Chapter VIII: Part 8

How Benjie Blunt came to get his name I never could discover—possibly it was prompted by the law of contrariety, because Benjie was so sharp. His real name had not the remotest resemblance to this, but as he refused to answer to that, he was always put down in the prison books as Benjamin Blunt.

Benjie’s vanity was much greater than his acquisitiveness. He liked to boast of the feats he had done, hence the cases in which he was mixed up generally showed a superlative degree of ingenuity and cunning, however small the stake. I do not find, however, that Benjie’s cleverness produced any marked diminution in the number of his convictions—indeed, it was the grave length of that list which prompted him to make such elaborate preparations in the following case.

Close to the Meadows, and before that quarter was so much built upon, there was a cottage occupied by an old army surgeon, whom I may name Dr Temple, and his servant, Peggy Reid. This gentleman was a bachelor, and somewhat eccentric, and, as he had spent the most of his life in India, he was supposed to be very rich. Dr Temple was as exact and punctual in his habits and engagements as if he had been still in the army. Everything went on like clock-work in his snug little home, and if a servant did not please him in that respect, he discharged her on the spot. One of his habits was to spend every Thursday evening at a friend’s house, leaving his own house at seven o’clock, and returning at half-past ten. His house was full of Indian curiosities and nicknacks, but most of them were of a kind which could not have been readily turned into money. The cottage had a little garden in front, railed in, and had also a space at one end, in which stood a coal cellar, a wash-house, and an empty dog kennel.

A working joiner happened to be passing this cottage about nine o’clock on a Thursday night, and, glancing up towards the front door, was surprised not so much at seeing it standing half-open as at noticing something like a human foot and the skirt of a dress lying motionless on the lobby floor. There was a light in the lobby, and the inner glass door was also ajar. The man stopped and stared, wondering whether it was not some servant busy scrubbing the floor, and lying on her side to reach some corner scarcely accessible. But the foot did not move, and as the place was lonely and dark, the man suspected something was wrong, looked round for a policeman in vain, and then pushed open the gate and advanced towards the strange object. He found Dr Temple’s servant, Peggy Reid, lying on the lobby floor behind the outer door quite insensible. At first the man thought she had been knocked down, and so stunned, but seeing no traces of a blow, and finding that she breathed calmly and regularly, he came to the conclusion that she was drunk, and vainly tried to arouse her by shaking her and propping her up on a lobby chair. As she gave but faint signs of awaking, he then tried to call the assistance of the household by ringing the bell, and, getting no response, concluded that the house was empty, and went in search of a policeman. At the Middle Walk he was fortunate enough to catch the glare of a policeman’s lantern, and soon had the man informed of the strange discovery. They went back together to the cottage, and found the servant girl still sitting in the lobby, and looking stupid and confused.

“A man rang the bell and said the doctor sent him for his stick,” she feebly explained in reply to the policeman’s questions. “Then he shoved himself in and held something to my mouth, and everything grew dark.”

“Chloroform,” said the policeman shortly. “The house has been robbed, I’ll swear. Let’s look through it and see.”

With some assistance Peggy was able to get on her feet and lead them through the house. A great deal of damage had been done; ornaments and curiosities smashed and tossed down in sheer wantonness or anger, but not much of value taken. Some silver ornaments and jewellery, and an old-fashioned gold watch, were all that the servant could say positively were gone; but it turned out afterwards that a considerable sum of money in gold and bank notes had been taken besides these valuables. An Indian casket of carved wood, ornamented with ivory, was also missed on the day following. It was not worth sixpence to any one but the owner, and why it had been taken was a mystery to all.

While this discovery was being made, or possibly a short time before, a curious arrest was being made in the High Street, which, as everyone knows, is about seven minutes’ walk from the Meadows. Benjie Blunt had made his appearance in the High Street, not far from the Central Station, uproariously drunk and apparently reckless of all consequences. He staggered about, shouting out sundry sounds which were supposed to represent a song, he insulted everyone within his reach, and, finally, in making a mad grasp at some of the tormenting gamins clustered about him, he fell forward on his face, and was so overcome that he could not get up again. A crowd cannot gather in the High Street at any time without almost instantly attracting our attention. The man on the beat was soon at Benjie’s side, and on telling him to get up was rewarded with a kick on the shin bone. Another man had to be summoned, and between them, with the greatest difficulty, they managed to carry the limp and drooping figure of Benjie into the station, by which time that worthy was quite incapable of speech, and was locked in a cell to sober at leisure. Benjie passed the night in a profound slumber, and was next morning placed at the bar of the Police Court, and fined in five shillings, or seven days. When had a professional thief five shillings to spare? or the inclination to part with the sum, unless he had urgent and profitable work awaiting him outside?

Benjie declared himself bankrupt, and made a pathetic appeal to the Sheriff to be let off “just this once,” and was then hustled out and taken to the cells, no more depressed than if he had been starting for a week’s holidays. Indeed, from the manner in which he thrust his tongue into his cheek, and bestowed on me an impudent wink as he was led off, it struck me that Benjie was highly delighted with himself or his oratorical display. I failed to see any cleverness in it; I was to think differently later on.

I had been out at Dr Temple’s cottage not an hour after the discovery; and as I found the servant perfectly recovered, and with not a scratch to show as the result of the attack, I rashly concluded that she herself was the thief, with or without an accomplice. My idea was that the lying in the lobby with the door open and apparently insensible was a mere feint to throw suspicion off herself while her companion escaped with the booty. My only wonder was that she had not been found bound and gagged as well, and it was that omission which made me wonder if she had done the whole thing single handed. With this thought uppermost I searched the whole cottage and garden very carefully, expecting to find the plunder there buried or hidden. The dog kennel already noticed stood on feet, and was about four inches off the ground, and it seems strange to me now that I did not have it moved or looked below. However, the oversight—which I actually made—mattered little, for at that time the plunder was not there. I merely mention the fact to show what a narrow escape the girl made, for had the stolen things been got there she would certainly have been arrested; and that they were not there found was not through any planning or skill of the thief. That which complicated the case to all concerned proved a blessing to the servant girl.

Peggy Reid, when questioned by me, asserted her belief that she would know the man again who had held the handkerchief over her mouth and nostrils, and stated that she had noticed a man resembling him hanging about the place, and passing and repassing some days before. I had no faith in her ability to do so, for at that time I strongly suspected herself, but I made a raid among “my bairns,” and picked up two fellows, who were shown to her without success.

She was positive that neither of them was the man, and they were liberated. If Benjie Blunt had been at liberty I might have thought of him, but at that time he was demurely picking oakum in Calton Jail to wile away the tedium of his sentence of seven days. He had been carried into the Central Office, dead drunk, an hour before the robbery was reported, and what could be more satisfactory to us? Candidly, the thought of Benjie in connection with the singular and daring robbery never once rose in my mind.

Failing with the two first arrests, I kept my eyes open for the spending of the money which had been the chief part of the plunder. A flutter of interest quivers through the whole thieving community the moment a big haul is taken by any of their number. It will not hide; you see it in their faces, in their manner, in their gorging and drinking, and in a certain indescribable furtive uneasiness and excitement which they show when visited and questioned.

The only one whom I found to be unusually flush of money was a man named Pat Corkling, better known as “Pauley.” Pauley was more a beggar and tramp than a thief, and had got his nickname by evading hard labour during a sentence for vagrancy by pretending that he had a “pauley,” or paralysed, right hand. Pauley, then, was spending money freely, and yet always too drunk to go out begging. I therefore removed him to the Central, and had him searched.

We found more money on him than he could account for, but none of it could be identified, and Peggy Reid, on being shown Pauley, declared most positively that he was not the man.

Pauley was therefore released, and went away triumphant, with the money in his pocket, to resume his drinking and gorging.

At this stage of the affair there occurred a most singular and unaccountable event. Benjie Blunt was set at liberty, having duly served his term of seven days, and that very night the policeman Bain, on the beat past Dr Temple’s cottage, was suddenly attacked in a ferocious manner by a man who ran off the moment the assault was made. Since the discovery of the robbery Bain had been ordered, with Dr Temple’s permission, to enter the garden by the gate during the night, and make the circuit of the cottage to see that all was secure. He had done so on that occasion, and was scarcely out of the garden when a powerful hand drove the hat over his eyes, while a powerful foot administered a vicious kick to the small of his back. While he was dropping to the ground in agony a voice growled out something to the effect that he was to “take that you thief!” Bain managed to spring his rattle; but when he scrambled to his feet again he found himself alone, the nimble assailant having flown like the wind. No arrest was made, though Bain had to get a substitute for the rest of the night, and go home to bed.

Next day, as if to add to the complications, a note was handed into the Office addressed to me, with twopence of deficient postage to pay, and which ran thus—

“A blake Sheep. yul finde the rober of mr temples is thee Peg on the bete. serche him an his howse an yul see. giv him 10 yers the vilin.”

The most of this precious epistle was written in a species of half-text, which did not seem altogether unfamiliar to me. So impressed was I with the idea that I went over to the prison and had a look at the copy-books of most of those in the school or who had been in it lately. I did not come on any resembling it, and it was not till Benjie Blunt came up to me on the street a few days later that the possible connection between him and the curious writing flashed upon my mind.

“Now, I remember—Benjie used to write a hand something like that,” was my thought when he addressed me, and I fully expected that Benjie’s first words to me would have a reference to the policeman Bain, a most sterling and tried man, in whom we had implicit confidence.

Benjie took a long time to work round to the subject uppermost on his mind, but at length he said—

“I know you’re always on the look-out for hints, and you’re so kind and attentive when I’m in you’re hands that I couldn’t help coming to you with what I’ve found out.”

I grinned unfeelingly into his solemnly puckered-up face.

“O Benjie, try that on somebody else,” I rejoined, with a look which must have convinced him that I was wide awake to his clumsy flattery. “Out with what you’ve to say; I’ll find out your motive afterwards, if it’s of any importance.”

“What’s it worth to put the thief in your hands?” he asked with cunning look, which could not possibly be described on paper.

“It’s worth about as much as the thief or yourself—nothing,” I calmly answered.

Ah, well, he was sorry for that, but he was still anxious to help us—virtuous Benjie!—and would not mind doing a good action for once.

“You know Pat Corkling? Pauley, they call him,” he continued.

“Why! is he the man?” I cried in surprise. “I had a letter accusing Bain, the policeman on the beat, of the crime, and I strongly suspect, Benjie, that that letter came from _you_.”

Oh, no, it was quite a mistake. Benjie protested strongly—a trifle too strongly—that he had never written such a letter in his life; and I immediately concluded that he had written that letter, but was puzzled to think why he should now come to me accusing Pauley.

“How do you know that Pauley did the job?” I asked, when Benjie had done protesting.

“I didn’t say he did, and I’m not going to say it. I’m not to appear as a witness in the case at all, mind—that must be the agreement, or I tell nothing.”

“All right; I agree to that; go ahead with your story—I daresay it’s a lie from beginning to end, so it doesn’t matter much.”

Benjie smiled delightedly at the compliment, and proceeded—

“When I got out of quod and heerd of the thing—which had been done when I was in—I had a idee that the peg was the man that did it, just like the man, whoever he was, that wrote to you,” demurely observed Benjie. “Pegs is an awful bad lot—except you, of course—oh, honour bright, except you,” he added, catching himself up barely in time. “But then I found out that Pauley had been flush of money for near a week, and I took to watching him. I didn’t get much out of him, for he’s fly, I tell you.”

“That’s a great compliment from you, Benjie—what a pity he can’t hear it,” I remarked.

“But there was some Indian ornaments took, wasn’t there?” Benjie added, suddenly coming to the point, and looking innocently anxious for enlightenment.

“Yes.”

“Well, I saw Bell Corkling with one of them—at least I think it would be one of them—a silver thing, made like a butterfly—and I heerd that others saw her with more, which she had put away in a safe place. O Jamie! ye had Pauley up on suspicion—why didn’t you keep him while you had him?”

“That’s a mistake which may be easily rectified, if we can find any of the things in their possession.”

“Trust you for that, Jamie,” said Benjie, in servile admiration, at the same time giving me a poke in the ribs for which I did not thank him. “And, mind, be awful suspicious of him if he tries to prove a _nalibi_, as they call it,” he added, with careful concern. “He’s an awful liar, and could get others to swear anything.”

“Ah! he’s not alone in the world in that respect, Benjie,” I significantly rejoined, “and has no chance to be till the hangman gets you.”

Benjie gracefully acknowledged the compliment, and, after some more advice and instruction, left me.

I knew, from the moment that Bell Corkling was named, that I should have some trouble in getting evidence against them. They had no fixed abode, and generally lodged at a place where dozens besides themselves might as reasonably be suspected of the crime. This beggars’ howf was in the Grassmarket, and its occupants had such a reputation for stealing from one another that I scarcely expected Bell or Pauley to be so foolish as leave their plunder about that place. My opinion to this day is that Benjie _did not_ see the Indian trinket in Bell’s possession, but merely inferred their guilt from circumstances which I shall notice further on. Therefore the task which Benjie conferred on me was much more difficult than I imagined. I had Bell watched for a day by a smart little ragamuffin whom I engaged for the purpose, and then I broke in on them at what I thought was the most favourable moment—about ten o’clock at night. The “kitchen” was full, but Pauley and Bell were in more select and favoured society—the room of the lodging-house keeper, who was helping them to dispose of some bad whisky. Bell looked angry and excited when I appeared and my men closed the door; Pauley looked concerned, and hurriedly said something across the table to Bell in an undertone, when she made a swift motion as if to wipe her mouth with her hand. All that took place while the fat lodging-house keeper was rising, and, in tones of innocent wonder, asking what I sought at such a time.

I had not an answer ready, for I was thinking of Bell’s peculiar action, and watching her closely the while; but at length I said pleasantly to Bell—

“I want to know how old you are, Bell.”

“Then I won’t tell you,” she fiercely answered.

“I didn’t ask you. I mean to find out for myself. You’re such a horse of a woman—I want to see if I can tell by looking at your teeth. Come away, now, like a good soul, open your mouth.”

Pauley turned pale, and Bell closed her lips more rigidly.

“Sha’nt,” she defiantly answered, in a mumble through her teeth.

“Ah, ladies are always shy on that point; I must take you to the Office, and get a crowbar to prize open your jaws,” and I got out my handcuffs to fit one on her, when she suddenly made a desperate gulp, and then turned crimson in the face, and began to wave her arms and kick her legs at a fine rate, gasping, and choking, and sputtering, but failing to get the impediment either up or down her capacious throat. She opened her mouth now without being asked, and the chasm thus displayed was enough to frighten the bravest, but she was so evidently in pain, and urgent in her motions, that I made an attempt to relieve her.

Others tried in turn, but at length we had to send for a doctor, who, with a peculiar instrument—like a long bent pair of forceps—managed to bring out of her throat an Indian gold coin. As soon as I had examined the coin, and made some pleasant remarks thereon, which were very badly received by Bell, I asked for the remainder of the plunder, and not getting it, searched the place thoroughly, when I at last found a small paper parcel tied with a piece of twine, and fastened up inside the chimney with a table fork. In this parcel was most of the plunder, including the old-fashioned watch, which seemed not a bit the worse of its smoking. The landlady was loud in her denunciations of my prisoners, and they were good enough to confirm her protests, by declaring that she knew nothing of the hide. Still all three had to trudge, though the landlady afterwards got off with an admonition. It was the table fork which saved her, for it was proved that she had missed the fork days before, and kicked up a terrible row, accusing one of the lodgers of having stolen that useful article.

The arrest, and the manner in which it had been accomplished, seemed to impress Pauley with a more exalted opinion of my powers. He did not know that it was by a mere chance that I entered at the moment when Bell had the Indian coin in her possession, and seemed to think there was something uncanny about me. That was his first impression. A day or two’s reflection made him veer a little. He had never told the particulars of the robbery to a living being—even Bell had not been so trusted. How then could I have known that he must be the man? That was Pauley’s puzzle, and it led his thoughts insensibly in the direction of Benjie Blunt. He sent for me at last, and asked me point blank if he had been informed on by that worthy. I was a little staggered by the question, and Pauley took me up at once.

“I see it was him that set you on to me and Bell—and there’s nobody else could,” he bitterly continued. “Well, I can be even with him, for I’m not the real man after all. If you’ll undertake to get me off, I’ll put you up to the whole plant.”

I could make no such pledge, but Pauley’s anger was roused, and he had resolved that Benjie should suffer, so he made unconditionally the following statement:—

“That night when the robbery was done I met Benjie in a public-house in the Pleasance. He pretended to be very drunk, but he wasn’t, and I knew it, and wondered what he was after, as I smelt chloroform, and knew he was the only one who could have it about him. He got quarrelsome and broke a glass, and was put out of the place. I didn’t stay long after, as I was curious about him. He went along a street or two pretty drunk like, and then got as sober as a judge, and went out very smart to the cottage at the Meadows. The whole job didn’t last five minutes, and I watched it all a bit off. When he came out again he had a narrow box in his hands, and he went to the dog kennel and pushed the box in below it, and then bolted. I went for the box, and got it, and bolted too, for I was frightened, seeing the servant’s foot in the lobby, and thinking maybe he had given her too strong a dose. I burned the box whenever I got under cover, and hid everything but the money. I heard that Benjie was locked up for being drunk and abusive the same night. He was no more drunk than I am now, but I s’pose he thought he’d be safer in there than out.”

This story was too wonderful for me to credit at a moment’s notice, but I thought there could be no harm in getting hold of Benjie. I had pledged my word to him that he was not to appear in the case as a witness; his appearing as a prisoner was quite outside of the bond.

I went to look for Benjie soon after my interview with Pauley, and chanced to meet him coming up a close in the High Street, when he graciously smiled out, and seized hold of my hand to shake it warmly, while he thanked me most heartily for so neatly securing Pauley and Bell. He seemed to look upon the capture as a personal favour done to himself. He was shortly to change his opinion.

“I’ll go up the close with you,” I quietly remarked, turning and accompanying him as far as the High Street. “There are some points in that affair I’m not quite sure of, and I want you to go with me as far as the Office.”

“All right, but I am not to appear as a witness,” he warningly observed.

“No, no, not as a witness,” I assuringly returned, “and, lest anyone should suspect you of peaching, suppose I put one of these on you and take you along on suspicion?”

He looked at me suspiciously, but recovered and grinned out as I snapped the steel on his wrist—

“It’s a good joke,” he said delightedly.

“I don’t mean it for a joke at all,” I said, becoming serious. “Really and truly I am arresting you on suspicion.”

His whole countenance changed, his jaw fell, and for a moment he stopped walking, and looked as wicked as any human being could look.

“You can’t prove anything against me,” he at length answered, moving along with me in apparent confidence. “I can prove a _nalibi_, as it’s called. I was in Fernie’s public-house in the Pleasance all the afternoon, and was put out there drunk, and lugged into the Office long before the robbery came off. I was drunk, but I knew what I was about, and I know I was never near the Meadows.”

“Done!” I cried. “Oh, you fool! Why did you say so much? You’ve convicted yourself by speaking of an _alibi_. It was the only link awanting in the chain of evidence, for I could not conceive why you should pretend to be drunk and then get back to the High Street and have yourself locked up as drunk and incapable. Thank you, Benjie, for your help in this matter. It was all a clever _alibi_ you were arranging?”

Benjie emitted one oath, and then became silent, conscious, doubtless, of the soundness of my remarks. An hour or two after he had been locked up, I had Peggy Reid brought to see him, when she unhesitatingly identified him as the man who had held the handkerchief to her mouth on the night of the robbery. This drove the last prop out from under Benjie, and he plaintively asked if Pauley was to be accepted as evidence. Being informed that that was a likely contingency, he thereupon stated that he would prefer to plead guilty, in order that Pauley might suffer along with him. His benevolent intention was humoured, and the three went to the Penitentiary together, Benjie getting the lion’s share in the number of years.

JIM HUTSON’S KNIFE.

Jim’s mother touched me on the arm as I ushered him into the Police Court for the first time. I remember it all as well as if it had happened yesterday. She had been loitering about the lobby, tearful and oppressed, but was roused as by an electric shock when “James Hutson!” was shouted out, and echoed through the corridor. She gripped my arm as I was hurrying him in at the door, and the whole arm attached to those rigid fingers shook as with an ague. The tearful eyes brimmed over freely, and the parted lips moved, but for a moment no sound came forth.

“Jim was aye a guid laddie,” she at length chokingly articulated. “He’s been led away; he was never meant for a thief. Save him! make it licht for him, and he’ll never come back here. Oh, Maister M^cGovan, he’s the only ane left me—the only ane oot o’ six.”

I did not hear any more, for I was in a hurry, and the roll that morning rather long, but the appealing face, the tears, and hurriedly breathed outpourings of that poor mother’s heart, followed me right into the court-room. Frantic and voluble appeals under such circumstances are common, but this one was quiet, sudden, and overpowering. I looked at the prisoner for the first time with special interest. He was a young lad of sixteen or so, rather strongly built, and manly-looking, but, of course, hanging his head in shame as they generally do the first time. The case was a very simple one. Jim was an apprentice plumber in a big workshop; quantities of brass-fittings, copper wire, and tin had been missed, and at last I was set to watch the workers. I followed several innocent ones for a time, but at length came to Jim. I should have overlooked him, for he had rather an innocent face, but for a certain bulkiness about his body. Jim did not go straight home, but took a certain broker’s on the way. He went through to the back shop, and I surprised him there in the act of unloading. The broker, of course, protested perfect innocence, but I took them both. The broker got off by some means, and Jim now stood there alone. The charge was theft, and confined to the articles taken with him, though that did not cover a hundredth part of his pilferings. Was he guilty?

“Yes sir, guilty,” was Jim’s hurried answer, with his head lower on his breast.

“Hae mercy on him!” rang out from the benches behind in the unmistakable tones of Jim’s mother, as the magistrate paused in doubt, possibly feeling to send such a fine lad to prison. “Let him off this time, and he’ll never come back again.”

I was motioned to the side of the magistrate to give my opinion in an undertone. I did try to make it light for the lad. I said I thought he had been prompted to the acts by some one who was uncaught, that his home training had been against such a course, and that he had never been in court before. But I could not refute the statements of his employers, that their losses had extended over more than a year, and been serious indeed. A few moments thought, and the magistrate spoke out without comment of any kind—“Thirty days.”

There was an impassioned outcry in a woman’s voice, but I did not turn in that direction, as I did not want to see anything. I hurried out the prisoner by the side door a moment or two later, and was again clutched by the mother.

“He’ll come oot waur than he gangs in,” she exclaimed in despairing accents, and with bitter reproach.

“Exactly, there’s little doubt of that,” I answered with assumed coolness.

“Is that a just punishment?” she pursued, almost choked with tears, as she clung to the arm of her son, who now seemed to shrink from her in shame, and to long for the seclusion of the cells.

“It’s the Nemesis of crime—the chief part of the punishment,” I returned; “they should think of that before they begin.”

We had to part them by force, and she called me a monster and a brute, which I don’t think I am, though I did feel a little like one at that moment.

Whether Jim had any prompter to his first crime, other than poverty or the desire for tobacco and other luxuries, I never knew. If he had, the man was probably one of the working plumbers, and possibly took warning by Jim’s detection and pilfered no more. At the end of the thirty days his mother was over at the jail door to receive him with open arms and take him home with her. He promised there, at the jail gate, that he would have done with crime for ever. I heard him speak the words, and I believe he sincerely meant to keep the pledge. But there were two things which neither he nor his mother calculated upon. The first was that the taint of crime was now upon him. Who would employ a lad who had been convicted and imprisoned for theft? The second was still more serious, though at the time it probably seemed trifling indeed. In prison, Jim had met his fate in the shape of a young fellow of about his own age, named Joe Knevitt. Joe was the very antipodes of Jim in nature and disposition, yet a very strong friendship appears to have sprung up between them. Joe was sly, cold, cautious, and thoroughly unscrupulous with friend or foe; Jim was daring, hot-headed, impulsive, and passionate. Joe was a professional thief by birth and training; Jim was the reverse. Joe was as cunning a rascal of his age as ever came through my hands, and could never be limed for any but the most trifling sentences, and probably did not reveal his real character to his new acquaintance. When Jim was set at liberty Joe had a week or two to remain in jail, so they might have been separated for ever but for the taint of crime.

Jim was really not much worse through being in prison, but things were very much worse for him. He tried to get work, and was everywhere asked for his character. Sometimes he took courage and confessed the truth, but when he did he was invariably dismissed at once without further parley and with marked distrust. Then his mother scraped together enough money to send him to Glasgow, in the hope that he would succeed better where he was not known. Jim used every penny of the money, and tramped back the forty miles in a half-famishing state. Of course his mother cheered and consoled him, and slaved for him at her wash-tub without a murmur; but a young lad must fill up his time in some way. He could not sit all day looking at his fingers, and he needed a little money if only to keep him in tobacco. He met Joe Knevitt one day, and from that hour his troubles seemed at an end; his silence and sullen despair vanished, he was always cheerful and kind to his mother, and never wanted money. But how the money was earned and how his time was spent he never could clearly explain. He was not much in the house, and was never absent for a night at a time, but his mother was deep in her work and knew nothing, whatever she may have feared. I daresay she had many a sorrowful hour, and pleaded and remonstrated with him unceasingly, for the singular feature of Jim’s case was that his new life did not harden him against his mother. If he was becoming dissipated and brutalised, no trace of that was ever expended upon her. With her he was always subdued and silent or full of promises for the future. There were thus two influences at work—one dragging him downwards and the other tugging him back. Joe Knevitt’s proved the stronger, for when this had gone on for some time Jim was again in my hands. This time it was for an attempt—the very daring of which almost took my breath away. I suppose the planning had been done by Joe Knevitt, but the execution—the lion’s share of the work—fell to Jim.

The place chosen was a clothier’s at the South Side—a shilling-a-week clubman—whose business premises were the third flat of a land of houses, the fourth of which was the top. There was not the slightest chance of getting in unseen by the door, as one part of the flat was let to a person who was seldom out of the house. The remainder was locked up when not occupied by the clothier and his band of tailors, and most of the windows looked to the back. It happened that the house was a corner one, and after much study and reconnoitering the intending thieves decided upon a mode of entering which I would not have risked for all the webs of cloth that ever were woven. A quiet and very dark Sunday night was chosen for the attempt. The two got up on the roof of the corner house joining that occupied by the clothier, and Jim, who had under his coat a long length of rope wound round his body with which to lower the webs of cloth to his pal, crept down to the edge of the slates, and loosened with his practised hand the zinc roan or rain gutter running along the edge of the slates. This precarious bridge he sloped over the angle to the window of the clothier’s store-room, a distance of only about twelve feet, but with a slope on it that would have made anyone shudder had they been forced to walk that plank against their will. Joe steadied the top end of the frail bridge, and Jim went sliding down and across with his life in his hands. He was _seen_ doing it, and the accidental spectator afterwards assured me that his own hair nearly stood on end as he saw it done. The passage was accomplished swiftly, and in safety, but Jim’s difficulties were only begun. He stood on the window-sill, three storeys from the ground, but tug as he could the window-sash refused to move. Fancying that it might have been fastened inside he removed one pane of glass in a fashion of his own, inserted his arm, and found to his dismay that the window was not bolted in any way, but only paint-fast. To attempt to move it he knew would be folly, and yet he could not go back to the opposite roof. There was only one way out of the fix—to strip off his jacket and the rope he had brought and try to wriggle through that open pane. He removed as many of the points of broken glass as he could with the aid of his jacket, but in doing so let go the end of his rope, which dropped into the green behind, and left him there isolated and helpless. He cursed over the loss, doubtless, but quickly began the wriggling business, and in a few minutes had struggled through—his shirt sleeves and waistcoat, and even his skin, considerably torn and damaged in transit. When he was in, and the whole coast clear, he thought little of the trouble and danger. He passed to the next room, found the window of that more manageable, and coolly proceeded to select his plunder. He did not hurry himself, for he had not the slightest suspicion of having been seen, every window near him being dark. Having made his selection, he was in the act of tearing up a web of cloth into strips to replace his lost rope, and lower the plunder by, when he was startled by a sudden, shrill whistle, at the far-off end of the green below. He knew the whistle, and what it meant—danger! but could not conceive why the shrill sound should have been thrown out at such a time. Joe was surely growing childishly timid. Jim went to the window, ready opened, and peered out. Not a soul was in sight. Reassured, he went back to his rope-making, but had made no progress worth recording, when a loud knock at the outer door of the house brought him to his feet, with his heart beating fast with dismay. Only till he heard the door opened and a rough voice say something about “thieves in the house,” did he delay. He did not even think of a rope of cloth strips. The hands of the police were already on the door of the room. He sprang at the window, remembering as he did so the exact position of the roan pipe running down outside the house into the drains below. The pipe was of cast-iron, and fastened to the wall with strong stancheons. Jim grasped it from his perch on the window-sill, and ran down it hand under hand as if it had been a rope. It was a feat he would never have attempted in cold blood. He reached the green just as the policemen thrust out their heads at the window above and sprang their rattles. Then he dived for the nearest doorway, but was there met by a man who had helped to give the alarm, and who collared him and gave him a hard struggle for liberty. Jim was younger and lighter than his captor, but he was desperate, and he came off victor, and, leaving the man almost breathless on the ground, he was off into hiding as fast as fear and his supple limbs could carry him. The struggle, however, had taken place near a bright stair-light, and the vanquished man had a full and clear view of Jim’s features, and was able to give me, an hour or two later, such a description that I had little doubt of being able to trace the scared thief. Only _one_ had really been seen at the job, and I was not surprised, on making inquiries for Joe Knevitt, to hear that he was “away in Glasgow, and had been there for a week.” The same could not be said of Jim Hutson, for I found him in his mother’s house demurely kneeling by the hearthstone, and helping his mother by chopping sticks. He denied having been out the night before, and his mother with tears supported his statement—doubtless believing it true—for he might have waited till she slept before he went out. But I had to take him, and, of course, he was identified—picked out of a dozen men without a moment’s hesitation—and locked up. His mother was at the Police Court next day (in tears, of course), and with her old appeal on her lips—

“Jim was aye a gude laddie; he may be guilty, but he’s been led away.”

I could not listen to her this time, and kept out of her reach. How could I say a word in favour of him now, when I knew him to keep company constantly with the worst of my “bairns?” Jim was remitted to the High Court, where he got a year’s imprisonment. I nipped up Joe for another affair some time after, so in misfortune they were not divided.

I have not yet noticed Jim Hutson’s knife. It was at this capture that I saw it first, when I emptied his pockets at the Central Office. It was a murderous looking weapon with two blades. The big blade was at least six inches long, but was not fitted with a spring back, or Jim would have looked upon it for the last time, as it is illegal to carry such a knife. Perhaps it would have been well for Jim if such a confiscation had taken place. The knife was of a peculiar make, probably foreign, and had a hole drilled through the buck-horn handle, as for a cord, and most likely had been stolen from some sailor. Across the buck-horn handle Jim had made two deep notches with a file, with a cross cut between, forming the letter H.

This knife, after some joking comments by me, was put away with Jim’s tobacco pipe and other treasures, to be returned to him when his term expired. But before that time came Jim had done something which quickened curiously the interest I already felt in his career. One of the warders had in some way excited the rancour of three prisoners, and they laid their heads together and recklessly resolved to “pitch into him.” By a most ingenious plot they managed to get him alone, and then ferociously attacked him with hammers. Jim, however, had taken a liking to the man, and, happening to be near, he at once, with that bull-dog bravery which had always distinguished him, took the part of the warder. He fought two of them single handed, though a good deal pounded and hurt in the struggle, and was seized with them, by mistake, and hurried off to the dark cell. As soon as matters had been explained by the rescued warder, Jim was brought forth and handsomely complimented by the governor, and from that day till the expiry of his sentence treated with marked lenience and favour. I was over in the jail shortly after this affair, and, chancing to see Jim among the workers, I took him aside for a word. “Jim,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder and speaking with great earnestness, “you’re in the wrong line entirely. You are just the stuff a good soldier is made of. Get into that as soon as you are let out. It’ll be a new life—an honest one—and advancement is sure for you. It’s a sheer waste of material to have you herding here with these louts. Rise above them. These cowards are fit for nothing else, but you, you can be a man if you choose.”

While I spoke I saw his eyes—which were fixed somewhat shame-strickenly upon the ground—gradually light up. A new possibility had dawned upon him.

“I think you’re right, sir,” he said at last, very gratefully; then he added with great firmness—“I’ll enlist whenever I get out.”

He meant to do it, and would have done it, but for his mother. What fatality prompted her to veto the whole plan?—to abjure him with tears and clinging love, which were resistless, to remain at home and not trouble himself about the future while he had her to slave for him? She shuddered at the idea of her boy—her youngest, and the last of them all, going into a battle, and recklessly tearing through showers of bullets and walls of steel, as she knew he would do. But, could she have looked into the future, as I can now look back on the past, she would have seen there something more to be dreaded. So Jim continued to loaf about and live upon his wits, and when Joe Knevitt joined him, the old practices came as a natural result. I saw Jim once or twice and tried to reason with him, but his answer was always the same—

“Mother won’t let me list.”

“Then I’ll have you again soon,” I gravely remarked.

“I can’t help it,” was his cool reply, and I suppose he thought the event far off. With the confirmed thief it is always some one else who is to be taken, never himself. Jim had really not over-rated his cleverness. He had grown more cautious by experience, and might have eluded me but for his rock a-head—Joe Knevitt. I believe there was a woman in this rupture—one of those flashy shop girls who sell cigars and tobacco and flirt with everybody, and whom Joe wanted entirely to himself; but the ostensible reason was a difference about their respective shares in the plunder from a certain robbery down at Greenside which puzzled us not a little. There is a certain style in every thief’s work. In any kind of job where Jim’s old plumber experience helped him, he was perfectly at home, and had this affair shown any trace of that, I should have gone for him at once. But there was no trace of violence or tearing down of wood-work, or wrenching or unscrewing. It was a shop, and the door was found locked as usual when the owner entered it next morning and found the most valuable part of his stock gone, and about twenty pounds in silver as well, which he had thought too heavy to take home the night before. I searched the whole shop _carefully_, and found no trace of the thieves or clue to their identity; and candidly may now confess that I suspected the _owner_ was the thief, that for some purpose he had robbed himself. I was mistaken, of course, for the door had been opened and locked again with skeleton keys made by Knevitt.

Meanwhile Joe and Jim were quarrelling, and Joe proceeded to settle the dispute in a fashion of his own. On the second morning after the robbery, the shop boy in sweeping out the place found a big clasp knife, which he had not noticed before, in a dark corner behind the counter. The knife was shown to his master, and finally brought up to the office to me. The moment it was placed in my hands I exclaimed—“What! did you find that in the shop? How did I miss it when I was there? It’s Jim Hutson’s knife. I’ll soon have the thieves now, and possibly the plunder too.”

Down I went to Jim’s home in College Wynd. He was not in.

“He’s got wark,” his mother explained.

“So I think,” was my dry rejoinder. I looked over the house, and finally under the bed found a parcel tied up in brown paper.

“He brocht it in last nicht,” his mother simply remarked. “He’s keeping it to obleege a freend.”

I opened the parcel, and found it contained part of the stolen goods. I was explaining this to the mother when Jim appeared in working garb for his breakfast. He changed colour at once, and sat down, or rather dropped down, into a seat by the fire.

“It’s all up, Jim,” I said with some pity. “I told you I’d have you soon.”

He stared at me, not in resentment, but with a strange, thoughtful look in his eyes. “Have I been sold?” he at last inquired, rather quietly. “Did he—I mean—did anyone betray me?”

“No,” I promptly answered, believing what I said. “Have you your knife about you?”

He dived his hand into his pocket, and then appeared to reflect.

“You needn’t look there for it,” I remarked. “I’ll find it for you when we get up to the office.”

“I had it yesterday—I’m sure I had it yesterday,” he said, after a horrible pause.

“I don’t think so,” I gently observed in correction. “You dropped it the night before.”

“What! do you mean to say you found it _there_?” he cried, his whole face becoming white with fury.

“It was found,” I oracularly returned; and then, taking my advice, he relapsed into silence, and quietly accompanied me.

Of course the mother had to go too, but she was speedily released, as it was quite evident, from her artless admission to me, that she knew nothing of the robbery, and her character was above suspicion.

Jim did not deny his knife. He only said occasionally under his breath—“He has done it! Wait; I’ll give it him back!”

His suspicion, which was probably sound, was that Joe had picked his pocket of the knife, and then made some errand into the shop, and so managed to drop the tell-tale article where it was likely to be found.

From these muttered imprecations I guessed that Joe was his partner in the crime, and went for him as soon as Jim was locked up. An ordinary thief would have betrayed his pal at once after such dastardly treatment, but, as I have indicated, there was about Jim a kind of manliness which scorned such a mean revenge. He remained absolutely silent regarding Joe’s complicity, and, as that rascal was cunning enough to take care of himself, we had no evidence against him, and he was released.

In order to have his sentence shortened Jim pleaded guilty, and got off with eighteen months’ imprisonment.

“When your term is up, Jim, go for a soldier,” I whispered to him as he was led down stairs.

“Maybe I will—it depends,” he grimly answered with set teeth, and so he disappeared for a year and a half’s moody reflection.

When the time came for his release he was fearfully excited for a little over the fact that his beloved knife could not be found among his treasures.

“My knife! my knife! I must have my knife!” he feverishly exclaimed, and he absolutely refused to stir out of the prison till he got it. When it was found and placed in his hands he appeared exuberantly happy, and as impatient for liberty as he had before been reluctant to leave.

At the gate, his mother, as usual, was there to receive him, but she found him a good deal changed. He was moody and strange, except when questioning her regarding Joe Knevitt. The little she knew of his old pal was eagerly devoured, but beyond that he had little to say. At home his first task was to get out his knife and grind its edge to a razor-like keenness. His mother noticed the fact, and fancied that he appeared specially careful with the point, but the only answer she got was—