Читать книгу Traced and Tracked; Or, Memoirs of a City Detective - James M'Govan - Страница 8

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The case of the tailor, Peter Anderson, who was beaten to death near the Royal Terrace, on the Calton Hill, may not yet be quite forgotten by some, but, as the after-results are not so well known, it will bear repeating.

Some working men, hurrying along a little before six in the morning, found Anderson’s body in a very steep path on the hill, and in a short time a stretcher was got and it was conveyed to the Head Office. The first thing I noticed when I saw the body was that one of the trousers’ pockets was half-turned out, as if with a violent wrench, or a hand too full of money to get easily out again; and from this sprang another discovery—that the waistcoat button-hole in which the link of his albert had evidently been constantly worn was wrenched clean through. There was no watch or chain visible, and the trousers’ pockets were empty, so the first deduction was clear—the man had been robbed.

Robbery, indeed, appeared to me, at this stage of the case, to have been the prime cause of the outrage, and an examination of the body confirmed the idea. The neck was not broken, but there were marks of a strangulating arm about the neck, and the injuries about the head were quite sufficient to cause death. These seemed to indicate that two persons had been engaged in the crime, as is common in garroting cases—one to strangle and the other to rob and beat—and made me more hopeful of tracking the doers. On examining the spot at which the body had been found, I found traces of a violent struggle, and also a couple of folded papers, which proved to be unreceipted accounts headed “Peter Anderson, tailor and clothier,” with the address of his place of business. These might have given us a clue to his identity had such been needed, but his wife had been at the Office reporting his absence only an hour before his body was brought in, and we had only to turn to her description of his person and clothing to confirm our suspicion.

Anderson, on the fatal night on which he disappeared, had unexpectedly drawn an account of some £10 or £12 from a customer, and in the joy of receiving the money had invited the man to an adjoining public-house to drink “a jorum,” and one round followed another until poor Peter Anderson’s head was fitter for his pillow than for guiding his feet. On entering the public-house—which was a very busy one, not far from the Calton Hill—Anderson, I found, had gone up to the bar, and before all the loungers or hangers-on pulled a handful of notes, and silver, and gold from his trousers’ pocket, saying to his companion—

“What will you have?”

Afterwards, when they got into talk, they adjourned to a private box at the back; but it was there I thought that the mischief had been done. Anderson had a gold albert across his breast, and might be believed to have a watch at the end of it; but the chain, after all, might have been only plated, and the watch a pinchbeck thing, to a thief not worth taking; but the reckless display of a handful of notes, gold, and silver, if genuine criminals chanced to see it, was a temptation and revelation too powerful to be resisted. The man who carried money in that fashion was likely to have more in his pockets, and a gold watch at least. If he got drunk, or was likely to get drunk, he would be worth waiting and watching for; so, at least, I thought the intending criminals would reason, never dreaming of course of the plan ending in determined resistance and red-handed murder. Your garroter is generally a big coward, and will never risk his skin or his liberty with a sober man if he can get one comfortably muddled with drink.

There was no time to elaborate theories or schemes of capture. A gold watch and chain valued at about £30, and £14 in money, were gone. A rare prize was afloat among the sharks, and I surmised that the circumstance would be difficult to hide. The thief and the honest man are alike in one failing—they find it difficult to conceal success. It prints itself in their faces; in the quantity of drink they consume; in the tread of their feet; the triumphant leer at the baffled or sniffing detective, and in their reckless indulgence in gaudy articles of flash dress. I went down to the Cowgate and Canongate at once, strolling into every likely place, and nipping up quite a host of my “bairns.” I thought I had got the right men indeed when I found two known as “The Crab Apple” and “Coskey” flush of money and muddled with drink, but a day’s investigation proved that they owed their good fortune to a stupid swell who had got into their clutches over in the New Town. Coskey, indeed, strongly declared that he did not believe the Anderson affair had been managed by a professional criminal at all.

“If it had been done by any of us I’d have heard on it,” was his frank remark to me.

I was pretty sure that Coskey spoke the truth, for in his nervous anxiety to escape Calcraft’s toilet he had actually confessed to me all the particulars of the New Town robbery by which his own pockets had been filled, and which afterwards led to a seven years’ retirement from the scene of his labours.

The hint thus received prepared me for making the worst slip of all I had made in the case. I went to Anderson’s widow to get the number of the watch, and some description by which it might be identified. She could not tell me the number or the maker’s name; she could only say that it had a white dial and black figures, but declared that she would know it out of a thousand by a deep “clour” or indentation on the back of the case.

“I was there when it got the mark,” she said, “and I could never be mistaken if the watch was put before me. A thief might alter the number, but nobody could take out that mark, for we tried it, and the watchmaker could do nothing for it. My man was working hard one day with the watch on, when a customer called to be measured. The waistcoat he wore wasn’t a very bonny one, and he whipped it off in a hurry, forgetting about the watch, which was tugged out, and came bang against the handle of one of his irons. The watch was never a bit the worse, but the case had aye the mark on it—just there,” and the widow, to illustrate her statement, showed me a spot on the back of my own watch, and then so minutely explained the line of the indentation, its length and its depth, that I felt sure that if it came in my way I should be able to identify it as readily as by a number.

This would have been all very well if her information had there ended, but it didn’t.

“You are hunting away among thieves and jail birds for the man that did it,” she bitterly remarked, “but I think I could put my hand on him without any detective to help me.”

“You suspect some one, then?” I exclaimed, with a new interest.

“Suspect? I wish I was as sure of anything,” she answered, with great emphasis. “The brute threatened to do it.”

“What brute?”

“Just John Burge, the man who was working to him as journeyman two months ago.”

“Indeed. Did they quarrel?”

“A drunken passionate wretch that nobody would have any thing to do wi’,” vehemently continued the widow, waxing hotter in her words with every word she had uttered, “but just because they had been apprentices together Peter took pity on him and gave him work. They were aye quarrelling, but one day it got worse than usual, and I thought my man would have killed him. It was quite a simple thing began it—an argument as to which is the first day in summer—but in the end they were near fighting, and after Peter had near choked him, Burge swore that he would have his life for it—that he would watch him night and day, and then knock the ‘sowl oot o’ him in some dark corner, before he knew where he was.’ That was after the master and the laddies had thrown him out at the door and down the stair; and for some days I wouldn’t let Peter cross the door. But he only laughed at me after a bit, and said that Burge’s ‘bark was waur than his bite,’ and went about just as usual. And all the time the wicked, ungrateful wretch was watching for a chance to take his life.”

“Why did you not tell us of this quarrel at first?” I asked, after a pause.

“Because I thought you detectives were so sharp and clever that you would have Burge in your grips before night, without a word from me; but you’re not nearly so clever as you’re called.”

“But he never actually attacked your husband?” I quietly interposed, knowing that wives are apt to take exceedingly exaggerated views of their husband’s wrongs or rights.

“Oh, but he did, though. He came up once, not long after the quarrel, and said he had not got all the money due to him, and tried to murder Peter with the cutting shears.”

“Murder him? How could he murder him with shears?” I asked, with marked scepticism.

“Well, I didn’t wait to see; but ran in and gripped him by the arms till my man took the shears from him. The creatur’ had no more strength than a sparry, though he’s as tall as you.”

“No more strength than a sparrow?” That incidental revelation staggered me. It seemed to me quite impossible that a weak man could have been the murderer of Anderson, unless, indeed, he had had an accomplice, and that was unlikely with a man seeking mere revenge. For a moment I was inclined to think it possible that Burge might have tracked his victim to the hill and accomplished the revenge, and that afterwards, when he had fled the spot, some of the “ghosts” haunting the hill might have stripped the dead or dying man of his valuables; but several circumstances led me to reject the supposition—wisely, too, as it appeared in the end. Burge, the widow told me, was a tall man, with a white, “potty” face, and a little, red, snub-nose, and always wore a black frock coat and dress hat. I took down the name of the street in which he lived—for I could get no number—and turned in that direction. In about fifteen minutes I had reached, not the street, but the crossing leading to it, when I met full in the face a man answering his description, and having the unmistakable tailor’s “nick” in his back.

“That should be Burge,” was my mental conclusion, though I had never seen him before. “If he’s not, he is at least a tailor, and may know him,” and then I stopped him with the words—

“Do you know a tailor called John Burge who lives here-about?”

“That’s me,” he said, with sudden animation, taking the pipe from his mouth, and evidently expecting a call at his trade, “who wants me?”

“I do.”

“Oh,” and he looked me all over, evidently wondering how I looked so unlike the trade.

There was a queer pause, and then I said—

“My name’s M^cGovan, and I want you to go with me as far as the Police Office, about that affair on the Calton Hill.”

A wonderful change took place in his face the moment I uttered the words—a change which, but for the grave nature of the case, would have been actually comical; his “potty” white cheeks became red, and his red snub-nose as suddenly became white.

“Well, do you know, that’s curious!” he at length gasped; “but I was just coming up to the Office now, in case I should be suspected of having a hand in it. I had a quarrel with Anderson, and said some strong things, I’ve no doubt, in my passion, but of course I never meant them.”

I listened in silence; but my mental comment, I remember, was, “A very likely story!”

“I was coming up to say what I can prove—that I was at the other end of the town that night, and home and in my bed by a quarter to eleven,” he desperately added, rightly interpreting my silence.

I became more interested at the mention of the exact hour; for I had ascertained beyond doubt that Anderson had not left the public-house and parted with his friend till eleven o’clock struck. He had, in fact, been “warned out,” along with a number of bar-loafers, at shutting-up time.

“Did any one see you at home at that hour?” I asked, after cautioning him.

“Yes, the wife and bairns.”

“Imphm.”

“You think that’s not good evidence; but I have more; I was in a public-house with some friends till half-past ten; they can swear to that; and they went nearly all the road home with me,” he continued with growing excitement. “Do I look like a murderer? My God! I could swear on a Bible that such a thing was never in my mind. Don’t look so horrible and solemn, man, but say you believe me!”

I couldn’t say that, for I believed the whole a fabrication got up in a moment of desperation; and little more was spoken on either side till we reached the Head Office, where he repeated the same story to the Fiscal, and was locked up. I fully expected that I should easily tear his story to pieces by taking his so-called witnesses one by one, but I was mistaken. His wife and children, for example, the least reliable of his witnesses in the eyes of the law, became the strongest, for when I called and saw them they were in perfect ignorance both of Burge’s arrest and the fact that he expected to be suspected.

They distinctly remembered their father being home “earlier” on that Friday night, and the wife added that it was more than she had expected, for by being in bed so early Burge had been able to rise early on the following morning and finish some work on the Saturday which she had fully expected would be “disappointed.” Then the men with whom he had been drinking and playing dominoes up to half-past ten were emphatic in their statements, which tallied almost to a minute with those of Burge. Burge had not been particularly flush of money after that date, but, on the contrary, had pleaded so hard for payment of the work done on the Saturday that the man was glad to compromise matters and get rid of him by part payment in shape of half-a-crown. The evidence, as was afterwards remarked, was not the best—a few drinkers in a public-house, whose ideas of time and place might be readily believed to be hazy, and the interested wife and children of the suspected man; but in the absence of condemning facts it sufficed, and after a brief detention Burge was set at liberty.

About that time, among the batch of suspected persons in our keeping was a man named Daniel O’Doyle. How he came to be suspected I forget, but I believe it was through having a deal of silver and some sovereigns in the pockets of his ragged trousers when he was brought to the Office as a “drunk and disorderly.” O’Doyle gave a false name, too, when he came to his senses; but then it was too late, for a badly-written letter from some one in Ireland had been found in his pocket when he was brought in. He was a powerfully-built man, and in his infuriated state it took four men to get him to the Office. He could give no very satisfactory account of how he came by the money in his possession. He had been harvesting, he said, but did not know the name of the place or its geographical position, except that it was east of Edinburgh “a long way,” and he was going back to Ireland with his earnings, but chanced to take a drop too much and half-murder a man in Leith Walk, and so got into our hands. On the day after his capture and that of his remand O’Doyle was “in the horrors,” and at night during a troubled sleep was heard by a man in the same cell to mutter something about “Starr Road,” and having “hidden it safe there.” This brief and unintelligible snatch was repeated to me next morning, but, stupid as it now appears to me, I could make nothing of it. I knew that there was no such place as “Starr Road” in Edinburgh, and said so; and as for him having hidden something, that was nothing for a wandering shearer, and might, after all, be only his reaping hook or bundle of lively linen. O’Doyle was accordingly tried for assault, and sentenced to thirty days’ imprisonment, at the expiry of which he was set at liberty and at once disappeared. My impression now is that O’Doyle was never seriously suspected of having had a hand in the Calton Hill affair, but that, being in our keeping about the time, he came in for his share of suspicion among dozens more perfectly innocent. If he had had bank-notes about him it might have been different, for I have found that there is a strong feeling against these and in favour of gold among the untutored Irish, which induces them to get rid of them almost as soon as they chance to receive them.

So the months passed away and no discovery was made; we got our due share of abuse from the public; and the affair promised to remain as dark and mysterious as the Slater murder in the Queen’s Park. But for the incident I am now coming to, I believe the crime would have been still unsolved.

About two years after, I chanced to be among a crowd at a political hustings in Parliament Square, at which I remember Adam Black came in for a great deal of howling and abuse. I was there, of course, on business, fully expecting to nip up some of my diligent “family” at work among the pockets of the excited voters; but no game could have been further from my thoughts than that which I had the good fortune to bag. I was moving about on the outskirts of the crowd, when a face came within the line of my vision which was familiar yet puzzling. The man had a healthy prosperous look, and nodded smilingly to me, more as a superior than an inferior in position.

“Don’t you remember me?—John Burge; I was in the Anderson murder, you mind; the Calton Hill affair;” and then I smiled too and shook the proffered hand.

“How are you getting on now?”

“Oh, first rate—doing well for myself,” was the bright and pleased-looking answer. “Yon affair was a lesson to me; turned teetot. when I came out, and have never broke it since. It’s the best way.”

It seemed so, to look at him. The “potty” look was gone from his face; his cheeks had a healthy colour, and his nose had lost its rosiness. His dress too was better. The glossy, well-ironed dress hat was replaced by one shining as if fresh from the maker, and the threadbare frock coat by one of smooth, firm broadcloth. He was getting stouter, too, and his broad, white waistcoat showed a pretentious expanse of gold chain. He chatted away for some time, evidently a little vain of the change in his circumstances, and at length drew out a handsome gold watch, making, as his excuse for referring to it, the remark—

“Ah, it’s getting late; I can’t stay any longer.”

My eye fell upon the watch, as it had evidently been intended that it should, and almost with the first glance I noticed a deep nick in the edge of the case, at the back. Possibly the man’s own words had taken my mind back to the lost watch of the murdered tailor and its description, but certainly the moment I saw the mark on the case I put out my hand with affected carelessness, as he was slipping it back to his pocket, saying—

“That’s a nice watch; let’s have a look at it.”

It was tendered at once, and I found it to have a white china dial and black figures. At last I came back to the nick and scrutinised it closely.

“You’ve given it a bash there,” I remarked, after a pause.

“No, that was done when I got it.”

“Bought it lately?”

“Oh, no; a long time ago.”

“Who from?”

“From one of the men working under me; I got it a great bargain,” he answered with animation. “It’s a chronometer, and belonged to an uncle of his, but it was out of order—had lain in the bottom of a sea chest till some of the works were rusty—and so I got it cheap.”

“Imphm. There has been some lying in the bargain anyhow,” I said, after another look at the watch, “for it is an ordinary English lever, not a chronometer. Is the man with you yet?”

“No; but, good gracious! you don’t mean to say that there’s anything wrong about the watch? It’s not—not a stolen one?”

“I don’t know, but there was one exactly like this stolen that time that Anderson was killed.”

In one swift flash of alarm, his face, before so rosy, became as white as the waistcoat covering his breast.

Then he slowly examined the watch with a trembling hand, and finally stammered out—

“I remember it, and this is not unlike it. But that’s nothing—hundreds of watches are as like as peas.”

I differed with him there, and finally got him to go with me to the Office, at which he was detained, while I went in search of Anderson’s widow to see what she would say about the watch.

If I had an opinion at all about the case at this stage, it was that the watch taken was not that of the murdered man. I could scarcely otherwise account for Burge’s demeanour. He appeared so surprised and innocent, whereas a man thus detected in the act of wearing such a thing, knowing its terrible history, could scarcely have helped betraying his guilt.

My fear, then, as I made my way to the house of Anderson’s widow, was that she, woman like, would no sooner see the mark on the case than she would hastily declare it to be the missing watch. To avoid as far as possible a miscarriage of justice, I left the watch at the Office, carefully mixed up with a dozen or two more then in our keeping, one or two of which resembled it in appearance. I found the widow easily enough, and took her to the Office with me, saying simply that we had a number of watches which she might look at, with the possibility of finding that of her husband. The watches were laid out before her in a row, faces upward, and she slowly went over them with her eye, touching none till she came to that taken from Burge. Then she paused, and there was a moment’s breathless stillness in the room.

“This ane’s awfu’ like it,” she said, and, lifting the watch, she turned it, and beamed out in delight as she recognised the sharp nick on the back of the case. “Yes, it’s it! Look at the mark I told you about.”

She pointed out other trifling particulars confirming the identity, but practically the whole depended on exactly what had first drawn my attention to the watch—the nick on the case. Now dozens of watches might have such a mark upon them, and it was necessary to have a much more reliable proof before we could hope for a conviction against Burge on such a charge.

I had thought of this all the way to and from the widow’s house. She knew neither the number of the watch nor the maker’s name, but with something like hopefulness I found that she knew the name of the watchmaker in Glasgow who had sold it to her husband, and another in Edinburgh who had cleaned it. I went through to Glasgow the same day with the watch in my pocket, found the seller, and by referring to his books discovered the number of the watch sold to Anderson, which, I was electrified to find, was identical with that on the gold lever I carried. The name of the maker and description of the watch also tallied perfectly; and the dealer emphatically announced himself ready to swear to the identity in any court of justice. My next business was to visit the man who had cleaned the watch for Anderson in Edinburgh. I was less hopeful of him, and hence had left him to the last, and therefore was not disappointed to find that he had no record of the number or maker’s name. On examining the watch through his working glass, however, he declared that he recognised it perfectly as that which he had cleaned for Anderson by one of the screws, which had half of its head broken off, and thus had caused him more trouble than usual in fitting up the watch after cleaning.

“I would have put a new one in rather than bother with it,” he said, “but I had not one beside me that would fit it, and as I was pressed for time, I made the old one do. It was my own doing, too, for I broke the top in taking the watch down.”

I was now convinced, almost against my will, that the watch was really that taken from Anderson; my next step was to test Burge’s statement as to how it came into his possession. If that broke down, his fate was sealed.

When I again appeared before Burge he was eager to learn what had transpired, and appeared unable to understand why he should still be detained; all which I now set down as accomplished hypocrisy. It seemed to me that he had lied from the first, and I was almost angry with myself for having given so much weight to his innocent looks and apparent surprise.

Cutting short his questions with no very amiable answers, I asked the name and address of the man from whom he alleged he had bought the watch. Then he looked grave, and admitted that the man, whose name was Chisholm, might be difficult to find, as he was a kind of “orra” hand, oftener out of work than not. I received the information in silence, and went on the hunt for Chisholm, whom I had no difficulty whatever in finding at the house of a married daughter with whom he lodged. He was at home when I called—at his dinner or tea—and stared at me blankly when I was introduced, being probably acquainted with my face, like many more whom I have never spoken to or noticed.

“I have called about a watch that you sold to Burge the tailor, whom you were working with some six months ago,” I said quietly.

The man, who had been drinking tea or coffee out of a basin, put down the dish in evident concern, and stared at me more stupidly than before.

“A watch!—what kin’ o’ a watch?” he huskily exclaimed. “I haena had a watch for mair nor ten years.”

“The watch is a gold lever, but he says you sold it to him as a chronometer which had belonged to your uncle, a seaman.”

Chisholm’s face was now pale to the very point of his nose, but that did not necessarily imply guilt on his part. I have noticed the look far oftener on the faces of witnesses than prisoners.

“What? an uncle! a seaman!” he cried with great energy, turning an amazed look on his daughter. “I havena an uncle leeving—no ane. The man must be mad,” and this statement the daughter promptly supported.

“Do you mean to say—can you swear that you never sold him a watch of any kind—which was rusty in the works through lying in a sea-chest?”

“Certainly, sir—certainly, I can swear that. I never had a watch to sell, and I’ll tell him that to his face,” volubly answered Chisholm, whose brow now was as thick with perspiration as if he had been doing a hard day’s work since I entered. “Onybody that kens me can tell ye I’ve never had a watch, or worn ane, for ten year and mair. I wad be only owre glad if I had.”

I questioned him closely and minutely, but he declared most distinctly and emphatically that the whole story of Burge was an invention. I ought to have been satisfied with this declaration—it was voluble and decided, and earnest as any statement could be—but I was not. The man’s manner displeased me. It was too noisy and hurried, and his looks of astonishment and innocence were, if anything, too marked. I left the house in a puzzled state.

“What if I should have to deal with two liars?” was my reflection. “How could I pit them against each other?”

Back I trudged to the Office, and saw Burge at once.

“I have seen the man Chisholm, and he declares that he not only did not sell you a watch of any kind, but that he has not had one in his possession for upwards of ten years.”

Burge paled to a deathly hue, and I saw the cold sweat break out in beads on his temples.

“I was just afraid of that,” he huskily whispered, after a horrible pause. “Chisholm’s an awful liar, and will say that now to save his own skin. There must have been something wrong about the way he got it. I was a fool to believe his story. I remember now he made me promise not to say that I had bought the watch from him, or how I got it, in case the other relatives should find out that he had taken it.”

“Indeed! Then you have no witness whatever to produce as to the purchase?” I cried, after a long whistle.

“None.”

“Did you not speak of it to anybody?”

“Not a soul but yourself that I mind of.”

“Well, all I can say is that your case looks a bad one,” I said at last, as I turned to leave him. “By the by, though, what about the chain? Did you buy that from him too?”

My reason for asking was, that the chain was a neck one, not an albert, and, of course, had not been identified by the widow of Anderson.

“No, I had the chain; I had taken it in payment of an account; but he wanted me to buy a chain, too, now that I remember.”

“What kind of a chain? Did you see it?”

“No; I said I did not need it; but I would look at the watch. He wanted a pound for the chain, and eight for the watch. I got it for £5, 10s., and then he went on the spree for a fortnight.”

“A whole fortnight? Surely some one will be able to recall that,” I quickly interposed, half inclined to believe that Burge was not at least the greater liar of the two. “His daughter will surely remember it?”

“I don’t know about that,” groaned Burge, in despairing tones. “That man takes so many sprees that it’s difficult to mind ane frae anither.”

I resolved to try the daughter, nevertheless, and after getting from Burge, as near as he could remember, the date of the bargain, I left him and began to ponder how I could best get an unvarnished tale from this prospective witness. While I pondered, a new link in this most mysterious case was thrown into my hands.

We had been particularly careful after the arrest of Burge to keep the affair secret, but in spite of the precaution, an account of the arrest, altogether garbled and erroneous, appeared in the next day’s papers. From this account it appeared that we were confident of Burge’s guilt, and were only troubled because we could not discover his accomplices in the crime, and on that account “were not disposed to be communicative,” as the penny-a-liner grandly expressed himself. The immediate result of this stupid paragraph, which seemed to book Burge for the gallows beyond redemption, was a letter from the West, bearing neither name nor address, it is true, but still written with such decision and vigour that I could not but give it some weight in my feeble gropings at the truth. This letter was placed in my hands, though not addressed to me particularly, just as I was wondering how to best question Chisholm’s daughter about her father’s big spree. The letter was short, and well-written and spelled, and began by saying that Burge, whom we had in custody on suspicion of being concerned in the robbery and murder of Anderson, was perfectly innocent; that the whole of the facts were known to the writer, whose lips were sealed as to who the criminal really was, and who only wrote that he might save an innocent man from a shameful death. The post-mark on the letter was that of a considerable town on the Clyde, or my thoughts would inevitably have reverted to Chisholm as the author or prompter. With the suspicion of this man had come at last an idea that he was in some way mixed up in the crime; yet he did not look either strong enough or courageous enough to be the murderer. Quite uncertain how to act, I left the Office, and wandered down in the direction of Chisholm’s home. It was quite dark, I remember, and I was ascending the narrow stair in hope that Chisholm might by that time be out of the house, when a man stumbled down on me in the dark, cursing me sharply for not calling out that I was there. The man was Chisholm, as I knew at once by the tone of the voice, and how I did not let him pass on, and make my inquiries at the daughter, is more than I can tell to this day. I merely allowed him to reach the bottom of the stair, and then turned and followed him. At the bottom I watched his figure slowly descending the close towards the Back Canongate till he reached the bottom, when he paused and peered cautiously forth before venturing out. The stealthy walk and that cunning look forth I believe decided me, coupled with the decided change in the tone in which he cursed me in the dark from the smooth and oily manner in which he had answered my questions during the day. I would follow him, though wherefore or why I did not trouble to ask. About half-way down the South Back Canongate, where the Public Washing House now stands, there was at that time an open drain which ran with a strong current in the direction of the Queen’s Park. As it left the green for the Park, this drain emptied itself down an iron-barred opening in the ground, and made a sudden dip downwards of twenty or thirty feet on smooth flag-stones, which carried the water away into the darkness with a tremendous rush and noise. So steep was the gradient at this covered part of the drain, and so smooth the bottom, that miserable cats and dogs, doomed to die, had merely to be put within the grating, when down they shot, and were seen or heard no more.

I followed Chisholm as far as this green, which he entered, and then wondered what his object could be. That it was not quite a lawful one I could guess from the fact that he so often paused and looked about him that I had the greatest difficulty in keeping him in sight without myself being seen. At length he came to the opening in the wall where the open drain ceased and dipped into the iron bars with a roar audible even to me, and then with another furtive look around, and before I had the slightest idea of what he was intending to do, he put his hand in his pocket, drew something forth, and threw it sharply into the roaring, scurrying water. A moment more and my hand was on his arm. He started round with a scared cry, and recognised and named me.

“What’s that you threw down the drain?” I sternly demanded, without giving him time to recover, and tightening my grip on his arm.

“Oh, naething, naething, sir—only an auld pipe that’s nae mair use,” he confusedly stammered.

“A pipe!” I scornfully echoed. “Man, what do you think my head’s made of? You didn’t come so far to throw away a pipe. Were you afraid that, like some of the cats the laddies put down there, it would escape and come back again?”

He tried to grin, cringingly, but the effect was ghastly in the extreme.

“No, no, Maister M^cGovan; I was just walking this way ony way, and thought I wad get rid o’ my auld pipe.”

“More like, it was a gold albert,” I sharply said, getting out the handcuffs. “If I had only guessed what you were after I might have been nearer, and prevented the extravagance. You’re unlike every one else in the world, throwing away good gold while others are breaking their hearts to get it. Come, now, try your hand in these; and then I’ll have to see if the burn will give up your offering.”

He was utterly and abjectly silenced, and accepted the bracelets without demur, which led me to believe that my surmise was a hit. The tailor’s gold albert, supposing Burge’s story to be true, was all that remained unaccounted for, and its possession now was frightfully dangerous. What more natural, then, that Chisholm should take alarm at my visit, and hasten to dispose of it in the most effectual manner within his reach? If he had put it through the melting pot, and I had arrived only in time to see the shapeless nugget tossed out of the crucible, he could not have given me a greater pang; but of course I did not tell him that. I expected never to see it again, and I was right, for the chain has never been seen or heard of since. My thoughts on the way to the Office were not pleasant; afterthoughts with an “if” are always tormenting; and mine was “If I had only seized him before he reached the drain, and had him searched.” Then he was so secretive and cunning that I had no hope whatever of him committing himself to a confession. In this I made the error of supposing him entirely guilty. I forgot the case of “Cosky” and “The Crab Apple,” who were only too glad to save their necks at the expense of their liberty. Chisholm, though cunning as a fox, was a terrible coward, and as we neared the Office he tremblingly said—

“Will I be long, think ye, o’ getting oot again?”

I stared at him in surprise, and then, with some impatience, said—

“About three weeks after the trial probably.”

“What? how? will three weeks be the sentence?” he stammered in confusion.

“No; but that is the interval generally allowed between sentence and hanging.”

“Good God, man! They canna hang me!” he exclaimed, nearly dropping on the street with terror.

“Wait. If I get that chain out of the drain it will hang you as sure as fate,” I grimly replied. I was rather pleased at being able to say it, for I was snappish and out of temper.

“But I never killed the tailor; never saw the man,” he exclaimed, evidently fearfully in earnest.

“I’ve nothing to do with that; it all depends on what the jury think,” I shortly answered, and then we got to the Office, and he made a rambling statement about being taken up innocently, and was then locked up.

My immediate task was to have the drain explored, but that was all labour thrown away. The rush of water had been too strong, and the chain was gone, buried in mud and slime, or carried away to sea. I soon had abundant evidence that Chisholm had been on the spree for a fortnight about the time stated by Burge, but my intention of weaving a complete web round him was stayed by a message from himself, asking to see me that he might tell all he knew of the watch and chain. He did not know that I had failed to get the chain, or he might have risked absolute silence.

“Ye ken, I’m a bit of a fancier of birds,” he said, in beginning his story.

“Including watches and chains,” I interposed.

“I was oot very early ae Sunday morning, for however late I’m up on a Saturday, I can never sleep on Sunday morning,” he continued, with a dutiful grin at my remark. “I gaed doon by the Abbey Hill to the Easter Road, and when I was hauf way to Leith I saw a yellow finch flee oot at a dyke where its nest was, and begin flichering along on the grund to draw me away frae the place. Cunnin’ brutes them birds, but I was fly for it, and instead o’ following it, and believing it couldna flee, I stoppit and begoud to look for the nest in the dyke. But before I got forrit I had kind o’ lost the exact place. I searched aboot, wi’ the bird watchin’ me geyan feared-like a wee bit off, and at last I found a hole half filled up wi’ a loose stane. Oot cam’ the stane, and in gaed my haund; but instead o’ a nest I fund a gold watch and chain; and that’s the God’s truth, though I should dee this meenit.”

“Did you mention the finding to any one?”

“No me; I didna even tell my daughter, for I kent if it was fund oot I might get thirty days for keeping it up. I had an idea that the watch had been stolen and planted there, or I might have gaen to a pawnshop wi’ it. It was kind o’ damaged wi’ lying in the dyke, so at last I made up a story and sellt it to Maister Burge.”

“You are good at making up stories, I think?” I reflectively observed.

“I’m thinkin’ there’s a pair of us, Maister M^cGovan,” he readily returned, with a pawky dab at my ribs.

But for his coolness and evident relief at getting the thing off his mind, I should have set down the whole as another fabrication. But when a man begins to smile and joke, it may be taken for granted that he does not think himself in immediate danger of being hanged. His story, however, might have availed him but little had I not chanced to turn up my notes on the case at its earlier stages, and found there the hitherto meaningless words muttered by Daniel O’Doyle. “Starr Road” muttered in sleep might be but a contraction of Easter Road, or be those actual words imperfectly overheard. Then there were the words about something being “hidden safely there,” and the whole tallied so closely that I was at last sure that I was on the right track. These additional gleanings made me revert to my anonymous correspondent in the west. It was scarcely likely that I should be able to trace him; but he spoke in his note of the guilty one being a person or persons outside of himself—known to him. This lessened my interest in him personally, but made me think that if I visited the town I might get hold of O’Doyle himself, which would be quite as good, if not better. I accordingly went to the place, in which there is a public prison, and as a first step called on the police superintendent. An examination of the books at length sent me in the direction of the prison, in which a man answering the description, and having O’Doyle for one of his names, had been confined on a nine months’ sentence for robbery. I was now in high spirits, and quite sure that in the prisoner I should recognise the O’Doyle I wanted; but on reaching the place I found that a more imperative and inexorable officer had been there before me in shape of death. Immediately on getting the answer I made the inquiry, “Did he make any statement or confession before he died?” This was not easily answered, and before it could be, with satisfaction, a number of the officials had to be questioned, and then I found that O’Doyle had been attended, as is usual, in his last moments by a Catholic priest.

This gentleman was still in the town, though not stationed in the Prison, and knowing something of the vows of a priest, I despaired at once of extracting anything from him, but became possessed of a desire to have a look at his handwriting. Accordingly I sent him a polite note requesting him to send me word when he would be at liberty to see me for a few minutes’ conversation. I fully expected to get a written note in reply, however short, but instead I got a message delivered by the servant girl, to the effect that her master was at home, and would see me now. I grinned and bore it, though it is not pleasant to feel eclipsed in cunning by anyone. I went with the girl, and found the priest, a pale, hard-worked looking man, leaning back in his chair exhausted and silent, and certainly looking as if he at least did not eat the bread of idleness. I felt rather small as I introduced myself and ran over the case that had brought me there, he listening to the whole with closed eyes, and a face as immovable as that of a statue. When I had finished there was an awkward pause. I had not exactly asked anything, but it was implied in my sudden pull up, but for a full minute there was no response.

At last he opened his eyes—and very keen, penetrating eyes they were—and, fixing me sternly with his gaze, he said—

“Did you ever come in contact with a Catholic priest before Mr. M^cGovan?”

“Frequently.”

“Did you ever know one to break his vows and reveal the secrets of heaven?”

“Never.”

“Do you think one of them would do it if you asked him?”

“I think not.”

“Do you think he would do it if you threatened him with prison?”

“Scarcely.”

“Or with death—say if you had power to tear him limb from limb, or torture every drop of blood from his body?”

“I don’t know—I shouldn’t like to try.”

“Then what do you come to me for?” he sharply continued, with a slight tinge of red in his pale cheeks. “Am I, think you, more unworthy than any other that has yet lived?”

“No, I should hope not,” I stammered; “and I did not come expecting you to reveal what was told you in confession——”

“What then—you wish to know if I wrote that letter maybe?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll be satisfied that I speak the truth when I answer?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll ask no more?”

“I’ll ask no more.”

“Then I didn’t. Bridget, show the gentleman out.”

I was so staggered and nonplussed that I was in the street before I had time to ponder his reply. I was convinced then, as I am now, that the priest spoke the literal truth; how then had the letter been written? Certainly not by O’Doyle himself. Was it possible that a third person could have got at the information?

Back I went to the jail, and by rigid questioning discovered that at the time of O’Doyle’s death there was one other person, a delicate man of some education, in the hospital, who complained of pains in the head, and of having grown stone deaf since his incarceration. This man had been set at liberty shortly after, and made no secret of having malingered so successfully as to get all the luxuries of the hospital instead of the hard labour of the other prisoners. There was then an excited and prolonged conversation between this man and the priest I had visited; and as they were of the same faith I have little doubt but the father had bound him down in some way to keep secret what he had chanced to overhear of O’Doyle’s confession. This at least was my theory, and a peculiar flash of the priest’s eyes when I afterwards hinted at the discovery convinced me that I was not far off the truth.

Chisholm, for his bird-nesting experiment, got thirty days’ imprisonment, and Burge, after about a month’s detention, was discharged.