When they were satisfied that the act had been accomplished, the women returned from the dark passage; whereupon Burke—it was now about twelve—went to the residence of Dr Knox’s curator of the rooms, who lived near by, and bringing him along with him, pointed to the straw, and said, “There is a subject for you, which will be ready in the morning.” After the departure of the curator, the party sat down to begin again their debauch, in the course of which they were joined by a young man called Broggan, when the revelry being continued, was carried on till four or five in the morning, at which time the two women lay down in bed, with Broggan alongside of them. Next morning, and after Hare and his wife had left for their own house, Mr Gray and his wife, who had slept there during the night, returned to Burke’s, in consequence of an invitation given them by him to come to breakfast. On entering the house, they looked for the little old woman, and were surprised that she was not to be seen. Thereafter Mrs Gray having, during a search for her child’s stockings, approached the bundle of straw, was met by Burke coming forward and intercepting her, by crying, “Keep out there!” with a nod. Broggan was then requested by Burke to sit on a chair so situated as to guard the straw, and prevent an approach; but during the day he deserted his post, and Mrs Gray, still more satisfied that there was something to be discovered, took the earliest opportunity of a search. The dissipation had driven all the actors right and left, so that at length the coast was clear. Assisted by her husband, she began to remove the straw, and the first thing she touched was the arm of the dead woman. They then examined the body, which was entirely naked, and discovered that the mouth and a part of the face were covered with blood. They had seen enough, and thought it high time to get out of that house—a purpose they were in the course of executing when they met Helen M‘Dougal on the stair. Gray immediately told her he had seen the dead body, whereupon she got alarmed, implored him to hold his tongue, and said that if he did it would be worth ten pounds a week to him; but the man was honest, and replied, “God forbid that I should have that on my conscience!”[10]
Now, at last, the great secret had got into a mind true to God and nature; and here you have to mark, with gratitude to Him who takes His own time to bring evil to light and crime to retribution, the beginning of the end of all these terrible evils.
The Discovery.
The records of human actions, though so often blotted by stains of blood shed by the power of money, have, as we have observed, seldom shewn more than some one individual act of violence. We exclude, of course, those which set forth the actions of regularly-organised banditti; and even there the robberies with mere violence form the general theme,—the cases of killing being the exception. Here again we see the agent not only working its wonders in the four actors, but extending its influence all around in closing up the issues of discovery. The bribe offered by Helen M‘Dougal to Gray, gives us a further insight into this collateral part of the conspiracy; and while we have the young man Broggan clearly enough brought in as an additional confidant, we cannot avoid the conclusion that he too had been got over by the all-powerful agent. Nor can we account for the conduct of one more, who came into the scene at a still later period, by anything short of this paid “winking toleration.”
In the evening, after Gray and his wife left the house, the body of the little old woman, which had been seen by them, was despatched to Surgeon’s Square in a manner somewhat different from that of the others. Indeed, during the whole of this day, all the actors appear to have been deranged, hurrying hither and thither without definite aim, as if under the influence of a demon. The invitation to breakfast given to the Grays; the nod of Burke when he scared Mrs Gray from the straw; the imprudent watch committed to Broggan, and, above all, the leaving of the house with the body lying in the corner, and the Grays there, so evidently upon the alert, can only be accounted for on the supposition of frenzy. The new element of the discovery made by the Grays, with the threatened communication to the authorities made by the husband, was calculated to aggravate that restlessness, so much better expressed by the German word verwirrung. The nest was fluttered: all went to and fro, but whether it was that the main chance could not, even by all this confusion and fear, be driven from their minds, or that they saw the pressing necessity of getting the body quickly out of the house, Burke hastened and engaged a porter of the name of M‘Culloch to convey the tea-chest, already procured, with its burden, to Surgeon’s Square. When the man came in the evening, the body was not even put into the chest, and so confused and irresolute were the two principals, that M‘Culloch was obliged to help the packing. He saw and handled the body,—forced it down with much pressure, and, even when he was on the point of getting it upon his shoulders, he noticed an oversight to which the others were blind. A part of the hair stuck out, and so, with great caution, this careful cadie took the trouble to put all to rights.
Meanwhile, the other harpies, under the prevailing restlessness and flutter, were on the watch. M‘Culloch, with the burden, sallied forth by the Cowgate to find his way to the top of the High School Wynd, where he was to be met by Burke. When half way up that passage, he was joined by Burke and Helen M‘Dougal, and before he got to the Square, Hare and his wife were there, so that all the four were thus, and on this occasion of delivery only, drawn together by the double motive of clutching the money, and the apprehensions enveloped in the long-reaching shadow of frowning justice. Nor did they stop there. When the burden had been deposited, and M‘Culloch requested to go to Newington, where Dr Knox resided, to get his five shilling fee for his winking toleration, they all set off together, and, though there was some straggling and separating, the women never lost sight of the men. Arrived at Newington, Dr Knox’s curator took the principals, along with M‘Culloch, into a public-house, the women hanging about outside on the watch, and a part of the price, to the extent of £7, 10s. having been paid and divided, the whole party returned to the city.
While all this was going on, the man Gray, having been finally moved to his purpose of informing the authorities of what he had witnessed, and having also seen the removal, had repaired to the Police-office, where, after waiting some time, he saw the officer, John Fisher. To him he detailed what he and his wife had witnessed.[11] The bringing in of the “brisk” little old woman—her good health—the manœuvre to get him and his wife to sleep at Hare’s—so much of the orgie with its dancing and singing as he knew—the disappearance of the stranger in the morning—the discovery of the body under the straw—the blood upon the mouth—the bribe of £10 a-week—the removal of the body. Whereupon Fisher, after despatching his informant before him, repaired to the premises, but he went with no other thought in his mind than that Gray was influenced by spite;—so near again was the conspiracy to an escape from detection. Nor did even what Fisher found and heard tend to awaken him. On getting to the house, he met Burke and M‘Dougal, with Gray and another man called Finlay, coming up the stair, and having told Burke that he wanted to speak to them, they all returned to the room. Fisher then began his interrogations.
“Where are all your lodgers?” he said, directing himself to Burke.