Chapter VII: Part 7

The prisoner's committal was reported in the newspapers. His family, with whom he had not communicated, thus got to know of his situation. They communicated with him. They employed an attorney for him, whose name I shall call Shark.

Mr. Shark, who is a notable man in the transpontine region of the metropolis, and looked upon as almost a deity, at least in power or skill, by the criminal heathen "across the border," had private interviews with the culprit in his temporary gaol. Mr. Shark told his client to make a clean breast of it with him--that he must know the whole truth, if he was to do him any good, &c.

The unhappy client was as candid as the attorney could wish. He pleaded guilty at this investigation--not of forgery, but of the other offence. He insisted that the "Jno. Crapp" had been written by the hand of his master, in a hurry, as described, and that the neglect to cross the cheque had been the clerk's temptation. He saw that by intercepting the course of the cheque from Crapp's to Clockwork's, and that by presenting it at Messrs. Undertail's himself, he could easily get the sum of 50_l._ 4_s._ 1½_d._ Under an evil impulse he determined to do so, and was foolish and guilty enough to obey that impulse.

The wretched young man declared that he had never before been guilty of a dishonest act. This was, he solemnly protested, his first offence. His whole career had been blasted by yielding to the one temptation. He also poured into the indifferent ear of his legal adviser the story of his wretchedness from the moment when he clutched his ill-gotten money. He had, he said, endured an agony of remorse. In wild excitement he had afterwards, until his arrest, obtained his only relief from the pangs of conscience. Several times he had resolved to throw himself upon the mercy of his late employer; but the savage sternness of that gentleman's character made him tremble on the threshold of that good resolution.

Mr. Shark saw at once, and almost admired, the ingenuity of the device adopted by the prosecution for throwing the loss of the money upon the bankers. He did not think it necessary to enlighten his client on this head, and allowed him to indulge the belief that Mr. Crapp's evidence contained an involuntary misstatement of fact. He did not, he said to himself, think it any part of his duty to interfere between the prosecutor and his bankers. The prisoner had scarcely any object to gain by the denial of the forgery; and he would assuredly get no one to believe him.

This criminal practitioner saw just one use he could make of his client's frank instructions. The threat of an explanation on the one hand, and the promise of silence on the other, might get a strong recommendation to mercy from the prosecutor.

Mr. Shark called upon Mr. Croak. What passed at the interview may be guessed at through the result. When at the trial Mr. Snayke repeated the speech of which I have given an outline, he added that the prosecutor, who had been convinced that this was the prisoner's first crime, and was anxious that he should have an opportunity of recovering his lost character, instructed his counsel to recommend him to the merciful consideration of the court.

The facts were proved, and something more than the facts were sworn to. The jury found the prisoner guilty. The judge, after giving, as he said, full effect to the generous recommendation of the prosecutor, sentenced the culprit to four years' penal servitude.

The bankers allowed Mr. Crapp the amount of the stolen cheque, which had been declared a forgery by the deliberate judgment of a criminal court.

* * * * *

About twelve months out of the four years of hard punishment allotted to the dishonest clerk had been served in patience and unrepining penitence. He had won the good opinion of warders, governor, and chaplain. He was granted such indulgences as were consistent with the discipline of his prison. He was not unlikely to get a ticket of leave as soon as one could be granted.

One evening, amid the calm thoughts which solitude engendered, there came a notion that he ought not to have allowed that error of Mr. Crapp's about his own autograph to have gone uncorrected. It was, he had always understood, desirable to tell the truth--if for no special or other reason, for the abstract interests of truth. And, for his own sake, was it not desirable to let the real facts be known? Why should he suffer under the odium of a deeper criminality than he had been guilty of? He determined to speak to the chaplain on the subject. He did so. The chaplain thought he was right in desiring to make these explanations. The reverend gentleman, in his simplicity, said he would write to Mr. Crapp and so endeavour to lighten the burden of that gentleman's prejudice, and perhaps get his signature to a memorial on his late clerk's behalf. The chaplain, in an accidental bit of wisdom, mentioned the story of the convict to the governor. The governor saw at once, or suspected there had been, an object in Mr. Crapp's evidence, although he hardly knew what it was. His brother-in-law, who was a solicitor, was then on a visit at his house for a couple of days. The whole story was repeated by the chaplain and governor to the lawyer. He traced the successful fraud in his imagination at once. The circumstances were accordingly mentioned to the proper authorities, who directed that the facts should be communicated to Messrs. Undertail, the bankers.

The head of the banking firm who had been so defrauded out of 50_l._ 4_s._ 1½_d._, consulted their solicitors, and was informed that under the new law of evidence the testimony of Thinshanks could be used in a prosecution against Mr. Crapp, which they recommended as an act of simple justice, and for the interests of the banking community. Mr. Undertail's partner was a truly generous man. He shrunk from the destruction of a respectable tradesman, and the firm was by this partner led to hesitate. Mr. Undertail consulted the solicitors again on the subject, and they still thought the firm were bound to prosecute.

There were some difficulties about the case. The evidence of the convict might be disbelieved. Mr. Snayke, or whoever might be Mr. Crapp's counsel for his defence, would assuredly argue that the convict had, in the solitude of his prison, invented this story, in order to gratify a revengeful feeling against the master who, although he had prosecuted him to conviction under a stress of duty, had recommended him to mercy. Yet there were some corroborating facts to be laid before the jury. Experts might testify that the signature was not a forgery. Mr. Crapp's hurry might be sworn to by the convict; his visit to the theatre, which caused it, might be proved. The motive of throwing the loss upon the bankers could be argued.

Second thoughts in a counting-house at Lombard Street ran in the same direction as in the solicitors' office. It was determined to prosecute Mr. Crapp, in the prospect of his conviction for the good of society.

Within a few hours of the formation of this opinion Mr. Crapp fled from his house, and as a living man was never again heard of. The body of a man resembling him was ten days afterwards washed ashore at Barking Creek.

I suspect that Mr. Undertail's partner was led by his excessive generosity to warn the wretch of his peril, that he fled in consequence, and that, dreading capture, shame, and punishment, he committed suicide by drowning.

Does the reader wish me to answer the question at the head of this narrative? He is welcome to my opinion, and at liberty to differ from it if it does not please him. I think Mr. Crapp was worse than his clerk; I think that Mr. Croak was a greater criminal than either; but I consider that the vilest knave of the lot was Mr. Snayke.

A GRAND RAILWAY "PLANT."

Does the reader know that all the money taken at a railway station is sent up to head-quarters every night? Such is the arrangement. The money is put into a box, constructed as well as may be to render peculation or robbery on the way difficult, if not impossible, and off it is sent. An "advice" is of course also sent by the station-master or cashier from the particular station to the head-office. The money for paying salaries and wages is also sent in a like manner in a reverse course from head-quarters to the tributaries from which it originally came. The chief station, terminus, or office, is in fact the centre of an arterial monetary system. Every thing in the form of cash comes in there and goes from there.

The mode of paying wages, or at least of conveying the wages from head-quarters, is this. In order to guard against robbery or fraud, a list of all the porters, engine-drivers, guards, and other servants who belong to or are allotted to each station for payment, is sent up to head-quarters. On a given day--say Friday or Saturday--this list is taken back to the station by a clerk from the cashier or secretary's office, who also takes with him the sum required to pay all these servants their wages. The clerk makes a journey from one end of the line to the other, depositing, as he goes along, a parcel of money packed up with the wages-list. These parcels are received from the hands of the clerk by some one who is always on the lookout at each place of deposit, with that eagerness or care men usually betray when they expect to obtain the reward of their industry. The arrival of the cash-bearer is always either known by fixed arrangement or by a special telegram which is sent down the line.

The reader is, I dare say, also quite unaware of the fact that, until a year or two ago, there existed a gang of the vilest scoundrels, who derived enormous gains by the systematic plunder of railway companies. Their modes of operation were as various as the devices of wicked ingenuity could possibly make them, and their ramifications were astonishing to the most practised detectives. Their subterfuges, plans, and arrangements furnished me with many a long and lucrative job; and very many cases, it is fair to suppose, went undiscovered, or even unsuspected. They brought actions for injuries never received, by persons who were never present at collisions or smashes; they made demands for lost parcels which, as an Irishman might be excused for saying, had never been lost; they stole passengers' luggage; they appropriated goods in course of transit; and they had other schemes of plunder. So widely ramified was their machinery, that in nearly every large station there would be a confederate ostensibly doing the company's work, receiving the company's pay, and ranked among the company's faithful servants. On every ninth or tenth train there was a guard who had a connexion, either as principal or agent, with the plunderers. At the head-quarters of many lines of railway throughout the kingdom--in the secretary's, chief cashier's, and manager's offices of several lines--they had their spies, informers, and associates.

The usefulness of these spies at head-quarters was enormous. Take the case of a pretended accident by way of an example. An action was once brought against a company having its chief station in the metropolis. The plaintiff asked damages or compensation for the injuries sustained through a collision. The company did not see its way to resist the claim entirely, but as they considered the amount wanted by the plaintiff to be excessive, they thought it could be reduced by negotiation. Two thousand pounds was the sum originally asked. The plaintiff, however, in the course of the negotiation, reduced his expectations to 1000_l._ This was, his attorney said, the very lowest he would accept. The company's solicitors reported this one day, and were authorised to settle by payment of 800_l._ and costs. The company's solicitors thereupon offered 700_l._ as their very highest figure. If this was declined, they must, they said, fight to the end, and see what a jury would give. It was of course their intention to spring 100_l._ at the last moment, rather than let the negotiation break down. The plaintiff's attorney, however, in reply to the offer of 700_l._, wrote back to say that he had seen his unfortunate client, who, in order to put an end to dispute and litigation, would take 800_l._, but not 1_s._ less; and added, that it was useless to negotiate further if that concession were not met at once by an assent. It did not appear, nor was it at all remarkable, that the negotiation should be thus conducted up to the very point at which the company's solicitors were empowered to settle; but the real cause of the plaintiff's agreement to accept 800_l._ was the information he had received that that sum was the most he could hope to get without passing through the ordeal of a public investigation--a test the gang would always yield much to avoid.

It happened, by a singularly fortuitous combination of circumstances, that I had under my vigilant eye at that time a man who was concerned in getting up a forgery. In the course of my watch I saw letters passing to and from the secretary's office of an important railway. It was no part of my business to report the circumstance. To have done so might have spoiled the game I was playing; so I took no notice, or rather made no sign. In less than a week after the delivery of the last letter, about six o'clock in the evening, my plot was ripe, and I seized my man. Extraordinary inadvertence, and wonderful care! He had destroyed one link in the chain I was constructing with his own unconscious aid, but he had preserved one link in another chain of equal value and utility to his other foes. On his person I found a note, in cipher it is true, but written on paper which had an impression of one of the company's seals.

The cipher was, moreover, not so very hard to decipher. A friend, to whose skill I paid a deserved compliment in my former volume, soon unravelled that mystery.

Would the reader like to guess what the letter contained? It was a transcript in cipher of the minute of the board in relation to that case of damage and compensation! A confederate of the gang, or at least one of its spies, actually held a confidential situation in the secretary's office, so near to the heart of the company's innermost secrets that he could copy the minutes from the book in which their resolutions were recorded. It was under this guidance the plaintiff instructed the attorney, employed by the gang for that action, to take his stand upon 800_l._ precisely, and it was through this infamous betrayal of the company's confidence that the plunderers got the money.

Of course I now handed the document over to the company. The money had, however, been paid. My prisoner was found guilty on another charge, so that it was not requisite to prosecute _him_ for the railway fraud. The clerk was also not prosecuted. He escaped that fate under the shelter of his respectable connexions. He solemnly assured the directors that he had not participated in the plunder, that the forger was not one of his regular associates, that he had learned the cipher, but as an amusement, playfully, and that he merely told him the effect of the board's resolution in order that he might induce his friend, the plaintiff (who he supposed had been indeed hurt), not to persist in his excessive demand. The directors believed, or affected to believe, this story. Perhaps they did not like it to transpire that fraud and villany had nestled in their head-quarters, and so near to the very centre of their administration. However that may have been, I know that they reprimanded, censured, and dismissed the clerk, and that they abstained from his prosecution.

When this young gentleman, who had copied the minute, was discharged, the company imagined no doubt that they had weeded out the fraudulent elements which tainted their confidence. How great their mistake was will now appear. The matter I am about to speak of occurred only about twelve months after the episode just narrated.

It so happened that, at the date of this grand "plant," a clerk attached to the chief cashier's office, whose duty it was to convey the wages down the main line, had arranged to take his annual month's holiday and to start on Friday--the day on which he had always delivered out the money.

"What is to be done about the wages, sir, this week?" the clerk inquired of the chief cashier.

"Oh, that's easily managed, Wilson," replied that gentleman; "you must pay on Thursday."

"Thank you, sir. But shall I telegraph to the stations and tell them we pay this week on Thursday?"

"That may be as well, Wilson," added the chief cashier.

Now, whether any message was handed to the telegraph-clerk by Wilson, or not, is a mystery yet unsolved. He says that he did so. The telegraph-clerk says he did not. Between these conflicting statements there hangs a painful suspicion to this day. It would seem only probable that the liar was a confederate of the gang, but that is not a certain inference. The written message may have been handed by Wilson to one of his fellow-clerks in the chief cashier's office, in a confusion or excitement resulting from his impending holiday; or it may have been inadvertently placed aside by the telegrapher, and one of his associates may have destroyed it in order to favour the criminal enterprise which its suppression (from whatever cause arising) did render possible.

The board of directors could not, and perhaps could not be reasonably expected to judge between the conflicting declarations of the two clerks, so they dismissed both from their situations, and thought they had done all which impartial justice and their duty to the shareholders required.

The only certain fact is a negative one. The telegraphic message was not sent. The wages were looked for, and looked for in vain, on the Friday.

Wilson, laden with a good round sum of money, went down the line on Thursday, as he had arranged with his chief. He went, as ill luck would have it, according to his promise in the telegram, by an afternoon express, and, as if the elements favoured the fraud, a heavy autumnal mist, nearly amounting to a fog, lasted during the whole of his journey; although I don't know that events would have taken any other form or colour if the day had been distinguished by sunshine.

As Wilson approached each station the train slackened speed, according to usage when he travelled by it on such an errand, and he put out his head from the carriage in which he enjoyed a separate compartment. As soon as it appeared he was greeted by a friend--or at least some one who knew his features very well.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Wilson. You're early this week. Never too soon to take money. Hope you'll enjoy your holiday, Mr. Wilson."

These sentences embody the pleasant wishes of his quondam friends, and with slight variations confirm the letter, as well as the substance, of all the greetings he received.

As each friend so greeted the clerk he took the money designed for a particular station, and in double quick time the train was again in motion.

In some cases the train didn't stop at all. The money was dropped out much in the way that mail bags are dropped; an attendant being on this Thursday, as on previous Fridays, in readiness to meet the expected boon.

At one station--it was a large station--a man, who was there patiently waiting to receive the cash from Mr. Wilson, was disappointed. An old acquaintance caught a glimpse of the cash-clerk as the train slackened speed.

After a moment's shaking of hands Wilson offered the station-clerk the money.

"Here it is," said Wilson.

"What?" inquired the other.

"The screw."

"It's only Thursday."

"Yes; I'm off to-morrow for my holiday."

"Oh! very well. It's just as welcome to-day as to-morrow, I dare say; but why didn't you say you were coming to-day? 'Pon my word, I wasn't looking out for you; and what an awful lark it would have been if you had had to take the money back to London!"

"I did telegraph on Monday."

"The d--l you did! The gaffer never told me any thing about it. It's just like him; but never mind, I'm mum about his carelessness. He's a good sort."

The train moved on again, and the expectant thief went empty away.

From another station the money was lost. That is to say, it reached neither the hands for which it was intended by the company's cashier, nor those who laid a plan to divert it into other channels. It went in a direction that neither party contemplated.

The train did not stop at this station, and a man was there to receive the money, but his movements had, he thought, been noticed. He was cautious--perhaps needlessly timid. He thought that as the train approached two faces were peering at him from the station-master's office. So he turned, went into the station, asked when the next down-train which stopped at that station would arrive, and sneaked away.

Wilson arrived at this station in due course, and saw what he took to be a man in waiting for him. Unluckily the wheels did not properly bite the rails, owing to the damp and their slipperyness, so that he had not sufficient time for observation, although the condition of the atmosphere rendered careful notice doubly requisite. Into the hands, as he supposed, of the official in waiting, the incautious (and I think I must, after all fair allowances, say very negligent) clerk dropped his packet, which lay there unnoticed until morning.

An old man and woman, passengers by the market train, then saw it, picked it up, took it home, said nothing, but inserted it in a hole up the cottage chimney for a long while; after which they informed the parson of the parish that an uncle of the husband's mother had sent this money to them. It was the amount of a legacy. The clergyman thought it remarkable that this money should be received abruptly, without his knowing a word about any previous correspondence with lawyers; but the parson was not a suspicious man, and he made no inquiries.

The sum, although not large (only about 53_l._), was very much more than the usual weekly apportionment to the station where it was dropped. The wages there were not more than 8_l._ per week. There was, however, a sum due from the company to a cattle-dealer, as compensation for the unpublished destruction of a part of his freight; and this was forwarded along with the wages to the station-master, with strict directions about the form of the receipt he was to take for it.

The clergyman advised that the money should be laid out under the guidance of Messrs. Seal and Delivery, highly respectable solicitors in the neighbouring town of H----. He gave an introduction to those gentlemen by a letter, which explained the matter as it had been explained to him; and this introduction, and his explanation, saved all inquiries as to the source of the funds, which they profitably invested for the childless couple, who will never enjoy a penny of it.

The two miscarriages I have mentioned were the only failures of the plan of the gang to capture one whole week's wages throughout the line of the Great ---- Railway Company.

Next day (Friday) Mr. Wilson went on his holiday trip to Paris. The company's servants were expecting him, as usual--except at the one station to which a misadventure had taken the money intended for its use. It is needless to say that no Mr. Wilson and no money reached either of these places from London, as expected. Until rather late in the afternoon, when the chief cashier's office was closed, and that exalted functionary and all his clerks had gone home, nothing was said about the affair. It had not indeed until then become very remarkable; but as soon as the fact became the subject of particular notice, it rose to the magnitude of a grievance, and threatened to become a scandal.

"We've had no money, and ain't likely to get none till to-morrow," said a porter at one of the extremest stations to the guard of an up-train.

"Oh, bosh; don't come that, you know. I sha'n't lend you another shilling in a hurry," retorted the guard, who had two days before lent that small amount to the friendly porter.

"'Pon my soul, we ain't," rejoined the porter; and he appealed to his fellow-servants for a corroboration, which they supplied.

"It will be all right to-morrow," said the guard. "I suppose the chief cashier has got a headache and hasn't been to the office, or Wilson has got the belly-ache, or some fine thing or other. Well, it's lucky for me my old woman isn't without a pound; so she can go to market, if we are as bad off at our station as you are here; and I suppose we're all in the same pickle."

The porters were less philosophical. All their domestic and personal arrangements were planned on the theory of a week's wages on Friday, and no other day. The wives might have been allowed to postpone the purchase of the Sunday joint and the rest of the needful week's supply of provision, but every man had engagements which could not be so easily deferred. Every Friday night the porters assembled at a "public" to spend a convivial hour. Was this enjoyment to be sacrificed, or even postponed? It was more than human nature, cast in the railway-porter mould, could endure without protests as loud as they were deep. Were they to be laughed at, and jeered at, and told that the company was insolvent, that their masters couldn't pay their wages? It was too bad. Hadn't they feelings as well as a secretary, or a general manager, or a director, or the chairman of a board? That was what they would like to know. They meant to say it was shameful, scandalous, atrocious, and abominable, and worthy of harsher terms of description. This is not only what they meant to say, it is what they did say.

During the night the news had circulated up and down the line, and over all its tributaries. In the morning it was known to the secretary and the chief cashier. The circumstances of the case were so peculiar, that these leading functionaries did not feel themselves competent to deal with it. The secretary hastened to confer with the chairman of the board, who again consulted two of his colleagues, who happened to be in Town, and, in consequence, certain steps were taken.

In the first place a cheque was drawn upon the company's bankers for the amount they had been robbed of--exactly 2310_l._ 18_s._ 6_d._; and a clerk was despatched to all the stations for the satisfaction and comfort of all the indignant servants, who had now grown clamorous for their wages.

Wilson's conduct was the topic of serious consideration. Could he have run away with the money? How could the robbery have been effected without his participation or connivance? What was his previous character? What sort of references did he bring to the company when he first entered its service, now five years ago? The latter questions were answered satisfactorily; the former were not. The chief cashier echoed a general opinion when he declared that he did not think Wilson capable of such a villanous and wholesale robbery. Yet the chairman of the board and the secretary did not see how the thing could have been perpetrated without his connivance, or, they thought, indeed without his active participation. They asked again and again, How could it have been done in despite of his vigilance? They searched the papers, and examined the "Clerks' Reference Book" to see what sort of references he gave when engaged as one of their servants. Nothing could be more satisfactory than these. Their distinctness, emphasis, and verisimilitude were, it would seem, an adequate guarantee for his fidelity in any place. Yet again and again these very inquiries landed them upon the question, How could it have happened without at least his connivance? His mode of life, his habits, and his manners, conversation, tone of thought, and known tastes, were repugnant to the theory of his criminality. Yet again, here the chairman of the board ventured to say that he had heard of rascals who covered the most nefarious designs, and even found their opportunities for the commission of crime, in the well-sustained outward show of virtue. He was absolutely sure that that fellow Wilson was at the bottom, if not also at the top, of the crime.

The solicitors to the company were instructed to take such steps as they might think fit in the case. They consulted me, and I gave it as my decided opinion that the facts were as consistent with the innocence of the clerk as with his guilt. This was a view of the matter which had not occurred to the solicitors. Lawyers have a kind of second instinct, which always makes them lean to the dark side of conduct and of events. Of criminal lawyers this is especially true. A regular Old-Bailey practitioner cannot understand a theory of innocence. It would be far more easy to convince any judge or jury of the guiltlessness of an accused man or woman, than it would that able and accomplished gentleman with the hooked nose and guttural voice, who is known as the "thieves' attorney-general," in the City of London. But what does he care about the guilt or innocence of his clients? Literally nothing. Under the genial influence of a fee, he will speak as eloquently (in his own and in some other person's opinion) and contend as loudly that his client is really guiltless, whether he be so or not. If any thing, as he has often had occasion to say, he likes to have a confession of crime from the accused, because then he knows that the client is not humbugging him; he relies upon a knowledge of the worst; he is sure that no facts are being concealed from him; and he can tell how far it is safe to carry his objurgations or his cross-examination of witnesses. The company's solicitors were, it is true, not men of this precise stamp. Still, they had in their professional career seen so very much of the corrupt and evil in mankind, and so very little of the higher traits of human nature, that they were always ready to accept unfavourable hypotheses in explanation of human conduct, and slow to receive opposite theories in their place. They were hard to convince that Wilson _might_ be innocent of all participation in the robbery. At length, however, after carefully weighing all the reasons I advanced against the immediate arrest and accusation of the clerk, they admitted it was just possible that he did not aid the conspirators and thieves otherwise than by his gross and culpable negligence.

I speedily ascertained how and where Wilson intended to spend his holiday. It was arranged that I should follow him. If, when I overtook him, he consented to return with me, I was not to legally arrest him. In case he should, however, refuse, or manifest any decided unwillingness to return, warrants for his seizure in Paris and his rendition were procured, and placed in the hands of an ordinary detective officer, who accompanied me, and had instructions to obey my directions.

Thus armed, we proceeded to Paris. To discover the suspected clerk was not difficult. It was one of the easiest tasks I ever had allotted me. I found out the hotel he put up at. He was not in when we arrived there, somewhat early in the evening. I left my companion with the warrants at the hotel, while I went further, in quest of Mr. Wilson.

I had a special motive for this part of my little arrangement. I did not think my man would return during my absence from the hotel. I thought it most likely--as I knew my way about Paris, was acquainted with the institutions of the gay capital, knew I could get aid from the French police in my search, and for other reasons--that I should bring Mr. Wilson back to the hotel, a prisoner in fact, although under no formal detention. In case I did not discover him out of doors, I resolved to return alone to the hotel in good time--in all likelihood to meet him there. I wanted to have the first word with him, and, if I could, to have that word in the absence of my fellow-traveller, clothed with so much authority.

And why, the reader may ask, did you want to take this advantage of the law's proper servant or officer? I did not want any such advantage. I would have given him an advantage, which might have served his turn at Scotland Yard, if I could have done so with what I considered fairness towards the suspected. I did not wish the circumstances of his arrest to prejudice him with his masters, and it might have been before a criminal tribunal. My experience of human nature and of society had suggested to me that this young man might perhaps, when so far from the scene of his labours, beyond, as he supposed, the eyes and ears of his employers, and in a holiday mood, visit some places, not thought proper places by many right-minded folks, of whom I am, at least in this respect, one. As I felt that the weight of suspicion, before evidence of guilt, already bore with undue force upon the clerk, I thought it wrong to let the weight of another element (however fair in itself) be added to the burden of prejudice. If I had then been, as I have on other occasions often been, employed to watch leisure movements and scan the holiday pursuits of a clerk, so that his masters might by my report determine whether or not he were fit to hold a position of trust, I should have had no desire to screen the incidents of Mr. Wilson's visit to Paris. Here I saw or thought I saw it my duty to bring him back to London, in order that he might render such explanations as he could about a particular crime. To do this effectually, I argued that it was desirable, for his sake truly, but also for the interests of justice, that he should encounter no prejudice which the clerks' reference book, his antecedents, and his general conduct did not warrant. This, I hope the reader will see, was but an act of simple justice to the suspected. Let me add, that I foresaw, if the clerk were really innocent, but if prejudice led to his wrongful arrest, the true culprits would have had an effective warning to destroy any clue while their pursuers were on the wrong track. Whatever the reader may think, I am candid enough to say, will not alter my conviction that I acted so far prudently and justly.

I found Wilson, costumed a little _outre_, in a "fast" dancing-room of the French capital. A gendarme pointed him out as a new arrival. An inspection of my photograph satisfied me of his identity.

I accosted him as "Mr. Wilson?"

"That's my name."

"I know it perfectly well. I want to speak with you."

"Who are you? What's your name? What have you got to say to me?"

"If you step aside to the other end of the gallery, and leave this pretty little lady here, I'll tell you."

"You be--"

I stopped the remainder of the sentence by a look which terrified him.

I whispered in his ear that I wanted him, and should, if he did not obey me, call upon the police, who were in force in and about this haunt of folly and vice, to arrest him, on a charge of robbing his employers, the ---- Railway Company, of 2310_l._ 18_s._ 6_d._; but that if he followed me back to his hotel, and from thence to London, he would have an opportunity of rendering any explanation of the case which lay in his power.

He extricated himself from his frail companion, and we proceeded together to the end of the gallery, where conversation, unheard by the disinterested, was possible; and I told him in greater detail the circumstances of the robbery. He naturally denied all knowledge of the affair; said he was entirely unable to account for it; and, although it was plain to see the terror inspired by a bare suspicion against him, he expressed an ardent wish to return with me to England, and lend all the assistance he could in the discovery of the culprits.

I explained my reasons for not allowing my friend with the warrants to arrest Wilson. He was very grateful. I told him that if he followed me out I would allow him to make his way, under my eye, to one of the least objectionable of the cafés on the Boulevards, where I should take him into my custody. The poor wretch was glad enough to avail himself of this privilege.

I telegraphed my success that night. By an early train next morning we took our journey homewards, and arrived in London the same evening in due course. Mr. Wilson consented to become my guest for the evening, and until either the stress of duty compelled me to hand him over to the police, or I had the pleasure of announcing that he was no longer under restraint.

The day after my return to London there was a solemn conference at the head-quarters of the ---- Railway. That august assembly, the board, had been hastily convened, and had a special meeting. The whole matter was investigated by the light of facts now within the knowledge of its officers and advisers. Other minor and auxiliary conferences were held in ante-rooms between myself and the leading partner of the firm who enjoyed the lucrative and honourable appointment of solicitors to the company. The results of the whole deliberations put together were, a resolution not to prosecute the suspected clerk, because there was not enough evidence at hand to warrant a conviction; and another resolution, that as there was more than enough evidence to justify a strong suspicion of his complicity in the affair--as there was abundant proof of gross negligence--the clerk Wilson should be dismissed.

One victim not being sufficient to compensate for the loss of so much money, the two other clerks--one in the chief cashier's and one in the telegraph department--were also deprived of their situations.

The most unsatisfactory part of the affair, to my mind, was the abandonment of all further search for the culprits. No why or wherefore was given me in explanation of this abrupt and extraordinary decision. I suspect the cause was an unwillingness to allow so palpable a sign of administrative weakness at headquarters, and from the very centre to the extreme circumference of the financial operations of the company, to be trumpeted throughout the world. I have known much heavier losses quietly submitted to for a like reason by joint-stock companies and by great mercantile firms. When one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most highly reputed discount-houses in the City of London discovered that its chief acting partner had advanced a young firm of traders a vast sum of money upon the security of forged dock-warrants, it determined not to prosecute the scoundrels, because the defrauded gentlemen, knowing their own importance, feared that if it should become known in Lombard Street that they, the great, old, wealthy, and "knowing" house, had been so let in, all the floating securities in the London markets would be discredited, a panic would seize all the money-changers, metropolitan bankers would be involved in trouble that might upset a lot of them, the governor and company of the Bank of England would have to guard its issues, limit to the minimum its credits, and, in fact, that through the one gigantic fraud a radius of half a mile round the Royal Exchange (where the potentates of gold, who are the arbiters and controllers of manufacture all over England and beyond this Queendom, do congregate) might become a scene of despair, ruin, or chaos. Am I overstating the case? Let the reader who thinks so peruse the evidence given by Mr. Chapman, of the well-known house of Overend, Gurney, and Company, at the London Bankruptcy Court, and in the Central Criminal Court, in the proceedings taken against Messrs. ----. Or, if he cannot readily learn the particulars of this noted case, let him ask any friend who knows the history of British banking and British trade during the last twenty years, and that friend will supply him with at least as many instances in which splendid swindles, forgeries, and frauds have not been investigated--ay, or, being investigated and proved, have been secretly condoned, for such reasons as my imagination assigns to the directors of the ---- Railway Company for their decision in the present case. No man of the world, no one who has had much experience in practical business, will gainsay the probability of my suggested motive. I do not say that the reason hinted at was the operative reason in this instance, but I think it was, and I say that I think it was; and the intelligent reader can form his own opinion as to the soundness or hollowness of my hypothesis.

It may be satisfactory to further explain (as I have very much pleasure in doing), that although not instructed to hunt down the perpetrators of this crime, I was requested to assist the officials of the company in framing such arrangements as would make it impossible to repeat a robbery like that so successfully accomplished. With the aid of the company's officers, I did this; and I have the satisfaction of knowing that if any further designs of the same description were afterwards conceived, they were never carried out. A survey of the obstacles to their realisation must have warned off the conspirators.

The reader who desires to see poetical justice summarily inflicted on every wrong-doer as soon as the wrong has been committed, may have been grieved to learn that a gang of villains escaped their merits. I shared that feeling. I do not believe that Wilson was in the fraud, although I cannot undertake to say that the evidence of my faith is so perfect as I could wish. He, however, was utterly and hopelessly ruined, by the dismissal from his situation under circumstances of so grave suspicion; and if his worst offence was negligence (as I suppose), he has been terribly punished. The last time I saw him (not six months ago) he was selling penny packets of "stationery for the million" on a stall in one of the popular marts at the East End of London. The reader last mentioned may obtain some proper comfort in the evidence I can supply as to the ultimate vindication of justice upon the persons of the whole of the gang concerned in this great "plant." I hunted down four of them not long since, and one volunteered a statement of the facts of that case (as each of the four did), in the hope of being admitted to the privileges of what the Irish call an approver. During this conversation (after he had completed his confession of the offence he was then charged with) he also told me that he had taken part in this affair along with all his present companions in crime,--who were the last of the set who had up to that date eluded justice.

AN EPISODE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE.

Some time ago a robbery was perpetrated in the mansion of Lord H----, which is situated in one of the squares of Belgravia. The thieves made a tolerably successful and remunerative haul. They cleared out the whole of the plate, and also much of the jewelry, which chiefly belonged to Lady H----, and was of enormous value.

How the thieves obtained access to the premises did not for a long while seem at all clear. Appearances on the surface warranted a belief that one or more of the servants of his lordship or her ladyship had aided and abetted the robbery. But there was no scintilla of what is called legal evidence to justify or warrant that suspicion. Nobody attached to the household was therefore arrested on the charge; but a reward was offered for the discovery of the offenders, and ordinary police vigilance was exhausted in the endeavour to track the delinquents.

Weeks and months (about three months) rolled by, and nobody was brought to justice.

His lordship was irritated beyond measure by this failure of justice. He one day went to his solicitors, declaring that he would spend half his fortune, if necessary, in order to secure the offender and his adequate punishment.

What share in the production of this decision Lady H---- may have had I do not know, but I have a notion that she had much to do with it; for it is certain beyond all doubt that the loss of her jewelry preyed upon her spirits, and exasperated her to the last pitch of intensity. Being rather shrewishly inclined, she would, I verily believe, have inflicted summary vengeance on the stoutest of the thieves if she could have clutched him.

Lord H----'s solicitors were somewhat annoyed at the failure of the police in the discovery of the criminals. They communicated with me upon the subject, and I at length was employed.

It was a teasing and difficult job. It gave me ten times more trouble than many a greater and more important business. Yet, having undertaken it, I was determined to go through with it. I would not, I felt, be baffled.

For a long while I could obtain no clue. At length I did get a scent of my prey, and from that moment the result was certain, although it could only be overtaken by a circuitous and uneven track.

I at length hunted down the principal delinquent.

The whole robbery had been effected by one man and one woman. The woman fled as soon as the man was arrested. I might have secured her before, but in doing so must have lost the man. Her arrest would have given him notice of his peril; and, in truth, I was almost careless about the female's escape if I could catch her companion.

Lord H---- was more exasperated than ever when he ascertained who the criminal was; although he assured his solicitors, as they informed me, that he had not the slightest knowledge of the man, nor did he suppose the delinquent had any knowledge of him beyond that which all thieves of London might have in common of a nobleman.

I suspected that some mysterious cause inspired this desire for vengeance in his lordship, besides the natural influence of his loss upon his mind. That was sufficient to account for much revengefulness, but it did not appear to me an adequate motive for the sudden increase of such an emotion since the disclosure of the identity of the criminal. I do not, however, know that my suspicions were correct. It is possible that they were incorrect.

The offender was brought before the magistrate, in the usual course, and remand upon remand was applied for and obtained. The prisoner's attorney resisted the application with all his argumentative power and force of advocacy, but in vain. The prosecution was thought by the bench to be entitled to every opportunity for discovering their property, and so involving the prisoner in the evidence of his guilt as to render his escape through the meshes of the law impossible.

At length the case was brought home with sufficient clearness to the prisoner, not only to warrant his committal for trial, but to secure his conviction when that trial took place. He was accordingly committed.

Next sessions a true bill was found against the prisoner by the grand jury of the Central Criminal Court, and in due course the prisoner was placed in the dock, to go through the great ordeal in connexion with this case.

The court was somewhat crowded. The incidents of this robbery had attracted public attention. The value of the plate, the rareness of the gems, the neatness and completeness of the exploit, had all combined to invest the case with an air of public importance.

In the court, awaiting the trial with greedy anxiousness, were Lord and Lady H----.

In the gallery was a female, attired in costly raiment, enriched by here and there a jewel of considerable value. She was, perhaps, one of the handsomest women in London; and her beauty was of that order usually denominated "sweet." There was an apparent gentleness and amiability of expression underlying the traces of deep and painful emotion which something then transpiring, or anticipated, had aroused.

The eyes of this elegantly attired and beautiful female rested entirely upon Lord and Lady H----, who together occupied seats upon the bench on the right hand, a short distance from the judge, and who were prominent marks of observation for other persons beside this interesting female.

The case then before the court was a tedious trial for perjury, in which there was a mass of conflicting evidence. The tasks of judge and jury were rendered peculiarly difficult by the tangled mass of fact and fiction which the skill of the prosecution and the dexterity of the defence had laid before the court. To the parties interested in the next case--that of the plate robbery--no doubt this protracted evidence was very irksome, as well as to the man in the dock, whose liberty trembled in the balance of this conflicting testimony, or the discrimination of his fellows the jurymen.

Simultaneously with the latter portion of this trial for perjury, the counsel for the defence, Mr. Sergeant Ponderous and Mr. Anthony Stuffgown, were engaged in a consultation with Mr. Wheedle, the prisoner's attorney.

A communication had been made to the latter "gentleman according to Act of Parliament," the night before. It was a letter written by the fair spectator in the gallery of the court, who had also had an interview with Mr. Wheedle that morning.

The position she then occupied in court had been selected for her by the prisoner's legal adviser. He had calculated with tolerable precision where his lordship would sit, and he wished her to be within the range of his vision, without being too prominent to the disinterested spectator.

The prisoner's attorney had, in this consultation, explained to the counsel his stratagem, or intended _coup de théatre_. The learned sergeant and his learned junior considered the idea a good one, and may be said to have approved it; although, as they explained, it was no part of their professional duty to offer an opinion upon it. When the consultation was ended, the counsel returned into court, one taking his seat and the other hanging listlessly on the railing of the counsels' boxes.

Mr. Wheedle was on the staircase of the court, watching its two modes of egress, and awaiting the effect of his little stratagem.

An usher received a three-cornered note from the hands of somebody, addressed to Lord H----, with a small gold coin, and a request that he would put the half-sovereign in his own pocket, and hand the note to his lordship unseen by her ladyship.

The note ran thus:

"_Gallery of the Old Bailey_,

"_July 19th, 185-_.

"MY LORD,--For Heaven's sake, don't prosecute my brother, and kill
your faithful CLARA!"

His lordship cast his eyes to the gallery, and for the first time in that place he beheld the form and features of a lady not unknown to him, but one he had very frequently met elsewhere. Those eyes, and the recognition of the writer, were too much for the nobleman's delicate sensibilities. His face became as pale as chalk. He trembled almost as violently as a man attacked by St. Vitus's dance. He swooned immediately after he had thrust the missive unseen into one of his pockets.

This event caused what the reporters for the daily journals described as "a painful sensation" in court. His lordship was removed in his carriage to his residence in ---- Square, Belgravia, without uttering more than one sentence.

That sentence he so uttered was an instruction to his solicitor to get the trial postponed.

The trial for perjury, after a short interval, was proceeded with, and ended in the prisoner's acquittal.