Traced and Tracked; Or, Memoirs of a City Detective

by James M'Govan

THE STOLEN DOWRY.

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

The land of houses above the shop was a high one, and crowded in every flat with families of the poorest. Before these unhappy inmates were well aware of the calamity the flames and smoke had burst through the ceiling of the shop, and into the stair, thus cutting off the only means of escape. Then followed a scene exactly like that which happened in our own Canongate, when a maker of fireworks had his shop blown up about his ears. The terrified inmates gathered at the windows shrieking for help—those in the lower flats being gradually forced upwards by flame and smoke. In a few seconds beds and mattresses began to fly out at the windows of the adjoining houses, and these were held up by the eager and excited crowd below to break the fall of those leaping from the high windows. Some were killed on the spot, many were injured, but a great number were successfully caught, scarcely the worse of the fall. At one of the top windows two women stood in desperation and despair. Though living in the same land, and possibly on the same flat, they were strangers to each other till that moment. One had a child of five clinging to her, white and speechless with terror, and this woman was a poor, hard-working seamstress, a year or two widowed, and having nothing but her needle to depend on for support. The other was Bet Cooper, as bold and irrepressible a thief as ever infested Glasgow.

“We’ll have to jump—it’s the only chance,” said Bet, addressing the terrified dressmaker. Bet was scared and awed herself, but her terror had not the effect, as in the person beside her, of rendering her limbs perfectly powerless.

The poor dressmaker shook her head, and feebly moaned out something about the child clinging to her.

“If my wee Mary was only safe I wadna care for mysel’,” she hysterically exclaimed at last.

“Then throw her down—they’ll catch her safe enough,” said Bet with energy.

“I couldna dae’t—ye couldna dae’t yoursel’ if she was your ain bairn,” sobbed the poor mother.

“Then I’ll do it for you, if you like?” volunteered Bet.

“Oh, no, no!” screamed the mother, and the child echoed the terrified cry, which was faintly caught and responded to by the anxious crowd watching them and urging them from below.

“Then I’ll take her in my arms and jump with her?” said Bet generously. “If I am killed, she’ll fall soft on top of me and be saved.”

The perfect antipodes of each other in character and training, these two women were for the moment drawn together by the warm humanity which makes the whole world kin. The weaker spirit, the half-fainting dressmaker, clung to the bold thief, and mingled her tears with those of Bet as trustfully as if she had been the purest in the land. It is doubtful if she would have consented even then, but a great cloud of smoke and flames sweeping and roaring in their direction hastened the decision. The child screamed and shrank towards the outstretched arms of Bet, and the mother let her go with an effort.

“You’ll take care of her?” she tremulously said, as she kissed the child’s white face over and over again.

“I’ll take care of her,” said Bet, shortly. “Now stand back a bit, and let me jump.”

She grasped the clinging child high over her shoulder and sprang into the air, while a sympathising roar from the crowd below greeted the action. Four men were holding aloft one of the beds, and Bet sank into the yielding mass almost as softly as if she had descended only her own height. The child was breathless and a little shaken, but quite sensible. Bet sprang to her feet and waved the rescued child in triumph in the air towards the mother far above, though the ringing cheer rising around must have carried to her the glad tidings even before Bet’s cry rang out.

“She’s safe! Now jump! jump for your life!” was Bet’s eager exclamation. But the mother still clung to the window in powerless terror, and finally motioned to those below that she would try to escape by the roof. Her gesture was not understood at the moment, or a dozen voices would have been raised to warn her that that means had already been tried in vain. The building by that time was filled with smoke, and the unhappy mother had never got farther than the passage leading to the stair landing. Her body was found there, scarcely scorched, with the features calm and placid as in a gentle slumber. Little Mary, the rescued child, when shown the still form, cried out joyfully, “Mother’s only sleeping.” So she was, but it was that blissful rest which knows no troubled dreams, the last and longest that is sent to weary humanity.

Bet took the child with her for that night. She had no lack of acquaintances to give her shelter, but Mary appeared to be without a friend in the world. Bet was not easily moved, but somehow that last speech of the poor mother, and her appealing gaze as she uttered it, had got imprinted in her memory—“You’ll take care of her?” Bet fancied she heard the words still, and determined to keep the child under her own eye till its nearest relatives should be sought out and found. Bet was then comparatively young—still under thirty, but she had never had a child of her own, and it was a queer sensation to her to be treading the streets with that little innocent one’s hand so trustfully reposing in her own.

The talk of the child was also different from anything Bet had ever listened to; it actually seemed for the time that Bet was the child, and Mary the woman. With a gentleness quite new to her, Bet tried to explain to Mary that there was a possibility of her mother sleeping on and never waking, an idea which Mary utterly derided, though in the end she said contentedly—

“If mother doesn’t wake, you’ll be my mother instead?”

“No, no; that would never do,” said Bet hurriedly, and with some agitation. “I’m not good enough, and it wouldn’t be allowed.”

“I think you’re very good,” said Mary, with the air of a judge. “You saved me from the fire. Oh, what a jump it was! Won’t you let me sleep with you to-night, and cuddle close in your arms, if mother isn’t back?”

Bet wasn’t sure, and she mumbled out something to that effect, which Mary chose to take for consent to the arrangement.

They made their way, thus talking and considering, to the house of an acquaintance of Bet—a thief, of course, like herself, and almost as well known. Bet was careful to keep the child apart from her friends, that their strange talk might not reach or contaminate its ears, and early in the evening undressed Mary with her own hands to put her into the bed under the slates which had been appropriated to her use. She tucked the child in very tenderly, and got a hearty kiss for her pains, and was then about to leave the little closet, when Mary called her back with the words—

“But I haven’t said my blesses.”

“Jerusalem! and what is that?” said Bet, for a moment puzzled.

“Oh, you just sit there, and put your hands together like mine, while I say them like a little angel,” said Mary, and to teach her new pupil she illustrated the matter by getting out of the bed-clothes and kneeling beside Bet, clasping her hands and beginning to repeat her prayers. Bet’s attitude—expressive more of astonishment than anything—not quite pleasing her, Mary had to stop and place her new friend’s hands in the same position as her own; and, that being adjusted, she proceeded—

“God bless mother; bless Bet, my new mother; bless everybody—for amen. Good-night. This night I lay me down to sleep; I give my soul to Christ to keep. If I should die and never wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. For amen. Good-night. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Kingdom come. Thy will be done—earth as ’tis heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. For amen. Good-night.”

Bet was hushed and subdued, and the second kiss which she imprinted on the child’s lips was very near being a tearful one. Possibly the simple utterances of the little one had awakened in her breast some memories of her own childhood, long dormant; or perhaps the pure radiance of the child’s innocence was showing her the darkness of her own heart and life. At any rate Bet left the little closet very bad company for her friends, and was more than once twitted by them upon her solemnity. Bet had begun to think; but as yet the only tangible idea that came to her out of that whirl was expressed in the words—

“I wish the bairn’s friends would not turn up. I think I should like to keep her myself.”

Next day inquiry proved that Bet’s “bairn” was literally without friends. Her mother had been in receipt of parochial aid on account of the child and her own poverty, and the parochial authorities could prove beyond question that she had been friendless and alone. Under these circumstances the glad wish welled up naturally to Bet’s lips—she would take it; she would be a mother to the orphan, and seek help from no parochial board. Alas! Bet forgot in the warmth of her newborn love that all her past life was against her. What kind of guardian for a tender and innocent child was a woman who had spent most of her life in open defiance of the law, when not actually in prison?

The truth only dawned upon Bet when those who had the power evaded her request by saying that they would consider the matter, make inquiries, and let her know. Meantime the child was allowed to remain with Bet, and, as she slowly sauntered home, the thought rose in her mind—

“They’ll take her from me; they’ll never allow me to keep her. I’m too bad; too well known. They’ll ask the police about me, and take her away to-morrow. And they’re right. I’m not fit to bring her up—not unless I make a change.”

That was the thought which pulled Bet up, and made her pace the streets for hour after hour before returning to her charge. Change!—was it possible for her to change sufficiently to bring up a child to a good and useful life? Bet was afraid that it was not. But then her very boldness and seeming callousness covered a strong will and a passionate nature, which, once roused to love, loved with head-strong impetuosity.

The more imminent the separation from the child seemed, the more Bet longed to keep her, and the result of her long thinking on the plainstones of Glasgow was that she went home to nestle down beside Mary, saying to herself, “I’ll try! I’ll try, for her sake!”

Her case, however, was desperate, so Bet was awake very early in the morning, and had Mary up and dressed and out into the cool morning air before the bells and steam whistles had begun to call the factory folks and ironworkers from their homes. Bet’s intention was to make her way to Edinburgh, but as she was fearful of her destination being suspected, and herself pursued, she took a very different route when leaving the city. She had not a penny in her pocket, and, as a matter of fact, had to beg her way, by a long and circuitous route, to the capital. We were duly informed of her disappearance, and, though there was no special charge against her, we should doubtless very soon have had her in our hands had Bet resumed her own line of business. But this did not happen. Bet, while begging at a farm outside the city, had been told to go and work, and replied that she was willing to do so there and then. This resulted in her being employed on the place for nearly a month. At the end of that time she had a little money to draw, and entered the city to have a struggle for honesty and a new life.

I am afraid that Bet’s resolve would have all gone to the wall through the taint of crime and the power of hunger had she not chanced to meet an old prison companion who had been struggling in the same way for some months. This woman not only gave temporary shelter to the wanderers, but introduced Bet to a lady who, with some of her friends, had formed a kind of private prisoners’ aid society. Mrs Colbrun—as I shall name her, knowing her aversion to publicity—heard Bet’s story, which, probably for the first time in Bet’s life, was a truthful one in every detail, and, with many a warning that the new life would be full of hardship and temptation, agreed to give her a start by recommending her among her friends as help in rough house-work. Thus Bet was secured from absolute want, and, as she was a strong-bodied woman and eager to do her best, it was not long before she had a regular round of houses employing her at stated intervals at washing and cleaning, besides occasional jobs from outsiders. During the first few years of this life Bet had many a hard struggle and sore temptation; but then the innocent prattle and loving caresses of Mary made all smooth and endurable. Bet, I should have observed, was by no means a good-looking woman. She had an evil look which was very much against her in her new line. People often employed her with reluctance on that account, and got rid of her as soon as possible, so with all her willingness she was always very poor. Her life was a lonely one, and I have no doubt she often asked herself with bitterness whether the change from her former reckless course was altogether a good one. As Mary grew in years and cleverness, however, and became more of a companion to her protector, her gentle influence gradually asserted itself, and chased many of these clouds from Bet’s half-savage mind. When she was just twelve Mary insisted upon being taken from school and set to work, and through Mrs Colbrun was apprenticed to dressmaking in a big establishment in Princes Street. Mary did not grow up a great beauty, but she had a quiet, engaging manner, and an artlessness and simplicity which made her a favourite. She remained in that establishment for six or seven years, by the end of which time the relative positions of Bet and her had changed, for Bet’s health had become uncertain, and Mary’s wage formed almost their sole support. Mary had forgotten many of the incidents of her youth, but singularly enough, the scene at the fire was imprinted on her memory as vividly as the day after it had occurred. She often spoke of it, and speculated on how different both their lives might have been but for that great calamity. She never really understood Bet’s shudder at the thought, for Mary did not know that her second mother had been a thief, and saved from a life of crime by her own innocent prattle. We are all children alike in that respect, and never know a tithe of the good we have done.

At this time came the grand turning-point in Mary’s life, for the son of one of the partners of the firm, who acted as cashier, fell in love with the quiet, lady-like Mary Cooper, passing over beauties in dozens to do so, and, after a long course of opposition from his parents, which as usual only strengthened his passion, succeeded in so adjusting matters that Mary consented to become his wife. When the matter was settled Bet looked as if she did not know whether to cry or rejoice, and, I believe, did a little at both.

“How am I ever to fit you to go among such grand folks,” she said in manifest distress.

“You have been fitting me all my life,” said Mary, with a bright look and a soft embrace, which she had generally found effectual in banishing all objections.

“That’s all very well,” answered Bet, only half mollified; “but where is your outfit to come from? You must have dresses, and no end of things. Ten or twenty pounds would not be too much. Only think! if you went among them in your poor rags, wouldn’t they sneer at you all your life after?”

“I don’t know; I never thought of that,” was Mary’s simple rejoinder, “but so long as Herbert does not sneer at me I shall never care for any one else. He will shield me from all trouble.”

“Ay, you’re like every one else in love, you see nothing but sunshine before you,” dryly returned Bet, “but it’s possible that even he would turn round and sneer at your former poverty if I allowed him to provide your outfit, as he offered to do. ‘Nothing of the kind,’ I said, quite sharp; ‘Mary will provide all that herself.’ But though I said that to look independent, I can’t for the life of me tell where the money’s to come from. I have not one pound to rub on another.”

“Don’t distress yourself about that, mother dear,” said Mary, with another nestling kiss; “for if he cannot love me for ever without a paltry dress or two, his love isn’t worthy the name. And if his devotion is to change to sneers, all the outfits in the world would not prevent it. So just let the matter rest. I’ll take all the risk. He knows we are poor in everything but a good name, so where is the shame?”

Mary thought she had effectually settled the difficulty; but Bet continued to harp on the same theme. It was an awkward position certainly. There was Mary living in a house of one room and a closet, in a not very choice locality, and her affianced in one of the biggest villas in the Grange. The inequality of their positions cropped out painfully whenever he chanced to visit the humble home, and Bet was in such a feverish state of distress over her poverty that she would have made any sacrifice for a little temporary grandeur. As the time drew near when Mary was to leave her for another’s care, Bet’s uneasiness increased. She had rashly pledged herself to provide Mary’s outfit, and was now further from that than ever. It is difficult to analyse her feelings so as to account for all her actions; but I suppose her mind had got into such a morbid state that she was scarcely responsible for her own actions.

At this critical juncture Bet’s old friend and adviser, Mrs Colbrun, sent for her and Mary to congratulate them on the approaching event, and make some small present to the bride. What the present was I have no recollection, but it was something which led Mrs Colbrun and Mary to leave the room for a few minutes.

Bet had often been left with the free range of the whole house before with no evil result. In the room in which she was now left there stood a writing table, one drawer of which was open, showing quite a pile of bank notes and other money.

Bet fought valiantly with the temptation till Mrs Colbrun was actually crossing the lobby to re-enter the room, when the old thieving nature struggled uppermost, and Bet, with one swift movement of her hand, had possessed herself of a bunch of the notes, and concealed them with magical celerity about her person.

The remainder of her stay in the house was torture to Bet, not only on account of the fear of discovery, but because she had a conscience, and could not disguise even to herself the dastardly act she had committed in robbing a benefactor.

They got away at last, but Bet was nearly an hour at home before she ventured to bring out the notes, which she did with a shaking hand, telling Mary they were for her marriage outfit, which she had better go and purchase forthwith.

Perhaps it was the tone in which the strange request was made, or the guilty look which accompanied the offer of the money, or possibly sheer astonishment at Bet possessing such a sum, that roused Mary’s suspicions; but she had scarcely taken the notes and counted them when a chill thought fell on her heart.

“Where did you get so much money, mother dear?” she tremulously asked. “Did Mrs Colbrun give it you?”

“No, no! ask no questions, but away you go and spend it to the best advantage,” hurriedly responded Bet, in a strange voice.

Mary stared at her for a minute, then began to tremble violently, and finally sat down with the notes in her hand, and burst into tears. Thoroughly alarmed, Bet sprang up and tried to soothe the young girl, but the first words which Mary could articulate stabbed her through.

“Mother, dear,” she cried, clasping the guilty woman in her arms, and trying in vain to get a clear look into the shrinking eyes, “tell me true and plain. There was a drawer in Mrs Colbrun’s room with a pile of bank notes in it. I saw them. You didn’t—oh, mother! forgive me for the horrible thought!—but say you didn’t take them—steal them—from Mrs Colbrun.”

“I didn’t” was shaped on Bet’s lips, but the words stuck in her throat, and the guilty look on her face, and her abashed attitude as she shrank before the accusing eyes gave the lie to the husky response.

“Oh, mother, how could you?—you have ruined us!” was all Mary could utter, but after an agonised pause she sprang up with startling energy, and said—

“I must take them back! I shall never allow her to be robbed!”

“And send me to prison for ten or twenty years?” cried Bet in reproach. “No; rather throw them into the fire. That will hide all.”

“I shall not! Mother, you are mad—you are not in your senses to propose such a thing. It would be robbery just the same, whether we use the notes or not, if we do not restore them. I shall take them back, but try to give them in a way that will not criminate you. Yes, whatever happens, you must be safe.”

Mary hurried on her things and left the house, amid the feeble protests of Bet. She had not been out of the place many minutes when I knocked at the door and entered. Mrs Colbrun had missed the notes immediately on the departure of Bet and Mary, and, shocked and indignant, had brought word to the Central. It needed but a word or two regarding Bet’s past life to convince me that she was the thief, and I took the address and went there direct. Bet, however, was bold as brass, and denied all knowledge of the notes, and officiously assisted me to search the house for them. I left her at last baffled, but not convinced, and made my way to Mrs Colbrun’s for consultation and advice. It was nearly dark when I reached the place, which was at the outskirts of the city, and on a very dark and badly-lighted road. As I approached the place I fancied that I saw a skulking figure cross the road and move round towards the back of the house. It was Mary, who had loitered about vainly trying to think of some mode of restoring the notes which should not re-act upon her benefactor, Bet. At length she had conceived the project of getting round to the back, raising the window of Mrs Colbrun’s room, and tossing the notes into some corner. Quite ignorant of these facts, I followed the figure; saw the dark window stealthily approached, and then was witness to an attempt to force up the window, which chanced to be fastened on the inside. When this had continued for a short time I slipped rapidly up behind, and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. She uttered a scream of terror, and instantly dropped the bunch of notes, which I as quickly picked up. I took her round to the front door, and introduced her to Mrs Colbrun, who besought me, as I have seldom been pleaded with, to let poor Mary go, “and say no more about it.”

That was quite beyond my power, and Mary—who had not a word to say in her defence, and even faintly admitted the identity of the stolen notes—was taken away and locked up.

No sooner did Bet hear of the capture than she appeared in a frenzied state at the office, tearing her hair and altogether conducting herself like a maniac, and loudly declared that she and not Mary was the thief. I had known so many cases in which a mother sacrificed all, even her reputation, to save her offspring from prison, that I felt certain this was but another instance of the kind, and we paid little attention to Bet’s story.

The same day Mary’s affianced appeared at the office, and was allowed to see the prisoner, when he besought her in the most piteous accents to declare the truth and save her name, but to all this Mary would say nothing. At the trial she was informed that her sentence would be lighter if she pled guilty, and “Guilty” she pled accordingly.

Her sentence was one month’s imprisonment, but the moment it was pronounced she turned to her affianced, who had been seated behind her, and whispered with a face positively radiant—

“Now, I may speak, Herbert. Yes, I am innocent.”

Strenuous efforts were immediately made to quash the conviction and have Mary released, but the law gives forth no uncertain sound on the point, and Mary served the full month like an ordinary malefactor.

When the position was explained to me by her lover, I said to him—

“Stick by her. She is a noble girl. Marry her when she comes out; for, when she could sacrifice so much from love of her mother, what would she not sacrifice for her husband!”

He thought the advice good enough to act on, and I believe has never regretted his choice.

M^cSWEENY AND THE MAGIC JEWELS.

A kick from a brute having iron toe-plates on his boots had placed me on the sick, or rather the lame, list, and so the scientific gentleman, with his strange story of robbery, was referred to M^cSweeny. The gentleman, who was well known as an author and student, and whom I may here name Mr Hew Stafford, insisted that none but the very cleverest and most acute detective on the staff could properly follow and understand the almost supernatural events connected with the robbery of the jewels, and as my chum’s opinion has always been that he answers to that description, and every one else was busy, he was allowed to take the case in hand.

“I’m Detective M^cSweeny, at your service, sur,” he said, bowing stiffly, as the old gentleman blinked at him through his spectacles. “I daresay you’ll have read my experiences? They are published in books, and that’s how some call me the great M^cSweeny.”

“No, I have not had that pleasure,” politely responded Mr Stafford. “I never heard the name before.”

“Ah, I know how that is,” returned M^cSweeny, with alacrity. “It’s because a kind of assistant of mine puts his name to the books. Ye see, sur, I’m troubled wid a kind of stiffness in me right hand, and writin’s bothersome to me, so I let him do it. His name’s M^cGovan, and he gets all the praise and all the money for the books, which I wouldn’t mind at all, at all, if he didn’t try to make me look as small as possible. If ye believe him, I can’t do a dacent job without him. For a story-teller, I’ll back him agin all the world.”

“Yes, I think I have heard his name, but I never look at that kind of literature,” wearily answered Mr Stafford.

“An’, good for you, sur; for the lies that’s in it—especially about me—no wan knows better than meself; but it’s no use me saying anything, for paiple believe every word he writes. He drives his own carriage, while I’ve to walk on futt. Never moind! I’ve the pull on him in cleverness. Give me your difficult job, and see if I don’t run down the thafe better than a dozen M^cGovans rolled into wan.”

“I understand—you mean that he is but a lame detective?”

“He is that,” said M^cSweeny, with a twinkle in his eye, as he thought of the kick which had laid me up. “If there’s a lame detective annywhere in the world this minit, it’s him.”

“Then I am delighted to have met you instead,” exclaimed the innocent Mr Stafford, “for of all the mysteries that ever were brought here to unravel, none could be more incomprehensible than the robbery which has brought me here. You can understand how valuables might go where there are hands to take them,—servants or professional thieves,—but for jewels to vanish before one’s eyes in a locked room, with windows fastened, and not a living creature near, seems as nearly impossible as anything I can imagine, yet that is exactly the case which I have brought to you.”

“Nothing at all—nothing at all to us,” said M^cSweeny, with the most unbounded confidence in himself. “Just go over the whole story, and I’ll soon put it all to rights.”

“Well, I am, as you probably know, a bachelor, and live out at Newington in a self-contained house of my own. My servants are a housekeeper, a kitchen-maid, and good-for-nothing page—a boy of thirteen, who eats his own weight of food every day, and torments the life out of me generally. I must tell you at once, however, that it is quite impossible that any of these three servants can be the thief.”

M^cSweeny smiled knowingly to himself, but made no remark. He had already decided that the good-for-nothing page-boy was the thief.

“You will understand how it is impossible that the servants could be involved, when you learn the circumstances,” pursued Mr Stafford. “A young relative of mine is getting married, and, as I am not exactly a poor man, I decided upon giving her a handsome present. I said nothing about my intention to anyone, but went to the bank and drew £200.”

“£200,” said M^cSweeny, gravely noting down the facts, with a severe official frown on his brow, in imitation of some peculiarity of my own.

“With that money in my pocket I went over to Princes Street, and bought, in a first-class jeweller’s, a necklace, brooch, and ear-rings. They were set with diamonds and pearls, and, I believe, full value for the money I paid for them, which was only a pound or two less than I had drawn from the bank. They were very pretty trinkets, and, though no admirer of such things generally, I could not help looking more than once at these. I mention these facts just to let you understand that they were bona-fide jewels, paid for at the highest price, and bought from a man above suspicion, and no trick affairs made up in some magic way to deceive the eyes or fingers, and then vanish into gas or air before one’s eyes. After I had paid for the jewels they were put into a small casket covered with morocco and lined with velvet, and this casket, wrapped in paper, was placed in my own hands, and carried by me to my own home. I still said nothing of my purchase to anyone. The page-boy was in the hall as I entered, but the casket was at that moment in my coat pocket, and he could not possibly have guessed that I carried anything uncommon. I left my hat, and umbrella, and boots in the hall, and went straight up to my study. This room is always closed with a check-lock, and no one can enter it during my absence. There is no furniture in the room which could screen any person from sight. When you enter the room you see at a glance all that is in it—my book-case, my writing-table, and a sofa and four chairs. There is a fire and fire-place, of course, but no one could conceal himself there, as the grate is a small register one, and the fire was blazing up when the magical disappearance took place. I always light the fire and trim it myself, and the page never gets further than the outside of the door when he fills and brings up the coal scuttle. The floor is covered with one piece of wax-cloth, so there are no crevices or holes into which any small trinket could drop or roll. You are following me clearly, I hope?”

“Yes, sur—as clear as day,” answered M^cSweeny, with rather less confidence in his tones.

“Well, on entering the room, I knocked up the fire, put on fresh coals, and then seated myself before my writing-table, directly in front of the fire. I took out the casket of jewels and placed it on the table before me. The door, you will remember, was shut, and cannot be opened from the outside except by me, who carry the only key. I could see all the room, and both door and window, and am certain no human being but myself was in that room. I thought I should like to have another look at the trinkets, and opened the casket and laid them out, one by one, on the writing-table before me. I felt them—touched them—turned them over, and in every possible manner was convinced that they were exactly as I had received them from the maker. Now listen. After I had admired them for some little time, I replaced them in the case, which was fitted with grooves to hold them. I did not close the case, but began to reflect on the possible weal or woe which might await the young girl who was to receive them. While thus reflecting, my eyes left the table for a few minutes, and rested on the window and the distant green hills and clear sky. I was in what is called a brown study for perhaps five minutes. When I awoke from that reverie, and brought my eyes back to the table, the jewels were gone!”

“Gone?” echoed M^cSweeny, incredulously.

“Yes, gone—casket, and necklace, and brooch, and ear-rings had vanished bodily, leaving not a trace of their existence before me on the mahogany table.”

“You’d drapped them on the flure, mebbe?” suggested M^cSweeny, whose hair was beginning to rise on end.

“Not at all, though, like you, I thought at first that that was possible,” calmly continued Mr Stafford. “I looked at my feet, over the table, under the table, and into every drawer and cranny about the table. I did not find them. I tried the door; it was firmly closed. The window the same. I felt every pocket. All in vain. The jewels and the case were gone.”

“Ay, but how? There must have been some greedy fingers to take them,” said M^cSweeny, who seemed to instinctively guess the suggestion that was coming.

“Perhaps not,” said the old gentleman, as calmly; “a spirit hath not flesh or bones. Did you never hear of evil spirits?”

M^cSweeny almost jumped to his feet, and fumbled apprehensively with his red scalp.

“Faith have I,” he answered, with a shudder, thinking probably of the “Spirit Rappers” described in “Strange Clues.” “If it’s a good healthy ghost of the owld-fashioned kind your going to mintion, it’s all right, but your table-rapping ones I’ll have nothing to do with.”

“I don’t profess to say what kind of spirit took them,” solemnly replied Mr Stafford, “but it must have been a covetous spirit. I’ve told you all I know of the affair. The jewels are gone, and that’s exactly how they vanished. I could not ask the servants about them, for they never saw them, and were not near me at the time. I don’t feel inclined to lose them, yet I am certain that no human hand took them.”

“Rats, mebbe?” hopefully suggested M^cSweeny.

“No; there is not a hole in the room.”

“A jackdaw then—it might have come down the chimney.”

“Impossible. I must have heard it, and seen it. No; the jewels disappeared right under my nose, without a sound. I leave you to solve the mystery and recover the property.”

M^cSweeny had asked for a difficult case, and now that he had got one he was bound to express himself highly elated at the apparently unsolvable mystery. He volubly promised the robbed gentleman not only that he would speedily lay the thief by the heels, but that, spirit or no spirit, he would recover the property as well. His inward resolve, of course, was that if he found himself making no progress with the case, he would shove the finishing of it on me, while, if by some rare stroke of good luck he did succeed, the greater renown would attach to his efforts on account of his emphatic declarations. Full of these assurances, he accompanied Mr Stafford out to that gentleman’s house at the South Side, and was taken up to the room in which the jewels had so magically disappeared. He got Mr Stafford to sit down in the exact spot and attitude he had occupied when the robbery took place. When this had been done, and every part of the room examined, M^cSweeny was more puzzled than ever. His reason told him most emphatically that the valuables could not have gone without hands, and yet he could not suggest even to himself how fingers could have got at them. There was not a crevice in the room—the house was a modern one, and therefore could not have any invisible stairs, doors, or passages in the walls; and even if these had existed, he could not conceive it possible for anyone to enter the room and remove the jewels before the owner’s eyes, and he sitting there wide awake, looking straight before him. However, he had promised great things, and by his confident looks, and winks, and nods hinted at greater, so all he could now do was to take refuge in a little boldness. In entering the house he had got his eye on the page-boy, who was in the act of stuffing something out of sight into one of his pockets. As M^cSweeny reached the boy’s side a whiff of the page’s breath ascended to his nostrils, and seemed to point to the cause of the hurried act of concealment.

“Tobacco, the young spalpeen!” was M^cSweeny’s mental exclamation. “The boy that can smoke is fit for anything. Just wait a minit, my jewel, and I’ll frighten the very sowl out of ye.”

Having inspected Mr Stafford’s study, and made nothing of the work, M^cSweeny had no difficulty in working himself up into a fit of rage against the page.

“Just ring the bell, plase, for that boy in the tight jacket and buttons,” he said to Mr Stafford when they had returned to the sitting-room. The bell was rung, and the page appeared, when M^cSweeny grandly requested to be left alone with the quaking boy. Mr Stafford accordingly withdrew, when M^cSweeny elaborately took from his pocket first a note-book and pencil, and then a pair of handcuffs, which he clanked noisily down on the table before the boy’s eyes.

“Now, you boy—your name?” he sternly began.

“William Lister, sir,” said the page, visibly alarmed.

“Well, William, I’m the great detective M^cSweeny, and I’ve come here on a great case. You know what I can do to you, I suppose?”

“Ye—ye—yes, sir,” stammered the page, nearly crying, and shaking on his legs.

“Now look me in the face, sur,” and M^cSweeny grabbed the boy suddenly by the arm, and forced him down on his knees—no very difficult task—while he chained him with his fierce eyes. “Now, sur! you’ve been robbing your master!”

“No—no—no—sir!” cried the boy, clasping his hands in an agony of terror, and beginning to howl.

“You tuck them; I can see it in your eye,” sternly returned M^cSweeny. “Now, where have ye hid them? Out with it, or off to jail ye go!”

More abject howling and protesting, and then the boy blubbered out—

“It was for my mother I took them.”

“Your mother, ye villin. She’s fond o’ them things, I s’pose?” derisively returned M^cSweeny.

“Ye—ye—yes, sir.”

“And she’s got them now, eh!”

“Yes—oo! hoo! hoo!”

“And where does she live?”

“Bu—bu—bu—ccleuch Street, sir.”

“Then we’ll go there now,” sternly observed M^cSweeny, highly elated with the success of his bold measures; “and luck here now, if ye try to escape I’ll shoot you—shoot you! with a double-barrelled poker.”

The terror-stricken culprit rose and got his cap; and they were moving out of the lobby when Mr Stafford appeared.

“It’s all right, sur,” whispered M^cSweeny, with a significant wink; “you’ll have them here for identification in an hour.”

“But how was it done?” cried the gentleman in amazement.

“Done? What trick is there that’s too difficult or dirty for an idle vagabone of a boy?” responded M^cSweeny with a wise look. “I knew what a scamp he was the minit I smelt tobacco on him,” and M^cSweeny got out his own pipe ready for lighting when he should be outside the door.

The boy, all the way to his home, was tremulously asking what would be done to him, but his captor smoked away in dignified silence, more terrible to the prisoner than the most voluble of threats. At length the great oracle spoke, and gave the boy to understand that the nature and duration of his punishment would depend very much upon himself—if he agreed to tell how the robbery had been accomplished, and all other particulars, his punishment would probably be extremely light. This gracious concession gave great comfort to the boy, who instantly promised to keep back nothing. They had then arrived at the house in Buccleuch Street.

It was a poor hovel of a room, both damp and dark, being on the ground floor. A woman who opened the door was promptly introduced to M^cSweeny as the boy’s mother. The boy whispered to her for a moment, and then led M^cSweeny to the fireplace. A small fire burned in the grate, and on that fire was a pot of broth. The boy lifted down the pot on to the hearth, and, handing an old ladle to M^cSweeny, told him to “take them out.”

“What a hiding-place!” was M^cSweeny’s inward comment. “The young scoundrel’s as clever as if he had been wan of my bairns all his life. To think of him making broth of jewels!—begorra, he deserves a prize for fine cookery.”

As he made these comments M^cSweeny began to rake up the contents of the pot, but found no trace of the magic jewels.

“What do ye mane, ye young spalpeen?” he cried at last, in terrible tones, to the boy and his quaking mother. “Didn’t you say they were here, in the pot?”

“Yes—that’s them,” said the boy, stopping his whimpering to point to a heap of beef bones, with some shreds of meat still adhering to them, which M^cSweeny had removed one by one from the pot.

“What?” The thought was too humiliating—too horrifying; and M^cSweeny could find voice for only the one word.

“That’s them,” repeated the boy, touching the steaming bones, “and I’d never have taken them, only the servant said they were no use.”

“It’s jewels I’m after!” shouted M^cSweeny in a great rage. “Jewels! £200 worth of jewels!”

“Jewels? I never saw them,” cried the boy, drying up his tears with marvellous alacrity. “You said bones, I thought—at least it was the only thing I ever took, and thought you meant them.”

All this was dreadful to M^cSweeny, and yet it was so simply and naturally spoken, that he could not for a moment doubt the truthfulness of either. With a great show of bluster and official activity he searched the whole of the little hovel, but, of course, found no trace of jewellery of any kind; indeed, the page-boy protested loudly that he had never seen his master with jewellery in his possession, and so could not possibly have stolen it.

The return to Mr Stafford’s house was not quite such a triumphal procession as M^cSweeny had expected, and when there he had nothing but utter failure to recount. He went over the whole house, and questioned the other servants, with a like result. He was not a step nearer the solution than when he began. There remained then but one slender hope—that the thief might attempt to dispose of the jewels, so M^cSweeny finished his work by taking a minute description of these valuables, and having them inserted in our printed lists sent round to all dealers and pawnbrokers. A tour round the most of these produced no better result. No one had offered such articles either for sale or pledge. At the end of a week, when I was beginning to “hirple” about again, we were in one of these dealers’ places, when I suggested that the description of the jewels was rather vague for the pawnbrokers, and that we might go along to the jeweller who had sold them to Mr Stafford, and have it made fuller and more complete. A reference to the scribbles which M^cSweeny called notes revealed the fact that no such name was recorded. I sent M^cSweeny out to the South Side to have the omission rectified, not being able to walk as far myself, and on his return learned that Mr Stafford had had some difficulty in remembering the name himself. However, on M^cSweeny naming two or three of the principal ones in Princes Street, he at length spotted one as the right one. In the evening I chanced to be in Princes Street, and went into the shop to get the description. To my surprise, the jeweller and all his assistants declared that no such purchase had been made in the shop. Back I sent M^cSweeny to Mr Stafford, when that gentleman at once smiled out knowingly, and said—

“I think I understand that statement of the jeweller. It is all a plot between him and my servants—he is to swear that he never sold them, and they are to declare that they never took them. The jeweller will thus get them back, and they will divide the spoil.”

M^cSweeny scratched his red pow, looked up at the ceiling, and then down at the carpet, and finally confessed that he did not exactly catch the drift of the gentleman’s reasoning.

“I will explain—I will confide in you as a friend,” said Mr Stafford, waxing warm. “I am a lonely man, without wife or children to look after my interests and protect me from designing persons. The consequence is that I am continually being persecuted, robbed, and cheated. One of my acquaintances, whom I never injured by thought or deed, carried this torture to such an extent that I was forced to leave the city.”

“Could you not have got the protection of the police?” suggested M^cSweeny.

“Useless. How could I prove the persecution? I fled to London; the wretch followed me there; I took the first train from the place; it landed me at one of their pleasure gardens—the grounds of the Crystal Palace, I think. I enjoyed myself there; when all at once my fiend—my tormentor—as I must call him—appeared before me. I ran from the spot; a balloon was just starting; I leaped in, cut the rope, and shot up into the air, laughing in triumph at the chagrin of my persecutor.”

“That was a neat escape,” observed M^cSweeny; “but how did ye get down again?”

“The most awful part of the adventure was to come,” pursued Mr Stafford. “When I had got up a certain distance I got freezing cold, and thought to warm myself with a smoke. In striking a light some of the gas escaping from the balloon must have touched and exploded, for the next moment the whole thing was in shreds and flames, and I was flying towards earth with the speed of a cannon ball.”

“And ye was kilt? Smashed to atoms?” exclaimed M^cSweeny in earnest horror, with his hands raised, and his eyes almost starting from their sockets.

“No; fortunately I fell into the water, and, being an excellent swimmer, I managed to save myself. I returned to Edinburgh, but my tormentor was soon upon my track again, and even yet he continues his persecutions upon every occasion when there is no chance of being seen. Possibly he is at the bottom of this mysterious robbery.”

M^cSweeny asked the name of this persecutor, and after a good deal of demur on the part of Mr Stafford, the name was given, when it proved to be that of an eminent professor, as renowned for his learning as for his goodness. M^cSweeny was a good deal staggered, but took leave, saying he would make inquiry into the matter, and see that Mr Stafford was annoyed no longer.

When he came to me with his report I laughed outright, and said—

“Why, the man’s mad! I wonder you did not see it in him before.”

“What man? The Professor?” inquired M^cSweeny, with great simplicity.

“No, this Mr Stafford.”

M^cSweeny would not believe it, and I suggested that we should ascertain if he had really drawn £200 from the bank on the day of the alleged purchase of the jewels. I did not believe that he had, but was surprised at the bank to find that he had really drawn that sum. We then went over every jeweller’s in Princes Street, but could not discover one who had sold to any one on that day the jewels described as stolen so magically. After thinking over these discoveries for a little, I formed in my mind a theory, which proved pretty sound in the end, and which I proceeded to test, by going out to Mr Stafford’s house in company with M^cSweeny, and having a talk with that gentleman upon general topics. When done, I felt slightly disappointed. I could find no trace of insanity about the man, but then I ought to have remembered that my profession is not to detect lunacy, but thieves. Still, acting on my theory, I requested permission, and Mr Stafford’s assistance, to search the whole house. This was given with the greatest alacrity. We went over every room and closet, but Mr Stafford’s study, without discovering anything. Then we came to that room, and I promptly asked for his keys. The request appeared to stagger him, but was granted, and I turned out all the drawers in his writing-table. At the bottom of one of them was an envelope or thick packet, which I took up, but which he as hastily tried to take from me, saying—

“That’s only some bank notes—some money of mine.”

Very impolitely, as it may seem, I retained the envelope, turned out the contents, and found, on counting the notes, that they amounted to £200 exactly. I then handed them to the owner without a comment, and searched no more. With a shrewd suspicion of what I might expect, I went to the Professor whom Mr Stafford had named as his persecutor, and from him learned Mr Stafford had, on a former occasion, been unfortunate enough to injure his brain by over-study, and was by the Professor’s advice removed to an asylum for the insane. That gentleman, who evinced the liveliest friendship for Mr Stafford, agreed to see his friend at once, and report on his mental condition. The result was, that Mr Stafford was proved to be not exactly insane, but in a condition of mental derangement which threatened to become more pronounced, and it was decided that he had better have an experienced attendant from one of the asylums. This was arranged quietly, and with very little demur on the part of the patient, but his condition became more grave, and eventually he had to be removed to an asylum, in which, with one brief interval, he has remained ever since. His mind, however, has taken firm hold of the story of the magic jewels, and the development which that incident has now assumed is that I, the writer of these sketches, was the robber of the jewels, and that, in fear of detection, I smuggled the money I had received for them into his drawer. He also asserts that I declared him insane only to protect myself from the consequences of the crime, and that if I could be removed from power his liberation would at once follow. Poor, suffering humanity! who shall minister to a mind diseased?