“It will be all right to-morrow,” said the guard. “I suppose the chief cashier has got a headache and hasn’t been to the office, or Wilson has got the belly-ache, or some fine thing or other. Well, it’s lucky for me my old woman isn’t without a pound; so she can go to market, if we are as bad off at our station as you are here; and I suppose we’re all in the same pickle.”
The porters were less philosophical. All their domestic and personal arrangements were planned on the theory of a week’s wages on Friday, and no other day. The wives might have been allowed to postpone the purchase of the Sunday joint and the rest of the needful week’s supply of provision, but every man had engagements which could not be so easily deferred. Every Friday night the porters assembled at a “public” to spend a convivial hour. Was this enjoyment to be sacrificed, or even postponed? It was more than human nature, cast in the railway-porter mould, could endure without protests as loud as they were deep. Were they to be laughed at, and jeered at, and told that the company was insolvent, that their masters couldn’t pay their wages? It was too bad. Hadn’t they feelings as well as a secretary, or a general manager, or a director, or the chairman of a board? That was what they would like to know. They meant to say it was shameful, scandalous, atrocious, and abominable, and worthy of harsher terms of description. This is not only what they meant to say, it is what they did say.
During the night the news had circulated up and down the line, and over all its tributaries. In the morning it was known to the secretary and the chief cashier. The circumstances of the case were so peculiar, that these leading functionaries did not feel themselves competent to deal with it. The secretary hastened to confer with the chairman of the board, who again consulted two of his colleagues, who happened to be in Town, and, in consequence, certain steps were taken.
In the first place a cheque was drawn upon the company’s bankers for the amount they had been robbed of—exactly 2310l. 18s. 6d.; and a clerk was despatched to all the stations for the satisfaction and comfort of all the indignant servants, who had now grown clamorous for their wages.
Wilson’s conduct was the topic of serious consideration. Could he have run away with the money? How could the robbery have been effected without his participation or connivance? What was his previous character? What sort of references did he bring to the company when he first entered its service, now five years ago? The latter questions were answered satisfactorily; the former were not. The chief cashier echoed a general opinion when he declared that he did not think Wilson capable of such a villanous and wholesale robbery. Yet the chairman of the board and the secretary did not see how the thing could have been perpetrated without his connivance, or, they thought, indeed without his active participation. They asked again and again, How could it have been done in despite of his vigilance? They searched the papers, and examined the “Clerks’ Reference Book” to see what sort of references he gave when engaged as one of their servants. Nothing could be more satisfactory than these. Their distinctness, emphasis, and verisimilitude were, it would seem, an adequate guarantee for his fidelity in any place. Yet again and again these very inquiries landed them upon the question, How could it have happened without at least his connivance? His mode of life, his habits, and his manners, conversation, tone of thought, and known tastes, were repugnant to the theory of his criminality. Yet again, here the chairman of the board ventured to say that he had heard of rascals who covered the most nefarious designs, and even found their opportunities for the commission of crime, in the well-sustained outward show of virtue. He was absolutely sure that that fellow Wilson was at the bottom, if not also at the top, of the crime.
The solicitors to the company were instructed to take such steps as they might think fit in the case. They consulted me, and I gave it as my decided opinion that the facts were as consistent with the innocence of the clerk as with his guilt. This was a view of the matter which had not occurred to the solicitors. Lawyers have a kind of second instinct, which always makes them lean to the dark side of conduct and of events. Of criminal lawyers this is especially true. A regular Old-Bailey practitioner cannot understand a theory of innocence. It would be far more easy to convince any judge or jury of the guiltlessness of an accused man or woman, than it would that able and accomplished gentleman with the hooked nose and guttural voice, who is known as the “thieves’ attorney-general,” in the City of London. But what does he care about the guilt or innocence of his clients? Literally nothing. Under the genial influence of a fee, he will speak as eloquently (in his own and in some other person’s opinion) and contend as loudly that his client is really guiltless, whether he be so or not. If any thing, as he has often had occasion to say, he likes to have a confession of crime from the accused, because then he knows that the client is not humbugging him; he relies upon a knowledge of the worst; he is sure that no facts are being concealed from him; and he can tell how far it is safe to carry his objurgations or his cross-examination of witnesses. The company’s solicitors were, it is true, not men of this precise stamp. Still, they had in their professional career seen so very much of the corrupt and evil in mankind, and so very little of the higher traits of human nature, that they were always ready to accept unfavourable hypotheses in explanation of human conduct, and slow to receive opposite theories in their place. They were hard to convince that Wilson might be innocent of all participation in the robbery. At length, however, after carefully weighing all the reasons I advanced against the immediate arrest and accusation of the clerk, they admitted it was just possible that he did not aid the conspirators and thieves otherwise than by his gross and culpable negligence.
I speedily ascertained how and where Wilson intended to spend his holiday. It was arranged that I should follow him. If, when I overtook him, he consented to return with me, I was not to legally arrest him. In case he should, however, refuse, or manifest any decided unwillingness to return, warrants for his seizure in Paris and his rendition were procured, and placed in the hands of an ordinary detective officer, who accompanied me, and had instructions to obey my directions.
Thus armed, we proceeded to Paris. To discover the suspected clerk was not difficult. It was one of the easiest tasks I ever had allotted me. I found out the hotel he put up at. He was not in when we arrived there, somewhat early in the evening. I left my companion with the warrants at the hotel, while I went further, in quest of Mr. Wilson.
I had a special motive for this part of my little arrangement. I did not think my man would return during my absence from the hotel. I thought it most likely—as I knew my way about Paris, was acquainted with the institutions of the gay capital, knew I could get aid from the French police in my search, and for other reasons—that I should bring Mr. Wilson back to the hotel, a prisoner in fact, although under no formal detention. In case I did not discover him out of doors, I resolved to return alone to the hotel in good time—in all likelihood to meet him there. I wanted to have the first word with him, and, if I could, to have that word in the absence of my fellow-traveller, clothed with so much authority.
And why, the reader may ask, did you want to take this advantage of the law’s proper servant or officer? I did not want any such advantage. I would have given him an advantage, which might have served his turn at Scotland Yard, if I could have done so with what I considered fairness towards the suspected. I did not wish the circumstances of his arrest to prejudice him with his masters, and it might have been before a criminal tribunal. My experience of human nature and of society had suggested to me that this young man might perhaps, when so far from the scene of his labours, beyond, as he supposed, the eyes and ears of his employers, and in a holiday mood, visit some places, not thought proper places by many right-minded folks, of whom I am, at least in this respect, one. As I felt that the weight of suspicion, before evidence of guilt, already bore with undue force upon the clerk, I thought it wrong to let the weight of another element (however fair in itself) be added to the burden of prejudice. If I had then been, as I have on other occasions often been, employed to watch leisure movements and scan the holiday pursuits of a clerk, so that his masters might by my report determine whether or not he were fit to hold a position of trust, I should have had no desire to screen the incidents of Mr. Wilson’s visit to Paris. Here I saw or thought I saw it my duty to bring him back to London, in order that he might render such explanations as he could about a particular crime. To do this effectually, I argued that it was desirable, for his sake truly, but also for the interests of justice, that he should encounter no prejudice which the clerks’ reference book, his antecedents, and his general conduct did not warrant. This, I hope the reader will see, was but an act of simple justice to the suspected. Let me add, that I foresaw, if the clerk were really innocent, but if prejudice led to his wrongful arrest, the true culprits would have had an effective warning to destroy any clue while their pursuers were on the wrong track. Whatever the reader may think, I am candid enough to say, will not alter my conviction that I acted so far prudently and justly.