Chapter XI: Part 11

“Oh, a gentleman gied me that,” she answered, quite promptly. “I was sittin’ restin’ on a step, when I got in the toon a bit—for I didna think it worth while to gang to the lodging as it was after six o’clock—when a gentleman cam’ up to me and asked me hoo far I had come, and aboot my man and my wean, and then he put his hand in his pooch, and brought oot a half-sovereign and put it in my hands. I thought it was a sixpence, for it was dark at the time, and maybe he thought that too. He looked a wee touched wi’ drink—drunk, ye ken—and I was gled when he gaed awa’.”

Clumsy, clumsy! a clumsy story in the extreme. We tried to convince her of that, and by cross-examining her to trip her up, but she stuck to her statements with amazing firmness, and even volunteered fresh details in confirmation. Finding her obdurate, we gave her up in despair, and she was taken away and locked up in a state of frenzy which looked wonderfully real, and therefore piteous enough.

The only wonder to us now was where the rest of the stolen clothes had been hidden. Allowing for the woman spending some money in the forenoon, she might be reasonably expected to have about ten shillings left of the fourteen given by the pawnbroker, but that disposal accounted for only a part of the stolen things. Could she have had any assistant who would share the plunder? I was anxious to settle that question. I brought in the pawnbroker’s son to see her, and he identified her in a haphazard fashion as the woman who pawned the things, but then, as I have recorded, he was a _blockhead_, and his evidence had no great value. I then thought of visiting the Infirmary to see if she had a husband there, and learn if the name she had given—Ellen Hunter—was real or assumed. A little to my surprise I found the husband there, Archibald Hunter by name, as the card at the head of his bed testified; and the moment that a hint of the truth was given him he was so terribly excited and agitated that he would almost have been out of the place there and then had he been allowed.

“Hoo can you blame a starving woman with a wean at her breast?” was his wild inquiry. “Can ye no show mercy where it’s no a real thief, but ane forced to it?”

“I daresay she would be shown mercy if she would admit the truth, and declare that she was driven to the act,” I replied, “but that she refuses to do. She persists in trying to screen herself and put all the crime upon some imaginary persons who gave her the things. There’s nothing new in that story; every thief has it at his tongue’s end.”

Though we thus disbelieved Ellen Hunter’s story, we made every search for the rest of the plunder, and actually did come upon traces of it. Several articles were recovered, which had been either sold or pawned, in which the linen mark had been removed bodily with a pair of scissors. This was particularly noticeable on the gentlemen’s shirts, which had been marked on a little tab at the bottom of the breast. In the case of one recovered, this tab had been cut off and the remaining end neatly stitched down. The consequence was that, though morally certain as to the identity of the shirt, the owner could not swear to it, and it was given back to the buyer, who declared that it had been bought from a man, whose appearance he described, and whom he declared himself able to identify.

Meantime the trial of Ellen Hunter came on at the Sheriff Court, to which she had been remitted. No reasoning or persuasion could induce her to plead guilty, or advance extenuating circumstances by way of lightening her sentence.

“They may do what they like to me, but I winna say I’m guilty when I’m innocent,” was her firm declaration. “If my wean could only speak, it wad tell ye that I’ve spoken naething but the truth.”

The case accordingly went to proof, and was speedily settled to the satisfaction of the jury, who, without leaving the box, found the charge proven. But then there arose in the Court, close to the bar, a pale shadow of a man, who in broken tones stated that he was the husband of the accused, and pleaded for permission to say a few words in mitigation of his wife’s offence. The permission was granted, and, in a husky and broken tone, Hunter proceeded to narrate the circumstances which had brought him to the Infirmary—his wife’s devotion, integrity, and sterling honesty; and the dread fear which had brought her on that long journey on foot, and in the dead of winter, with a child at her breast. The speech was given in the homeliest of language, and without any attempt at grammatical correctness; but there was a power and native eloquence about it which went to every heart. The wife was sobbing loudly at the bar with her infant in her arms, and the judge, visibly affected along with the whole Court, was about to pass a light sentence, when there came an interruption, the very last that any would have looked for in that place.

“I will do it, and I don’t care for you!” was shouted out in a woman’s voice in the audience, and as all looked round a girl known to me as “Sally the Snowdropper,” struggled up from one of the seats in spite of the efforts of a man at her side to detain her. Then there was a brief struggle and altercation, and the man rising with her dealt the poor girl a terrific blow in the eyes. The whole Court was aghast, and the brute was speedily collared and brought forward in custody. Then the prisoner at the bar started up with a joyful scream, and pointing to Sally, cried out—

“That’s the woman! that’s the kind lassie that gied me the shilling and wrappit her shawl roon’ my wean. Ask her and she’ll tell ye.”

Sally came forward, staunching the blood flowing from her nose, and looking pale with excitement, but firm and self-reliant withal.

“The woman is innocent as the child in her arms,” said Sally, as soon as she could speak. “A month or two in quod is nothing to me, but it’s hard to send an honest man’s wife there for nothing. I can’t stand that. I never thought it would come to this, or I would have spoken out sooner. I _stole the things_—every one of them—and I met her and gave her the shawl I had on, as her child was nearly dead with cold. I never knew the shawl was torn, or likely to be traced, or I’d never have given it. I gave her the stockings too—the first pair that came to hand in the bundle, and put them on her bairn with my own hands. The mother was half-frozen in her sleep, and at first I thought they were both dead. Just let her go, and shove me in her place, and the thing will be squared.”

“She’s mad!—she’s drunk, and doesn’t know what she’s saying,” shouted the man who had assaulted her; but he was promptly removed and locked up, the immediate result of which was that he was discovered to be wearing a gentleman’s white shirt resembling one of those stolen, and having the tab cut away from the breast, and stitched down exactly like the one already described.

Sally very speedily proved that she was neither mad nor drunk by revealing where all the stolen things had been disposed of, and stating that the tabs of the white shirts had been doctored by her own hands. Her companion was next day identified as the man who had sold one of the shirts, and the case was complete.

Ellen Hunter, half frenzied with delight, was set at liberty and taken into her husband’s arms; and when our case was complete, Sally, instead of appearing as prisoner, was taken as a witness, and so moved every one that the Sheriff, before allowing her to be dismissed, thought fit to address to her a few words of strong commendation for her generous spirit and truly noble nature, at the same time advising her, in a kind and feeling manner, to try to get out of the debasing life for which she was so ill-suited. In vain! he might have saved his breath. Sally was too far gone to mend her ways; and, while her companion went to prison, she went drifting on to the death and destruction which speedily became her lot. But she left one green spot on her memory. How many such can each of us boast?

A LIFT ON THE ROAD.

A curious difficulty sometimes faces the administrators of the law in dealing with some of that numerous class known as swindlers. A man calls at various houses and represents that he is a clergyman in want or distress, and thus gets money. Some one sharper than the rest runs him down, and he is caught and charged; when, lo! it turns out that the so-called rogue—and rogue he generally is—has actually been a clergyman, and of course is, in common with all broken men, actually in want. The result is clear—there has been no fraud. He has deceived no one; he has told the truth; and though he might be convicted of begging, he cannot be charged with swindling or obtaining money under false pretences.

It is a man of this stamp I have now to introduce. His real name was Alfred Johnston. He was a college-bred man of great smartness, and would have soon made a mark as a clergyman had he not been caught and ruined by a bad woman. Rendered dissolute in his habits and disowned by his friends, he changed his life and became as great a rascal as before he had been promising as a man.

Even with talents such as Johnston possessed this life is not all smooth sailing. There come times of want and danger, when their dearest companions would betray them without reward, or see them drop dying of hunger at their feet without putting out a hand to save. These are the reverses which are never heard of, but which are more common in a life of crime than any other on the face of the globe.

Johnston had tramped on foot the greater part of the road from Glasgow to Edinburgh, and had just crossed the boundary of the shire, which means that he was ten or twelve miles from the capital. His appearance was very much against him, or his route would have been easier. His boots were mere shreds of leather, through which his feet showed conspicuously, and he had no stockings. He had no shirt, and the utmost ingenuity in buttoning up his ragged coat could scarcely conceal the fact. The only trace of respectability remaining about his attire was a shabby and much battered dress hat. Johnston was a very good-looking fellow, with fine flowing black hair, and a big beard and moustache, and was still young—about thirty—but Apollo himself would have had an evil look in such a garb, so this prodigal’s lines had been hard ones for some time. In this plight—wearied in body, tired of life, disgusted with himself and all the world—Johnston lay down on a green bank by the road-side, wondering whether it were best to lie there and die, or struggle on over the remaining miles, which seemed to lengthen as they grew fewer in number.

A lovely sunset was shedding glory on the scene, and all was peaceful but the mind of that lost man. In looking listlessly around, his eye fell on a comfortable and well-sheltered residence, the very air of which proclaimed it, to Johnston’s experienced eye, a minister’s manse. There was a large garden attached, well stocked with fruit trees and bushes, and every other appurtenance that could render a country house snug and attractive. I don’t know whether the thought struck him that he might have been the comfortable occupant of such a house—possibly it did, for he was conscious that he had more talent than dozens of the drones occupying manses of the kind—but his immediate action was to rouse himself to consider whether he could not lay the occupant under contribution. A passing field hand, belonging to the village close by, supplied him with the occupant’s name and opinions, and, thus armed, he ventured up to the house, gently rang the bell, and with some difficulty induced the servant to take up his name—“The Rev. Alfred Johnston”—to her master.

Johnston stood demurely in the lobby, to which he had been admitted with marked suspicion by the servant, till the Rev. Robert Goodall appeared, in spectacles and slippers, direct from his study. If he had been startled to learn that a brother clergyman wished to see him, he was much more so at seeing the brother clergyman. But Johnston was fluent of tongue, and he had experience in dealing with such surprise.

“I am really a clergyman, as I can prove to you, but have been reduced to this state by my own folly,” he hastened to humbly say. “And I have not come to beg or ask you for money, as I daresay there are so many legitimate calls upon your goodness that you can ill afford to succour strangers. But I have walked all the way from Glasgow, and am now nearly fainting with hunger. If you could tell your servant to give me, out on the door-step or at the road-side, enough broken victuals, no matter how plain or coarse, to support me till morning, your kindness will never be forgotten.”

The clergyman heard him in silence, and probably scepticism; but on questioning him closely as to his college career, was surprised to find every statement agreeing with his own knowledge. Johnston described the classes; mimicked the Professors; quoted Greek and Hebrew writings with the utmost ease and correctness, and even showed that he had made the acquaintance of personal friends of Mr Goodall who had attended during the same sessions. In this narration Johnston had only to keep to the truth to make it saddening to listen to, and this he did, adding a few pathetic touches about a wife and child left in great want in Glasgow, while he made a struggle to reach Edinburgh on foot, in hope of securing a tutor’s place, for which he was well qualified.

“Do you mean to try to reach Edinburgh to-night?” inquired the clergyman, with some pity in his tones.

“No, that is impossible, for I am quite exhausted,” said the wanderer, with apparent frankness. “I cannot go much further. I shall rest under some hedge or hay-stack till morning, and then make my way thither by daylight.”

“I am sorry for you, a man of education and talent, who might be in so much better a position,” said the clergyman, in gentle rebuke. “However, you shall have the food you require, but not out on the door-step. Come this way.”

Mr Goodall led the way to a comfortable parlour, where he lighted a lamp, drew the blinds, and then ordered in the remains of his own dinner—cold, of course, but much better fare than Johnston had tasted for many a day. When he had eaten his fill, and finished with a glass of wine brought to him by the kind clergyman, he was in no hurry to leave, and his entertainer was as willing that he should linger. Johnston’s tongue was fluent, and he could tell many strange stories of his ups and downs, and in the present case so suited them to a clerical ear that the good-hearted man at length felt strong qualms as to sending such a man out into the darkness. The best plan would have been to give the needy being a shilling wherewith to pay for a lodging at some travellers “howff,” but that never occurred to the minister. He was entertained, flattered, and amused by the queer waif cast up at his door, and fancied that the best way to show his gratitude was to invite Johnston to stay there over the night. The wanderer affected to receive the invitation with unbounded astonishment, but was at length prevailed upon to accept the offer, and after patiently listening to some of Mr Goodall’s printed sermons, and passing very flattering criticisms upon their logic and learning, he followed the good man upstairs to a spare bedroom, where an old suit of the minister’s, with a pair of boots and a shirt, made a considerable improvement in his appearance.

After supper they parted for the night with mutual good wishes, and the minister lay down to a sound night’s sleep, conscious of having that day emulated his great Master in doing one good action to the neediest near his hands. Johnston ought to have slept soundly too, for he had travelled far and fasted, and then eaten well, but cupidity was in him stronger than drowsiness. In producing his pet sermons to read them over for his guest’s edification, the clergyman had used his keys to a drawer in the writing-table and exposed something very like a cash-box. When the sermons had been restored to their place of security, the drawer had been again locked, but the keys were left in the lock. Johnston, during a momentary absence of his entertainer, unlocked the drawer and placed the keys ostentatiously on the top of the writing-table, from which they were lifted by the owner a few minutes later, all unconscious but that he had himself left them there.

No opportunity occurred during the evening for testing the contents of the unlocked drawer; but in anticipation of there being something in it worth carrying away, he arranged with his kind host that he should be allowed to leave the house very early in the morning.

The thought of that money-box kept him awake for three hours, by which time he guessed rightly that both the clergyman and his housekeeper would be fast asleep. He then slipped down to the parlour on his stocking-soles—the first use to which he put the gift of Mr Goodall—and took from the box about £50 in notes and coin. A gold pencil-case, a silver fruit knife, and a pair of spectacles, which were lying close by, he was mean enough also to appropriate. He then slipped upstairs, and lay down and slept the sleep of the unjust till about seven in the morning.

I don’t know what the man’s feelings had been when he found that Mr Goodall was up, and had caused the servant to prepare breakfast for him, and when that was hastily swallowed, insisted on accompanying the wanderer back part of the way to the nearest railway station, at which he paid his fare to Edinburgh, and pressed a few shillings into his hand, merely saying at parting—

“Go in peace, and sin no more.”

Surely his heart must have got a sore twinge at that moment.

Johnston soon reached Edinburgh, and the telegram announcing the robbery followed an hour or two later. This message contained a brief description of the man, who, however, was known to me by reputation, though I had never seen him. My only wonder was that he had given his real name and antecedents, which, I suppose, may be accounted for by the robbery being an after-thought. With such a sum of money in his possession Johnston was practically at the ends of the earth, and it might be thought foolish to look for him in Edinburgh; but I reasoned otherwise. Your very needy rascal, who has not fingered money for a long time, grudges to throw away much of it on railway fares, or anything, indeed, which does not minister immediately to his own gratification. Besides, Johnston had spoken of going to “friends” in Edinburgh, and I had no doubt but he had in his mind at the moment certain of my “bairns” hailing from Glasgow, and already known to him, who would be glad to profit by his superior education and planning power. By telegraphing to Johnny Farrel I had a list of these “friends” an hour after the receipt of the news, and immediately went out to seek some of them, sending M^cSweeny in another direction on the same errand. The brief description from the robbed clergyman was supplemented by a fuller one from Glasgow, and thus we were pretty certain of identifying our man, even if we had met him on the street. Now, behold how, when you are most certain, you may be most easily deceived. M^cSweeny went to a certain house in Potterrow, which he entered without ceremony, and then proceeded to question the inmates. This house had generally a stranger or two in it at every inspection, and the present occasion proved no exception. There were two strangers—one a hawker, and the other an evil-looking character with the hair of his head cropped close to the skull, and his face as smooth and hairless as the palm of his hand. Neither of these answering the description, M^cSweeny began to make inquiries for Johnston, and was even obliging enough to describe his character and general appearance to those present in that kitchen.

“I believe I saw him not an hour ago,” said the cropped-headed man sullenly, after a dead silence on the part of all present.

“Where?” eagerly demanded M^cSweeny.

“Where I could get him again in five minutes, I think, if it was worth my while,” suggestively returned the man.

“Will you take me to him now, then?” cried M^cSweeny.

“No. But I’ll send him up here if you like to wait. Is it worth half-a-crown?”

M^cSweeny considered for a moment, and then said that it was. The man slowly rose from his place by the fire and held out his hand for the money; but the clever and cunning M^cSweeny only winked hard, and made a few remarks about great detectives, famous all over the world, not being easily cheated.

“No, no, my jewel,” he added; “ye’ll get the money when ye’ve earned it—not a minute sooner.”

The man scowled horribly, and slowly slunk out of the room and the house. Was ever an escape more neatly effected? That clean-shaven, cropped-haired man was Johnston! The moment he had entered the city he had gone to a barber and got shaved and cropped—I afterwards spoke to the man who did it—and the alteration which such an operation effects on the appearance can be understood only by those who have seen it performed. Had Johnston been placed at that moment under the eyes of Mr Goodall he most certainly would not have been able to identify his late guest; nay, I am not sure but he might have sworn most positively that that was not the man.

M^cSweeny waited patiently for nearly half an hour, and then it began to dawn upon him that he had been done. The grins of the occupants of that kitchen as he went out did not tend to soothe his feelings. Not a word was said on either side; it was all understood. What had first roused my chum’s suspicion of the truth was the recollection that the man had passed out of the room without a head-covering, and that the remainder of his body was covered with a very loose-fitting old suit of blacks. Now the clergyman had made Johnston a present of just such a suit, and being himself a stout man, had not been able to give him a very good fit. Along with the suit went a broad-brimmed clerical-looking dress hat; but that Johnston had only assumed when out of M^cSweeny’s sight. What made the thing more aggravating was that M^cSweeny had seen the hat hanging on a window-shutter in one of the rooms in searching the house, yet had never thought of connecting it with the evil-looking wretch by the fire. Not long after M^cSweeny’s discomfiture, one of the county police appeared with a full description of this suit of clothes and broad-brimmed hat—just too late, of course.

When M^cSweeny had spent a deal of time in hunting for the man who had so neatly escaped him, and appeared to report to me, I was in a very bad temper, for I was conceited enough to think that, if it had been I who had clapped eyes on Johnston, he would not have got off—an opinion which I changed when I knew the rascal better.

Like Jim Macluskey, [See _Brought to Bay_, page 5] he had the rare faculty of being able to change the whole expression of his face by ingeniously contorting his features, and could speak in any kind of language or tone to suit. M^cSweeny’s mistake was really not so surprising or stupid as it appeared to me at the moment, or as it now appears in print.

I had no time to say much, for I felt that Johnston must have realised that the city was too hot for him, and would get out of it at his swiftest. If I was to get him it must be at once.

What route or means was he most likely to take? That was the all-important question with me. First I decided that he would not go near any of the railway stations, else I should have hopefully turned in the direction of the Forth and the North—quite a favourite route for escaping criminals. Then it struck me that, having gone the length of sacrificing his fine beard and hair, and been so successful in thus altering his appearance, he might boldly try the most dangerous route of all, as that on which he was least likely to be looked for—the road for Glasgow. He was not to know that, when it was too late, we had penetrated his disguise, and at that moment was probably exulting over his cleverness. I did not expect him to walk all the way to Glasgow, but thought he might go out a good distance, and then take train at some obscure railway station for whatever town he meant to favour with his presence. My idea was that Glasgow itself was to be thus favoured, but that point did not concern me for the present.

Now, there were the three roads all crossed by the railway to choose from, and I was a little puzzled which to try. He had come by that leading through East Calder, and I scarcely thought he would take that. That left the Bathgate and Linlithgow routes to choose from. I got a gig with a strong stepping horse, and drove out the Linlithgow road till I came upon one of the county police, who satisfied me that no such man had passed along that road within the last three hours. My reason for trying that route was that there was a possibility of him, when once on the railway skirting that road, branching away to the north by way of Stirling, and so escaping. However, there was nothing for it but to drive back in all haste and get on to the Bathgate road, which is the favourite one for tramps. When I was a few miles from the city, I could scarcely believe my own eyes when I saw a man approaching me from the opposite direction, clad in a suit identical with that I was looking for. There it was—loose-fitting, shabby, old, and black, with the broad-brimmed hat to crown all. The man’s face had no beard either, but it was roasted brown with the sun, and had on the chin a stubbly growth of hair some days old. Nevertheless, I pulled up and stopped him.

“Here, you!” I said, displaying my staff as I jumped down.

“Alfred Johnston, I’ve been looking for you. I’ve a warrant for all Scotland, so step up quietly;” and before he had recovered from his astonishment, or uttered a word, I had the handcuffs on his dirty wrists.

“My name isn’t Johnston—that I’ll swear,” he said, simply, when he got his breath; then a light appeared to break on him, and with a great oath he added, “Now I think I know why the kind gentleman got me to change clothes with him, though mine were sorry rags and them is first-class. Whew! who’d have thought it? He’s done something, and the police is after him for it?”

This seemed not bad at all, and quite worthy of the man who had so neatly befooled M^cSweeny, but I only grinned unfeelingly in his simple face, and said dryly that “I believed so,” and bundled him without ceremony into the gig.

“But—but—ye don’t mean to tell me ye’re going to take me instead of him?” he at length articulated, with a look of half-comical alarm.

“I am—just.”

“Then the real man’ll get off, and I’ll be hanged in his stead!” he cried, fairly breaking down with terror; “for he’s footing it out fast enough, I tell ye.”

“The real man?” I said, thinking to humour him, as I resumed the reins and turned the horse’s head; “and what was he like, pray?”

“A clean-shaved, smooth-spoken gentleman—for all the world like a priest or a minister, only that his head’s cropped as close as if he was just new out of jail,” was the prompt answer; “though, by my troth, he looked more like a shockerawn in my old duds when I left him.”

I started, and began to think. Then I pulled off my prisoner’s hat, and found his hair not at all close cropped. I drove rapidly back to one of those wayside stations of the county police, and there left my prisoner safely locked up, every question he answered confirming my impression that he had been speaking the truth. The only difficulty I had with him was in getting him to describe the clothes which he had exchanged for the old blacks he wore. These he either could not or would not name—in colour, shape, or material—a difficulty which I only understood when the rags were before me—and then it would have puzzled _me_ to do what I wondered at him not doing. Even a detective can be unreasonable at times.

Leaving the Irish-speaking man thus, I turned the horse’s head and made him spin along the road at a fine rate, being not only anxious to overtake the wearer of the “duds,” if he existed, but also to escape a storm of rain which had been threatening for half the day and was then beginning to descend. When I had gone on thus for a few miles, and passed a good many on the road—not one of whom answered the description of my man—I allowed the horse to “breathe” in ascending one of the braes by laying the reins on his neck and letting him take his own pace. In thus moving slowly along, I turned a corner allotted to stone breaking, and there caught sight of a dark object huddled in to shelter from the rain. I was all but past, and had just noticed that the figure was that of a ragged tramp, when the man rose and trotted hurriedly after the gig, saying respectfully—

“If you please, sir, would it be asking too much, sir, for you to give me a lift?”

I pulled up the horse and scanned him closely, while I appeared to busy myself pulling up my collar to keep out the driving rain.

“Well,” I said, in a tone by no means gracious or obliging, “how far are you going?”

“I’m not particular, sir,” he answered with alacrity, “as far as you’re going yourself, sir.”

“Come up, then.”

I had decided that he might not be my man, but I would be as well to have him beside me till I saw if there were any others further on. Besides, it was already growing dark, and I had little time to lose.

The bundle of rags got up, and I had a better view of his face as he made his ragged legs comfortable under the knee cloth. It was clean shaven and by no means so loutish as his speech. His hair, I saw, was cropped to the bone. I drove on till it was dark without overtaking any other, drawing my companion out on the weather and other every-day topics.

“What are you when you are at home?” I at length half jocularly asked.

I had kept him at arm’s length, so to speak, all the way, never allowing him to become familiar in the least.

He paused over his answer, looking up at my face through the darkness.

“I’d astonish you if I told you,” he at last replied, in a somewhat altered tone.

“Indeed!” I answered, apparently with great indifference, but really trembling with eager curiosity.

“Yes, I am really a clergyman, but reduced to this state by my own folly.”

At last I had him! There he was sitting close by me in the dark, betrayed by his own pet phrase, so truthful, and yet so often used to deceive. I could have shouted with exultation, but I was too anxious to see him safe under lock and key. Plenty of time for crowing when I had him in the cells.

I gave a dissatisfied grunt and a dry “Imphum,” and remained silent for some time. During that interval a bright thought flashed upon me, and at the first cross road I purposely turned the horse off the main road, and went on till we were stopped by a farm.

I had gig lamps, and these I got lighted, and then I mounted and turned back till we reached the main road, which I boldly turned into—in the direction leading back to Edinburgh.

“Are you sure you’re not going the wrong way?” said my companion, after a little.

“I am going my way—this is my road,” I replied, with some gruffness; “I can’t say anything about yours. I think you said you weren’t particular?”

“All right—neither I am,” he said, evidently not relishing the thought of being turned out on the dark road in such a rain. “Just drive on, please, and never mind me.”

I did drive on at my fastest. I soon reached the little station-house; but before that I had decided that it might not be very safe to trust Johnston in such a place for the night, and I passed it without stopping. At last the lights of the city appeared in front of us, and my companion roused himself to watch them with growing interest.

“What town is this?” he at length asked.

“Edinburgh,” I shortly answered.

“What! Edinburgh?” he cried, almost jumping up from his seat. “How can that be? I thought we were driving towards Bathgate?”

“We were at first, but I changed my mind and turned back. Want to get down, or will you go further?”

He considered the matter, though I was really laughing at him in my sleeve while making the suggestion; for, as may be guessed, I had no intention of allowing him to get down—alone. Then he said ruefully—

“Which way are you going?”

“Round by the back of the Castle towards the High Street,” was my prompt answer; and he directed me to drive on, signifying that he was going that way too—which was perfectly true. At the Puseyite Chapel he touched me on the arm and said—“I’ll get down here, sir, if you please.”

I was driving along at a great speed and appeared not to hear him, and in a moment more we were tearing into the brightly-lighted Lawnmarket and High Street.

“I wanted to get down,” he said reproachfully, and a little angrily, as we went careering madly down the street.

“It’s all right,” I said; “I’m getting down in a minute myself;” and sure enough, in less than that time, I pulled up in front of the Central, where I gave the reins to a man, who delightedly exclaimed—

“Oh, M^cGovan’s got him!”

My prisoner gave me a look—long and steady—which spoke more than a thousand words, and then I helped him down with the words—

“Come away, Johnston; we’ve had a very successful drive, haven’t we, though it has been disagreeably wet?”

He replied in the affirmative, but the language in which it was couched was not clerical. That lift on the road cost him just five years’ penal servitude. I shall allude to him again.

THE ORGAN-GRINDER’S MONEY-BAG.

When the organ-grinder appeared in a distracted state at the Office, his face was quite familiar to me through seeing him on the streets and at race-courses and other gatherings with his organ. He was a big-bodied, swarthy man, with a full black beard, and, of course, till that moment I had taken him for an Italian. To hear the Irish brogue come pouring in a torrent out of his mouth, therefore, was a little startling. His very grief, and earnestness, and evident unconsciousness of anything ludicrous added comicality to the discovery, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I restrained a smile while he incoherently made known his loss.

“The savings of tin years tuck from me in a lump,” he groaned, with a shower of lamentations; “and however the thafe did it, or found out where my money was, or that I had any to stale, I can’t for the life of me tell; for even my friend Tom Joson here thought I hadn’t a penny, and didn’t know where it was kept.”

The friend thus alluded to bobbed to me, and I recognised him also as a street musician. He was a lame man, and used a crutch and stick to move about, and his instrument was a tin whistle. Sometimes, I think, he used two of these whistles tied together, and he affected to be much more lame and helpless than he really was. His favourite “pitch” was to squat cross-legged at the edge of the pavement on the Mound with his crutch and stick ostentatiously displayed before him, and a tin mug placed on the kerb ready for contributions, and there he droned out his tunes, generally of a plaintive character, for hours together, with wonderful taste and skill. He got drunk at times, and became troublesome, and had to go to jail to cool down.

That was the man who now bobbed to me, and shook his head dolefully over his friend’s misfortune.

“I came here to show him the way, and introduce him to the great detective,” Joson volunteered, with a sympathetic snifter and cringe.

“Yes, having been here so often yourself, you were quite qualified for that task,” I dryly returned, whereat the lame man cringed and bobbed again, and affected to take the observation as a very good joke, though his mental remarks, I feel sure, were quite unfit for publication.

“You say you have lost a bag of money,” I continued to the organ-grinder, after taking down his name as Peter M^cCarthy. “How did it happen, and how much money did the bag contain?”

“’Twasn’t lost—’twas stole from me,” cried the organ-grinder, with a fresh burst of expletives on the head of the robber; “and there was two hundred and seven golden sovereigns in the bag—two hundred and seven, sur. ’Twas a heap of money, and it was so pleasant to feel the gold running through your fingers. But I’m afeared I’ll never touch it again. And I worked hard for it, sur; if I’d coined every sovereign of it out of me own blood it couldn’t have been got slower. Tin years! och, if I lose it, I may creep into me grave.”

“You were foolish to carry such a large sum about with you,” I could not help observing.

“I didn’t carry it about with me—it had got too heavy for that,” quickly returned the organ-grinder. “Faith, I only wish I’d never given up carrying it, and I’d have had it now. No; I had it stowed away in a hole of the chimney of my house, where no living being could get at it.”

“And yet it was taken—how do you explain that?”

“I can’t explain it. I only know that it’s gone,” he answered with a mysterious look, much as if he thought some greedy ghosts had been at work removing his hidden pile. “My house is a garret in the Grassmarket. I’ll take you to it, and show you the place whenever you like. The landlord is a hawker called Jimmy Poulson. He has the other two rooms; but he can’t get into my place at any time, as I’ve a lock on the dure, which I had put on myself, which no one can pick.”

At the mention of Jimmy Poulson’s name, Tom Joson, the lame man, jerked his head to me significantly.

“I’ve always till now thought Jimmy an honest man,” continued the organ-grinder, “and even if he had got into my house while I was out, how could he have known I had money, or got it out without leaving marks?”

“Ay, how?” groaned the lame man in sympathy.

“You see, sur,” pursued the other, “I never had a fire on in my room, for the agreement was I was to get the use of Jimmy’s kitchen and fire for a shilling a week extra, so I had a board made to fit the fire-place, and I had that always fixed in while I was out. I’ll tell ye how I fixed it so as nobody could move it without me knowing. I always pasted a paper over the edges, and the paper had generally a picture on it. If any one had tuck it down when I was out the paper picture must have shown the cracks and tears. Last night when I got home there wasn’t a scratch or tear in the paper—this morning the same; but when I took out the board with my own hands I found that the hole in the chimney was empty, and my bag of gold stole away.”

“Stole away!” echoed the lame man, like an obedient chorus, with a doleful shake of the head.

“Then I wondered how it was I hadn’t seen Jimmy for three days, for I’d never known him to be away so long before,” continued the organ-grinder. “You see, we have both keys to fit the outer door, and when Jimmy’s away I just look after things for him. He’s a bachelor, and so am I, and likely to keep so if I don’t get back my money. Oh, what will my poor darlin’, Honora, say when she hears of me being robbed!” he moaned, flying off at a tangent again. “She’s waited for me for ten years, and the money was to fulfil a vow I made as a penance to me sowl, for I wance struck my mother, and knocked her senseless, and I vowed before God that if He’d restore her I’d save, and slave, and scrape, and stint myself, and never marry my own devoted girl till I’d bought the little bit of land and the house for the owld paiple to end their days in peace; and another year would have done it. Surely the blessed Lord above us, that heard my vow and helped me to keep it, won’t let me be sent broken-hearted to the grave with this cruel loss?”

“You ought to have put the money in the bank,” I said severely. “The interest alone during these years would have amounted to something handsome, and allowed you to fulfil your purpose by this time.”

“I couldn’t trust a bank,” he said, with the national prejudice in every word and tone. “When the bank broke I’d have blamed myself for my simplicity and foolishness, but now I blame nobody but the black-hearted thafe. If it’s Jimmy Poulson that’s done it, he’ll never prosper in this world; for it’s not me alone he’s wronged, but the owld paiple, that are less able to bear it, and my sweet colleen, that would lay down her life for me.”

“Oh, but Mr M^cGovan will soon run him down,” observed the lame man, hopefully.

I was not so sure of that, for, supposing the thief to be Poulson, that worthy had already got three days’ start. As yet, however, I was by no means certain that there had been any thief in the case. When I had got from the organ-grinder a description of the land of houses in which he lived, I found that it was one well known to me as one of the ricketiest buildings in the quarter, and I quickly formed a theory, from his description of the place and circumstances, that seemed to offer the only feasible explanation. He had thrust the bag of money into a hole inside the chimney; that hole might have been deeper than he thought; might have led into another chimney; and so, in thrusting in the treasure, it was possible he might have sent it tumbling down, like a gift from heaven, into some wretched abode beneath. I said little of this idea at the moment, but anxiety to test the matter induced me to go with the queer pair to the organ-grinder’s garret. It was a poor place, and very small. There was a bed at one side, and a window jutting out on the slates. This window was fastened with two thick screw nails on the inside, and had not been opened for years. I tried with all my strength to open it, but it did not yield in the slightest. The place was very tidy and clean, considering that no woman ever got within the door. I turned to the fire-place, beside which stood a square board very much papered over on one side, but showing clean white wood and two cross spars on the other. This fitted the fire-place exactly. Directed by the organ-grinder I reached up inside the fire-place and soon touched a recess in the wall of the chimney. It was a mistake to call it a hole; it was a mere ledge in the wall on which a bag of money might have rested easily, but in which it could scarcely be said to be hidden. There was no soot in the chimney, and my fingers were not even soiled by the inspection. My theory, of course, was completely knocked on the head, but I immediately formed another.

Looking up the chimney I could see daylight at quite a short distance above. The vent was nearly straight till near the fire-place, where it widened considerably. The organ-grinder was positive that the strange door of his safe and its fastenings had been quite untampered with before he himself opened it. He declared that if it had been he should have detected the fact at a glance. The money therefore had not come out at that door; neither had it gone through the wall or down any other chimney; there remained therefore but one way for its abstraction, that was—up the chimney. The lame man Joson, who assisted me officiously during the examination, was anxious when I had concluded to learn what theory I had formed in regard to the robbery, but I did not enlighten him; and though the second theory, like the first, proved to be not quite correct, it was perhaps as well that I said nothing of it at the time. No such caution is necessary here, however, and I may state the theory. I had often seen ragamuffins fishing down the street gratings or inaccessible areas for odds and ends dropped by passers by, their fishing-tackle generally consisting of a long bit of twine and a piece of wood or stone, the under side of which was coated with tar or some such sticky substance. Sometimes, instead of a tarred stone, there was a well-sharpened table fork, which was simply lowered and let “dab” into the article to be hoisted.

If the article happened to lie in any corner “off the plumb,” some difficulty was generally experienced in the fishing, though even then captures were sometimes made by setting the fork or sticky stone in motion, pendulum wise, and at the proper moment letting it fall on the article. Now, applying this knowledge to the organ-grinder’s money-bag, it seemed to me quite likely that it had been fished out in the same fashion, though I was doubtful if a fork or even a sticky stone could have laid hold of a money-bag of green flannel, especially when that bag was weighted with 207 sovereigns. But even supposing the “fishing” theory correct, boys do not generally wander along roofs fishing down chimneys for possible hoards.

To fish down that chimney implied a knowledge that the gold was there, and that knowledge, the organ-grinder insisted, had been till that day confined strictly to his own breast. Even his own relations in the west of Ireland, he declared, knew nothing of his hiding-place or the amount of his savings. In saying so he possibly spoke what he believed to be the truth. It is possible to betray many a secret without ever using the tongue or opening the lips, and certainly without ever knowing or dreaming that we have revealed what we are striving to conceal. I therefore made no comment on these strong statements, but sought by a series of indirect questions to discover whom he consorted with most, and, above all, who was favoured so far as to be admitted into this house of his, as he chose to dignify the garret.

Only two persons, so far as I could learn, were thus favoured, and these were the landlord, Jimmy Poulson, and the lame man, Tom Joson. The organ-grinder did not make a confidant of either of these men, but if one of them had a higher place in his esteem than the other, that one was Joson. I suspect the organ-grinder was inclined to be miserly, and liked Joson, because the lame man treated him to drink without ever asking him to return the compliment.

The street whistle-player, unlike his dear friend, was a married man, and never got into difficulties with the police except by getting drunk and quarrelling with his wife. He had therefore got into a habit of shunning public-houses when he wanted a comfortable spree—as he knew only too well that there he would be unerringly hunted out by his wife—and going instead to the organ-grinder’s garret, where, after the labours of the day, they could enjoy in peace what was denied to Joson elsewhere. Much of this I drew out of the organ-grinder after getting rid of Joson, by sending him out for some writing-paper and ink. When I had drawn from him all I wished, I began to speculate as to whether it was not possible that both Poulson and Joson had participated in the robbery. If I had had any choice in the matter, I should rather have blamed the lame man than the hawker. Poulson was a hard-working man, and had never been through our hands, while the lame man was a bit of an imposition, had often been in jail, though not for stealing, and was exceedingly cunning besides. But there was the condemning fact—Poulson had run off and disappeared, while the lame man not only remained, but had been the adviser and guide of the organ-grinder in seeking the aid of the police. Still I could not see what interest the lame man could have had in so constantly seeking the society of the organ-grinder. What object could he have in view? Had he suspected that the man kept a hoard somewhere about the room, and determined to find out where that hide was?