Our conversation was interrupted at this point by the entrance of another waterman with the key of the shed where a boat that was for sale was laid up. The craft in question was a pretty little cutter, named the “Pastime,” and I of course made a great pretence of inspecting her narrowly, and was careful to put the usual questions about her draught, breadth of beam, findings, and the like, which would be expected from any intending purchaser.
“Isn’t she rather like the ‘Odd Trick’?” I said casually, being desirous of getting a description of that vessel without appearing to be unduly inquisitive.
“Lor’ bless you no, sir!” answered the honest Gunnell. “She’s about the same siz right enough, but the ‘Pastime’ is cutter-rigged and the ‘Odd Trick’ ’s a yawl. Besides, the ‘Pastime’ is painted chocolate, and the ‘Odd Trick’ is white, picked out gold.”
This was just the information I required, so after telling Gunnell that I would let him know my decision when I had seen another boat which was in the market, I slipped half-a-sovereign into his hand, as “conscience money,” for taking up his time when I had no intention of becoming a purchaser, and bade him “Good-day, and thank you.”
The result of my inquiries, though by no means unsatisfactory, had, I must confess, put me somewhat out of my reckoning. I had all along been of opinion that Mullen’s hiding-place was on water, as the reader is aware, but I had not supposed he would be so rash as to trust himself on a vessel which, if his connection with the Burgoynes should reach the ears of the police, would be almost the first object of their inquiries. I could only account for his doing so by presuming that he was convinced that the secret of his relationship to Mr. and Mrs. Burgoyne—being known only to them and to him—could not by any means come to light, and that, taking one thing with another, he considered it safer to make use of Burgoyne’s boat than to run the risk of purchasing or hiring what he wanted from a stranger. Or it might be that as no fresh outrages had occurred for some time the vigilance of the police had become somewhat relaxed, and that Mullen—knowing it to be so, and that the hue and cry had subsided—felt that his own precautions might be proportionately lessened.
Perhaps, too, the ease with which he had hitherto eluded pursuit had tended to make him careless, over-confident, and inclined to underrate the abilities of English detectives. But, whatever his reason, the fact remained that if Gunnell’s story was to be believed—and I saw no cause to doubt it—Mullen had contrived to get possession of the “Odd Trick” by means of a telegram which, though purporting to come from the owner of the boat, Mr. Burgoyne, had in reality been despatched by Mullen himself.
That he was the sender of the telegram was evident from some inquiries which I afterwards made at Scarborough. These inquiries I need not here enter upon in detail, but I may mention that I was able by a little diplomacy to get a photograph of the original draft (it is not generally known that the first drafts of telegrams are retained for a considerable time by the postal authorities) and so became possessed of a piece of evidence which might one day prove valuable—a specimen of what was in all probability Mullen’s own handwriting.
But as a matter of fact I had good cause, quite apart from the inquiries which I instituted at Scarborough, to feel satisfied that the telegram had been sent by Mullen, or by his instigation, and not by Burgoyne, as I knew by the date of the letter which Mrs. Burgoyne had sent to Mullen—the letter which I had intercepted—that her husband was in Bergen upon the very day on which the telegram from Scarborough had been despatched.
My next business I decided must be to find the present whereabouts of the “Odd Trick,” but before setting out to do so I had a point of some importance to consider. Every one who has studied criminology knows that each individual criminal has certain methods which are repeated with very little variation in consecutive crimes. The circumstances may so vary as to cause the features of the crime to have a different aspect from the feature of any previous crime, but the methods pursued are generally the same.
The criminal classes are almost invariably creatures of habit. The fact that a certain method—be it adopted for the purpose of committing a crime, concealing a crime, or of effecting the criminal’s escape—has proved successful in the past is to them the strongest possible reason for again adopting the same method. They associate that method in their thoughts with what they call their luck, and shrink from having to depart from it. Hence the detective-psychologist should be quick to get what I may—with no sinister meaning in regard to after events—be allowed to call the “hang” of the criminal’s mind, and to discover the methods which, though varying circumstances may necessitate their being worked out in varying ways, are common to most of his crimes. The detective who can do this has his antagonist at a disadvantage. He is like the hunter who knows that the hare will double, or that this or that quarry will try to set the hounds at fault and seek to destroy the scent by taking to the water. And just as the hunter’s acquaintance with the tricks of the quarry assists him to anticipate and to forestall the poor beast’s efforts to escape, so the detective who has taken a criminal’s measure, and discovered the methods upon which he works, can often turn the very means which are intended to effect an escape into means to effect a capture.