Chapter VI: Part 6

Of Mrs. Green I have since heard. Indeed I had another engagement to trace her, the clue to which was furnished by herself. She employed an attorney about two months after her flight from Kentish Town, who waited upon the private solicitor of her husband, and implored him, on the ground of humanity, to let her have money. The advocate begged him to think of the discredit that would attach to Mr. Green if the woman who bore his name were reduced to distress, absolute privation, and perhaps the workhouse. After several consultations with his solicitor, Mr. Green declined to allow any thing. He professed a total unconcern as to what became of the worthless woman; and in reply to a menace, then delicately put forward or hinted by her legal adviser, that she would be a source of annoyance to her husband, Mr. Green's solicitor informed his professional friend that his client would not scruple to hand her over to the police if she did so. So ended the negotiation.

Some time had rolled away since the liberation of the prisoner. Mr. Green continued to take considerable interest in her welfare. He frequently visited the residence of her aunt, at Camberwell, and betrayed an almost tender solicitude about the girl. In fact tender is the right part of speech to use as the qualification of solicitude in this case.

The merchant called upon his solicitor one day, and had a long conference with him. Without taking the reader through from the beginning to the end of that private conference, I may inform him that Mr. Green was determined that Sir Cresswell Cresswell should rend asunder the bonds which had been forged by Hymen or the Church-of-England minister, if legal evidence of the infidelity of his wife could be produced, and he imagined there would be very little trouble in getting it. The letter which had been discovered in the piano would of course be very important, but was not sufficient in itself.

I was accordingly employed, and following up such traces as I apprehended would lead me on her track. I was not a great while before I discovered that Mrs. Green had become "one more unfortunate" parading Waterloo Place every night, at present decked in the garments which Mr. Green, her husband, had purchased; and I further learnt that, out of the proceeds of her sin, she was maintaining "the prior attachment."

When all this evidence had been collected and laid before Dr. Jinks, a very accomplished lawyer, as I have seen cause to know, who practises in the court till recently presided over so ably by Sir Cresswell Cresswell; and when his opinion had been written upon "a case," to the effect that there was no doubt the court would grant Mr. Green a divorce from his adulterous wife,--that gentleman called upon Eliza's aunt, and explained to her that he felt bound to mark at once his sense of the merit and virtues of her niece, and his desire to make the amplest reparation in his power for the injuries inflicted upon her, by offering to place her in the position of her late mistress as soon as the legal ceremonies clearing the way had been effected.

The court readily granted a divorce. The opposition on the wife's part was but a sham resistance. It was an attorney's defence, that would never have been made if the law, in its kindly regard for woman under all circumstances, had not allowed her, although demoralised, to dip her hands in an injured husband's pocket for the costs of any pretended resistance to his prayer, as well as for alimony during the litigation. As soon as Mr. Green issued his citation, he had to allow his wife at the rate of 600_l._ per annum until he got his decree for a dissolution of the marriage, and he had also to pay her attorney 150_l._ 4_s._ 6_d._

These moneys being paid, and these processes having been gone through, and after further waiting the time prescribed by law for the other side--that is, for Mrs. Green--to appeal against the court's decision, no such appeal having been attempted, the adulterous woman was no longer entitled to the use of the merchant's name; she ceased to be, in the eye of the law, in any respect his wife; and Eliza became Mrs. Green, under the sanction of law and of the Established Church of England.

THE VIRTUE OF AN AMERICAN PASSPORT.

I was once employed to track an absconding bankrupt and hand him over to the tender mercies of a criminal court. There was nothing in the case, as it appeared on my instructions, to distinguish it from a host of other cases. It had not even the merit of difficulty to lend it interest. I made sure of catching my man with little trouble, as I did, and as I will point out. The affair, however, took a rather curious turn in the sequel, as the reader will perceive.

The bankrupt had been a trader in Liverpool. He had not been in business there more than ten months, but had contrived, during that short period, to contract debts to the extent of 84,000_l._ I don't know in what line he traded. I believe in many, or in all lines. He professed to be a believer in homely saws, and the philosophy they embody. He would not object at any time, he said, to turn an honest pound in any way. He therefore bought all that came within the range of his credit, from rags and hempen fragments to jewelry, and from tallow to diamonds. I don't know where he traded to especially. I believe that he sold more in the home-market than abroad, although he talked largely about consignments, bills of lading, &c. If he had a skill for getting credit, he had a genius for disposing of goods. He was also an expert at what is called hypothecating,--a process which, for the unenlightened, I may explain to be as like pawning as any one thing can be like another. A peculiarity of his business was, that he always bought on acceptances, and for credit; he always sold for cash on delivery. Hence he frequently, if not always, traded at a loss. He was sometimes so unlucky as not to be able to get half as much in cash for things as they had cost him in bills.

Such trading as this, the reader may think, would soon come to an end. It is quite clear that such trading must end in bankruptcy and ruin to some one, or to more than one. It is not, however, so sure that this mode of carrying on business would overtake ruin speedily. Our American bankrupt lasted ten months; and it is the opinion of many well informed persons that he might have gone on for three or four years if he had calculated well, and held his ground boldly. How was that to be done? Easily. There is a process which I have heard scientifically described as "widening the ratio." That would have done it.

Suppose that a man in trade loses 500_l._ upon the business of 1000_l._, which is about the proportion in our Yankee's business or its results. Suppose that he wants to spend, and therefore does spend, the 500_l._ on himself. Is he bound to stop payment at the end of that partial experiment, and treat the problem as one therein solved? No. He may double his business and losses, and still keep right, in a familiar sense of that nice phrase. If he should trade to the extent of 2000_l._, and lose 1000_l._ upon it, he will be able to pay off the first credits out of the net proceeds of his second series of operations; and all the people who get their money--noticing, also, the activity of his business--will sound his praises as "a rising merchant," "an upright man," "a punctual tradesman." To live during the second series of operations out of them, they should, however, be extended to 3000_l._ or 4000_l._, instead of 2000_l._; and nothing is much easier than to do this. Keep on paying each bill as it falls due (no matter at what sacrifice,--by the forced sale of goods, or by discounts at any rate of interest), and there will be no difficulty about "widening your ratio of trade," until you are entitled to a place in that category of worthies which Mr. David Morier Evans has culled and put together in his work entitled, _Facts, Frauds, and Fallacies_. Some day the bubble will burst, I know; but the ball may be kept rolling for a series of years on this plan.

It is just possible that a hitch may stop the machinery. There are accidents against which no human foresight can guard; and if the bright pleasant road to ruin gets blocked up, you may in the side paths encounter a policeman, who will lead you to a judge, and a prison, or a hulk. That I take to be one of the inevitable contingencies which any swindler will look fairly in the face--avoid it, if he can; and if not, then meet it with calmness and resignation.

The Yankee did not, however, as I am told, understand this practical method of commercial swindling, and he would have inevitably come to grief if he had been an Englishman. The reader may as well bear that little fact in mind. A great man once observed that, although many persons resolved to live by their wits, the vast majority of those who tried the experiment got half starved by a scarcity of the material for that sort of existence.

The penal clauses of the New Bankruptcy Act are also to be kept in view as things to avoid, for I see by the Old-Bailey intelligence they are being enforced with terrible severity. If caught and discovered offending against any of the primary canons of mercantile jurisprudence, the weight of punishment is heavy. The reader must also not forget that, although he gives the criminal law and its officers no hold over him, he may encounter cantankerous or savage creditors, who, not satisfied with the loss they may have already incurred through him, will throw away more good money, not after bad cash, but in order to punish what they conceive a bad man. They may hunt him down to disgrace and beggary, hold him up to scorn and ignominy--in violation of the pure Christian theory which bids us "live and let live"--never ceasing until he has no certain and regular mode of existence left except begging-letter writing, holding horses at the West End of the metropolis, hawking ballads, vending penny newspapers, retailing vegetables or fruit or stationery, or a life of idleness in a union workhouse.

But I am moralising, preaching, or sermonising, instead of telling my story.

Well. Mr. Abraham Driver had run his career in ten months. During this time it was believed that he had, however, to use a vulgar term, "made a purse," or "feathered his nest." He had realised considerable sums by hypothecating and selling goods, getting advances on bills of lading, &c. Where the money had gone to, his creditors were anxious to know. They believed he could pay 20_s._ in the pound. As a matter of fact, he didn't pay 1_s._ in the pound.

Abraham Driver, merchant, dealer, and chapman, as he was described in legal processes, was adjudicated a bankrupt. He didn't surrender. Perhaps, if his creditors had had an adequate idea of the dignity of American citizenship, or the sanctity of the stars and stripes, or the potency of the meanest recognised Yankee diplomat, they would never have offered such an affront as they did through Mr. Driver to his bumptious nation.

The Yankee merchant and citizen, as I have said, didn't surrender to his adjudication in obedience to a printed and written summons, which he received. He treated that "big broad slip of paper" with gross verbal contempt. Yet he thought it inexpedient to stay in Liverpool. That fine town was too hot for him. He therefore shifted his quarters to London before the day limited for his appearance in the Liverpool District Court of Bankruptcy. When in London, he said he thought he might as well enjoy himself; and this notion carried him further from the late scene of his enterprise than the British metropolis. He turned his back disdainfully upon the land over which Queen Victoria's metaphorical sceptre sways. He went by rail and steamboat to the continent of Europe.

Almost as soon as Mr. Driver left the shores of the Mersey, I was desired to bestow upon him my attentions. I supplied him with an unseen guard of dishonour. His movements were watched until he landed at the port of ----. Here, as no instructions to arrest him on the Continent were given me, he was left.

The principal creditors of the bankrupt determined to follow him. He was now an outlaw. The time for his surrender had expired. A warrant that would run into France could be obtained for his arrest and for his removal to this country. The requisite processes--or those which able lawyers thought sufficient--were obtained, and placed in my hands.

I went over myself, and one of the Liverpool gentlemen was my agreeable companion.

In obedience to the wishes of my employer and associate, I consented to go with him to the office of the British consul.

The British consul was a high and mighty man in his own esteem, and he snuffed me out in the grandest style. I could not help admiring the art with which this servant of the British Crown reduced me, from the height of my legitimate self-respect, to the nothingness he thought my true status.

"They manage things differently in France to what they do in England, sir, I can tell you. Now, leave the matter all to me, sir, till the fellow's captured, and you have him again in England."

I and my friend retired to the passage of the consul's office (which was one small room) to confer on the subject. The consul also had a conference in his office with his man of all work, whose name I afterwards ascertained to be Boggy. At this conference I agreed to allow the consul to take his own course of action in France, and I was to merely assist when asked to render aid.

"Well, my man Boggy shall go and see whether the fellow is at this moment in the port. Boggy will soon ascertain that."

Boggy's palm was crossed with a golden coin, which bore an effigy of England's Queen, to stimulate his zeal in the execution of her laws.

The Frenchman was not long in discovering Mr. Abraham Driver's whereabouts. He came back to announce that the man we wanted was unsuspectingly smoking a meerschaum at the Anglo-American Hotel.

Now to seize the villain. I was ready, and the defrauded creditor was intensely anxious for the fellow's capture.

"Nay, nay," said the consul. "We must go to the commissary of police. I must pay his fees. It will not take long to get through the ceremonies, but it will cost money to arrest the scoundrel. Nothing is done in this country, sir, without money."

"What will be the amount of the fees, do you suppose?" asked my client.

"I can't say exactly. About 16_l._ or 17_l._ You had better let me have 20_l._, and I can return you the balance."

Boggy here threw his mercurial eyes at the consul, and then at me, and then at my client. This had the desired effect.

"Never mind about the change. I don't object to give 20_l._ (handing over the money) for the villain's capture. You can let this good man have the balance," said the gentleman from Liverpool.

Boggy, with glistening eye, and with triumphant mien, led the way. I followed with my companion.

We passed into and out of several mysterious offices. Our warrant and other papers were scrutinised with tedious minuteness. Boggy seemed at home, and at ease with the minor officials, and to have a becoming veneration for the big-wigs.

At length we quitted the head-quarters of the commissary, and our procession looked really formidable as we marched towards the Anglo-American Hotel. There were six gendarmes, a sergeant at their head, Boggy in their rear, and two Englishmen in the rear of the British consul's Frenchman.

As we passed along the quay, we observed, not far from the Anglo-American Hotel, and with steam up, ready for her departure, a vessel bound for a distant Atlantic port.

"He is going away by dat ship, is he?" chuckled the Frenchman. "See, here he comes," the lively man continued to exclaim.

He was quite right. There, at a few yards' distance, was Mr. Abraham Driver, merchant, dealer, and chapman, late of Liverpool, an absconded bankrupt.

He was walking coolly down to the quay, smoking his cigar, and about to take his departure in the vessel we had noticed.

At a suggestion from Boggy, the sergeant arrested the English bankrupt. The creditor and the debtor exchanged a very few words, not of mutual compliment.

"I guess you've made a grand mistake, my good gentleman," said Mr. Driver, with a strong nasal accent (which had never been remarked in Liverpool), as if anxious to supply the evidence of his nationality, and save the trouble of being asked for it.

Up to this moment neither the creditor nor I had any idea that he was not an Englishman and a subject of the Queen's.

"What do you mean, sir?" asked the sergeant of gendarmes, in tolerably good English.

"Why, I guess you know that I am an American citizen; and mind now, I warn, you, sir, not to annoy me for the delight of those confounded Britishers."

The officer looked at us.

"He is an English bankrupt subject, to the jurisdiction of our laws, and a felon," I observed.

"I calculate that's very tall talk, all that, and when you catch me back in that old country of yours you may be all right, I dare say; but I tell you, sir, that if you keep me here till after that ship's gone, you'll have a very pretty penny to pay, that you will, I reckon."

"You must come with us to the _maire_," the sergeant said.

"Oh, I guess if you say I must, that I must; but here--look--here is my passport. It's all fair and square, you see. Now, mind what you do to an American citizen--that's all I tell you now."

The hissing of the steam increased.

"Now, I guess," he continued, "that you'll take me first to the consulate of the United States, won't you?"

"No, to the _maire_."

He looked round wistfully, and took out a ten-franc piece from his pocket.

"Who is there will go to the consul of the United States, and tell him that an American citizen wants his protection. Ask him to come to the _maire_ before that steam-ship there can go away."

Boggy grasped the piece of money.

"Here, I don't mind doing that. An Englishman in trouble would like to have his consul's advice. That's only right."

Away Boggy ran to fetch the guardian of the stars and stripes, as cheerfully as he had devoted himself to Mr. Driver's discovery.

Three minutes took us to the _maire_. The American consul was there as soon as we were. The British consul was not there. The _maire_ heard what the bankrupt and his consul had to say, and then ruled that there was no ground to justify the further detention of the bankrupt, who was protected by the passport of his nation. He could certainly not be given up under the English warrant, and he should not detain him unless his accusers could enter into sufficient recognisances, available in France, to indemnify the accused.

We had nobody present to enter into the required bonds; the extent of the risk was an unknown quantity, and the vagabond was set loose.

As he parted from us, he put his finger to his nose, and whistled a bar of "Hail Columbia." He picked out a fusee from his pocket, then lit his cigar, and, with a degree of speed compatible with an air of mock stateliness, the blackguard walked down to the quay, then on board the ship, as she let slip her hawser.

We were neither of us very well pleased at the result of this excursion. It was impossible to resist the mortification of seeing the blackguard slip through our hands, as we thought we had him effectually in our grasp.

We did not return to the consulate of her Britannic Majesty. We stayed only about another hour in France to refresh ourselves, as there was a vessel then about to start for England, and we were desirous of getting home.

* * * * *

There is a moral to this story which politicians may relish; and I am therefore about to add material out of which a Member of Parliament might make a reputation. I have disguised the names and localities of the actors in this little international mercantile drama. It may, however, be worth while to add, that the facts are substantially and--with the specific exceptions I name--literally correct. If any Member of Parliament or noble lord wants the real name and address of the consul, I am at liberty to give it; if he wants the real names of any other actors in this little drama, I can and am at liberty to supply them.

On our return homewards we discussed the conduct of the consul--our own consul--in this affair. We were led to doubt the propriety of his taking that money from us. We suspected that he wanted it, not to pay the French police any fees, but to put in his own pocket. We thought that, if our suspicions were accurate, the conduct of the consul was scandalous.

I made inquiries. In a letter from the commissary of police I was informed that the French officers were not permitted to take fees, and that not one sou had been paid to a gendarme out of the 20_l._ taken from us. By direction of the French local authorities, proceedings against the British consul were taken in a local court. He disputed the jurisdiction of the French tribunals. He set up his consulship in bar of the suit. On this purely technical point--the merits of the case being taken from under the control of the court--an appeal went up to a court of appeal. The consul's plea in bar of jurisdiction was held to be a good one. The French judges held that the defrauded person being an Englishman, and the alleged offender being an English consul, the remedy was by an application to the Foreign Office in London. Memorials, setting forth all the merits or demerits of the case, and setting forth the miscarriage of justice in the French courts, accompanied by newspaper reports of the arguments and the decisions, were laid before a late Foreign Secretary. The answer to this memorial and evidence was, that, as the case had been taken before the French courts, and decided upon, his lordship saw no reason to interfere. Further explanations were offered, rearguing that the merits of the case against the consul had not been heard, that he took effectual means to prevent these merits from being touched by the French courts, and that the case was indeed remitted from French law to British diplomacy. Still, almost word for word, and to the same precise effect, was the answer. A third application, further endeavours to show the Foreign Office its duty, elicited only an answer, almost word for word, and to the same precise effect. So the matter was dropped, and it now lies where it was dropped a few years since.

WHO WAS THE GREATEST CRIMINAL?

About six years ago a detective officer, in the employ of the regularly constituted authorities whose local habitation is Scotland Yard, Westminster, was directed to track a young delinquent who had, it was said, forged the autograph of his master, a tradesman in the borough of Southwark.

The search was not a very difficult one. The culprit, who had only defrauded some one of 50_l._ by that operation, I dare say, thought he had got possession of an inexhaustible fortune; or I should rather say that he acted as if he thought so.

It is said that thieves (I mean strictly professional thieves), who have either been born and bred to the craft of robbery, or who have served an irregular apprenticeship thereto, look with cool deliberation at the risks and contingencies of every enterprise, weigh its profit or loss, and are careful not to load the adverse scale of probabilities by rashness or indiscretion. This is, I believe, the case with regular thieves. It is not the case with those who are betrayed by impulse or necessity into the commission of a single crime. Fast men (clerks, shopmen, and the like), when they rob a till, steal a few pounds' worth of goods, or even perpetrate a forgery, act in the most foolish way imaginable. In most cases they aid the task of their discovery, if they do not entirely lay open the secret of their crime.

The case I am describing illustrates one half of my theory, and shows the truth of an old saw which affirms that ill-gotten money does no good to the possessor.

The means of the fraud or forgery were procured by the criminal on the Monday afternoon. On the Tuesday morning he made use of them. He did not on that day put in an appearance at his situation, and his absence was immediately remarked. An inquiry was made, by his master's directions, at his lodgings, and it was ascertained that he had not slept there since the Monday night. His landlady was as uneasy about him as his master--perhaps more so. She was starting to make inquiries concerning him, when inquiries were made of her on the subject. The good woman, a widow, who was the mother of a family (all grown up to man and woman's estate, and off her hands), dreaded that some harm had come to her lodger. These forebodings of evil took no definite shape,--that is to say, a hundred different forms of peril, misadventure, and suffering crowded so rapidly on the kind-hearted woman's brain, that they became merged and confused; but her suspicions never traced the fact, nor any thing like the reality. The master of the young man, so far unlike the landlady, was not troubled by many thoughts about his clerk. All that gentleman said or thought about him may be put into a few short sentences. He said he was a blackguard, and that he should never have a character from him; that it was a rascally shame to leave him in the lurch, without the slightest notice; that he ought to be punished (as artisans are in the manufacturing districts) for neglecting his work, and breaking his contract for service. Yet, argued the master, "there are plenty of fish in the sea as good as were ever caught. I dare say I can get another clerk, after all, any day, at 15_s._ per week, quite as good as that fellow. When Mr. Thinshanks comes back whining for me to employ him, he'll find that I won't, that's all. No, it isn't all either. I shall just tell him a bit of my mind as well. I'll kick him out of my counting-house, and tell him to go to ----" Well, never mind where, my readers; it wasn't Botany Bay, nor Woolwich, nor Portsmouth, nor Millbank, nor Pentonville, that the metaphor or expletive assigned as his destination. Perhaps your imagination, reader, will spare me all excuse for sullying my pages by mentioning the locality, which some original mind has said is not fit to name or write to ears or eyes polite.

In Wednesday morning's _Times_ there appeared an advertisement, which informed the readers of the leading journal that Mr. Crapp wanted, as clerk, a single young man, of good education, quick at accounts, who wrote a superior hand, of unquestionable sobriety, strict honesty, and enjoying one or two minor qualities. These must must be vouched by undeniable references. The salary offered by Mr. Crapp was 15_s._ per week. Three hundred applicants wrote to J. C. (Mr. Crapp's initials), at the post-office adjacent to his place of business, in the course of Wednesday. On Thursday morning the employer selected from the lot half a dozen letters, and saw as many young men that evening. On Friday an applicant who had passed through "the ordeal by reference" whole and unscathed in body and reputation, was given the stool on which Mr. Thinshanks had been long perched with honour.

That day the new clerk received a numerous body of commands. He had been called upon to solemnly declare before Mr. Crapp that he wasn't afraid of work; and the truth of such averment was tested, as far as it could be, in a single day--on the Friday.

Among the numerous directions Mr. Crapp gave his new clerk were instructions to write to Messrs. Clockwork and Rigid, politely asking the reason why they had not acknowledged the receipt of the cheque for 50_l._ 4_s._ 1½_d._, which had been sent them in due course on the previous Monday afternoon?

This firm carried on business in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch. It did not take long for Mr. Thinshanks's successor to write that and a dozen other letters of equal brevity, and it, with the others, was posted by eleven o'clock on Friday morning.

Messrs. Clockwork and Rigid were astonished. They had not received any such cheque, although they had expected to receive one for such an amount from Mr. Crapp. They also knew that the cheque could not have been delivered at, and lost or mislaid in, their establishment. The extreme regularity of all their proceedings, the elaborate system of check and counter-check which their genius had many years ago devised and set in motion, enabled them to say at once that the error or accident or wrong, of whatever kind it might be, was not to be laid inside their doors. Further than this they did not care to inquire. The loss, if there was to be a loss, would not be theirs. As a matter of fairness and good-will as between tradesmen, Messrs. Clockwork and Co. thought it their duty to inform Mr. Crapp as speedily as they could that his cheque had never reached the firm in Shoreditch. A letter was immediately written and despatched to Mr. Crapp, apprising him of that untoward fact.

Mr. Crapp saw at a glance, as any fool might have done, that between the non-receipt of his cheque by Messrs. Clockwork and Rigid and the disappearance of Mr. Thinshanks there was a link. The money which ought to have passed from his bankers to the bankers of his correspondents was that link. He had been robbed of 50_l._ 4_s._ 1½_d._ by that villain Thinshanks! Such base, black, vile ingratitude, after the kind manner in which he had treated that vagabond! He deserved to be hung, quoth his late master, in token of the remnant of that same loving kindness of which he had just spoken.

Mr. Crapp dismissed the messenger from Messrs. Clockwork with a formal expression of thanks, which, out of the frame of mind he then enjoyed, it was hard to extract.

He determined--although, as he said, it was a painful duty--to prosecute the villain with the utmost rigour of the law. He put on his hat, and, to speak exactly, he may be described as having rushed to his attorney's office. That gentleman had left for the day. He was able to quit the dingy office for a cheerful home at an early hour just now. The incidents I have described took place during that portion of the year so obnoxious to plaintiffs and pleasant to defendants (always except debtors on bills of exchange, who come under the purview of a statute designated by some gloomy wag as the Sudden Death Act), the Long Vacation. The business on which the client wanted the advice and guidance of his attorney would not justify an invasion of the home of the latter; so he must necessarily wait until to-morrow.

While pausing for the interview between Mr. Crapp and Mr. Croak (the solicitor), will the reader ask himself, Had the clerk robbed _his master_ of the 50_l._ 4_s._ 1½_d._ in question?

Perhaps the reader has a judicial mind. I hope he has. Some day he may have to sit on a jury, as no doubt he has already had to do. That frame of mind has enabled him, and will enable him, to discharge his important duties to society as a juryman in a sagacious manner. Well, then, the reader, having a judicial mind, can't exactly say. The evidence is insufficient. He will wait and hear what other facts I have to disclose, before he gives his decision on the issue I have raised. A wise reservation.

Mr. Crapp went home again after his fruitless visit to the attorney's office.

He looked critically and suspiciously at his new clerk, to see whether _he_ looked like a thief or not; and he did many other things, which, as they do not touch the issue just raised, or that raised by the question at the head of this narrative, the reader need not ask me to relate.

Mr. Crapp, it may, however, be as well to say, was impatient for the capture of the thief. He reasoned much and seriously with himself on the subject, and came to the conclusion that, if he delayed all action in the matter until the morning, he might be neglecting his duty to society at large. The culprit might escape in the course of that very night to America, or some other sanctuary for crime. Too much time had already been given him for defeating the pursuit of British justice. The police ought to be instructed at once. Yes, he would go to the nearest station-house and inform the police. He did so. The inspector on duty introduced him to Mr. Sergeant Downey, and that expert thief-catcher and mystery-prober took from Mr. Crapp a full, true, and particular account of the matter--as far as the prosecutor could relate it.

Sergeant Downey had not much doubt about catching the offender. The young man had the good or ill fortune to possess a marked and individualised countenance and gait. The offence was, in all probability, his first crime. The officer did not think the thief had left the country; nor had he, as the next incidents will show.

That night a row took place in one of the haunts of pleasure and vice at the West End of the metropolis. A robbery was committed upon a young man from the country in one of the night-houses of the Haymarket, during a squabble between some "social evils" and fast men who had there congregated. The police, on being called in, seized two men on suspicion of having perpetrated the offence. One of them next morning was liberated by the sitting magistrate. His pocket-book, his card-case, and his own explanations, warranted his declaration that he was "a gentleman," and innocent of the robbery. Another, and a young man, was not so fortunate. Having, he said, the fear of the reporter and the newspapers before his eyes; being, he added, unwilling to disgrace his respectable friends; and being withal sure to lose his situation if it transpired that he had spent an evening in such disreputable society,--he refused to give his name and address. The victim of the affray could not identify the reticent person as the thief, and was ready to admit the reasonableness of his excuse for secrecy; but the magistrate thought the police ought to know something more than they did about him before he was set at large. "It was," the learned gentleman said, "very strange that a young man should have about him, in such a place, in bank-notes and gold, about three-and-twenty pounds." Notwithstanding his appeals and protestations, and in despite the air of injured innocence he put on, and although the police knew nothing to his disadvantage except his presence at the scene of the robbery and the possession of this money, he was remanded, in order that further inquiries might be made about him.

Sergeant Downey paid a visit to the house of detention, and was allowed to see the reticent prisoner. The sergeant asked him if his name was not Thinshanks? The prisoner said, "No, it wasn't." The officer shook his head in token of doubt about the truthfulness of that denial, and grinned sardonically. He went direct from the house of detention to the abode of Mr. Crapp. Both afterwards visited the temporary prison. The plausible sufferer was at once identified by the tradesman as his absconded clerk. Mr. Thinshanks, although sullen and as reticent as ever, was humiliated and crushed by the terrible eye of his late master.

Mr. Crapp's solicitor, when first consulted by his client, advised him not to think of prosecuting. Such a step was, he said, unsatisfactory. If the thief were caught, the affair would cost his prosecutor a tidy sum of money, in addition to his present loss, and a world of trouble to boot. The prosecution could not be left in the hands of the police. If so, the scoundrel would, in all probability, escape; and who could tell that he might not then turn upon the kind master he had robbed, and bring an action against him for false imprisonment? If, on the other hand, the prosecution were conducted by Mr. Croak with proper vigour and skill, so as to secure a conviction, as the scoundrel merited, Mr. Crapp would have to pay a bill of costs; he would have to kick his heels for several days about the Surrey Sessions-House (the atmosphere of which was physically deleterious); he would sustain discomfort, lose his temper, and impair his digestion, or perhaps his health, in addition to the loss of his money. Mr. Crapp inveighed against the rules and practice of British criminal jurisprudence, because it did not bear all the cost of prosecutions, liberally pay witnesses for their time and trouble, and hold out premiums to loyal men for their energetic pursuit of justice. But, at any necessary cost, and any unnecessary inconvenience or annoyance, he said he was prepared to do his duty by hunting this forger as near to the gallows as such a culprit might be driven.

When Mr. Croak was informed that the criminal had been taken, and that upon him nearly half the proceeds of the cheque had been found, the legal gentleman's objections to a prosecution were not so pointed and decided as they had been. He merely observed to his client that the fellow must now be so prosecuted as to insure his conviction; and he thought, although he did not so say, that the money which Mr. Thinshanks had not dissipated would suffice, in addition to the scanty allowance of the Home Office, to pay the cost of his judicial condemnation. Mr. Crapp, who ostentatiously grieved over the wickedness of the foolish young man, withal begged that, in the interests of outraged justice, Mr. Croak would employ all his eminent skill; and at the same time wished it to be understood that when the trial came off he desired the counsel for the prosecution would inform the judge, the jury, the spectators, the reporters, the readers of newspapers, and the outer world, that he, Mr. Crapp, the prisoner's kind-hearted master, recommended him to mercy.

James Thinshanks was in due course taken before one of the magistrates of Southwark on the accusation for which he had _not_ been arrested, and the one for which he had been taken up was dropped.

At the first examination of the prisoner Mr. Crapp was represented by a counsel in a stuff gown, and very learned in the criminal law of his country. The reader will not care to have a report of his speech when I tell him that it was not worth reporting. Of this scene and its incidents it is enough to say, that Mr. Snayke, the learned counsel (then attired in stuff, but who now wears silk), did not trouble himself to examine the charge-sheet, and took the accusation as it had been framed by the police, without inquiring about its accuracy. The evidence was yet, however, of the flimsiest character, and scandalously incomplete. The cheque was not in court; and so many other essential ingredients of the case were only conspicuous by their absence, that Mr. Snayke should merely ask the bench to remand the prisoner. An insignificant fact or two were then given in evidence, and the prisoner, who offered no objection, was remanded for seven days. He would have acquiesced in a remand for seven or ten times seventy months. Much as the stupid and mean thief disliked the house of detention, its diet, and its restraints, he had an intenser dread of what is called "a trial," with its inevitable sequel, a conviction. He drew a species or a degree of comfort from the philosophy of Hamlet. He would very much rather bear the ills he had, than fly to others which appalled by their very uncertainty. He had not yet arrived at that other stage of criminal philosophy (which a genteel villain named William Roupell found, it is said, in Spain) that draws its only consolation out of knowing the worst.

After the first examination of the prisoner, Mr. Snayke intimated to Mr. Croak he thought it very desirable to have a consultation as early as possible. Mr. Croak understood, or--not to pay him an undue compliment--he _saw_ that there was _something_ in the suggestion. He therefore indorsed the learned counsel's brief with that potent word "consultation," and with the yet more potent figure of two guineas.

A meeting between attorney and counsel took place that very afternoon at the chambers of Mr. Snayke. Mr. Croak attended it himself, and nobody else was there. It was a secret meeting; but I shall take the liberty of drawing aside the veil, and letting the reader into this consultation. I shall ask him to prick up his ears, so that he may lose nothing of the conversation, and to concentrate his attention, so that he may understand what he hears.

"Mr. Croak."

"Yes, sir."

"Pray be seated."

"Thank you, sir."

This was the frigid tone of a greeting between the mouthy criminal advocate and the patron attorney who buttered his bread on both sides. I am told that this bumptiousness on the one hand, and humbleness on the other, is the almost invariable style of intercourse between the technically upper and the technically lower ranks of the legal profession. Much of the power of wig and gown is said to depend upon the maintenance of a relative status in the business of the law.

After a moment or two of iciness, Mr. Snayke's consciousness of what was due to the attorney warmed him, so he grew polite and more condescending towards his inferior brother and paymaster.

"You see, Croak," said the great Snayke, "that it is very important to frame this charge against the prisoner accurately, and I should like to know the real facts of the case--such as can be established in evidence exactly--which I do not yet. Did the prisoner steal a cheque with the amount and so forth filled in, and with his master's signature attached in his master's own handwriting, or did the fellow steal a blank cheque, and fill it in, and sign it with his master's name? The distinction is important to the prisoner himself, because the different facts establish different crimes; but the prosecutor is far more interested, as it seems to me, in this part of the affair than the accused."

"Pardon me, sir, if I say I don't see _that_," the attorney ventured to say.

"Oh, obviously," replied Mr. Snayke. "If the cheque had been perfectly drawn by the prosecutor--if it had his signature making the 50_l._ 4_s._ 1½_d._ payable to Messrs. Clockwork and Rigid or bearer--if it was a complete and genuine cheque, then it is plain that the loss must be borne by Mr. Crapp. It was an act of embezzlement of a cheque or its proceeds by his own clerk. Suppose, on the other hand, that the prisoner stole a blank cheque, and wrote his master's name at the foot thereof, that would be a forgery; and the bank must bear the loss, because they have no right or authority to pay forged cheques."

A light entered the head of the attorney. He was lawyer enough to see a point when his microscopic vision had been sharpened, and when the point was held up to him. He told Mr. Snayke that he could not distinctly say--he had not positively ascertained from the prosecutor--whether or not the cheque was stolen in blank, or after it had been filled up and signed. He would see how the matter stood in this respect, and further instruct Mr. Snayke.

The attorney afterwards had a conference with his client, in which he endeavoured to expound the law of the case to the prosecutor before he sought to learn how the facts stood. I don't know what the reader may think of this order of proceeding. It strikes me as having not been quite logical, or morally correct. It was very like giving Mr. Crapp a hint how he might shape the facts, and throw off a burden or loss from his own shoulders to those of the banker. Until indeed this result of the legal demonstration was made quite apparent to the prosecutor, he could not be induced to tax his memory about the facts.

"You see," said Mr. Croak, "if you really did fill up and sign the cheque, and happened to suffer it to lie about unnoticed for an hour or two; or suppose, after filling it up and signing it, you handed it to Thinshanks to post to Clockwork's, and suppose he stole it or cashed it without authority, and appropriated to his own use the proceeds--?"

"Well, suppose he did. That's what he did do, I dare say," replied Mr. Crapp.

"I hope not," rejoined the attorney.

"Hope not! What's the use of hoping not? the blackguard's bad enough for any thing."

"No doubt he is; but, you see, if he stole a cheque after you had signed it, we couldn't say that he forged your signature, could we?"

"No, I suppose not; but what matters about that? Isn't it as wicked and abominable to steal a cheque signed, as it would be to steal one unsigned? If it isn't forgery, it's robbery, felony, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes, my good Mr. Crapp; but I must speak plainer, I see. I want to find out who is to be at the loss of the money--the 50_l._ odd."

"Why, I suppose I must be--of course, mustn't I?"

"I don't know. Let us see how the facts and the law stand. I hope I can show that not my client, but the bank, must bear the loss of the cash."

"Oh, I see your drift; but how is that to be made out?"

"Why, suppose you left your drawer open--just suppose, you know, it had so happened--and that you left your cheque-book available to your clerk." (Here the attorney drew breath, and looked critically at his client.) "Suppose that he tore out a blank cheque, and filled it up, and wrote your signature under the order to pay, that would be forgery, you know."

"Yes, I know that."

"Then you would _not_ have to lose the money. The banker would lose it."

"Would he?"

"Yes; because if he pays a forged cheque, the consequences are his, not yours."

Mr. Crapp was bewildered by the strength of his new enlightenment.

"Ah! I see. Yes. I wonder how it was? Now, 'pon my word, Mr. Croak, I can't tell for the life of me at this moment how it was. I'll rub up my memory. I'll let you know to-morrow."

The client and attorney parted company. The former, on his return home, at once sent his pass-book to the bank, and got his account made up. The cheques which had been cashed since the last balancing of his account were of course returned in the pass-book, and among them the cheque made payable to "Clockwork or bearer," and not crossed.

Whoever wrote the signature of "Jno. Crapp," there could be no doubt that the date and the amount (in words and in figures) were written by Thinshanks. This, however, was not remarkable. The clerk usually wrote the body of cheques, for his master to sign.

Mr. Crapp pondered long and anxiously over the document. He compared the signature "Jno. Crapp" with the same autograph on other cheques. Did he doubt who had written his name at the foot of that order to pay? No. He knew it was his own writing. He was only looking at it to see whether he could find a sufficient excuse to say it was not his writing. Strangely enough, the "Jno. Crapp" on this cheque was not exactly like that on the others. This signature was a little more extended, or sprawling, than his customary autograph. How was that? He recollected perfectly well. He wrote it in a frightful hurry. He had on the day he wrote it--in the afternoon--promised to take his dear wife, Mrs. Crapp, to the theatre. He was racing through his business that afternoon. It was also very odd that he neglected to cross the cheque. That neglect arose through the same cause. Dare he venture to say, on his oath, with all the consequences of perjury before his eyes, that he had not written "Jno. Crapp" on that slip of paper? Why not? Who should contradict him? Who could do so? Only Thinshanks. Was that possible? Yes, he might from the dock contradict him, but his evidence could not be taken; and the unlikeness of the signature was a further guarantee against harm to the prosecutor from such a denial. He (Mr. Crapp) was a respectable man. Could he swear to the lie without blushing? He was afraid not. Yes, he could--he would. He couldn't afford the loss of 50_l._ It was a heavy sum for him to lose. It was a fleabite to Undertails. They were rich beyond computation. He would venture to say it was not his signature, and risk discovery. Nobody could give legal evidence to the contrary--that was very certain.

At the next examination Mr. Snayke opened the case as one of forgery. The learned counsel argued that the prisoner at the bar had doubtless seized an opportunity, when his master's back was turned, to tear out a blank cheque from the book, had filled up the stump; he had filled up the body of the cheque (which was not unusual), but he had also written his master's name underneath--a course never allowed by Mr. Crapp, never before done by this young man, and which he had no authority whatever for doing. Of course he had not crossed the cheque, which showed his intention to misapply the proceeds, so that he might get those proceeds to dissipate in that haunt of vice from which he had been taken. It was (Mr. Snayke proceeded to say) an artful contrivance, and had so well succeeded, that his master, guided by the stump-cheque, was really led, in the absence of reflection, to suppose that he had, in the usual way, signed the draft itself with his own hand; but on looking carefully at the signature he immediately saw that, although a clever imitation of his autograph, this "Jno. Crapp" had never been written by him. He (Mr. Snayke) could very well understand how even a bank-clerk might, without pausing to compare signatures, honour the forged draft; but the worthy magistrate, or any one, upon making the comparison between the several cheques he now offered for comparison with the one payable to Messrs. Clockwork, see that it was not in the same handwriting as the others. His highly respectable client would distinctly swear that the signature was forged, and there could be no doubt about it. The case was now complete, or would be when he had laid the evidence he had in court before his worship; and he should ask for the prisoner's committal to the next sessions, to stand his trial on the charge he had described.

The evidence sustained the learned gentleman's address. The prisoner, who was not a little astonished at the extraordinary blunder of his master, as he thought it, saw no object in explaining how the case really stood. If he could get rid of the proof of the one alleged forgery--that of "Jno. Crapp"--he could not hope to grapple with the other charge. He saw that the robbery of the cheque and its proceeds could be proved. He did not know the object his master had in swearing that his own signature was not his handwriting, and if he had been informed, the same authority might have told him that his purpose would not have been very effectually served by trying to expose the fraud and villany of his master.

What did happen in the progress of this very remarkable case, the reader will learn.