by James McLevy
Next day the usual information came fulminating over to Edinburgh—usual, with the to-be-expected abatement, that no description could, in the circumstances, be possible. The boys, under the influence of the fear which paralysed them, could and did give nothing but a “travestie” of the features of the men. When I read the confused account,
“Why,” said I to the Lieutenant, “these noses, eyes, and chins, are so like what we see every day, that I might as well take up the Lord Provost as any one else.” And as I had been reading a funny satire of the man called Lavater, some nights before, I could not help being humorous in my own blunt way. “Do you know that a great man, Lichtenberg by name, a queer satirical body with a hunch, raised all Germany into a laugh, by publishing the figure of a pig with a nicely curled tail, and marked on one turn of the said tail ‘firmness,’ on another ‘benevolence,’ on another ‘murder,’ all of which went to show the nature of the animal, just as Lavater labelled the features of a man’s face. So here we are required to find these two clever fellows, by signs given by two boys in the dark. I may find the watches, and thereby the men, and so far the intimation is proper and hopeful, but to expect us to find the men by their noses, is just rather too much.”
“You can only do your best, James,” said Mr Moxey, looking up at what he thought wonderfully learned in me.
“Yes, sir,” replied I, “but I know no best but detection; without that the best is the worst.”
So I could only try the usual places of deposit and pledge, when there might be time for the thieves getting here and disposing of their prey. Watches are “casting up” things. They are seldom melted, for their value is so much more than that of the materials, and then they are always in request, so I had some chance of meeting them somewhere—at least one or more out of such a stunning number as fifty. Accordingly, I did my best in the dead-object way, but without any success, and I could trust only to time and continual dodging to arrive at any discovery.
Some time passed, I don’t remember how long. As for trying faces, it was out of the question, when I had neither image in my mind, or description to go by; and I need not say that I did not continue that, because I really never began it. But, as it will appear, my lucky genius had not flown away up above the stars to report how she had favoured me and had got enamoured of some other winged creatures, so as to delay her return. I was one night on my rounds in the Grassmarket, attended as usual by my companion. The night was not so dark as that one could not see a considerable way before. I was rather complaining that there was nothing to see. We were approaching Smith’s Close, when my ear was startled, and my eye directed towards a man who had instantaneously left a companion, and rushed with clattering steps up the close.
“Seize that one,” said I.
And after the other up the close I sprang at the top of my speed. I saw his dark figure before me, which, as the moon, getting from behind a cloud, threw a reflection, (made angular by the sky-line of the high houses,) came out in an instant, firm, clear, and distinct. There was no chance for him, and he knew it. She was not so kind to one of her “minions” on this occasion as she used to be in the old border times. Just as I was coming upon him, he whirled a guard from his neck and threw away a watch.
“What’s the matter with the timepiece, man?” said I, as I laid hold of him, and dragging him to the article, picked it up. “Isn’t it a good ‘un that you threw it away?”
The fellow was sulky, and would not answer me; but a watch was so pleasant an object to me at that particular time that I overlooked the affront. Dragging him to the foot of the close, where his companion was in the custody of my assistant, we took our men to the Office, where I very soon discovered that the watch was one of Mr C——’s fifty. My anticipations, in which I had been so wise, were thus strangely enough reversed. In place of getting the men through the watch, I had got the watch through the men. And my next object was to improve upon the good fortune that had been so kind to me, in spite of my want of confidence in my benefactress. But here commenced a new difficulty. The men foolishly enough gave each the other’s name, Alexander Clark and James Mitchell—quite different from those they carried for the nonce; but as for aught else, they were what we call lockmouths. No skeleton-key would reach their works. I was thus driven aback, nor did I make much progress for some time, except in hearing that one Hart had got another of the watches from another man, who had got it from Mitchell. This I, of course, treasured up in the meantime; but I was so anxious to worm out of my men where they resided—the true clue to all other discoveries—that I postponed all other inquiries, and besides, from what I knew of Hart, a lockmouth too, I had no hopes of him. All my efforts with my men were, however, vain. They would admit nothing as to their place of putting up; sullen, if not enraged, at the trick practised on them in getting each to give the other’s real name. Why such men could have been so completely off their guard is not easy to be accounted for, except on the supposition that they were trying to fight shy of one another, or upon the principle I have often acted on, that even a cautious thief will sometimes allow the admission of a fact not directly implicating himself to be jerked out of him by a sudden question. After the men had been sent in custody to Dundee, I sought out Hart, and was just as unsuccessful with him. He would not admit to the watch, neither would he confess that he knew the residence of either the one or the other.
And here this strange case—destined to have so many crooks in its lot—took another turn, which, involving a little disregard of courtesy towards me, roused my independence to a rather grand vindication. The authorities in Dundee sent over an officer, who informed us that eighteen of the watches had been recovered there, and that they had ascertained, by the confession of Mitchell, that the thieves had been residing in Edinburgh, in a certain tavern kept by a Mrs Walker. Mr Moxey got the intelligence, and whether or not it was that he had been suddenly seized with the ambition of becoming a practical detective I cannot say; but true it is that, without any communication to me, he set out with the Dundee officer to find out Mrs Walker, and, no doubt, recover the remainder of the watches. Well, I allowed them full rope, and they wandered about for a whole day, without being able to find this same tavern. I knew very well what they were after, and could have led them to the house as direct as to the jail, but I abstained from all interference, where my services were, as I thought, superseded. Perhaps there was a little cunning—what could we do without it?—at the bottom of my very virtuous indignation.
At length, and when utterly exhausted, my superior called me in the evening.
“James,” said he, “I can make nothing of this inquiry; there is no Mrs Walker’s tavern in Edinburgh.”
“Why, sir, hadn’t you better continue the search all night? said I; “you may get the house before the morning.”
He looked at me to see the state of my face, and smiled, for he was a very good-natured man.
“Do you mean what you recommend?” said he.
“To be sure I do,” said I. “It was no wish of mine that you should begin the search, but seeing you have begun it, and every moment is precious, I think you should end it before you sleep.”
“But I have ended it.”
“Yes, in your way, but not exactly in mine. However, I am wearied, and, if you please, while you are beginning where you ended, I shall go to bed.”
“I have done enough to-day,” was the reply; “I shall see what more can be done tomorrow. I have some letters to write.”
Leaving him, I went out, but in place of going down the High Street home, I proceeded to Smith’s Close, where I knew Mrs Walker had her tavern, and had had it for years.
“Mrs Walker,” said I, as the good woman opened the door, “did two young men lodge with you for a few days lately?”
“Ay,” replied she.
“Will you show me where they slept?”
“Surely.”
And leading the way, she showed me into a bedroom with one bed in it.
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sp; I then began to look about in my ordinary way, first very cursorily, and finding nothing, where I expected nothing, I got upon my knees, and sprawled in under the bed, so low being the bottom that it was with great difficulty I could get a part of my body in. I then came out again, as most people do when they get into any kind of holes, except one, pulling out after me a pillow-case, apparently, that is, to the touch, filled with hay, and so, to be sure, in undoing the mouth, I found it was. On pulling out the hay, however, I brought along with it a towel containing something hard.
“There will be eggs among the hay,” said the landlady.
“Laid by cocks, perhaps,” said I, as I undid the towel. And there I laid open as pretty a sight as one could wish to see—thirty watches, white and yellow, just lovely to behold.
“Are you a wizard, Mr M’Levy?” said the woman, as she held out her hands; “all that in my house, and me as ignorant of it as a sucking child!”
“I don’t doubt you, Mrs Walker,” said I; “but confess that you think I should be content.”
“Content!” replied she; “I know not what would content you if these didn’t. Just offer them to me, and see whether or not I would be content.”
“But I am not content,” said I; “I want one more.”
“Well, I aye thought you were a reasonable man, Mr M’Levy.”
“‘A WANT SPOILS PERFECTION,’ Mrs Walker,” said I; “and I will not be satisfied till I get this want supplied.”
Rolling up my watches I left the house, and went direct to the Office. Mr Moxey was busy with his letters.
“What?” said he, there again, James! I thought you had gone to bed.”
“I have just something to do first,” said I, as I laid down the parcel, (retaining the bundle of hay.) “Mrs Walker, tavern-keeper, Smith’s Close, Grassmarket, presents her compliments to Mr Moxey, and begs to send him two dozen and a half of fresh eggs from Arbroath.”
“Eggs to me! are you mad?” But beginning to smell, as he suspected, a trick, he opened the towel, and saw before him Mr C——’s thirty watches.
“Where got?” he asked.
“Where, but in Mrs Walker’s tavern, where they naturally fell to be.”
“And unknown to her?”
“Close up to the wall beneath the bed, and all, like eggs, enclosed in this hay.”
“I’ll never interfere with your searches again,” he added, laughing. “I’ll write this moment, and make C—— a happy man.”
“Yes,” said I; “and tell him, that, though I’m a safe enough man, I’m not ‘a patent safe.’”
“We’ve got all.”
“No, ‘A WANT SPOILS PERFECTION,”’ said I. “There’s one awanting, and without that the rest are nothing.”
“Mr C—— will scarcely think that,” said he, “You have done enough to-day, and I think you had better go to bed.”
“No, I must have that watch, otherwise I could sleep none.”
I then went to the desk, and taking a printed form of one of our complaints, not filled up, and not signed of course, I put it quietly in my pocket, departed, and took my way to the man Hart’s once more. I found him in, just preparing to go to bed.
“My last visit, Hart,” said I; “I am come once more for the watch you got from the friend of Mitchell.”
“I told you before,” said he, “that I have no such watch, and never had.”
“And I tell you that I have the very best authority for knowing that you have. Now, Hart, I have known you for some time, and would rather save you than banish you, but,” pulling out the useless bit of printed paper, “I have no discretion. There are certain people called authorities, you know, and they have long arms. Do you see that paper? Did you ever hear of such a thing as a complaint?”
“Do you mean a warrant of apprehension?” said he.
“Just as you choose to call it,” replied I, taking out my handcuffs. “I am sorry for this duty imposed upon me, but either you or I must suffer. You must walk up to the Office, or I must bid farewell to it.”
My man got into a pensive mood, and looked on the floor.
The conjurors on the stage do their work with little things, and they deceive the senses; but they don’t often touch the heart. I have done some things in my conjuring way with very puny instruments. Yes, the heart is a conjurable commodity, very simple and helpless when operated upon successfully, and I was here trying to vanquish a stronger one than Mrs Donald M’Leod’s, by the means of a bit of paper, with a few words of print on it, and a loop of leather. I have sometimes suspected that the world is juggled in a similar way, only the juggle is not very often known. If so, I may be allowed my small devices, especially when used in the cause of what is good and lawful. I wanted only to save another man’s watch. A bit of paper not much larger, once saved the lives of more Roman senators than my watches amounted to altogether.
The first sight of my talisman was not enough. Mr Hart was wary. He hesitated, and struggled with himself for a considerable time—not so much, I thought, for the sake of the watch, as from fear that, after all, I would apprehend him.
“You will do me,” said he, “as you did the Highlander’s wife.”
“No,” replied I, “I will be on honour with you. Look,—you may make sure work,—I’ll not take the watch out of your hands till I have burned the warrant.”
The promise caught him. He drew on his stockings again,—for he had been preparing for bed,—put on his shoes and hat, and getting a candle, lighted it.
“Wait here,” said he, and went out.
I don’t like these leavings, I have sometimes found no returns; so I followed him to the door, and dogged him to the foot of a close not far from his house. He went up till he came to an old thatched byre, to the top of which he got by means of a heap of rubbish. When I saw the candle glimmering on the top of the house, a solitary light amidst the darkness, and all around as still as death, I could not help thinking of the romance that hangs round the secret ways of vice. The cowkeeper, as he fed his charge, never suspected that there was a treasure over crummie’s head; no more did the urchins, who rode on the rigging, dream of the presence of so wonderful a thing to them as a gold watch.
All safe, said I to myself, as I saw the light changing its place, and descending. Then it came down the close, and we stood face to face.
“Here it is,” said he; “but I tell you once for all, that I am as powerful a man as you, and that”—
“Stop,” said I, “no need, my good fellow; give me your candle. There,” continued I, as I applied the blank complaint to the flame, and saw it flare up and die away into a black film, “there’s your bargain,—now mine.”
And I got the watch, and supplied the want.”
“Good night, my man; you will sleep sounder without the care and fear of this stolen watch than with it.”
This bit of sentiment struck him.
“Well, I believe I will,” he said, with a little thickening of the windpipe; “I’ll have nothing more to do with stolen property. I have never been happy since I got possession of it.”
In a short time, I was before Mr Moxey again, whose letters threatened to terminate in night-work.
“Put that to the rest,” said I; “the want is supplied,—thirty-two and eighteen make up the fifty, I believe.”
“You are refined, James,” said he; and perhaps he would not have said it if he had known the story of the old complaint, which for the time I kept to myself. Self-love has its weaknesses. If I had told my device, I might have gratified my vanity; but my trick would have become common property, and thereby lost its charm.
After my day’s work, I went home, and was soon asleep.
I acquired a little honour in this matter, although I considered it was not much more than apprentice-work.
I had no objection, however, that my brother bluecoats of the bonny toun should see that M’Levy had not lost the keenness of his scent for such secreted articles as those stolen watches; and this shows
that we have our little drops of enjoyment amidst our cares and anxieties, ay, and dangers, and, thank God, happiness is a comparative affair. The word “danger” suggests a few words. I have often been asked, “M’Levy, were you never hurt?” My answer being no,—“M’Levy, was you ever afraid?” My answer the same, though I have been amidst glittering knives before now, ay, and fiery eyes, brighter than the knives; but I early saw that a bold front is the best baton. A detective is done the moment his eye quivers or his arm falters. If firm, there is no risk, or if any, it is from the cowards. A brave thief has something like an understanding of the relation he bears to the laws and its officers. He has a part to play, and he plays it with something so much like the honour of the Honeycombs at cards or dice, that it would surprise you. These latter, to be sure, are only sliders too, and the end of their descent is often deeper than that of their humble brethren of the pea and thimble.
I have only to add, that my men were forthwith brought to trial. The real pith of my histories is to me the end; yes all their charm to me lies in the tail, although others, and you may readily guess who they are, may think that the the sting lies there. I would not, however, give the fact that Clerk got his seven years, and Mitchell his eighteen months as a resetter, for all the eclat accorded to any ingenuity I had displayed in bringing about these happy consummations.
The Breathing
❖
One night in 1832, I was at the station in Adam Street, at that time a very disreputable part of the town—it is better now—in consequence of the many bad houses and whisky-shops in the vicinity. There were often rows there, chiefly occasioned by the students, many of whom lodged in the neighbouring streets, so that when our men were called upon it was generally to quell a quarrel, or carry off some poor degraded wretch of a woman for some drunken violence or pocket-picking. On the occasion to which I now allude the call upon us was different. The time was late,—past twelve, and the streets were being resigned to the street-walkers and collegians. All of a sudden a shrill scream of a woman’s voice reached my ear, and, running out, I heard a cry that a man of the name of M’—ie, who lived in Adam Street, had been robbed, or attempted to be robbed, on his own stair. Then there was a shout, and a pointing by two or three people,—“They are down to the Pleasance.” On such an occasion it has always been my habit not to take up any time by questions for an account of external appearances, because the answers are tedious, and there is more to be gained by time in a rush in the proper direction, trusting to what I may all “criminal indications”, than by ascertaining what kind of a coat or hat a man wore, or the length of his nose, or height of body, and so forth. So I noted the index, and took to my toe-points as fast as I could run, down in the direction indicated, but as lightly as I could, for fear of my tread being carried in the silence of the night on to the ears of the runaways. I may mention, too, that I stopped several sympathisers, who were inclined to join, but who, I knew, would only scare, and do no good.