Chapter XVI: Part 16

It was all but hidden with soot, but enough was left bare to show that it had attached to it a bit of twine, which hung down inside the chimney proper. I grasped at the nail, easily pulled it out, and drew up with it the bit of twine. Something dangled at the end of the twine, which proved to be a paper parcel not very neatly tied up. I felt the contents of the parcel through the paper, and smiled out broadly.

“What a dunce I was not to think of this sooner!” was my comment upon myself.

I distinctly felt the shape of a bracelet through the paper, and did not trouble to open the parcel till I should get down into the house. I went down, and Mrs Nolten, seeing me smile and the parcel in my hand attached to the sooty string, instantly grasped at the truth.

“You’ve found them in my own chimney?”

A woman’s instincts seldom mislead her. The lady was right. I opened the paper parcel, and there, snugly reposing within, and not a whit the worse of the smoking, were the bracelet, the necklet, and the odd gold ear-ring. I left the house at once, taking the interesting parcel with me, and in a minute or two stood before Sandy in his own home.

“It’s a fine day, sir,” he graciously began.

“It is—a very fine day,” I returned, with emphasis. “Do you remember that bit of ivory, Sandy, with the brass handle attached, which we found here?”

Sandy found his memory conveniently defective.

“I had quite forgot aboot it, sir,” he said awkwardly, when I had refreshed his powers a little.

“Well, I’ve discovered the gentleman who owns it, and strangely enough he declares that _you_ were in his house sweeping some chimneys the day before it went amissing.”

Sandy’s sooty face was a curious study, but he wisely made no audible reply.

“Don’t say anything unless you like, but did you ever see this parcel before?” I gently pursued, as I brought out the parcel and showed him its contents. “Nothing to say?—very good. Just put on your coat and cap and we’ll go, then. I’m only sorry,” I added, as I put a handcuff on his wrist, and retained the other end in my hand, “that I haven’t a pair of these with a longer chain between the bracelets, for I never come close to you, Sandy, without sneezing for half a day after.”

Sandy grinned a feeble and ghastly assent, and then went with me without a word. We could easily have proved both robberies against him, but he decided to make the best of his position by pleading guilty, and so got off with three months imprisonment.

THE FAMILY BIBLE.

To men of business or wealth, accustomed to handle large sums of money, bank-notes for large sums—such as £50 or £100—suggest nothing but convenience of handling and counting. With those who never owned £50 in their lives it is very different. The sum represented seems fabulously great—a fortune in itself. And then the thing is so small—a little oblong square of paper—so compressible—so thin—that the second stage—that of temptation—easily follows. Fifty or a hundred pounds in gold would be a good weight to carry, and a sum difficult to conceal; but a slip of paper! how many cunning and impenetrable places of hiding could be devised in a few minutes for that?

I have to give here the adventures of three £50 bank-notes. These notes had been paid to Mr George Lockyer, a builder, who dabbled a little in money lending, by a friend in quittance of a bond on some property. The payer of the money was but a working man, else the transaction would probably have been settled with a cheque; and the fact that this man was in working clothes had an important bearing upon the whole case, apart from the absence of a cheque altogether. The money had been drawn from the bank, but neither the teller who paid over the notes nor the receiver of them thought of noting the numbers.

Mr Lockyer, however, though anything but a careful or methodical man in regard to money, chanced to notice the number of the top note, from the fact that it was formed of two twenties, thus—“2020.”

The notes were scarcely opened out—they were quickly counted—the necessary papers handed over to the payee, and the whole transaction, and some friendly conversation as well, was all over in about fifteen minutes.

When the payee was gone, Mr Lockyer lifted the lid of his desk, and carelessly placed the notes, folded in three, on the top of some papers, intending to take them out in a short time, and bank them on his way home to dinner. He did not take them out or bank them—he forgot all about them. About half an hour later he left the little office, locking the door after him, and taking the key with him.

This little office was part of a small erection attached to the building yard. That part which Mr Lockyer used as an office was not above ten feet square. It was fitted up with two desks, as at times the builder employed a clerk, but at that time was entered by no one but himself, or any callers he might have to receive while there.

The remainder of the erection was used as a kind of tool-house, and was fitted all round with shelves. This apartment entered from the building yard, and at one time the door between the two places had been open, but now it was not only closed and locked, but crossed on the tool-house side by the shelves aforesaid. This door had not been open for years, and the builder had not even a key for the lock. The other door, and that now in use, entered from the street, close to the gate of the yard.

Mr Lockyer remained away from his office during the whole afternoon, the reason being that he found some friends waiting him, and had no particular press of business to call him away. Late in the evening, however, he remembered suddenly of the three £50 notes left so carelessly in his desk at the office, and started up and whispered to his wife that he would have to go out on business for half an hour.

“I have left some money in the place which should have been in the bank or here,” was his explanation, “and I must go and get it, for the place is a mere shed;” and as the word “money” rouses the strongest instincts of some wives, he was suffered to depart in peace.

He reached his office in ten minutes, and found it to all appearance exactly as he left it. It was then quite dark, but he was so sure of the spot on which he had placed the three notes that he did not trouble to strike a light, but merely raised the lid of the desk and groped for the notes. His fingers did not touch the soft, greasy papers, but the harder and smoother pile of accounts which had been beneath them. He groped and groped; he struck a light—first only a match, then the gas—but in vain. The three bank-notes were gone.

“Did I leave them here? Did I not put them in my pocket?” was his first wild thought, followed by a hurried groping and searching for his pocket-book.

The notes were not there. Then he distinctly remembered placing them in the desk, and the fact that he had never removed them. He searched the whole desk, turned out every scrap of paper and article that it contained, carefully examined the room from floor to ceiling, turned over everything in the other desk, and finally sat down with his hands in his pockets, thoroughly baffled and puzzled. He had locked the notes in that small apartment; the key had never been out of his pocket, yet, on returning a few hours later, he found that they had vanished.

The builder glared about him in a state of great excitement, imprecating under his breath, and heartily abusing himself for his carelessness, though he had done the same often before with impunity. While he sat thus vainly seeking a solution his eye fell upon the disused door. There was no key to it that he knew of, and the outer door of the tool-house, entering from the yard, he felt sure was locked. Still there was a possibility of entrance in that direction, and that fact set the builder a-thinking. But one man had the entry of that tool-house—a disabled mason, named John Morley, whom out of charity he kept employed about the yard. Morley had injured himself permanently by lifting a heavy weight, and could do little but look after the things in the yard, and give them out as they were wanted by the men. Mr Lockyer had known him nearly all his life, and had never found him to do a dishonest action. Yet still the fact remained that there was a man, very poorly paid—his wage was 12s. a week—having a wife and two bairns to keep, and with a possible means of access to the missing money. Might the money not have been taken in a moment of strong temptation even by a man like John Morley, reputed sterling and honest?

“If he has taken it, I can hardly blame him,” was the generous reflection of the builder. “They have a sair struggle to make ends meet, I’ve no doubt; and I was a fool to leave the money lying about. But I never knew him to have a key for that door, and how could he possibly knew that the money was there, even if he had a key? I had better act cautiously, as much for my own sake as for his and his family’s. I must say nothing to the police or any one till I see John himself.”

Mr Lockyer had been kind to his yard-keeper; he had all but supported the man and his family during Morley’s illness; then he had devised how he could employ him at some nominal task by way of making the man feel less dependent; and lastly, he had promised to assist him and his family to join a brother abroad who was in a more flourishing condition and had promised him work suited to his bodily strength. The builder, therefore, could scarcely believe that the man he had so helped and shielded could return the kindness by robbing him of £150; and he locked up his office and turned in the direction of the yard-keeper’s home, resolved to be as guarded in his words as possible, so as not to hurt the man’s feelings. Mr Lockyer was a man who had risen—a bluff, hearty, generous-hearted fellow—and had always a lenient hand for a working man in difficulties.

Morley’s home was a cellar in Buccleuch Street—a dingy, damp hovel, lighted by a grating under a shop window. The place was not far from the yard, and therefore was speedily reached by the builder. Morley was at home, smoking by the fire, and the bairns were playing in a corner. The wife was out washing, as she often was, in order to eke out their income.

Morley looked a good deal surprised at the visit, and scarcely asked his employer to enter. Mr Lockyer, however, walked in and seated himself, and, after a few preliminary words, said abruptly—

“John, was there anybody about the yard this afternoon?”

How Morley looked it is impossible to say, for the light was only that of the fire, and his back was towards it.

“No, sir,” he answered very readily.

“Nor in the tool-house?” continued his employer.

“No; it’s been lockit a’ day,” said Morley, decidedly.

“You’re sure?”

“Quite sure, sir.”

There was an awkward pause, and then Morley, with a slight tremor in his tones, said—

“Is there onything wrang?”

“Yes; I left three notes—bank-notes for £50—in my desk when I went away to dinner, and they were gone when I got back half an hour ago.”

“Impossible!” The man looked shocked and astonished, but there was nevertheless a something constrained or unusual in his manner which the builder did not like. “Naebody could get into the office by the tool-house,” Morley hastened to add; “that door hasna been open for years, and the key’s lost. Besides, there’s the shelves in the road.”

“How could they get in, then?” cried Mr Lockyer. “The front door was locked, and the key in my pocket; and it’s not likely that they would pick the lock in broad daylight in the front street.”

“Oh, thieves are clever now-a-days,” observed Morley; “they’re fit for onything.”

“They may be, but that’s a little beyond the ordinary,” drily returned his master. “How were they to know I had left the money in my desk, or how long I would be away?”

“Ah, that’s it!” said Morley.

“Do _you_ know anything about it?” said Mr Lockyer at last, with an effort.

“Me! Do you think I’m a thief?” said Morley, flushing up. “If you do, you’re welcome to search the house now.”

“Oh, I daresay!” sneeringly returned his master, liking his yard-keeper’s manner less than ever. “It would be easy finding three notes, wouldn’t it, if you liked to hide them well? I might as well look for a needle in a haystack. No, no, Morley; I don’t say you took them, or that you didn’t, but they’re to be found, and I’ll leave that to the men that are bred to the trade—the police or the detectives.”

“Yes, they’re the best hands at that,” said Morley feebly.

No strong and indignant protestations of innocence; no hot words, or tears, or reproaches; nothing but that meaningless answer, and that look of guilt and fear.

“The man’s a thief if looks are to be trusted,” thought the builder. “If it turns out so, I’ll never be kind to mortal being again.”

Mr Lockyer had done a foolish thing; he had let the man know he was suspected; but in the action he had been prompted by the best of intentions. He had failed in these, and he now did the next best thing to redeem the mistake—he came to us with news of the robbery. He described the circumstances of the robbery and the position of the place much as I have put them down, and concluded by stating it to be his firm belief that Morley was either himself the thief, or knew how the clever robbery had been accomplished. I agreed with him, but blamed him strongly for going near the suspected man.

“It is the money you are most anxious to recover, and yet you go and put the man on his guard. You may make up your mind now that you will never see the notes again. They will either go into the fire, or be put away in some hiding-place far beyond our reach.”

“That’s nice comfort to a fellow,” observed the builder ruefully. “Is there anything you can do?”

“Oh, yes; we can do our best to make up for your blunder, by hunting for both the thief and the notes; but I have told you what is most likely to be the result.”

I had no expectation of making anything by a search in Morley’s house, but I thought it advisable that the form should be gone through, if only that I might study the man’s face the while. I could have gone and done it there and then, but deemed it best to wait till morning.

There was a possibility, as Mr Lockyer suggested, of Morley repenting of his act and returning the plunder in the night time, and, besides, by delaying till morning, we might take him unexpectedly. Of course I afterwards regretted the delay; we always do when we find ourselves disappointed in results.

Morley appeared as usual at the yard before six o’clock, and made no allusion to the interview of the night before beyond asking his master, when he appeared about eight o’clock, “if he had got any word of the missing money.”

He got a very curt and ungracious answer, and spoke no more. At the breakfast hour, when Morley locked up the yard and went home, I was waiting near the spot with two assistants skilled in searching. We just allowed John to enter his house and get comfortably seated at his porridge, when we knocked and were admitted. He did not seem greatly disturbed when I gave my name and showed the search warrant.

“You didna need a warrant to search my house,” he said boldly. “I tellt the maister that he was welcome to search it whenever he liked.”

He sat down and finished his porridge with evident zest and appetite, while we turned over every article in the little den of a house. The place had not been disturbed so much for many a day. Morley’s wife seemed much more distressed at the charge than he, and assisted us with the greatest eagerness and anxious concern. We found no trace of the notes, and Morley’s manner convinced me that they were not in the house. He was too cool and careless. Had they been hidden there—however securely or effectively—he could not have concealed some perturbation when we came near the spot or grew “hot” in our little game of “hide and seek.” Just once did I notice anything like a change in his expression of face. When we had turned over everything in the house, I chanced to say to Mrs Morley—

“These are all the things you have, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” she earnestly answered. “Since John rackit himsel’ we’ve had to make shift with less and less.”

While she thus spoke, I saw her eye run round the room as if in search of something; then she began poking about with the aid of one of our lanterns, and finally she turned to her husband and said in a kind of whisper—

“Where’s the famil——”

She did not get the sentence finished, nor even enough of it to be intelligible to me. Morley was standing close to her, and whether he kicked her on the leg, or trod on her toe, or merely gave her a look, I cannot tell, but he checked her speech most suddenly and effectually. I just saw enough and heard enough to make me suspicious, for the den was dark, and I was not expecting the words so unguardedly uttered by the wife. The last word sounded to me like “fummel,” and I racked my brains for many an hour after to discover what on earth a “fummel” was. I had no doubt at all _now_ of Morley’s guilt, and, of course, I could have arrested him; but what good would that have done? There was no evidence whatever to support the charge, and likely to be none with Morley locked up in prison. Besides, I now felt tolerably certain that the notes were not destroyed, but concealed in the “fummel”—whatever that meant. I wanted badly to find that “fummel,” and reasoned that I was more likely to do so with Morley moving about in freedom than with him cooped up in prison. The secret of the hiding-place was known to Morley alone; that was quite evident to me from the eagerness of the wife to assist me, and help to prove her husband’s innocence, and also by the simplicity with which she had let out the remark about the “fummel.” I determined to draw off my men, with so many apologies that Morley should think himself quite safe from further trouble or suspicion. To confirm this impression, I directed his master to take no further notice of the matter, and to keep him in his employment as usual, which was done.

I now had Morley carefully watched during the hours he was free from his work. I changed the men occasionally, and never watched him myself, that he might not take alarm, but nothing came of the watching. Morley never once attempted to change a fifty pound note, never appeared a penny richer than before the robbery, and never went near any place likely to be used for the concealment of the notes. The only thing that concerned me was the fact that he was preparing to leave the country, nor could I make that a ground for suspicion, as he had begun those arrangements long before the date of the robbery. At length I grew impatient, and took to relieving the men watching him after dark, as then there was little chance of him recognising me. Morley generally took a solitary stroll after partaking of his frugal supper, and on one of these occasions he stopped before a broker’s in the Potterrow, a place suspected to be a kind of “wee pawn”—that is, an unlicensed pawnbroker’s. Morley looked in at the window first, then all round him, and then walked into the shop, and was soon engaged in a violent altercation with the boy in charge. He stormed, and he threatened, and he swore, and I could see his arms moving about more energetically than those of a preacher “dingin’ the poopit cushion a’ to bits,” but I was afraid to venture near enough to hear the words and understand their meaning. At length he left the shop in a furious and excited state, volubly threatening to “send the police” to them. I was strongly tempted to offer my services, but, being curious to learn the cause of the dispute, I allowed the blustering man to depart, and then entered the shop. The boy was a smart young shaver named Tim Cordiner, and knew me perfectly.

“What did Morley kick up such a row about?” I asked.

Tim put on an air of simplicity and said—

“Who’s Morley?”

“That man who was here just now.”

“His name isn’t Morley—it’s Peter Mackintosh,” said Tim, with an air of superior knowledge.

“Oh, is it? I beg your pardon,” I returned, with a fine-drawn sneer, which Tim perfectly appreciated. “Well, what was he in such a state about?”

Tim fenced cunningly, but finding me in dead earnest, was forced at last to say—“He’s in a state about something which he sold to my father, and wants now to buy back again. He says the agreement was that it was to be kept for a month, to give him a chance to buy it back. Did you ever hear the like? We’re not allowed to do that,” the monkey solemnly added, “it would be as bad as keeping a ‘wee pawn.’”

“Oh, come now, Tim, don’t try that with me; play ‘the daft laddie’ with somebody else,” I laughingly returned. “What was the article he sold or left with you?”

“A Bible—a Family Bible——”

“Good gracious!”

“Ay, you may say that. Bibles is a drug in the market; and to expect us to keep one when we had a chance to sell it! Family Bibles is out of fashion now—can’t get the price of the binding for them—and the last we had lay for a year in the windy.”

“And so you sold this one?” I said quietly, having got time to think during Tim’s speech. “Who was the buyer?”

“Blest if I can tell—seemed a sort of ‘revival,’” by which Tim meant a “revivalist,” a name given to a sect of religious enthusiasts then newly started in Edinburgh. “Was it you who sold the Bible to him?”

“Yes, that’s why that man kicked up the row. He says my father knew it wasn’t to be sold. I wasn’t to know that, and I was glad to get rid of it. The ‘revival’ was near not taking it because the Family Register was cut out—tried to beat me down two shillings for that. Religious folks are always the biggest screws.”

“You must be terribly religious then,” I calmly remarked to Tim, for I knew that that youthful precocity could drive a bargain which would have drawn a blush to the cheeks of the biggest rogue of a broker who ever bartered and sold.

Tim grinned delightedly at the tribute to his genius.

“Would you know the ‘revival’ again?” I asked, beginning to think I was fairly done at last.

“Oh, fine. I’ve seen him before, giving away tracts on the streets. He left me one, after buying the Bible and trying to beat me down two shillings.”

“Have you got it now?”

“No; I used it to light the gas—it saved a match, you know.”

I thought if any one was likely to save money and die rich that one was Tim, but I was to change my opinion soon by discovering that the smart young broker was as great a spendthrift as he was a screw. After some further conversation I warned him to say nothing to Morley of my visit, should that worthy return, as I had no doubt he would, to see Tim’s father. I am doubtful if Tim kept his promise. Certainly if any one offered him a shilling to break it, the promise would instantly kick the beam.

After the visit to Tim the suspected yard-keeper seemed a good deal depressed. He went back once, and had a hot quarrel with Tim’s father, threatening the police again, but failing to fulfil that threat. He said the Bible must be got, and the broker promised to do his best—which meant nothing.

In the meantime I had been much occupied in thought about Tim himself. His answers to me had appeared frank and truthful enough, but a dire suspicion that it was possible for the monkey to cheat and deceive even me crept into my mind. I discovered that Tim was squandering money right and left, quite unknown to his father. He sometimes went to Portobello, or Leith, or Musselburgh with his companions, and spent a day there, Tim always paying the entire expense, like a lord of the land.

Could it be possible that Tim was himself the purchaser of that Family Bible, and the “revival” merely a creation of his vivid imagination?

So strong a hold did this idea take of my mind that I gave up watching Morley, and turned my undivided attention to Tim. I could not find that he had changed a £50 bank-note, but I did discover that he had been seen with two twenties. I, therefore, only waited till he should be out with his friends for a day’s squandering, and then I pounced on him in the midst of his jolity. Tim appeared mightily crestfallen, but grandly demanded to know what was the charge against him. I replied by asking where he got all the money he had been spending. His reply staggered me a little.

“What! is it my father who has set you on to this?”

Now, why should Tim blurt out that? To me it implied that Tim had taken the money from his father. I threw out a hint about a Family Bible being a good bank to draw from. Tim looked puzzled, and really did not seem to grasp the idea. I did not enlighten him with an explanation, but I myself was enlightened next day by his father, who had discovered that his smart son had broken in on a hoard of his own, and lessened it by nearly £60. He nevertheless did not wish to charge Tim with the robbery, but merely requested that that clever monkey might be handed over to him for punishment.

I could not oblige him, though he promised that the chastisement should bring Tim as near the grave as he would ever be without entering it. I had now to put the matter before Tim in a plain, straightforward question—“Had he or had he not lied about the sale of that Family Bible?”

He loudly protested his truthfulness, and offered to help me to find the buyer.

“How can you do that when you say he left neither name nor address?” I impatiently returned.

“Oh, we could easily find him at some of the revival meetings,” was Tim’s quickwitted reply. “He’ll be at the door giving out tracts when the meeting breaks up. I know his face fine.”

I stared at Tim, and then spoke out the thought that flashed across my mind. “Tim, if you don’t turn out a thief, you’ll maybe be a detective some day.”

“A detective!” he echoed, with a merry twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, no, Mr M^cGovan, I haven’t enough wickedness in me for that.”

Tim and I went to a revival meeting that night together. By going together I mean to imply that we were closely attached to each other—by a pair of handcuffs. Tim could not have gone forward to the penitent form though he had been ever so strongly inclined. We did not need to wait till the close, nor look out for a tract distributor, for one of those who rose to address the meeting was instantly identified by Tim as the buyer of the Family Bible. The lad was quite young, and had on his face as he spoke a look of etherial happiness and rapt delight which could never have been assumed. I think I see that fair face before me now. It looked noble, exalted, thrilling—just such a face as we could imagine smiling at the stake, and breathing forth forgiveness and peace amidst the roaring of the flames.

When the address was over, the young man had occasion to move through the hall and past the place where we sat. I touched him on the arm, and drew him out to the door. He promptly admitted that he had bought a Family Bible, second-hand, from the boy before him. He had it at home, but though he had used it twice every day in his home, he declared most earnestly that he had found nothing in it. At my suggestion we walked with him to his home. He was evidently unmarried, for the home was presided over by his mother, a quiet, respectable-looking widow.

The Family Bible I sought occupied a place of honour in the little home, and the owner had only to point to it and tell me to take it down with my own hands. I opened the book, and he quietly informed me that the only alteration I should find would be at the beginning, where he had inserted a new leaf as a Family Register.

I turned to the leaf and read there his own name, and quite a recent date, in the column of “Births,” with the words below—“Saved from wrath by the mercy of Jesus Christ.” Without a remark I sat down and turned over every single leaf in that book, but found nothing. When I had finished, and was in despair, I happened to notice that the paper pasted against the inside of the back board did not correspond in colour and texture with that on the front board. A little examination revealed the cause. The lining of the back board was simply one of the fly-leaves pasted down at the edges. I passed my fingers over the pasted leaf. There was a feeling of something below. I took out my pen-knife and ran the point into the sheet and round the pasted edge—the whole family, and Tim in particular, looking on with goggling eyes. When I turned back the leaf, I found it glazed and yellow on the under side, like that inside the front board, but I found also other three slips of paper neatly ranged above one another, flat against the board of the Bible—three £50 bank-notes. The owner of the Bible looked simply and truly surprised. Tim looked terribly disappointed and chagrined.

“If I had known they were there, I’d never have sold it so cheap,” he blurted out.

“Maybe not at all?” I suggested; and Tim did not deny the soft impeachment.

The notes were readily identified by the builder by the number “2020” which one of them bore; but when we came to look for Morley, he had vanished. From another country he afterwards sent a detailed confession of the circumstances which led to the crime. The payer of the money was dressed as a working man, and asked at the gate for Mr Lockyer. Morley at once conceived a suspicion that the man had come after the post of yard-keeper, and applied his eyes and ears to the inner door in the tool-house to ascertain the truth. He saw the notes placed in the desk, and the temptation followed, for he had found a key shortly before in the tool-house which fitted the lock perfectly. After taking the notes he dropped the key into a street “siver,” or we might have stumbled on it during our search. Tim was set free, but he has not yet developed into a detective.

CONSCIENCE MONEY.

An old man, a jobbing gardener, named Alexander Abercorn, stopped one of the day policemen at the West End one morning in July, and said in great concern and agitation—

“Man, I’m afraid this house has been robbed in the night time. And the worst of it is I have the keys, and they’ll be sure to say it’s been done by me.”

The house in question was a big one known as the Freelands, and occupied by a Mr Arthurlie and his family. The family were gone to country quarters, and the house was empty even of servants. Abercorn hurriedly explained, what indeed was already known to the policeman, that he had a contract for doing the gardening about the place, and, being a tried and trusted man, had been left with the keys of the place, with orders to enter it every day to see if all was safe. Other families had left him a similar charge, and he had some half-dozen bunches of keys, which he showed to the policeman in confirmation. Hitherto his task had been easy, and the result satisfactory enough, but now for the first time a calamity had come, and he begged the officer to step in and see. They entered the house, and the old gardener walked straight to the pantry, in which was built an iron safe for containing the plate and valuables of the family. This safe was inserted bodily into a large cupboard, which had an ordinary wooden door fastened with a common sixpenny lock, and so looked innocent enough outside. The wooden door stood wide open, and so also did that of the iron safe within, though both had hitherto been locked.

There were no breakages, or marks of prising with crowbars or chisels—the door appeared to have been opened in the ordinary way, by inserting a key and turning back the bolts of the locks. The detectors on the lock of the safe showed that no skeleton keys had been applied or used, and yet the old gardener declared that the key of the safe had never been intrusted to him. He did not know who had it, or where it was kept. He had the keys of all the rooms, and also the key of the press in which the safe was built, but not the actual key of the safe. The entire contents of the safe had been turned out on the pantry floor, and the thieves had then shown great discrimination in the selection of their plunder. None of the plated articles had been removed; only genuine silver, and, as some of these exactly resembled each other, the thieves had shown a skill almost magical.

The old gardener, of course, knew nothing of what had been in the safe; and, seeing the plated articles littering the floor, he only said he _thought_ the place had been robbed. It was only after word had been sent to the Central Office, and we had telegraphed to the Arthurlies, that we learned that the value of the silver plate alone was upwards of £500, and that there had been in the safe other articles of value which brought the total loss nearly up to £800.

Within an hour of the report being sent in, I was out at the house, and was shown over the various rooms by the old gardener. To say that the old man looked excited and strange would be but faintly to describe his appearance. He was deathly pale; he trembled at the slightest question or look; his teeth chattered when he spoke; and he gave the most stupid and confused answers to some of the simplest queries. I had not been long in the premises when I found that there were several peculiarities about the robbery which marked it off from the ordinary burglary. There were three doors to the house. Two of these—the area door and the back door—had never been touched. They were bolted and locked just as they had been left. No window had been forced; every one was closed, and fastened, and shuttered exactly as it had been left. This narrowed the means of ingress to one door—the main door, which was secured by two patent locks. It was the keys of these locks which the old gardener carried and used in entering the house. I examined these locks closely, and when done, decided that they had not been opened with skeleton keys or tampered with in any way; either the door had been left unlocked, or the keys, or duplicates of these keys, had been used in effecting an entrance. The second peculiarity was that no room in the whole house of three storeys had been entered but the pantry. There had been no rummaging through bedrooms for valuables, no turning out of rare china and curiosities in the drawing-room, though there were articles of that kind there far exceeding in value the plate stolen. The thieves appeared to have had but one object in view—the contents of the safe—and for that they had made without a single divergence right or left. Now, that is not at all like the ordinary housebreaker, who is never satisfied with a moderately good haul, but must go tearing, and searching, and smashing, and destroying all over a house before he is convinced that there is no more to carry off. Then, what professional housebreaker could have resisted at least tasting a bottle of those rare wines which were within arm’s length of him in the pantry! I have caught them drunk on the spot just through that weakness, but I never knew them to be so rigidly abstemious as to pass good drink untouched.

When I had concluded my examination, the old gardener was very anxious to know my opinion. Had any one else plied me with the question, I might have answered, but with him I was forced for the present to be silent. The truth is, I suspected him, and nobody but him, as the thief. He was a poor man to begin with; the clothes he stood in were not worth ten shillings; and I was led to believe that being somewhat old and frail, and having a daughter entirely dependent upon him, these formed almost his sole possessions. I could not conceive, indeed, how so many had thought fit to trust him with the keys of their houses, but then I did not know that he had the reputation of being a sterling and honest man, respected alike for his deep religious feeling and humble worth. He had a poverty-stricken look to my eyes, and then his confusion and agitation, and the other discoveries, were against him. The same afternoon Mr Arthurlie and his wife came to town by express; and then I got from them the surprising intelligence that the keys of the safe were always kept secreted in a little niche in a wooden cupboard exactly opposite the press containing the safe. This precaution had been taken through the keys once having been lost by being carried about, thus necessitating the fitting on of a new lock on the safe. Until I saw the hiding-place I thought this arrangement one of the most foolhardy imaginable; but when I went out to the house I found that the nail on which the keys were usually hung was in a place the last that an ordinary thief would have looked to. It was in behind the hinge of the door of a wooden press or wine rack. You had to open first the door of the press, then grope in behind the left-hand door and get the keys. No one knew of this place but the tablemaid and the housekeeper. The Arthurlies kept no man-servant. They were positive that the old gardener, Abercorn, did not know of the keys being thus hid in the place, though they admitted that he might have discovered them if he had exerted himself to search. I had found the keys of the safe lying on the floor of the pantry under some of the discarded plated articles, so it was certain that the thief had not only searched for the keys but found them and used them. I began to question the Arthurlies regarding old Abercorn, the gardener, and they, divining at once the drift of my suspicions, assured me that I was quite mistaken, and gave me such a description of the man that I felt half ashamed of my own convictions. I had thought of at least a search in the gardener’s humble home, but implicit trust and strong protestations of the Arthurlies forced me to shelve that idea for the present. So long as the man was not a prisoner or formally accused I could question him to my heart’s content, and I resolved to take full advantage of the circumstance, by making him account for his actions from the time he had been in the house on the morning before the robbery until the discovery of the robbery as already described. He had asserted most positively that upon his last visit there had been not an article out of place or the slightest trace of a robbery, and if that were true the whole must have been executed within the twenty-four hours. Again, it was not likely that a thief would choose the day time for such a feat, so this further limited the time by twelve hours at least. What had Abercorn been about during that night? If he could not account for that time I should have a fair excuse for arresting him.

I therefore said no more to the Arthurlies, but got the address of the old gardener—a little cottage down by the Dean—and next day went down to have a talk with him. The place was easily found, for he had in front of the cottage a strip of ground full of all kinds of flowers, and “Alex. Abercorn, Jobbing Gardener,” conspicuously painted on the little gate. An old woman opened the door, and I asked for the gardener.

“He’s no in; he’s working,” was her reply, and the news was rather pleasing to me than otherwise.

“Oh, well, I daresay you will do quite as well,” I said pleasantly. “You’re Mrs Abercorn, I suppose?”

“Na, na, I’m only his hoosekeeper,” she promptly answered. “Mrs Abercorn’s deid three years syne. I never was married, and maybe never will be.”

As she was old enough to have been my mother, I thought her marriage by no means a likely occurrence, but took care to throw out no hint to that effect. We chatted together very nicely for a minute or two, during which I got from her nearly her whole life story, and then she invited me to enter and see the gardener’s daughter. But for the fact that this daughter, Jeanie, as she named her, was an invalid, the old woman declared that she would not have been needed in the place, as they were “very poor.” I followed her into the front room, in which was a bed facing the window. In the bed was a young woman of perhaps twenty-five years. She had a sweet face, and a delicate complexion, gradually tinging out into rosy cheeks, and a pair of big, lustrous eyes, which were turned on me, wide open with wonder, as I entered. But the beauty of the face, and its fine hues, and even the brightness of the great eyes, was not of the kind to draw out one’s admiration so much as to stir in the bosom a thrill of pity, for the stamp of death was over it all. Consumption was written on that face, with a sure and early death, as plainly as if the green turf had already been spread above her. I scarcely liked to look into the face—it was so eager, and bright, and beautiful.

It was a little difficult to explain my business, but before I had made much of an attempt in that direction I was surprised to find that neither the invalid nor the old housekeeper had heard aught of the robbery. I was staggered. Why had the old gardener concealed that from his little household? I had to put aside the query and go on with those more important. Could they remember what time the old gardener had come home the night before last?

Oh, perfectly. He had been home about seven o’clock, for he was rather busy, and might have stayed at his work later, but for the fact that Jeanie had taken a bad turn that day, and he was anxious to be beside her.

Did he stay long at home?

The question appeared to puzzle them both, and then, when I explained, they said, as a matter of course, that he had never gone out again the whole evening. Why should he, indeed? His daughter was all in all to him; he was never happy but when he was beside her; and if walking round the world barefooted would have made her well, he would cheerfully have undertaken the task.

“I never will be well, though, till I go abroad,” added the girl with a smile, which made her look still more lovely. “The doctor said so long ago, but father is so poor and has to work so hard for every penny, that till lately he could not think of it. But now it’s settled that I’m to go before the winter comes on. Father has got the money from some one. He wouldn’t say who it was, but it’s a kind friend anyhow who would lend such a sum—and I’m to get strong and go back to service next spring.”

Her very heart seemed to overflow with exultation and proud hope as she uttered the words. It almost drew tears to my eyes to witness her joy.

“Then your father was with you in this house all night? You’re quite sure of that?” I said, reverting to the old theme.

“Oh, quite, for he was never away from my bedside. He did not go to bed at all, seeing me so ill, but just dovered the best way he could in that big chair. I watched him all the time, and when he did fall asleep I couldn’t help crying a little to think what a hard lot he has, all on account of me being so weak and ill. What I would give for strength to work and slave for him as he deserves—oh, what I would give!”

“And the bunches of keys he has—the keys of the houses that are empty just now—where were they all the time?”

“Oh, in the box there,” said the housekeeper, taking up the question at once, and without the slightest trepidation. “I put them in there myself. They lie there every nicht.”

“And would it not be possible for any one to get at them there?” I pursued. “I mean any one who wished to make use of them to effect a robbery at one of the houses?”

“Oh, no! They both assured me that such a thing was impossible. Not a soul ever came near the house, and certainly no one had been within the door on that particular night.” The daughter concluded by saying proudly that she was quite sure that no one would ever get near the houses, or into them, so long as her father had charge of the places. He was so careful and reliable, that he was better than twenty policemen.

“He has not told you, then, that one of the houses has been entered?” I said, in an unguarded moment of surprise.

“No; was it really?” they both exclaimed in a breath.

The expression of the two faces was a study. The withered face of the old woman was scarcely stirred—it showed interest indeed, but merely that of a passing curiosity. The face of the invalid girl, on the contrary, was full of changes and fluttering emotions, as her own mind was evidently full of tumult. She questioned me rapidly, and I answered her as guardedly as possible, but her features as I proceeded became slowly blanched with a kind of rigid horror. That strange look—so full of far-reaching thought and deep anguish—I could not at the moment understand. To say that suspicion was hovering over her father did not account for all that was pictured in her face—there was something behind all that, and I am afraid my words became somewhat incoherent in trying to fathom what that secret was. I never saw a face which told so much, if I had but had the key to those flitting expressions.

Her horror, and anguish, and deadly despair, and the tears which would force themselves into her eyes to make them more pitifully beautiful, arose from something I had said, which had evidently more meaning to her than to me, and I cudgelled my brains in vain to recall anything which should so affect her.

I did not remain long after this queer change had come over the invalid, for with that change had come reticence, thoughtfulness, and silence. Her brightness and loquacity were gone, and the gossipy old woman had all the talking to herself. My impression of the whole case, when I had left the cottage, was that there was guilt behind all I had seen, and that the best plan would be to arrest the old gardener, and have his house thoroughly searched.

That was the substance of my report; but against this was brought the strenuous request of the Arthurlies, and the arrest was delayed that I might have the suspected man watched, and, if possible, accumulate stronger evidence of his guilt. I was not sorry for the delay in the light of the curious incident which followed. Two days after my visit to the cottage a parcel was handed in at the Central Office, which on being opened was found to contain bank-notes to the amount of £70, and the following brief note:—

“One of those concerned in the robbery at Mr Arthurlie’s returns his share of the proceeds, which his conscience will not allow him to keep.”

It needed but one reading of these lines to convince one that no professional thief ever composed or penned them. The diction was too correct, to say nothing of the spelling; and whoever heard of a professional housebreaker having a conscience, or returning entire his share of a robbery on that account? Then in looking over the note it was evident that there was a painful effort to disguise the handwriting—to make it heavy and lumpy, and strong like that of an unlettered man, while the verdict of all who looked upon it was that the writing was that of a woman. Who could that woman be, and how could she have accomplished the robbery? If she had got only a fair share of the proceeds, there must have been at least seven or eight more in the robbery. The parcel had been handed to one of our men outside the Office by a boy, who had walked off the moment he got rid of it. He had spoken enough, however, to reveal that he was of that class of country folks living outside the city proper—the accent of these being strong and broad, and easily distinguishable from that of the city.

The moment these facts were made known to me I had a cab brought, and drove rapidly over to the Dean, taking the man with me. When we got to the place we dismissed the cab and took up our station near the cottage of the gardener. I was in hope that if the boy had been sent from that place he would return to report, but I was mistaken. We waited about for fully an hour, and then gave up the task in despair, and wandered through the little village to have a look at the faces. In doing so my companion spotted a boy at play, and collared him sharply with the words—

“It was you who gave me the parcel at the Police Office, wasn’t it?”

The boy denied it stoutly, but in a tone which left no doubt on our minds that he was lying. When threatened with the cells he admitted that he had got sixpence to deliver it, from old Marjory, the gardener’s housekeeper! Taking the boy with us, we went to the gardener’s cottage. Old Marjory was outside cutting vegetables in the garden, and the moment her eye fell upon us I felt convinced that we would have no easy task in getting information from her.