THE SPOILT PHOTOGRAPH.The photographer had put up a rickety erection in shape of a tent close to the grand stand at Musselburgh race-course. He was a travelling portrait-taker, and his “saloon” was a portable one, consisting of four sticks for the corners and a bit of thin cotton to sling round them. There was no roof, partly from poverty and partly to let in more light. It was the first day of the races, and masses of people had been coming into the place by every train and available conveyance.The photographer’s name was Peter Turnbull—a tall, lanky fellow, like an overgrown boy who had never got his appetite satisfied. He was clad in the shabbiest of clothes, but talked with the stately dignity of an emperor or a decayed actor. In spite of the gay crowds pressing past outside, business did not come very fast to Turnbull, so, after waiting patiently inside like a spider for flies, he issued from his den and tried to force a little trade with his persuasive tongue.In front of his tent he had slung up a case of the best photographs he could pick up for money, which were likely to pass for his own, and occasionally some of those bent on pleasure paused to look at the specimens, when Turnbull at once tackled them to give him an order. Women he invariably asked to have their “beautiful” faces taken; men, who are not accustomed to be called beautiful, or to think themselves so, he manipulated in a different fashion. He appealed to them as to whether they hadn’t a mother who would like a portrait of them always beside her, or a sweetheart who would value it above a mountain of diamonds. Turnbull’s appearance was against him—he looked hungry down to the very toes of his boots—and most of those he addressed were as suspicious of his eloquence as of that of a book canvasser.At length, however, he did get a man to listen to him—a sailor, evidently, with a jovial, happy look about his face, and plenty of money in his pocket.“You’ll be just off your ship, I suppose, you’re looking so fresh and smart,” said Turnbull at a venture. “Your sweetheart will be pleased to see you, but she’d be more pleased if you brought her a good portrait to leave with her.”The sailor laughed heartily.“Sweetheart?” he echoed between his convulsions of merriment. “Why, I’m a married man.”“So much the better,” returned the photographer, not to be daunted. “She’ll want your portrait exactly as you stand—not as you were before this voyage, or when you were courting her. Folks’ faces change so soon.”“Maybe they do, but their hearts remain the same,” returned the sailor cheerily.“Well, not always—they change, too, sometimes,” said Turnbull, with the air of one who had bitterly experienced the truth of his words; “but with your portrait always beside her, her heart couldn’t change. Just step in—I won’t keep you a moment, and you can take it with you. You’ll have it, and she’ll have it, long after the races are forgotten.”The sailor easily yielded, and followed him into the tent, and then Turnbull, having now a professional interest in the man, took notice of his dress and appearance particularly for the first time. The man was low in stature, thick set, and evidently a powerful fellow. He wore an ordinary sailor’s suit of dark blue, but had for a neckerchief a red cotton handkerchief loosely rolled together, and so carelessly tied that the ends hung down over his breast.In order to get all the sailor’s face into the portrait, Turnbull with some difficulty persuaded him to remove his cap, and then drew from him an admission that his objection arose from the fact that there was a flesh mark on one side of his forehead which he did not wish to appear in the portrait. The difficulty was got over—as it was with Hannibal—by taking a side-view, and the first attempt came out all right, so far as the portrait was concerned. But the sailor wished to appear as if he had just removed his cap, and with that in his hand, so the first was put aside as spoilt, and another taken, which, though not so successful, pleased the owner better, as in that the cap appeared in his hand. The portrait was finished and framed, and so free and good-natured was the owner that he insisted on paying for the spoilt one, which, however, he refused to take with him. While Turnbull had been putting a frame on the portrait, the sailor took out a long piece of tobacco and a pocket knife and cut himself a liberal quid, at the same time offering a piece to the photographer, which was accepted. The knife with which the tobacco was cut was a strong one, with a long, straight blade and a sharp point.The whole transaction over, they bade each other good-day, and the sailor disappeared among the crowds of spectators and betting men on the course with the avowed intention of enjoying himself, and scattering some money before he went home.Six or seven hours later a man was found lying in one of the narrow back lanes of the town, so inert, and smelling so strongly of drink, that more than one person had passed him under the impression that he was drunk, and without putting out a hand to help. At length the ghastly hue of his face attracted attention, and it was found that he was lying in a pool of blood, which had flowed from two deep wounds in his breast and side, and thence oosed out at the back of his clothes on the ground below.Some of the crowd who gathered about him as he was being carried to a house close by identified him as a baker named Colin McCulloch, belonging to a town some miles off, but who was well known in a wide district from the fact that he went about with a bread van. He was not quite dead when found, but an examination of his wounds soon indicated that life was ebbing away.One of these was as deep as the doctor’s finger could reach, and appeared to have been inflicted with the narrow, straight blade of a long, sharp-pointed knife.I had been on the race-course for the greater part of the day looking for a man who did not turn up, and heard of the occurrence only when I called at the station before leaving for town. It had been decided that McCulloch was not fit to be removed, and I went to see him, but found him far beyond speech or explanation. By visiting the spot on which he had been found I discovered a girl who gave me the first clue.She had been passing along the lane, and had been “feared” as she expressed it, to pass McCulloch, who was tottering along in the same direction, very drunk and demonstrative, though all alone. Every one was away at the races, and the narrow lane seemed quite deserted, but there appeared in front a sailor, who had no sooner sighted McCulloch than he began quarrelling with him and threatening him. Thankful of the opportunity, the girl slipped past during the quarrel, having just time to notice that the sailor was a short, thick-set fellow, and that he wore a red cotton handkerchief for a necktie. When she was at a safe distance she chanced to look back, and saw the sailor give McCulloch “a drive in the breast,” and so knock him down. She did not wait to see anything more, but hurried home, thinking that it was only an ordinary drunken quarrel.Questioned by me, she could not say whether the sailor had used a knife. Her idea was that he had only given the man a drive with his hand to knock him down or get him out of the way. The sailor spoke in a low tone; McCulloch was noisy and defiant. She saw no knife in the sailor’s hand, and was sure he was a stranger. She did not think she would know him again, as she did not look at his face, but she knew every one about the town, and was positive that the sailor did not belong to the place. It was the sailor who stopped McCulloch, whom he seemed to know; and she thought he was quite sober, though pale and angry-looking. “Look me in the face and say it’s not true,” were the only words she could remember hearing, and they were spoken in a fierce tone by the sailor, just as she was getting beyond earshot.Having thus a little to work upon, I tried all the exits of the town for some trace of him, without success. He had not gone away by rail or coach, and no one had seen him leave on foot, so far as I could discover; but that was to be expected in the state of the town. Dozens of sailors with red neckties might have come and gone and never been noticed in such a stir. In the town itself I was more successful. To my surprise I found that a man answering the description had visited nearly every public-house in the place. He had never spoken or called for drink; he had merely looked through the houses in a pallid, excited manner, and gone his way.“He seemed to be looking for some one,” a publican said to me, “but he was gone before I could ask him.”I spent a good deal of time in the place, though not sure that if I got that man I should be getting the murderer, and returned to Edinburgh with the last train. I went back again next morning, and found McCulloch still alive, and sensible enough to be able to give an assent or dissent when asked a question. But about the murderous attack upon himself he could not or would not give a sign. He would only stare, or shut his eyes, or turn away. The doctor thought he did not understand me—that the patient’s head was not yet quite clear; I thought quite the reverse. The same curious circumstance occurred when it was suggested that his deposition should be taken. McCulloch had no deposition to make, or would not make one. He seemed quite prepared to die and give no sign.Not an hour later I was favoured with a visit from Turnbull, the travelling photographer. He had been lodging in the town, and of course had heard of the strange crime. He had heard also of my unsuccessful hunt for the sailor, and would probably have gone up to Edinburgh to see me had he not been loth to lose another day at the race-course, his stance being taken for three days.I could not conceive what the lank, hungry-looking being could want with me, or why there should be about his lean jaws such a smirk of intense satisfaction, as he gave his name and occupation.“A murder has been committed—or what is as good as a murder, for the man, I believe, is at his last gasp,” he exultingly began. “There will be a hanging match—that is, if you can trace and capture the murderer. Now, Mr McGovan, you’re said to be clever, but you haven’t got him yet, and never will unless you get my help.”“Your help?” I echoed in amazement; “why, who are you, and how can you help me?”“My name you know, and I am not unknown to fame, I am an actor as well as a photographic artist. I have trod the boards with some success, and you know that that in itself is a kind of training in acuteness eminently fitting one for detective work.”I could not see it, and said so. I thought him an escaped lunatic.“Mark me, Mr McGovan,” he continued, quite unabashed, “I have in my possession the only means whereby you can trace and arrest the murderer. Now just tell me what it is worth, and we may come to a bargain.”“What it is worth?” I said, with a grin. “I don’t know that it is worth anything till I try it.”“A hundred pounds? Surely they’ll offer that as a reward for such information as shall lead to the capture of the murderer?”“I don’t know that they’ll offer a hundred pence,” was my reply. “Tell me what you know, and if it is of any use I will see that you are suitably rewarded.”“Ah, that won’t suit me,” he answered with great decision. “I will leave you to think over my offer; you know where to find me when you have made up your mind.”He was moving off, after making a low and stagey bow, but I got between him and the door, and brought out a pair of handcuffs.“I know where to find you now, which is far more convenient,” I quietly remarked. “You have admitted that you know something of the murder—I shall detain you on suspicion.”“What! arrest me? an innocent man; lock me up in prison!” he exclaimed, in genuine terror. “You cannot—dare not! I know nothing of the murder; I merely think I can put you in the way of tracing the man who did it.”“Do so, then, if you would prove your innocence,” I said, rather amused at his terror and dismay. “Were you an accomplice?”“An accomplice! how can you ask such a question?” he tremblingly answered. “You are taking a mean advantage of me, for I feel sure that my secret is worth a hundred pounds at least. But I will trust to your honour, and put it all before you. People will giveyouall the credit. Everyone will say ‘McGovan is the man that can do it; we might have known he wouldn’t escape when McGovan was after him.’ Nobody will think of me, or hear of me, who have given you the clue. It’s the way of the world; one man toils, and ploughs, and sows, and another man reaps the harvest.”“Ah, nothing pleases me so much as envy, flavoured with a little spitefulness,” I quietly returned. “It is the most flattering unction you can lay to a man’s soul.”“I am not envious,” he dolefully replied, “but it is hard to supply another with brains.”“Especially when he has none of his own,” I laughingly retorted. “Well, come along; bring on your brains—I’m waiting for them.”“I really believe you are laughing at me in your sleeve,” he observed, with a half pathetic look. “It is brave to crush the poor worm under your heel when you know he can’t retaliate.”“You’re a long worm—six feet at least,” I solemnly answered; “a long-winded one, too, unfortunately. I must leave you in the cells for an hour or two——”“Oh, no! I will speak; I will tell you it all in half a minute,” he wildly answered. “The murderer is said to have been a sailor—a short, thick-set fellow, wearing a red neckerchief. I photographed such a man in the forenoon, and I have the first portrait, which didn’t please him, though it is like as life.”“Ah! let me see it. Have you it with you?” I cried, with sudden interest and great eagerness.“Now you change your tune,” he reproachfully answered. “I have it with me, or I should not have given in so easily. I was afraid you might have me searched, and, finding the photo, think me an acquaintance or accomplice of the man,” and, with a little more wearisome talk, he produced the portrait, and slowly put before me the incidents already recorded.When he had done I was not greatly elated. The thread which connected his early customer with the man supposed to have attacked McCulloch was of the slenderest. Then I was disappointed that Turnbull’s story looked so real. I had fondly hoped he would stumble and prevaricate enough to allow us to lock him up on suspicion—in other words, that we should find him to be an accomplice, anxious to save himself at the expense of a companion in crime. I took the photograph, but plainly told him that I feared it would be of little use to me.“Ah, you wish to undervalue it in order to get out of paying me a good round sum when the man is caught,” he answered, with a knowing wink. “I haven’t knocked about so much without being able to see through that dodge,” and away he went, as elated and consequential as if he had really laid the man by the heels.When I was alone I had a long study over the notes I had taken during the interview. The sailor photographed had stated that his ship only got in the day before, and that he was on his way home, and merely visiting the race-course in passing. He had not said where he lived or at what port he had come in, but the general impression left on Turnbull’s mind was that the port was not far off. Leith or Granton seemed to me the likeliest places, and I turned to the shipping lists to have a look at the names of new arrivals. At Leith only one vessel had come in on that day, The Shannon; and at Granton, though there were several arrivals, none of them were from long voyages. The sailor had hinted that he had not been home for eighteen months, and that to my mind implied a long voyage, or long voyages.To Leith accordingly I went, and found The Shannon, her cargo already discharged, and only a few of the men on board. Some had been paid off and some were off for a few days on leave. The man whom I questioned—for the captain had gone home too—seemed to me sullen and suspicious. He did not know if one of the men had gone eastwards to see his wife; if any of them lived in that quarter he had never heard of it, and so on. I was dissatisfied with the answers and the man’s manner, and had he resembled in the slightest degree the portrait in my pocket I should have arrested him on the spot. I thought I would bring out the photograph as a test. Holding it up before him, I saidsharply—“Do you know that man?”“No, I don’t.” The answer came out almost before he had time to look at the features. It was too prompt. It was a lie. The falsehood told me more than the truth would have done. It not only convinced me that I was at least on the track of the photographed sailor, but roused in my mind for the first time a strong suspicion that he was the knifer of McCulloch. I went from the ship to the shipping agents. I found the clerk who had handed their pay to all the men; and on producing the photograph saw that he recognised it instantly.“Yes, that was one of them,” he said, “but he was paid off, and has gone home.”I asked the man’s name, and, on referring to the books, he gave it as Tom Fisher. With some difficulty he got me the man’s address—which was in a town some miles east—and his trouble arose from the fact that no money had been sent to Fisher’s wife for nearly a year.The sailors’ wives often drew one half the men’s pay, but she had not applied for it during that time, and was supposed to have changed her address.“I didn’t say anything of it to Fisher,” said the clerk in conclusion, “and he seemed quite elated at having so much money to draw. It’s a kittle thing interfering between a man and his wife, and it might have alarmed him needlessly. If there’s anything wrong he’s best to find it out himself.”I left the shipping office, and took the first train for the town in which Fisher had his home. If he was to be found anywhere, I thought it would be there—and especially so if he turned out to be innocent. It is a quiet country place in which everyone knows his neighbours, and I had no difficulty in finding the house. But it was occupied by an old woman, who said she had been in it for nearly a year. I asked for Mrs Fisher, the sailor’s wife.“Oh, she was a bad lot,” was the blunt rejoinder. “She sellt a’ her things, bit by bit, and gaed awa’ in the end withoot paying her rent and other debts.”“Where did she go to, do you know?”“Oh, dear kens. She was a drunken hussy, and thought hersel’ bonny. Some say that she went awa’ wi’ a baker-man they ca’ McCulloch, and was aboot Leith for a while, but maybe it’s no true. He used to hae a great wark wi’ her.”“And her husband—has he never been here?”“Never since I cam’; but I heard that McCulloch was stabbed at the races by a sailor and I wadna wonder if that sailor turned oot to be Fisher himsel’.”I thought the old woman the most acute I had met for a while; we always do when we find a person’s thoughts and opinions tallying with our own. I left the house and pursued my inquiries elsewhere. I found no one who had seen Fisher near the town, or in it; but at length there was mentioned to me the name of a man who had been at the races, and had there seen Fisher and spoken to him. This man I found out, but he was not nearly so communicative to me as he had been to others. He admitted that he had seen Fisher and spoken to him, but couldn’t remember what they had talked of. He knew McCulloch also, and had seen him at the races, too, but in a drunken condition, and not fit for conversation. Questioned more closely, he admitted that Fisher was an old friend of his, and that the last thing in the world he would wish for would be to do Fisher any injury by what he should say. He had heard of the stabbing of McCulloch, and did not wonder at it, the man was so quarrelsome, but he had no idea who had done it. Fisher might have done it, or anybody else—he knew nothing about it, as he was out of the place two hours at least before the attack was made.I could read the man as plainly as if he had spoken all he knew. There was the same reticence which the sailor had shown on board The Shannon, and it probably arose from the same cause—a desire to screen and save a friend. I got back to Leith, and found with some relief that no vessel of importance had left during the two days; I then tried Granton with the same result. “Glasgow” then rose promptly in my mind, and I drove to both the Edinburgh railway stations to make inquiries. At neither had any person resembling the photograph been seen, but a telegram to one of the stations a mile or two from the city elicited the news that a man in sailor’s dress had taken a third class ticket thence to Glasgow. He had driven out to that station in a cab, and the cab had come from the direction of Edinburgh. I telegraphed to Glasgow, and followed my message by the first train. When I got to that city I found my work nearly all done for me. Fisher had been traced to an American liner, in which he had shipped under the name of George Fullerton.Strange fatality! George Fullerton was the name of the man who had seen him at the races, and so clumsily tried to screen him from me. The vessel in which he had shipped was gone—it had sailed the night before—but there was a chance of it stopping at Liverpool. I telegraphed thither and took the night mail, in case the vessel should touch, but the weather had proved too stormy, and she held on her course. Being so far on the way, and now perfectly sure of my man, I did not dream of turning back, but took passage for New York in a fast liner, which would easily have outstripped that in which the fugitive had got the start, but for one or two unforeseen accidents on the way, which added three days to the length of the passage. When we landed, the vessel in which “George Fullerton” had sailed was in the harbour, and my man gone. He was described to me by one of the sailors as depressed and sullen, but singularly free with his money. He had been taken on at the last moment in place of a man who had failed to appear, and so, instead of working his passage, had received full pay. On landing he had treated several of his mates liberally, and had seemed bent on nothing but getting rid of his money.“I believe I could find him for you,” said the man at last, and I readily accepted the offer.We made our way to a tavern near the harbour much frequented by seamen, and there, sitting alone with some drink before him, I found the counter-part of the spoilt photograph. I should have easily recognised him in a crowd, but with a foolhardiness almost incredible, he wore the fatal red neckerchief, which proved to be of silk, not cotton.I said nothing to my conductor beyond ordering for him a drink at the bar, and then went up and took a seat opposite the red necktie.“You’re a Scotchman, I think?” I said to him at last.“So are you,” he said, a little startled.“Yes. Long since you left the old country?”“Long enough,” he growled, “and it’ll be longer or I go back.”“Nonsense, man,” I said, without a smile. “I’m going back by the first ship. Suppose you go back with me?”“Never!”The word was accompanied by a deep oath, but I was busy with my hand in my pocket, which came out as he made a gulp at the drink before him, and brought up the barrel of a pistol levelled straight at his eyes.“Hands up! Tom Fisher,” I shouted as he staggered back, and the bystanders came crowding round. “I believe that’s the custom of this country, or the right thing to say when two are likely to play at one game. I’ve come all the way from Edinburgh to arrest you for stabbing Colin McCulloch. My name is McGovan, and I’ve the warrant in my pocket.”He gave in in the most sheepish and stupefied manner imaginable, and some one was obliging enough to snap my handcuffs on his wrists. I took him away in acoupé, and had him locked up till I should get the necessary papers filled up for his conveyance across the Atlantic.On the passage home we got quite friendly, and he told me the whole story of the attack. He had met George Fullerton, and been told by him of his wife’s faithlessness and flight, coupled with McCulloch’s name. He was quite frenzied, and went off at once to look for McCulloch, whom Fullerton had seen not long before in the town. He met him at last by chance, and stabbed him twice, meaning to kill him.When he came to be tried, which was two months later, on account of the state of his victim, he pleaded “Not guilty” by advice, and McCulloch was called as a witness, when, to the astonishment of all, McCulloch declared most positively that he could not remember who stabbed him, but that he had a strong impression that the assailant wasnotthe man at the bar.None looked more astonished than the prisoner, but a moment later he recovered himself and rose to his feet.“He’s telling a lie! I did stab him. I’m guilty, and I’m not sorry. He led away my wife, and she’s now on the streets. Ask him if it’s not true? That’s all I’ve to say.”McCulloch, when questioned, made some shuffling answers, and was finally ordered out of the box. Then Fisher, in consideration of the peculiar circumstances of the case, and his having been already two months in prison, was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment.I saw him after his release. He was searching for his wife, and had come to me to get my assistance, but we only found her grave.
The photographer had put up a rickety erection in shape of a tent close to the grand stand at Musselburgh race-course. He was a travelling portrait-taker, and his “saloon” was a portable one, consisting of four sticks for the corners and a bit of thin cotton to sling round them. There was no roof, partly from poverty and partly to let in more light. It was the first day of the races, and masses of people had been coming into the place by every train and available conveyance.
The photographer’s name was Peter Turnbull—a tall, lanky fellow, like an overgrown boy who had never got his appetite satisfied. He was clad in the shabbiest of clothes, but talked with the stately dignity of an emperor or a decayed actor. In spite of the gay crowds pressing past outside, business did not come very fast to Turnbull, so, after waiting patiently inside like a spider for flies, he issued from his den and tried to force a little trade with his persuasive tongue.
In front of his tent he had slung up a case of the best photographs he could pick up for money, which were likely to pass for his own, and occasionally some of those bent on pleasure paused to look at the specimens, when Turnbull at once tackled them to give him an order. Women he invariably asked to have their “beautiful” faces taken; men, who are not accustomed to be called beautiful, or to think themselves so, he manipulated in a different fashion. He appealed to them as to whether they hadn’t a mother who would like a portrait of them always beside her, or a sweetheart who would value it above a mountain of diamonds. Turnbull’s appearance was against him—he looked hungry down to the very toes of his boots—and most of those he addressed were as suspicious of his eloquence as of that of a book canvasser.
At length, however, he did get a man to listen to him—a sailor, evidently, with a jovial, happy look about his face, and plenty of money in his pocket.
“You’ll be just off your ship, I suppose, you’re looking so fresh and smart,” said Turnbull at a venture. “Your sweetheart will be pleased to see you, but she’d be more pleased if you brought her a good portrait to leave with her.”
The sailor laughed heartily.
“Sweetheart?” he echoed between his convulsions of merriment. “Why, I’m a married man.”
“So much the better,” returned the photographer, not to be daunted. “She’ll want your portrait exactly as you stand—not as you were before this voyage, or when you were courting her. Folks’ faces change so soon.”
“Maybe they do, but their hearts remain the same,” returned the sailor cheerily.
“Well, not always—they change, too, sometimes,” said Turnbull, with the air of one who had bitterly experienced the truth of his words; “but with your portrait always beside her, her heart couldn’t change. Just step in—I won’t keep you a moment, and you can take it with you. You’ll have it, and she’ll have it, long after the races are forgotten.”
The sailor easily yielded, and followed him into the tent, and then Turnbull, having now a professional interest in the man, took notice of his dress and appearance particularly for the first time. The man was low in stature, thick set, and evidently a powerful fellow. He wore an ordinary sailor’s suit of dark blue, but had for a neckerchief a red cotton handkerchief loosely rolled together, and so carelessly tied that the ends hung down over his breast.
In order to get all the sailor’s face into the portrait, Turnbull with some difficulty persuaded him to remove his cap, and then drew from him an admission that his objection arose from the fact that there was a flesh mark on one side of his forehead which he did not wish to appear in the portrait. The difficulty was got over—as it was with Hannibal—by taking a side-view, and the first attempt came out all right, so far as the portrait was concerned. But the sailor wished to appear as if he had just removed his cap, and with that in his hand, so the first was put aside as spoilt, and another taken, which, though not so successful, pleased the owner better, as in that the cap appeared in his hand. The portrait was finished and framed, and so free and good-natured was the owner that he insisted on paying for the spoilt one, which, however, he refused to take with him. While Turnbull had been putting a frame on the portrait, the sailor took out a long piece of tobacco and a pocket knife and cut himself a liberal quid, at the same time offering a piece to the photographer, which was accepted. The knife with which the tobacco was cut was a strong one, with a long, straight blade and a sharp point.
The whole transaction over, they bade each other good-day, and the sailor disappeared among the crowds of spectators and betting men on the course with the avowed intention of enjoying himself, and scattering some money before he went home.
Six or seven hours later a man was found lying in one of the narrow back lanes of the town, so inert, and smelling so strongly of drink, that more than one person had passed him under the impression that he was drunk, and without putting out a hand to help. At length the ghastly hue of his face attracted attention, and it was found that he was lying in a pool of blood, which had flowed from two deep wounds in his breast and side, and thence oosed out at the back of his clothes on the ground below.
Some of the crowd who gathered about him as he was being carried to a house close by identified him as a baker named Colin McCulloch, belonging to a town some miles off, but who was well known in a wide district from the fact that he went about with a bread van. He was not quite dead when found, but an examination of his wounds soon indicated that life was ebbing away.
One of these was as deep as the doctor’s finger could reach, and appeared to have been inflicted with the narrow, straight blade of a long, sharp-pointed knife.
I had been on the race-course for the greater part of the day looking for a man who did not turn up, and heard of the occurrence only when I called at the station before leaving for town. It had been decided that McCulloch was not fit to be removed, and I went to see him, but found him far beyond speech or explanation. By visiting the spot on which he had been found I discovered a girl who gave me the first clue.
She had been passing along the lane, and had been “feared” as she expressed it, to pass McCulloch, who was tottering along in the same direction, very drunk and demonstrative, though all alone. Every one was away at the races, and the narrow lane seemed quite deserted, but there appeared in front a sailor, who had no sooner sighted McCulloch than he began quarrelling with him and threatening him. Thankful of the opportunity, the girl slipped past during the quarrel, having just time to notice that the sailor was a short, thick-set fellow, and that he wore a red cotton handkerchief for a necktie. When she was at a safe distance she chanced to look back, and saw the sailor give McCulloch “a drive in the breast,” and so knock him down. She did not wait to see anything more, but hurried home, thinking that it was only an ordinary drunken quarrel.
Questioned by me, she could not say whether the sailor had used a knife. Her idea was that he had only given the man a drive with his hand to knock him down or get him out of the way. The sailor spoke in a low tone; McCulloch was noisy and defiant. She saw no knife in the sailor’s hand, and was sure he was a stranger. She did not think she would know him again, as she did not look at his face, but she knew every one about the town, and was positive that the sailor did not belong to the place. It was the sailor who stopped McCulloch, whom he seemed to know; and she thought he was quite sober, though pale and angry-looking. “Look me in the face and say it’s not true,” were the only words she could remember hearing, and they were spoken in a fierce tone by the sailor, just as she was getting beyond earshot.
Having thus a little to work upon, I tried all the exits of the town for some trace of him, without success. He had not gone away by rail or coach, and no one had seen him leave on foot, so far as I could discover; but that was to be expected in the state of the town. Dozens of sailors with red neckties might have come and gone and never been noticed in such a stir. In the town itself I was more successful. To my surprise I found that a man answering the description had visited nearly every public-house in the place. He had never spoken or called for drink; he had merely looked through the houses in a pallid, excited manner, and gone his way.
“He seemed to be looking for some one,” a publican said to me, “but he was gone before I could ask him.”
I spent a good deal of time in the place, though not sure that if I got that man I should be getting the murderer, and returned to Edinburgh with the last train. I went back again next morning, and found McCulloch still alive, and sensible enough to be able to give an assent or dissent when asked a question. But about the murderous attack upon himself he could not or would not give a sign. He would only stare, or shut his eyes, or turn away. The doctor thought he did not understand me—that the patient’s head was not yet quite clear; I thought quite the reverse. The same curious circumstance occurred when it was suggested that his deposition should be taken. McCulloch had no deposition to make, or would not make one. He seemed quite prepared to die and give no sign.
Not an hour later I was favoured with a visit from Turnbull, the travelling photographer. He had been lodging in the town, and of course had heard of the strange crime. He had heard also of my unsuccessful hunt for the sailor, and would probably have gone up to Edinburgh to see me had he not been loth to lose another day at the race-course, his stance being taken for three days.
I could not conceive what the lank, hungry-looking being could want with me, or why there should be about his lean jaws such a smirk of intense satisfaction, as he gave his name and occupation.
“A murder has been committed—or what is as good as a murder, for the man, I believe, is at his last gasp,” he exultingly began. “There will be a hanging match—that is, if you can trace and capture the murderer. Now, Mr McGovan, you’re said to be clever, but you haven’t got him yet, and never will unless you get my help.”
“Your help?” I echoed in amazement; “why, who are you, and how can you help me?”
“My name you know, and I am not unknown to fame, I am an actor as well as a photographic artist. I have trod the boards with some success, and you know that that in itself is a kind of training in acuteness eminently fitting one for detective work.”
I could not see it, and said so. I thought him an escaped lunatic.
“Mark me, Mr McGovan,” he continued, quite unabashed, “I have in my possession the only means whereby you can trace and arrest the murderer. Now just tell me what it is worth, and we may come to a bargain.”
“What it is worth?” I said, with a grin. “I don’t know that it is worth anything till I try it.”
“A hundred pounds? Surely they’ll offer that as a reward for such information as shall lead to the capture of the murderer?”
“I don’t know that they’ll offer a hundred pence,” was my reply. “Tell me what you know, and if it is of any use I will see that you are suitably rewarded.”
“Ah, that won’t suit me,” he answered with great decision. “I will leave you to think over my offer; you know where to find me when you have made up your mind.”
He was moving off, after making a low and stagey bow, but I got between him and the door, and brought out a pair of handcuffs.
“I know where to find you now, which is far more convenient,” I quietly remarked. “You have admitted that you know something of the murder—I shall detain you on suspicion.”
“What! arrest me? an innocent man; lock me up in prison!” he exclaimed, in genuine terror. “You cannot—dare not! I know nothing of the murder; I merely think I can put you in the way of tracing the man who did it.”
“Do so, then, if you would prove your innocence,” I said, rather amused at his terror and dismay. “Were you an accomplice?”
“An accomplice! how can you ask such a question?” he tremblingly answered. “You are taking a mean advantage of me, for I feel sure that my secret is worth a hundred pounds at least. But I will trust to your honour, and put it all before you. People will giveyouall the credit. Everyone will say ‘McGovan is the man that can do it; we might have known he wouldn’t escape when McGovan was after him.’ Nobody will think of me, or hear of me, who have given you the clue. It’s the way of the world; one man toils, and ploughs, and sows, and another man reaps the harvest.”
“Ah, nothing pleases me so much as envy, flavoured with a little spitefulness,” I quietly returned. “It is the most flattering unction you can lay to a man’s soul.”
“I am not envious,” he dolefully replied, “but it is hard to supply another with brains.”
“Especially when he has none of his own,” I laughingly retorted. “Well, come along; bring on your brains—I’m waiting for them.”
“I really believe you are laughing at me in your sleeve,” he observed, with a half pathetic look. “It is brave to crush the poor worm under your heel when you know he can’t retaliate.”
“You’re a long worm—six feet at least,” I solemnly answered; “a long-winded one, too, unfortunately. I must leave you in the cells for an hour or two——”
“Oh, no! I will speak; I will tell you it all in half a minute,” he wildly answered. “The murderer is said to have been a sailor—a short, thick-set fellow, wearing a red neckerchief. I photographed such a man in the forenoon, and I have the first portrait, which didn’t please him, though it is like as life.”
“Ah! let me see it. Have you it with you?” I cried, with sudden interest and great eagerness.
“Now you change your tune,” he reproachfully answered. “I have it with me, or I should not have given in so easily. I was afraid you might have me searched, and, finding the photo, think me an acquaintance or accomplice of the man,” and, with a little more wearisome talk, he produced the portrait, and slowly put before me the incidents already recorded.
When he had done I was not greatly elated. The thread which connected his early customer with the man supposed to have attacked McCulloch was of the slenderest. Then I was disappointed that Turnbull’s story looked so real. I had fondly hoped he would stumble and prevaricate enough to allow us to lock him up on suspicion—in other words, that we should find him to be an accomplice, anxious to save himself at the expense of a companion in crime. I took the photograph, but plainly told him that I feared it would be of little use to me.
“Ah, you wish to undervalue it in order to get out of paying me a good round sum when the man is caught,” he answered, with a knowing wink. “I haven’t knocked about so much without being able to see through that dodge,” and away he went, as elated and consequential as if he had really laid the man by the heels.
When I was alone I had a long study over the notes I had taken during the interview. The sailor photographed had stated that his ship only got in the day before, and that he was on his way home, and merely visiting the race-course in passing. He had not said where he lived or at what port he had come in, but the general impression left on Turnbull’s mind was that the port was not far off. Leith or Granton seemed to me the likeliest places, and I turned to the shipping lists to have a look at the names of new arrivals. At Leith only one vessel had come in on that day, The Shannon; and at Granton, though there were several arrivals, none of them were from long voyages. The sailor had hinted that he had not been home for eighteen months, and that to my mind implied a long voyage, or long voyages.
To Leith accordingly I went, and found The Shannon, her cargo already discharged, and only a few of the men on board. Some had been paid off and some were off for a few days on leave. The man whom I questioned—for the captain had gone home too—seemed to me sullen and suspicious. He did not know if one of the men had gone eastwards to see his wife; if any of them lived in that quarter he had never heard of it, and so on. I was dissatisfied with the answers and the man’s manner, and had he resembled in the slightest degree the portrait in my pocket I should have arrested him on the spot. I thought I would bring out the photograph as a test. Holding it up before him, I saidsharply—
“Do you know that man?”
“No, I don’t.” The answer came out almost before he had time to look at the features. It was too prompt. It was a lie. The falsehood told me more than the truth would have done. It not only convinced me that I was at least on the track of the photographed sailor, but roused in my mind for the first time a strong suspicion that he was the knifer of McCulloch. I went from the ship to the shipping agents. I found the clerk who had handed their pay to all the men; and on producing the photograph saw that he recognised it instantly.
“Yes, that was one of them,” he said, “but he was paid off, and has gone home.”
I asked the man’s name, and, on referring to the books, he gave it as Tom Fisher. With some difficulty he got me the man’s address—which was in a town some miles east—and his trouble arose from the fact that no money had been sent to Fisher’s wife for nearly a year.
The sailors’ wives often drew one half the men’s pay, but she had not applied for it during that time, and was supposed to have changed her address.
“I didn’t say anything of it to Fisher,” said the clerk in conclusion, “and he seemed quite elated at having so much money to draw. It’s a kittle thing interfering between a man and his wife, and it might have alarmed him needlessly. If there’s anything wrong he’s best to find it out himself.”
I left the shipping office, and took the first train for the town in which Fisher had his home. If he was to be found anywhere, I thought it would be there—and especially so if he turned out to be innocent. It is a quiet country place in which everyone knows his neighbours, and I had no difficulty in finding the house. But it was occupied by an old woman, who said she had been in it for nearly a year. I asked for Mrs Fisher, the sailor’s wife.
“Oh, she was a bad lot,” was the blunt rejoinder. “She sellt a’ her things, bit by bit, and gaed awa’ in the end withoot paying her rent and other debts.”
“Where did she go to, do you know?”
“Oh, dear kens. She was a drunken hussy, and thought hersel’ bonny. Some say that she went awa’ wi’ a baker-man they ca’ McCulloch, and was aboot Leith for a while, but maybe it’s no true. He used to hae a great wark wi’ her.”
“And her husband—has he never been here?”
“Never since I cam’; but I heard that McCulloch was stabbed at the races by a sailor and I wadna wonder if that sailor turned oot to be Fisher himsel’.”
I thought the old woman the most acute I had met for a while; we always do when we find a person’s thoughts and opinions tallying with our own. I left the house and pursued my inquiries elsewhere. I found no one who had seen Fisher near the town, or in it; but at length there was mentioned to me the name of a man who had been at the races, and had there seen Fisher and spoken to him. This man I found out, but he was not nearly so communicative to me as he had been to others. He admitted that he had seen Fisher and spoken to him, but couldn’t remember what they had talked of. He knew McCulloch also, and had seen him at the races, too, but in a drunken condition, and not fit for conversation. Questioned more closely, he admitted that Fisher was an old friend of his, and that the last thing in the world he would wish for would be to do Fisher any injury by what he should say. He had heard of the stabbing of McCulloch, and did not wonder at it, the man was so quarrelsome, but he had no idea who had done it. Fisher might have done it, or anybody else—he knew nothing about it, as he was out of the place two hours at least before the attack was made.
I could read the man as plainly as if he had spoken all he knew. There was the same reticence which the sailor had shown on board The Shannon, and it probably arose from the same cause—a desire to screen and save a friend. I got back to Leith, and found with some relief that no vessel of importance had left during the two days; I then tried Granton with the same result. “Glasgow” then rose promptly in my mind, and I drove to both the Edinburgh railway stations to make inquiries. At neither had any person resembling the photograph been seen, but a telegram to one of the stations a mile or two from the city elicited the news that a man in sailor’s dress had taken a third class ticket thence to Glasgow. He had driven out to that station in a cab, and the cab had come from the direction of Edinburgh. I telegraphed to Glasgow, and followed my message by the first train. When I got to that city I found my work nearly all done for me. Fisher had been traced to an American liner, in which he had shipped under the name of George Fullerton.
Strange fatality! George Fullerton was the name of the man who had seen him at the races, and so clumsily tried to screen him from me. The vessel in which he had shipped was gone—it had sailed the night before—but there was a chance of it stopping at Liverpool. I telegraphed thither and took the night mail, in case the vessel should touch, but the weather had proved too stormy, and she held on her course. Being so far on the way, and now perfectly sure of my man, I did not dream of turning back, but took passage for New York in a fast liner, which would easily have outstripped that in which the fugitive had got the start, but for one or two unforeseen accidents on the way, which added three days to the length of the passage. When we landed, the vessel in which “George Fullerton” had sailed was in the harbour, and my man gone. He was described to me by one of the sailors as depressed and sullen, but singularly free with his money. He had been taken on at the last moment in place of a man who had failed to appear, and so, instead of working his passage, had received full pay. On landing he had treated several of his mates liberally, and had seemed bent on nothing but getting rid of his money.
“I believe I could find him for you,” said the man at last, and I readily accepted the offer.
We made our way to a tavern near the harbour much frequented by seamen, and there, sitting alone with some drink before him, I found the counter-part of the spoilt photograph. I should have easily recognised him in a crowd, but with a foolhardiness almost incredible, he wore the fatal red neckerchief, which proved to be of silk, not cotton.
I said nothing to my conductor beyond ordering for him a drink at the bar, and then went up and took a seat opposite the red necktie.
“You’re a Scotchman, I think?” I said to him at last.
“So are you,” he said, a little startled.
“Yes. Long since you left the old country?”
“Long enough,” he growled, “and it’ll be longer or I go back.”
“Nonsense, man,” I said, without a smile. “I’m going back by the first ship. Suppose you go back with me?”
“Never!”
The word was accompanied by a deep oath, but I was busy with my hand in my pocket, which came out as he made a gulp at the drink before him, and brought up the barrel of a pistol levelled straight at his eyes.
“Hands up! Tom Fisher,” I shouted as he staggered back, and the bystanders came crowding round. “I believe that’s the custom of this country, or the right thing to say when two are likely to play at one game. I’ve come all the way from Edinburgh to arrest you for stabbing Colin McCulloch. My name is McGovan, and I’ve the warrant in my pocket.”
He gave in in the most sheepish and stupefied manner imaginable, and some one was obliging enough to snap my handcuffs on his wrists. I took him away in acoupé, and had him locked up till I should get the necessary papers filled up for his conveyance across the Atlantic.
On the passage home we got quite friendly, and he told me the whole story of the attack. He had met George Fullerton, and been told by him of his wife’s faithlessness and flight, coupled with McCulloch’s name. He was quite frenzied, and went off at once to look for McCulloch, whom Fullerton had seen not long before in the town. He met him at last by chance, and stabbed him twice, meaning to kill him.
When he came to be tried, which was two months later, on account of the state of his victim, he pleaded “Not guilty” by advice, and McCulloch was called as a witness, when, to the astonishment of all, McCulloch declared most positively that he could not remember who stabbed him, but that he had a strong impression that the assailant wasnotthe man at the bar.
None looked more astonished than the prisoner, but a moment later he recovered himself and rose to his feet.
“He’s telling a lie! I did stab him. I’m guilty, and I’m not sorry. He led away my wife, and she’s now on the streets. Ask him if it’s not true? That’s all I’ve to say.”
McCulloch, when questioned, made some shuffling answers, and was finally ordered out of the box. Then Fisher, in consideration of the peculiar circumstances of the case, and his having been already two months in prison, was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment.
I saw him after his release. He was searching for his wife, and had come to me to get my assistance, but we only found her grave.