the key into a street “siver,” or we might have stumbled on it during our search. Tim was set free, but he has not yet developed into a detective.
To men of business or wealth, accustomed to handle large sums of money, bank-notes for large sums—such as £50 or £100—suggest nothing but convenience of handling and counting. With those who never owned £50 in their lives it is very different. The sum represented seems fabulously great—a fortune in itself. And then the thing is so small—a little oblong square of paper—so compressible—so thin—that the second stage—that of temptation—easily follows. Fifty or a hundred pounds in gold would be a good weight to carry, and a sum difficult to conceal; but a slip of paper! how many cunning and impenetrable places of hiding could be devised in a few minutes for that?
I have to give here the adventures of three £50 bank-notes. These notes had been paid to Mr George Lockyer, a builder, who dabbled a little in money lending, by a friend in quittance of a bond on some property. The payer of the money was but a working man, else the transaction would probably have been settled with a cheque; and the fact that this man was in working clothes had an important bearing upon the whole case, apart from the absence of a cheque altogether. The money had been drawn from the bank, but neither the teller who paid over the notes nor the receiver of them thought of noting the numbers.
Mr Lockyer, however, though anything but a careful or methodical man in regard to money, chanced to notice the number of the top note, from the fact that it was formed of two twenties, thus—“2020.”
The notes were scarcely opened out—they were quickly counted—the necessary papers handed over to the payee, and the whole transaction, and some friendly conversation as well, was all over in about fifteen minutes.
When the payee was gone, Mr Lockyer lifted the lid of his desk, and carelessly placed the notes, folded in three, on the top of some papers, intending to take them out in a short time, and bank them on his way home to dinner. He did not take them out or bank them—he forgot all about them. About half an hour later he left the little office, locking the door after him, and taking the key with him.
This little office was part of a small erection attached to the building yard. That part which Mr Lockyer used as an office was not above ten feet square. It was fitted up with two desks, as at times the builder employed a clerk, but at that time was entered by no one but himself, or any callers he might have to receive while there.
The remainder of the erection was used as a kind of tool-house, and was fitted all round with shelves. This apartment entered from the building yard, and at one time the door between the two places had been open, but now it was not only closed and locked, but crossed on the tool-house side by the shelves aforesaid. This door had not been open for years, and the builder had not even a key for the lock. The other door, and that now in use, entered from the street, close to the gate of the yard.
Mr Lockyer remained away from his office during the whole afternoon, the reason being that he found some friends waiting him, and had no particular press of business to call him away. Late in the evening, however, he remembered suddenly of the three £50 notes left so carelessly in his desk at the office, and started up and whispered to his wife that he would have to go out on business for half an hour.
“I have left some money in the place which should have been in the bank or here,” was his explanation, “and I must go and get it, for the place is a mere shed;” and as the word “money” rouses the strongest instincts of some wives, he was suffered to depart in peace.
He reached his office in ten minutes, and found it to all appearance exactly as he left it. It was then quite dark, but he was so sure of the spot on which he had placed the three notes that he did not trouble to strike a light, but merely raised the lid of the desk and groped for the notes. His fingers did not touch the soft, greasy papers, but the harder and smoother pile of accounts which had been beneath them. He groped and groped; he struck a light—first only a match, then the gas—but in vain. The three bank-notes were gone.
“Did I leave them here? Did I not put them in my pocket?” was his first wild thought, followed by a hurried groping and searching for his pocket-book.
The notes were not there. Then he distinctly remembered placing them in the desk, and the fact that he had never removed them. He searched the whole desk, turned out every scrap of paper and article that it contained, carefully examined the room from floor to ceiling, turned over everything in the other desk, and finally sat down with his hands in his pockets, thoroughly baffled and puzzled. He had locked the notes in that small apartment; the key had never been out of his pocket, yet, on returning a few hours later, he found that they had vanished.
The builder glared about him in a state of great excitement, imprecating under his breath, and heartily abusing himself for his carelessness, though he had done the same often before with impunity. While he sat thus vainly seeking a solution his eye fell upon the disused door. There was no key to it that he knew of, and the outer door of the tool-house, entering from the yard, he felt sure was locked. Still there was a possibility of entrance in that direction, and that fact set the builder a-thinking. But one man had the entry of that tool-house—a disabled mason, named John Morley, whom out of charity he kept employed about the yard. Morley had injured himself permanently by lifting a heavy weight, and could do little but look after the things in the yard, and give them out as they were wanted by the men. Mr Lockyer had known him nearly all his life, and had never found him to do a dishonest action. Yet still the fact remained that there was a man, very poorly paid—his wage was 12s. a week—having a wife and two bairns to keep, and with a possible means of access to the missing money. Might the money not have been taken in a moment of strong temptation even by a man like John Morley, reputed sterling and honest?
“If he has taken it, I can hardly blame him,” was the generous reflection of the builder. “They have a sair struggle to make ends meet, I’ve no doubt; and I was a fool to leave the money lying about. But I never knew him to have a key for that door, and how could he possibly knew that the money was there, even if he had a key? I had better act cautiously, as much for my own sake as for his and his family’s. I must say nothing to the police or any one till I see John himself.”
Mr Lockyer had been kind to his yard-keeper; he had all but supported the man and his family during Morley’s illness; then he had devised how he could employ him at some nominal task by way of making the man feel less dependent; and lastly, he had promised to assist him and his family to join a brother abroad who was in a more flourishing condition and had promised him work suited to his bodily strength. The builder, therefore, could scarcely believe that the man he had so helped and shielded could return the kindness by robbing him of £150; and he locked up his office and turned in the direction of the yard-keeper’s home, resolved to be as guarded in his words as possible, so as not to hurt the man’s feelings. Mr Lockyer was a man who had risen—a bluff, hearty, generous-hearted fellow—and had always a lenient hand for a working man in difficulties.
Morley’s home was a cellar in Buccleuch Street—a dingy, damp hovel, lighted by a grating under a shop window. The place was not far from the yard, and therefore was speedily reached by the builder. Morley was at home, smoking by the fire, and the bairns were playing in a corner. The wife was out washing, as she often was, in order to eke out their income.
Morley looked a good deal surprised at the visit, and scarcely asked his employer to enter. Mr Lockyer, however, walked in and seated himself, and, after a few preliminary words, saidabruptly—
“John, was there anybody about the yard this afternoon?”
How Morley looked it is impossible to say, for the light was only that of the fire, and his back was towards it.
“No, sir,” he answered very readily.
“Nor in the tool-house?” continued his employer.
“No; it’s been lockit a’ day,” said Morley, decidedly.
“You’re sure?”
“Quite sure, sir.”
There was an awkward pause, and then Morley, with a slight tremor in his tones,said—
“Is there onything wrang?”
“Yes; I left three notes—bank-notes for £50—in my desk when I went away to dinner, and they were gone when I got back half an hour ago.”
“Impossible!” The man looked shocked and astonished, but there was nevertheless a something constrained or unusual in his manner which the builder did not like. “Naebody could get into the office by the tool-house,” Morley hastened to add; “that door hasna been open for years, and the key’s lost. Besides, there’s the shelves in the road.”
“How could they get in, then?” cried Mr Lockyer. “The front door was locked, and the key in my pocket; and it’s not likely that they would pick the lock in broad daylight in the front street.”
“Oh, thieves are clever now-a-days,” observed Morley; “they’re fit for onything.”
“They may be, but that’s a little beyond the ordinary,” drily returned his master. “How were they to know I had left the money in my desk, or how long I would be away?”
“Ah, that’s it!” said Morley.
“Doyouknow anything about it?” said Mr Lockyer at last, with an effort.
“Me! Do you think I’m a thief?” said Morley, flushing up. “If you do, you’re welcome to search the house now.”
“Oh, I daresay!” sneeringly returned his master, liking his yard-keeper’s manner less than ever. “It would be easy finding three notes, wouldn’t it, if you liked to hide them well? I might as well look for a needle in a haystack. No, no, Morley; I don’t say you took them, or that you didn’t, but they’re to be found, and I’ll leave that to the men that are bred to the trade—the police or the detectives.”
“Yes, they’re the best hands at that,” said Morley feebly.
No strong and indignant protestations of innocence; no hot words, or tears, or reproaches; nothing but that meaningless answer, and that look of guilt and fear.
“The man’s a thief if looks are to be trusted,” thought the builder. “If it turns out so, I’ll never be kind to mortal being again.”
Mr Lockyer had done a foolish thing; he had let the man know he was suspected; but in the action he had been prompted by the best of intentions. He had failed in these, and he now did the next best thing to redeem the mistake—he came to us with news of the robbery. He described the circumstances of the robbery and the position of the place much as I have put them down, and concluded by stating it to be his firm belief that Morley was either himself the thief, or knew how the clever robbery had been accomplished. I agreed with him, but blamed him strongly for going near the suspected man.
“It is the money you are most anxious to recover, and yet you go and put the man on his guard. You may make up your mind now that you will never see the notes again. They will either go into the fire, or be put away in some hiding-place far beyond our reach.”
“That’s nice comfort to a fellow,” observed the builder ruefully. “Is there anything you can do?”
“Oh, yes; we can do our best to make up for your blunder, by hunting for both the thief and the notes; but I have told you what is most likely to be the result.”
I had no expectation of making anything by a search in Morley’s house, but I thought it advisable that the form should be gone through, if only that I might study the man’s face the while. I could have gone and done it there and then, but deemed it best to wait till morning.
There was a possibility, as Mr Lockyer suggested, of Morley repenting of his act and returning the plunder in the night time, and, besides, by delaying till morning, we might take him unexpectedly. Of course I afterwards regretted the delay; we always do when we find ourselves disappointed in results.
Morley appeared as usual at the yard before six o’clock, and made no allusion to the interview of the night before beyond asking his master, when he appeared about eight o’clock, “if he had got any word of the missing money.”
He got a very curt and ungracious answer, and spoke no more. At the breakfast hour, when Morley locked up the yard and went home, I was waiting near the spot with two assistants skilled in searching. We just allowed John to enter his house and get comfortably seated at his porridge, when we knocked and were admitted. He did not seem greatly disturbed when I gave my name and showed the search warrant.
“You didna need a warrant to search my house,” he said boldly. “I tellt the maister that he was welcome to search it whenever he liked.”
He sat down and finished his porridge with evident zest and appetite, while we turned over every article in the little den of a house. The place had not been disturbed so much for many a day. Morley’s wife seemed much more distressed at the charge than he, and assisted us with the greatest eagerness and anxious concern. We found no trace of the notes, and Morley’s manner convinced me that they were not in the house. He was too cool and careless. Had they been hidden there—however securely or effectively—he could not have concealed some perturbation when we came near the spot or grew “hot” in our little game of “hide and seek.” Just once did I notice anything like a change in his expression of face. When we had turned over everything in the house, I chanced to say to MrsMorley—
“These are all the things you have, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” she earnestly answered. “Since John rackit himsel’ we’ve had to make shift with less and less.”
While she thus spoke, I saw her eye run round the room as if in search of something; then she began poking about with the aid of one of our lanterns, and finally she turned to her husband and said in a kind ofwhisper—
“Where’s the famil——”
She did not get the sentence finished, nor even enough of it to be intelligible to me. Morley was standing close to her, and whether he kicked her on the leg, or trod on her toe, or merely gave her a look, I cannot tell, but he checked her speech most suddenly and effectually. I just saw enough and heard enough to make me suspicious, for the den was dark, and I was not expecting the words so unguardedly uttered by the wife. The last word sounded to me like “fummel,” and I racked my brains for many an hour after to discover what on earth a “fummel” was. I had no doubt at allnowof Morley’s guilt, and, of course, I could have arrested him; but what good would that have done? There was no evidence whatever to support the charge, and likely to be none with Morley locked up in prison. Besides, I now felt tolerably certain that the notes were not destroyed, but concealed in the “fummel”—whatever that meant. I wanted badly to find that “fummel,” and reasoned that I was more likely to do so with Morley moving about in freedom than with him cooped up in prison. The secret of the hiding-place was known to Morley alone; that was quite evident to me from the eagerness of the wife to assist me, and help to prove her husband’s innocence, and also by the simplicity with which she had let out the remark about the “fummel.” I determined to draw off my men, with so many apologies that Morley should think himself quite safe from further trouble or suspicion. To confirm this impression, I directed his master to take no further notice of the matter, and to keep him in his employment as usual, which was done.
I now had Morley carefully watched during the hours he was free from his work. I changed the men occasionally, and never watched him myself, that he might not take alarm, but nothing came of the watching. Morley never once attempted to change a fifty pound note, never appeared a penny richer than before the robbery, and never went near any place likely to be used for the concealment of the notes. The only thing that concerned me was the fact that he was preparing to leave the country, nor could I make that a ground for suspicion, as he had begun those arrangements long before the date of the robbery. At length I grew impatient, and took to relieving the men watching him after dark, as then there was little chance of him recognising me. Morley generally took a solitary stroll after partaking of his frugal supper, and on one of these occasions he stopped before a broker’s in the Potterrow, a place suspected to be a kind of “wee pawn”—that is, an unlicensed pawnbroker’s. Morley looked in at the window first, then all round him, and then walked into the shop, and was soon engaged in a violent altercation with the boy in charge. He stormed, and he threatened, and he swore, and I could see his arms moving about more energetically than those of a preacher “dingin’ the poopit cushion a’ to bits,” but I was afraid to venture near enough to hear the words and understand their meaning. At length he left the shop in a furious and excited state, volubly threatening to “send the police” to them. I was strongly tempted to offer my services, but, being curious to learn the cause of the dispute, I allowed the blustering man to depart, and then entered the shop. The boy was a smart young shaver named Tim Cordiner, and knew me perfectly.
“What did Morley kick up such a row about?” I asked.
Tim put on an air of simplicity andsaid—
“Who’s Morley?”
“That man who was here just now.”
“His name isn’t Morley—it’s Peter Mackintosh,” said Tim, with an air of superior knowledge.
“Oh, is it? I beg your pardon,” I returned, with a fine-drawn sneer, which Tim perfectly appreciated. “Well, what was he in such a state about?”
Tim fenced cunningly, but finding me in dead earnest, was forced at last to say—“He’s in a state about something which he sold to my father, and wants now to buy back again. He says the agreement was that it was to be kept for a month, to give him a chance to buy it back. Did you ever hear the like? We’re not allowed to do that,” the monkey solemnly added, “it would be as bad as keeping a ‘wee pawn.’”
“Oh, come now, Tim, don’t try that with me; play ‘the daft laddie’ with somebody else,” I laughingly returned. “What was the article he sold or left with you?”
“A Bible—a Family Bible——”
“Good gracious!”
“Ay, you may say that. Bibles is a drug in the market; and to expect us to keep one when we had a chance to sell it! Family Bibles is out of fashion now—can’t get the price of the binding for them—and the last we had lay for a year in the windy.”
“And so you sold this one?” I said quietly, having got time to think during Tim’s speech. “Who was the buyer?”
“Blest if I can tell—seemed a sort of ‘revival,’” by which Tim meant a “revivalist,” a name given to a sect of religious enthusiasts then newly started in Edinburgh. “Was it you who sold the Bible to him?”
“Yes, that’s why that man kicked up the row. He says my father knew it wasn’t to be sold. I wasn’t to know that, and I was glad to get rid of it. The ‘revival’ was near not taking it because the Family Register was cut out—tried to beat me down two shillings for that. Religious folks are always the biggest screws.”
“You must be terribly religious then,” I calmly remarked to Tim, for I knew that that youthful precocity could drive a bargain which would have drawn a blush to the cheeks of the biggest rogue of a broker who ever bartered and sold.
Tim grinned delightedly at the tribute to his genius.
“Would you know the ‘revival’ again?” I asked, beginning to think I was fairly done at last.
“Oh, fine. I’ve seen him before, giving away tracts on the streets. He left me one, after buying the Bible and trying to beat me down two shillings.”
“Have you got it now?”
“No; I used it to light the gas—it saved a match, you know.”
I thought if any one was likely to save money and die rich that one was Tim, but I was to change my opinion soon by discovering that the smart young broker was as great a spendthrift as he was a screw. After some further conversation I warned him to say nothing to Morley of my visit, should that worthy return, as I had no doubt he would, to see Tim’s father. I am doubtful if Tim kept his promise. Certainly if any one offered him a shilling to break it, the promise would instantly kick the beam.
After the visit to Tim the suspected yard-keeper seemed a good deal depressed. He went back once, and had a hot quarrel with Tim’s father, threatening the police again, but failing to fulfil that threat. He said the Bible must be got, and the broker promised to do his best—which meant nothing.
In the meantime I had been much occupied in thought about Tim himself. His answers to me had appeared frank and truthful enough, but a dire suspicion that it was possible for the monkey to cheat and deceive even me crept into my mind. I discovered that Tim was squandering money right and left, quite unknown to his father. He sometimes went to Portobello, or Leith, or Musselburgh with his companions, and spent a day there, Tim always paying the entire expense, like a lord of the land.
Could it be possible that Tim was himself the purchaser of that Family Bible, and the “revival” merely a creation of his vivid imagination?
So strong a hold did this idea take of my mind that I gave up watching Morley, and turned my undivided attention to Tim. I could not find that he had changed a £50 bank-note, but I did discover that he had been seen with two twenties. I, therefore, only waited till he should be out with his friends for a day’s squandering, and then I pounced on him in the midst of his jolity. Tim appeared mightily crestfallen, but grandly demanded to know what was the charge against him. I replied by asking where he got all the money he had been spending. His reply staggered me a little.
“What! is it my father who has set you on to this?”
Now, why should Tim blurt out that? To me it implied that Tim had taken the money from his father. I threw out a hint about a Family Bible being a good bank to draw from. Tim looked puzzled, and really did not seem to grasp the idea. I did not enlighten him with an explanation, but I myself was enlightened next day by his father, who had discovered that his smart son had broken in on a hoard of his own, and lessened it by nearly £60. He nevertheless did not wish to charge Tim with the robbery, but merely requested that that clever monkey might be handed over to him for punishment.
I could not oblige him, though he promised that the chastisement should bring Tim as near the grave as he would ever be without entering it. I had now to put the matter before Tim in a plain, straightforward question—“Had he or had he not lied about the sale of that Family Bible?”
He loudly protested his truthfulness, and offered to help me to find the buyer.
“How can you do that when you say he left neither name nor address?” I impatiently returned.
“Oh, we could easily find him at some of the revival meetings,” was Tim’s quickwitted reply. “He’ll be at the door giving out tracts when the meeting breaks up. I know his face fine.”
I stared at Tim, and then spoke out the thought that flashed across my mind. “Tim, if you don’t turn out a thief, you’ll maybe be a detective some day.”
“A detective!” he echoed, with a merry twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, no, Mr McGovan, I haven’t enough wickedness in me for that.”
Tim and I went to a revival meeting that night together. By going together I mean to imply that we were closely attached to each other—by a pair of handcuffs. Tim could not have gone forward to the penitent form though he had been ever so strongly inclined. We did not need to wait till the close, nor look out for a tract distributor, for one of those who rose to address the meeting was instantly identified by Tim as the buyer of the Family Bible. The lad was quite young, and had on his face as he spoke a look of etherial happiness and rapt delight which could never have been assumed. I think I see that fair face before me now. It looked noble, exalted, thrilling—just such a face as we could imagine smiling at the stake, and breathing forth forgiveness and peace amidst the roaring of the flames.
When the address was over, the young man had occasion to move through the hall and past the place where we sat. I touched him on the arm, and drew him out to the door. He promptly admitted that he had bought a Family Bible, second-hand, from the boy before him. He had it at home, but though he had used it twice every day in his home, he declared most earnestly that he had found nothing in it. At my suggestion we walked with him to his home. He was evidently unmarried, for the home was presided over by his mother, a quiet, respectable-looking widow.
The Family Bible I sought occupied a place of honour in the little home, and the owner had only to point to it and tell me to take it down with my own hands. I opened the book, and he quietly informed me that the only alteration I should find would be at the beginning, where he had inserted a new leaf as a Family Register.
I turned to the leaf and read there his own name, and quite a recent date, in the column of “Births,” with the words below—“Saved from wrath by the mercy of Jesus Christ.” Without a remark I sat down and turned over every single leaf in that book, but found nothing. When I had finished, and was in despair, I happened to notice that the paper pasted against the inside of the back board did not correspond in colour and texture with that on the front board. A little examination revealed the cause. The lining of the back board was simply one of the fly-leaves pasted down at the edges. I passed my fingers over the pasted leaf. There was a feeling of something below. I took out my pen-knife and ran the point into the sheet and round the pasted edge—the whole family, and Tim in particular, looking on with goggling eyes. When I turned back the leaf, I found it glazed and yellow on the under side, like that inside the front board, but I found also other three slips of paper neatly ranged above one another, flat against the board of the Bible—three £50 bank-notes. The owner of the Bible looked simply and truly surprised. Tim looked terribly disappointed and chagrined.
“If I had known they were there, I’d never have sold it so cheap,” he blurted out.
“Maybe not at all?” I suggested; and Tim did not deny the soft impeachment.
The notes were readily identified by the builder by the number “2020” which one of them bore; but when we came to look for Morley, he had vanished. From another country he afterwards sent a detailed confession of the circumstances which led to the crime. The payer of the money was dressed as a working man, and asked at the gate for Mr Lockyer. Morley at once conceived a suspicion that the man had come after the post of yard-keeper, and applied his eyes and ears to the inner door in the tool-house to ascertain the truth. He saw the notes placed in the desk, and the temptation followed, for he had found a key shortly before in the tool-house which fitted the lock perfectly. After taking the notes he dropped the key into a street “siver,” or we might have stumbled on it during our search. Tim was set free, but he has not yet developed into a detective.