Chapter VI: Part 6

I did not believe it, and determined to let all other business stand that I might see the end of this adventure. With this object I loitered about, never within sight of the windows of the house, yet always having my eyes on the front door till Peter reappeared. There was no name on the door of the house he had entered, but by questioning a servant who passed I learned that the occupant or owner was an independent gentleman named Matthew Bannister, who had taken some degrees at college, and was a kind of _savant_ in his way, having published some works on chemistry. The gentleman was well known to me by reputation, and the moment his name was mentioned I decided that Peter Hart’s visit to the house could have no connection with him. Mr Bannister had a young and beautiful wife, who had bestowed not only herself and her love upon the somewhat elderly gentleman, but a fortune as well; but she came of a high family, and I as emphatically decided that Peter’s visit could have no connection with her. There then remained only the servants, and, knowing Peter’s reputation and his modes of working, I quickly decided that he was in collusion with some of them, and working out some scheme entirely unknown to their employers.

Peter did not remain long in the house—possibly ten minutes at the most; and when he did appear I thought best to be out of sight. To my surprise he had no bundle or trace of one about him: nor did his person appear more bulky than when he had entered. He looked carefully around in every direction—for me, of course—and, apparently slightly relieved at seeing no one, started off in the direction he had come. He made his way by Broughton Street to Greenside, where he entered a favourite public-house. Not two minutes later the pot-boy came out with something like a bank note in his hand, and, knowing the boy well, I stopped to make inquiries for Peter.

“Where are you running to now?” I carelessly asked, not wishing to be too sudden in my questions.

“To get change for a £5 note,” he smartly answered, with a peculiar wink, at the same time opening the crisp note for my inspection. “We’ve lots of change, but it’s aye safer to try a big note outside.”

I examined the note carefully, and found it to be perfectly genuine.

“You might have risked it with that one,” I said at last, handing it back. “Who offered it?”

“Ah, that’s just it,” said the quick-witted boy; “even a good note isn’t quite safe from him; it was Peter Hart. You’ll know _him_ I daresay?”

“Oh, indeed!” I cried with a start, and a thrill of satisfaction. “He offered this to be changed, did he? Then you needn’t bother going any further with it. I particularly want to see Peter.”

The pot-boy was quite accustomed to such events, and did not seem surprised. We entered the shop together, and the boy conducted me to the box in which sat Peter. I had in my hand the £5 note. Peter had in his a glass of brandy, which he was in the act of raising with manifest gusto to his lips. He was transfixed in the act, more by anger, it seemed to me, than fear.

“This is yours, isn’t it?” I said pleasantly, whereupon he scowled most malignantly. My “bairns” take pleasantry very badly from me.

“Yes, it’s mine,” he said with an oath at me, which, being quite undeserved, need not be put down. “What do you want with it? It’s good enough, isn’t it?”

“I believe so. Where did you get it?”

“What’s that to you?” was the bullying reply.

I folded up the note and put it into my pocket, and then produced my handcuffs.

“Everything in the world,” I replied. “You must either answer that to me or put on these before answering it to the Fiscal.”

Slightly disconcerted, but still defiant, he thought for a moment, and then said—

“Well, I got it from a gentleman—a friend of mine I was a-calling on this morning.”

“His name?”

“Mr Bannister,” he sullenly responded, after another pause.

“I believe you!” I returned with marked scepticism. “You had better say no more, for you’ll have to go with me.”

Peter lost his temper, and said he would see me very much altered first, but he didn’t. He was foolish enough to resist, so I got another man, and after much kicking and struggling on Peter’s part we landed him at the Central Office. This resistance on Peter’s part seemed so utterly unlike him—his usual conduct being cheerful and polite to an irritating degree—that I rashly considered that for once I had caught him napping, and that by the merest accident.

At the office I stated all the facts, how I had seen Peter entering the house of Mr Bannister, and watched him leaving it, and knowing his character and antecedents had followed him and arrested him passing a £5 note, for the possession of which he could not properly account. Peter, on being searched, was found to have in his possession other £5, in one pound notes, thus clearly proving that the changing of the large note had been a matter of choice or policy, not necessity. To the Fiscal, however, he boldly declared that he had got all the money in way of business from his very good friend Mr Bannister, and he was put in the cells till I should go over to that gentleman to make inquiries. What the “business” was for which he had been paid ten pounds he refused to state, and I concluded that that business existed only in Peter’s imagination.

When I reached the house and was shown in, the impression I had formed was strengthened. Everything in the place seemed so stately and grand that I could not conceive how the possessor could be beholden to such a crime-stained wretch as Peter Hart. Mr Bannister at length appeared, and accompanied by his amiable young wife. I studied their faces closely as they entered, and it struck me that that of the husband was careworn, fearful, and anxiously watchful in expression; that of the young wife looked tenderly solicitous, and somewhat saddened and subdued.

“I have called about rather an awkward business,” I at length said, not knowing very well how to begin. “My name is James M^cGovan, and I am connected with the detective staff——”

I would have proceeded to say that I had watched and arrested Peter as already described, but I was at that juncture interrupted in a manner altogether unexpected. The gentleman who had an appearance at once refined and dignified, started back at the mention of my name, with his face as suddenly changed to a deadly and anguished expression as if he had been at the moment stabbed to the heart. He seemed ready to drop to the floor in his pitiable agony, and his wife saw the change even before my eye had taken it in.

“O Matthew! dearest!” she cried, starting forward, with her own face flashing almost as white as his own. “What is wrong? What is to happen to you?”

I scarcely caught his answer, it was so huskily spoken, but it seemed to me something like—

“The very worst that could happen to me.”

Then the young wife gave a low moan, and fell slowly forward in his arms. She had fainted, and her very helplessness, I believe, was all that kept him in his senses.

Mr Bannister rang for a servant, and had his wife removed, and then with a blanched face turned to me and said—

“Now, sir, I am ready to attend to you. Will you state your business with me?”

“A man named Peter Hart entered your house this morning, and shortly after left, having in his possession £10 in bank notes, which he declared had been given him by you. Is that actually the case?”

I had expected Mr Bannister’s face to lighten up and express astonishment as I proceeded, but instead it became darker and more troubled.

“Why do you ask?” he at length answered in a helpless tone.

“Because we know him to be a daring criminal, and suspect that the money was obtained by robbery, and possibly without your knowledge.”

“Is that all that brought you here?” he demanded, with a look of intense relief. “Did he make no other statement of any kind?”

“None except that we could refer the matter to you for confirmation of his statement, and for that purpose I have called.”

“Oh, if that is all,” he readily answered, looking now positively radiant, “I can readily relieve your anxiety. I did pay him the money, freely and willingly, for work done.”

“For work done!” I echoed, a good deal staggered, and thoroughly puzzled. “Have you any objection to say what kind of work it was?”

“I have. It is not necessary to go into details,” he coldly returned.

“You are aware, then, of the character of the man you have employed?” I continued, with undisguised disappointment.

“I believe him to be a scoundrel,” he faintly and somewhat wearily answered. “I know nothing of his private character, and care less.”

“Then we are to conclude that we have made a mistake in arresting him, and that we have no just cause for detaining him?” I pursued, trying in vain to read in his face the real secret.

“Exactly. You have made a mistake, but it was a natural one on your part, seeing, as you say, that the man is a professional criminal,” he dejectedly responded. “By the way,” he added, with more animation, “I wonder that a man like you does not lay such a rascal by the heels. Is he too clever for even you?”

“That remains to be seen,” I dryly returned. “He will not be at liberty a moment longer than I can help.”

“I am glad to hear you say that,” said the gentleman, shaking me warmly by the hand. “When you do get him, and ensure his conviction, come to me and I will put a £5 note in your hand as an honorarium.”

“Honour among thieves!” was my contemptuous thought. “There is some bond of villainy between the two, and now this man wishes to get rid of his leech. I wonder if I could not take them both?”

I left the house, after bidding Mr Bannister a not over-gracious farewell, and Peter Hart was promptly set at liberty, with much crowing and exultation on his part. The next day or two I spent chiefly in trying to guess at the nature of the hold which Peter exercised over the gentleman. That he was the spider and Mr Bannister the fly, I felt certain after making some inquiries regarding the character of the latter. Mr Bannister was spoken of by all as the soul of honour and goodness. I was more than disappointed at losing Peter—I was angry; for in leaving he did not scruple to say some nasty things regarding my capacity, and to hint in a lordly fashion that any other attempt to interfere with him would be followed by a letter “from his lawyer.” I replied, in the irritation of the moment, that I should probably interfere with him before long in such a way that his lawyer would be powerless to help him or injure us. I ought not to have spoken so rashly, but then I felt savage, and, as good luck would have it, the very boldness of the threat added to my reputation when the spider-devourer had adjusted things nicely to my hands. Thus many of us live—continually tottering between a great success and a great failure. To the spider-devourer I now come, though, of course, I did not at first recognise him in that character.

Not many days after Peter’s release I was accosted at the head of Leith Walk by a sharp-witted fellow, pretty well known to me, named Dick M^cQueen. Dick was not a thief, but one who lived chiefly by billiards and cards. He had been ostler, waiter, boots, groom, cabdriver, and I know not all what by turns, and was about as keen a blade as it is possible to become by continually rubbing edges with others as sharp. He was always poor, and I think was partly supported by relatives at a distance.

“I believe you said you’d take Peter Hart before long,” he said to me, after some of that preliminary talk which conjurers and men of the world use to throw one off his guard.

“Did I?” was my careless reply.

“You’ll never do it single-handed,” he darkly continued, “but if you could make it worth my while I’m ready to give you the straight tip, which will book him for twenty years.”

“What do you mean?”

“Twenty years to him is surely worth as many pounds to me?” he suggestively returned.

“Perhaps, but I’m not in a position to offer anything; indeed, I’d much rather do the work myself.”

“You can’t, for Peter’s got a gent at his back who’ll stand any amount of bleeding, and he doesn’t need to put out a hand now. Now, if you could only help me to find out who that gent is, I believe he’d stand a poney to get rid of Peter.”

I watched Dick’s face keenly for some moments in silence.

“You don’t know who the gent is, then?” I said at last, suspiciously.

“No; I’ve tried hard to find out, and I’ve watched Peter all over the town to no purpose. He’s too blessed fly for me.”

“Have you any idea what hold Peter has upon the gent?” I asked, after a pause to think.

Dick bestowed upon me one of the most superlatively cunning winks that humanity could create.

“I’ve an idea,” he curtly answered.

“Well, what is its nature?”

“Look here, M^cGovan, you’re a detective, and pretty fly, but you don’t come it over me so easy,” he retorted sharply, but without any anger. “I’ll swop secrets with you, there! Nothing could be fairer, could it? You find out the gent’s name and address and gi’ me them, and then I’ll tell you what hold Peter has on him.”

“Is it anything in connection with that hold which is to book Peter for twenty years,” I quietly continued.

“Oh, no; that’s a different affair altogether—a job Peter did years ago down in Sunderland. I was there at the time, and know all about it, and I’m the only one who has the real tip in his hands.”

“Why are you so anxious to get rid of Peter?” I presently inquired. “Have you quarrelled?”

“No, not exactly, but Peter cheated me out of half-a-crown months ago, and I’ve never forgotten it, nor never will.”

Half-a-crown! fancy a man being threatened with twenty years’ entombment—probably the whole term of his life—through cheating a companion out of a miserable half-crown! If Peter had only known that a spider-devourer was on his track, would he not have hastened to place a whole heap of half-crowns at his enemy’s disposal, and have abjectly craved his pardon as well?

I took the proposal of Dick to _avizandum_; and shortly decided to let him have the desired information. I had first paid a visit to Mr Bannister, and found him not only willing but eager to pay twenty pounds to any one who would give such information as would lead to Peter’s incarceration, conditionally, of course, that his name did not appear in the case. I made no conditions, but allowed Dick to settle his own terms. Before I gave him Mr Bannister’s name and address, I insisted on being told what hold Peter had on that gentleman, when Dick readily answered—

“Do you know Bell Diamond—she who’s said to be Peter’s sister, though her name’s different? Well, I don’t know all the outs and ins of it, but Bell is said to be that gent’s real and lawful wife.”

“Never!”

“A fact, I believe. Peter’s got all the papers somewhere to prove it. They were married quite young—twenty years ago, at least—when Bell wasn’t such a harridan as she looks now.”

The moment this information was tendered I regretted my compact. What though I sent Dick to Mr Bannister, and the money were cheerfully paid, if the arrest and imprisonment of the gentleman himself on a charge of bigamy followed? The very execution of my duty would then look, in the eyes of those most interested, an act of the deepest treachery. There was no going back, however, and I could only hope that Dick had been misled or mistaken. The same afternoon Dick appeared at the office, and gave minute details of a daring forgery case in which Peter Hart had been engaged years before. The facts were so striking that we were for a time doubtful of their reality, and telegraphed south for information. The answer put at rest every doubt. Two men had been tried and convicted in connection with the affair, but they were mere tools, and the principal had escaped. That man was said to be Peter Hart, changed only in name; and an officer able to identify the real culprit was on his way to Edinburgh when the reply had been despatched.

So far Dick’s information seemed valuable and accurate, and with the greatest alacrity and delight I went for Peter Hart, whom I found sitting at his ease in his inn—the same public-house in which the former arrest had taken place.

He returned my salutation rather sternly and haughtily, and resumed his game with the air of a man who was certain to be the last to be “wanted” by me.

“I’m waiting on _you_, Peter,” I at length pointedly remarked.

“Oh, you are, are you?” he snappishly and defiantly answered, jumping up with the greatest readiness. “Perhaps you’ll take me to the office and lock me up as you did before, and risk me bringing an action of damages against you and the rest of ’em? Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to call in a policeman to hit me over the head and arms like as he did the last time, eh?” and after this scathing and satirical outburst he paused for breath, to pose grandly before his friends, thinking doubtless that he had quite cowed and overawed me.

“There is a man at the door,” I quietly answered, bringing out my bracelets, “but he won’t need to hit you over the head unless you act as foolishly as you did the last time. You’re not afraid of these!”

“Afraid of them? Not me. I want them on—I want them on badly. See, I’ll put them on myself. Now take me away, and abuse me, and lock me up, and then take the consequences!”

Delighted to find that his facetious mood made him so pliant, I obeyed him in every particular, and Peter’s exultant smile only faded when the first two or three questions had been put to him at the office. The moment “Sunderland” was mentioned his jaw fell, and he fixed upon me a look of hatred most flattering and pleasing to me. On searching the lining of Peter’s coat we came upon a flat packet of papers. There were some six or seven letters, and a properly authenticated certificate of marriage, all proving that Isabella Diamond had been courted and married some twenty years before by Matthew Bannister. Peter’s rage had been working up during the search, and he now shouted out that he knew who had set that “bloodhound,” as he was pleased to name myself, on his track, and after a burst of the most awful language, he wound up by accusing Mr Bannister of having two wives living, and commanding us to go and arrest the gentleman as smartly as we had arrested the rogue.

When the papers had been discovered I fully expected to have that disagreeable task to perform. The whole case seemed clear and the proof positive to my mind, for I had seen the working of the hidden springs from the first. But the law has certain forms of its own; and I was sent first to Bell Diamond herself, who was the proper person to make the charge. To my surprise, though she gave vent to rage and vituperation over the capture of Peter, she most positively refused to charge Mr Bannister with bigamy; nay in the very face of the discovered papers she swore most positively that she had never been married in her life, and had never spoken to Mr Bannister. My firm conviction, upon hearing this extraordinary denial, was that Bell had a spark of generosity in her breast, low as she had fallen, and wished to save the man who had once loved her from the ignominy of a prison; but in that I was very far mistaken. Bell was actuated by a very different motive—a desire to get well out of an awkward plight and a very threatening complication. The secret was partly laid bare by referring to Mr Bannister, but it was not wholly made clear till long after.

Mr Bannister had really married a girl named Isabella Diamond, who drifted away from him and was lost sight of. That lost wife, after sinking lower and lower, died in a lodging-house in Glasgow, in which Peter Hart and his sister at that time lived. Nelly Hart was in trouble and likely to be taken, and the name of the dead woman was boldly given in as Helen Hart, while the living owner took the name of Bell Diamond, as well as the papers left by her, and vanished in the direction of Edinburgh. There they remained for some time, till, by merest accident, they discovered that Mr Bannister was newly married, and conceived the plan of frightening him into paying black mail, under the idea that his lost wife was still alive.

Where there is real love there is always perfect trust, and Mr Bannister had confided the whole story of his life to the devoted girl who had laid her all at his feet; and it was that knowledge and the idea that she was to be torn from him for ever which had caused her terrible agitation and swoon on the occasion of my first visit to the house.

Peter Hart duly received his sentence of twenty years, and Dick M^cQueen, the spider-killer, as I may name him, was avenged of his half-crown.

THE SPOILT PHOTOGRAPH.

The photographer had put up a rickety erection in shape of a tent close to the grand stand at Musselburgh race-course. He was a travelling portrait-taker, and his “saloon” was a portable one, consisting of four sticks for the corners and a bit of thin cotton to sling round them. There was no roof, partly from poverty and partly to let in more light. It was the first day of the races, and masses of people had been coming into the place by every train and available conveyance.

The photographer’s name was Peter Turnbull—a tall, lanky fellow, like an overgrown boy who had never got his appetite satisfied. He was clad in the shabbiest of clothes, but talked with the stately dignity of an emperor or a decayed actor. In spite of the gay crowds pressing past outside, business did not come very fast to Turnbull, so, after waiting patiently inside like a spider for flies, he issued from his den and tried to force a little trade with his persuasive tongue.

In front of his tent he had slung up a case of the best photographs he could pick up for money, which were likely to pass for his own, and occasionally some of those bent on pleasure paused to look at the specimens, when Turnbull at once tackled them to give him an order. Women he invariably asked to have their “beautiful” faces taken; men, who are not accustomed to be called beautiful, or to think themselves so, he manipulated in a different fashion. He appealed to them as to whether they hadn’t a mother who would like a portrait of them always beside her, or a sweetheart who would value it above a mountain of diamonds. Turnbull’s appearance was against him—he looked hungry down to the very toes of his boots—and most of those he addressed were as suspicious of his eloquence as of that of a book canvasser.

At length, however, he did get a man to listen to him—a sailor, evidently, with a jovial, happy look about his face, and plenty of money in his pocket.

“You’ll be just off your ship, I suppose, you’re looking so fresh and smart,” said Turnbull at a venture. “Your sweetheart will be pleased to see you, but she’d be more pleased if you brought her a good portrait to leave with her.”

The sailor laughed heartily.

“Sweetheart?” he echoed between his convulsions of merriment. “Why, I’m a married man.”

“So much the better,” returned the photographer, not to be daunted. “She’ll want your portrait exactly as you stand—not as you were before this voyage, or when you were courting her. Folks’ faces change so soon.”

“Maybe they do, but their hearts remain the same,” returned the sailor cheerily.

“Well, not always—they change, too, sometimes,” said Turnbull, with the air of one who had bitterly experienced the truth of his words; “but with your portrait always beside her, her heart couldn’t change. Just step in—I won’t keep you a moment, and you can take it with you. You’ll have it, and she’ll have it, long after the races are forgotten.”

The sailor easily yielded, and followed him into the tent, and then Turnbull, having now a professional interest in the man, took notice of his dress and appearance particularly for the first time. The man was low in stature, thick set, and evidently a powerful fellow. He wore an ordinary sailor’s suit of dark blue, but had for a neckerchief a red cotton handkerchief loosely rolled together, and so carelessly tied that the ends hung down over his breast.

In order to get all the sailor’s face into the portrait, Turnbull with some difficulty persuaded him to remove his cap, and then drew from him an admission that his objection arose from the fact that there was a flesh mark on one side of his forehead which he did not wish to appear in the portrait. The difficulty was got over—as it was with Hannibal—by taking a side-view, and the first attempt came out all right, so far as the portrait was concerned. But the sailor wished to appear as if he had just removed his cap, and with that in his hand, so the first was put aside as spoilt, and another taken, which, though not so successful, pleased the owner better, as in that the cap appeared in his hand. The portrait was finished and framed, and so free and good-natured was the owner that he insisted on paying for the spoilt one, which, however, he refused to take with him. While Turnbull had been putting a frame on the portrait, the sailor took out a long piece of tobacco and a pocket knife and cut himself a liberal quid, at the same time offering a piece to the photographer, which was accepted. The knife with which the tobacco was cut was a strong one, with a long, straight blade and a sharp point.

The whole transaction over, they bade each other good-day, and the sailor disappeared among the crowds of spectators and betting men on the course with the avowed intention of enjoying himself, and scattering some money before he went home.

Six or seven hours later a man was found lying in one of the narrow back lanes of the town, so inert, and smelling so strongly of drink, that more than one person had passed him under the impression that he was drunk, and without putting out a hand to help. At length the ghastly hue of his face attracted attention, and it was found that he was lying in a pool of blood, which had flowed from two deep wounds in his breast and side, and thence oosed out at the back of his clothes on the ground below.

Some of the crowd who gathered about him as he was being carried to a house close by identified him as a baker named Colin M^cCulloch, belonging to a town some miles off, but who was well known in a wide district from the fact that he went about with a bread van. He was not quite dead when found, but an examination of his wounds soon indicated that life was ebbing away.

One of these was as deep as the doctor’s finger could reach, and appeared to have been inflicted with the narrow, straight blade of a long, sharp-pointed knife.

I had been on the race-course for the greater part of the day looking for a man who did not turn up, and heard of the occurrence only when I called at the station before leaving for town. It had been decided that M^cCulloch was not fit to be removed, and I went to see him, but found him far beyond speech or explanation. By visiting the spot on which he had been found I discovered a girl who gave me the first clue.

She had been passing along the lane, and had been “feared” as she expressed it, to pass M^cCulloch, who was tottering along in the same direction, very drunk and demonstrative, though all alone. Every one was away at the races, and the narrow lane seemed quite deserted, but there appeared in front a sailor, who had no sooner sighted M^cCulloch than he began quarrelling with him and threatening him. Thankful of the opportunity, the girl slipped past during the quarrel, having just time to notice that the sailor was a short, thick-set fellow, and that he wore a red cotton handkerchief for a necktie. When she was at a safe distance she chanced to look back, and saw the sailor give M^cCulloch “a drive in the breast,” and so knock him down. She did not wait to see anything more, but hurried home, thinking that it was only an ordinary drunken quarrel.

Questioned by me, she could not say whether the sailor had used a knife. Her idea was that he had only given the man a drive with his hand to knock him down or get him out of the way. The sailor spoke in a low tone; M^cCulloch was noisy and defiant. She saw no knife in the sailor’s hand, and was sure he was a stranger. She did not think she would know him again, as she did not look at his face, but she knew every one about the town, and was positive that the sailor did not belong to the place. It was the sailor who stopped M^cCulloch, whom he seemed to know; and she thought he was quite sober, though pale and angry-looking. “Look me in the face and say it’s not true,” were the only words she could remember hearing, and they were spoken in a fierce tone by the sailor, just as she was getting beyond earshot.

Having thus a little to work upon, I tried all the exits of the town for some trace of him, without success. He had not gone away by rail or coach, and no one had seen him leave on foot, so far as I could discover; but that was to be expected in the state of the town. Dozens of sailors with red neckties might have come and gone and never been noticed in such a stir. In the town itself I was more successful. To my surprise I found that a man answering the description had visited nearly every public-house in the place. He had never spoken or called for drink; he had merely looked through the houses in a pallid, excited manner, and gone his way.

“He seemed to be looking for some one,” a publican said to me, “but he was gone before I could ask him.”

I spent a good deal of time in the place, though not sure that if I got that man I should be getting the murderer, and returned to Edinburgh with the last train. I went back again next morning, and found M^cCulloch still alive, and sensible enough to be able to give an assent or dissent when asked a question. But about the murderous attack upon himself he could not or would not give a sign. He would only stare, or shut his eyes, or turn away. The doctor thought he did not understand me—that the patient’s head was not yet quite clear; I thought quite the reverse. The same curious circumstance occurred when it was suggested that his deposition should be taken. M^cCulloch had no deposition to make, or would not make one. He seemed quite prepared to die and give no sign.

Not an hour later I was favoured with a visit from Turnbull, the travelling photographer. He had been lodging in the town, and of course had heard of the strange crime. He had heard also of my unsuccessful hunt for the sailor, and would probably have gone up to Edinburgh to see me had he not been loth to lose another day at the race-course, his stance being taken for three days.

I could not conceive what the lank, hungry-looking being could want with me, or why there should be about his lean jaws such a smirk of intense satisfaction, as he gave his name and occupation.

“A murder has been committed—or what is as good as a murder, for the man, I believe, is at his last gasp,” he exultingly began. “There will be a hanging match—that is, if you can trace and capture the murderer. Now, Mr M^cGovan, you’re said to be clever, but you haven’t got him yet, and never will unless you get my help.”

“Your help?” I echoed in amazement; “why, who are you, and how can you help me?”

“My name you know, and I am not unknown to fame, I am an actor as well as a photographic artist. I have trod the boards with some success, and you know that that in itself is a kind of training in acuteness eminently fitting one for detective work.”

I could not see it, and said so. I thought him an escaped lunatic.

“Mark me, Mr M^cGovan,” he continued, quite unabashed, “I have in my possession the only means whereby you can trace and arrest the murderer. Now just tell me what it is worth, and we may come to a bargain.”

“What it is worth?” I said, with a grin. “I don’t know that it is worth anything till I try it.”

“A hundred pounds? Surely they’ll offer that as a reward for such information as shall lead to the capture of the murderer?”

“I don’t know that they’ll offer a hundred pence,” was my reply. “Tell me what you know, and if it is of any use I will see that you are suitably rewarded.”

“Ah, that won’t suit me,” he answered with great decision. “I will leave you to think over my offer; you know where to find me when you have made up your mind.”

He was moving off, after making a low and stagey bow, but I got between him and the door, and brought out a pair of handcuffs.

“I know where to find you now, which is far more convenient,” I quietly remarked. “You have admitted that you know something of the murder—I shall detain you on suspicion.”

“What! arrest me? an innocent man; lock me up in prison!” he exclaimed, in genuine terror. “You cannot—dare not! I know nothing of the murder; I merely think I can put you in the way of tracing the man who did it.”

“Do so, then, if you would prove your innocence,” I said, rather amused at his terror and dismay. “Were you an accomplice?”

“An accomplice! how can you ask such a question?” he tremblingly answered. “You are taking a mean advantage of me, for I feel sure that my secret is worth a hundred pounds at least. But I will trust to your honour, and put it all before you. People will give _you_ all the credit. Everyone will say ‘M^cGovan is the man that can do it; we might have known he wouldn’t escape when M^cGovan was after him.’ Nobody will think of me, or hear of me, who have given you the clue. It’s the way of the world; one man toils, and ploughs, and sows, and another man reaps the harvest.”

“Ah, nothing pleases me so much as envy, flavoured with a little spitefulness,” I quietly returned. “It is the most flattering unction you can lay to a man’s soul.”

“I am not envious,” he dolefully replied, “but it is hard to supply another with brains.”

“Especially when he has none of his own,” I laughingly retorted. “Well, come along; bring on your brains—I’m waiting for them.”

“I really believe you are laughing at me in your sleeve,” he observed, with a half pathetic look. “It is brave to crush the poor worm under your heel when you know he can’t retaliate.”

“You’re a long worm—six feet at least,” I solemnly answered; “a long-winded one, too, unfortunately. I must leave you in the cells for an hour or two——”

“Oh, no! I will speak; I will tell you it all in half a minute,” he wildly answered. “The murderer is said to have been a sailor—a short, thick-set fellow, wearing a red neckerchief. I photographed such a man in the forenoon, and I have the first portrait, which didn’t please him, though it is like as life.”

“Ah! let me see it. Have you it with you?” I cried, with sudden interest and great eagerness.

“Now you change your tune,” he reproachfully answered. “I have it with me, or I should not have given in so easily. I was afraid you might have me searched, and, finding the photo, think me an acquaintance or accomplice of the man,” and, with a little more wearisome talk, he produced the portrait, and slowly put before me the incidents already recorded.

When he had done I was not greatly elated. The thread which connected his early customer with the man supposed to have attacked M^cCulloch was of the slenderest. Then I was disappointed that Turnbull’s story looked so real. I had fondly hoped he would stumble and prevaricate enough to allow us to lock him up on suspicion—in other words, that we should find him to be an accomplice, anxious to save himself at the expense of a companion in crime. I took the photograph, but plainly told him that I feared it would be of little use to me.

“Ah, you wish to undervalue it in order to get out of paying me a good round sum when the man is caught,” he answered, with a knowing wink. “I haven’t knocked about so much without being able to see through that dodge,” and away he went, as elated and consequential as if he had really laid the man by the heels.

When I was alone I had a long study over the notes I had taken during the interview. The sailor photographed had stated that his ship only got in the day before, and that he was on his way home, and merely visiting the race-course in passing. He had not said where he lived or at what port he had come in, but the general impression left on Turnbull’s mind was that the port was not far off. Leith or Granton seemed to me the likeliest places, and I turned to the shipping lists to have a look at the names of new arrivals. At Leith only one vessel had come in on that day, The Shannon; and at Granton, though there were several arrivals, none of them were from long voyages. The sailor had hinted that he had not been home for eighteen months, and that to my mind implied a long voyage, or long voyages.

To Leith accordingly I went, and found The Shannon, her cargo already discharged, and only a few of the men on board. Some had been paid off and some were off for a few days on leave. The man whom I questioned—for the captain had gone home too—seemed to me sullen and suspicious. He did not know if one of the men had gone eastwards to see his wife; if any of them lived in that quarter he had never heard of it, and so on. I was dissatisfied with the answers and the man’s manner, and had he resembled in the slightest degree the portrait in my pocket I should have arrested him on the spot. I thought I would bring out the photograph as a test. Holding it up before him, I said sharply—

“Do you know that man?”

“No, I don’t.” The answer came out almost before he had time to look at the features. It was too prompt. It was a lie. The falsehood told me more than the truth would have done. It not only convinced me that I was at least on the track of the photographed sailor, but roused in my mind for the first time a strong suspicion that he was the knifer of M^cCulloch. I went from the ship to the shipping agents. I found the clerk who had handed their pay to all the men; and on producing the photograph saw that he recognised it instantly.

“Yes, that was one of them,” he said, “but he was paid off, and has gone home.”

I asked the man’s name, and, on referring to the books, he gave it as Tom Fisher. With some difficulty he got me the man’s address—which was in a town some miles east—and his trouble arose from the fact that no money had been sent to Fisher’s wife for nearly a year.

The sailors’ wives often drew one half the men’s pay, but she had not applied for it during that time, and was supposed to have changed her address.

“I didn’t say anything of it to Fisher,” said the clerk in conclusion, “and he seemed quite elated at having so much money to draw. It’s a kittle thing interfering between a man and his wife, and it might have alarmed him needlessly. If there’s anything wrong he’s best to find it out himself.”

I left the shipping office, and took the first train for the town in which Fisher had his home. If he was to be found anywhere, I thought it would be there—and especially so if he turned out to be innocent. It is a quiet country place in which everyone knows his neighbours, and I had no difficulty in finding the house. But it was occupied by an old woman, who said she had been in it for nearly a year. I asked for Mrs Fisher, the sailor’s wife.

“Oh, she was a bad lot,” was the blunt rejoinder. “She sellt a’ her things, bit by bit, and gaed awa’ in the end withoot paying her rent and other debts.”

“Where did she go to, do you know?”

“Oh, dear kens. She was a drunken hussy, and thought hersel’ bonny. Some say that she went awa’ wi’ a baker-man they ca’ M^cCulloch, and was aboot Leith for a while, but maybe it’s no true. He used to hae a great wark wi’ her.”

“And her husband—has he never been here?”

“Never since I cam’; but I heard that M^cCulloch was stabbed at the races by a sailor and I wadna wonder if that sailor turned oot to be Fisher himsel’.”

I thought the old woman the most acute I had met for a while; we always do when we find a person’s thoughts and opinions tallying with our own. I left the house and pursued my inquiries elsewhere. I found no one who had seen Fisher near the town, or in it; but at length there was mentioned to me the name of a man who had been at the races, and had there seen Fisher and spoken to him. This man I found out, but he was not nearly so communicative to me as he had been to others. He admitted that he had seen Fisher and spoken to him, but couldn’t remember what they had talked of. He knew M^cCulloch also, and had seen him at the races, too, but in a drunken condition, and not fit for conversation. Questioned more closely, he admitted that Fisher was an old friend of his, and that the last thing in the world he would wish for would be to do Fisher any injury by what he should say. He had heard of the stabbing of M^cCulloch, and did not wonder at it, the man was so quarrelsome, but he had no idea who had done it. Fisher might have done it, or anybody else—he knew nothing about it, as he was out of the place two hours at least before the attack was made.

I could read the man as plainly as if he had spoken all he knew. There was the same reticence which the sailor had shown on board The Shannon, and it probably arose from the same cause—a desire to screen and save a friend. I got back to Leith, and found with some relief that no vessel of importance had left during the two days; I then tried Granton with the same result. “Glasgow” then rose promptly in my mind, and I drove to both the Edinburgh railway stations to make inquiries. At neither had any person resembling the photograph been seen, but a telegram to one of the stations a mile or two from the city elicited the news that a man in sailor’s dress had taken a third class ticket thence to Glasgow. He had driven out to that station in a cab, and the cab had come from the direction of Edinburgh. I telegraphed to Glasgow, and followed my message by the first train. When I got to that city I found my work nearly all done for me. Fisher had been traced to an American liner, in which he had shipped under the name of George Fullerton.

Strange fatality! George Fullerton was the name of the man who had seen him at the races, and so clumsily tried to screen him from me. The vessel in which he had shipped was gone—it had sailed the night before—but there was a chance of it stopping at Liverpool. I telegraphed thither and took the night mail, in case the vessel should touch, but the weather had proved too stormy, and she held on her course. Being so far on the way, and now perfectly sure of my man, I did not dream of turning back, but took passage for New York in a fast liner, which would easily have outstripped that in which the fugitive had got the start, but for one or two unforeseen accidents on the way, which added three days to the length of the passage. When we landed, the vessel in which “George Fullerton” had sailed was in the harbour, and my man gone. He was described to me by one of the sailors as depressed and sullen, but singularly free with his money. He had been taken on at the last moment in place of a man who had failed to appear, and so, instead of working his passage, had received full pay. On landing he had treated several of his mates liberally, and had seemed bent on nothing but getting rid of his money.

“I believe I could find him for you,” said the man at last, and I readily accepted the offer.

We made our way to a tavern near the harbour much frequented by seamen, and there, sitting alone with some drink before him, I found the counter-part of the spoilt photograph. I should have easily recognised him in a crowd, but with a foolhardiness almost incredible, he wore the fatal red neckerchief, which proved to be of silk, not cotton.

I said nothing to my conductor beyond ordering for him a drink at the bar, and then went up and took a seat opposite the red necktie.

“You’re a Scotchman, I think?” I said to him at last.

“So are you,” he said, a little startled.

“Yes. Long since you left the old country?”

“Long enough,” he growled, “and it’ll be longer or I go back.”

“Nonsense, man,” I said, without a smile. “I’m going back by the first ship. Suppose you go back with me?”

“Never!”

The word was accompanied by a deep oath, but I was busy with my hand in my pocket, which came out as he made a gulp at the drink before him, and brought up the barrel of a pistol levelled straight at his eyes.

“Hands up! Tom Fisher,” I shouted as he staggered back, and the bystanders came crowding round. “I believe that’s the custom of this country, or the right thing to say when two are likely to play at one game. I’ve come all the way from Edinburgh to arrest you for stabbing Colin M^cCulloch. My name is M^cGovan, and I’ve the warrant in my pocket.”

He gave in in the most sheepish and stupefied manner imaginable, and some one was obliging enough to snap my handcuffs on his wrists. I took him away in a _coupé_, and had him locked up till I should get the necessary papers filled up for his conveyance across the Atlantic.

On the passage home we got quite friendly, and he told me the whole story of the attack. He had met George Fullerton, and been told by him of his wife’s faithlessness and flight, coupled with M^cCulloch’s name. He was quite frenzied, and went off at once to look for M^cCulloch, whom Fullerton had seen not long before in the town. He met him at last by chance, and stabbed him twice, meaning to kill him.

When he came to be tried, which was two months later, on account of the state of his victim, he pleaded “Not guilty” by advice, and M^cCulloch was called as a witness, when, to the astonishment of all, M^cCulloch declared most positively that he could not remember who stabbed him, but that he had a strong impression that the assailant was _not_ the man at the bar.

None looked more astonished than the prisoner, but a moment later he recovered himself and rose to his feet.

“He’s telling a lie! I did stab him. I’m guilty, and I’m not sorry. He led away my wife, and she’s now on the streets. Ask him if it’s not true? That’s all I’ve to say.”

M^cCulloch, when questioned, made some shuffling answers, and was finally ordered out of the box. Then Fisher, in consideration of the peculiar circumstances of the case, and his having been already two months in prison, was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment.

I saw him after his release. He was searching for his wife, and had come to me to get my assistance, but we only found her grave.

THE STOLEN DOWRY.

In a public-house in the Saltmarket of Glasgow there had been a leak in a barrel of spirits which stood in a dark corner inside the counter. The whisky was pure and unreduced as it came from the distillery. Before being retailed it would have been mixed with water in certain proportions, according, to the price labelled on the fancy-painted casks ranged along the wall, to which it would have been partly transferred on the day after its arrival. As it happened, however, that particular barrel was not to be sold. An old spigot had got loose during the night, and the pot-boy who opened the shop waded into what he thought was water instead of the thick coating of sawdust generally covering the floor. The shop was dark, and the boy got a stump of candle and lighted it, to have a search into the cause. The smell might have enlightened him. Behind the counter the floor was covered with escaping whisky. The boy crouched down and poked the candle-stump in under the barrel, and at the same moment was burnt by some of the melted grease. His fingers were of most importance to him, and he dropped the candle with a howl. If the whisky had been gunpowder, it could scarcely have put him out of the shop more quickly. There was a blaze and a roar, and then an explosion, and the boy had scarcely reached the opposite side of the street, with more burns than the candle had inflicted, when the whole shop was in flames.