“Well, uncle, honestly, now you put it in that light, very likely I should. But I think you know me well enough to feel——”
“Quite so, Frank,” the captain said, taking his hand; “quite so. I believe you to be an honourable, upright young fellow. I believe you to be more free than young men in general from this sort of thing, but for that very reason more likely to make a fool of yourself. Now you have my opinion of the affair. If you are wise you will take my advice, and not go there again.”
As Frank Maynard walked home that night, thinking over what had happened, he took his cigar from his mouth, and said to himself, “By Jove, uncle is right; she is a wonderfully pretty winning little thing; and if I were to go there often, and find, as he says, her father out, I should be very likely to get spoony, and make in the end, as he prophesies, either a fool or a rascal of myself; so I will take his advice, and go there no more. Prevention is better than cure.”
CHAPTER X.
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.
Mr. Barton is at breakfast in his snug little house down Brompton way. Mr. Barton enjoys his breakfast, and eats largely. Mrs. Barton does the same. It may be here observed that Mr. Barton enjoys all his meals, and that Mrs. Barton in this particular strictly follows his example. And yet there was nothing in Mr. Barton’s appearance to lead an observer to believe that he cared particularly for his meals or was a great eater. He was a large boned, ungainly, awkward man, with long ill-shaped limbs; he carried himself stiff and upright, and moved his head as if his gaunt long neck were encased in a stiff military stock. His hair had been black and bristly, but it was now thin and grey; his cheeks were closely shaved, and his face was hard and passionless. Altogether, Mr. Barton’s appearance was not prepossessing. He was a man whose age it would have been next to impossible to guess, but he really was about fifty-five. Mr. Barton was a Scotchman. He had come up to London young, and had, through the interest of some relations, obtained a situation in the Detective Police, at that time known as the Bow Street Runners; and a sharp, active, intelligent detective he turned out. The stiffness, which he had now so long put on that it had become a second nature to him, was originally assumed when engaged in London upon ordinary duties, in order to render detection the more difficult when he was in disguise. Although somewhat heavy and uncouth in appearance, he was a young man active and lissome, and, as he had shown on several occasions when he had been found out, and had been obliged to fight for his life, was possessed of great strength as well as activity. But situations like these were not Mr. Barton’s forte; he could, if necessary, fight desperately for his life, but he was by no means fond of putting himself into positions where such an eventuality was probable. The authorities at Bow Street were well aware of this weakness, and generally selected him in researches in which shrewdness and patience were required rather than courage. In these they knew he was to be thoroughly relied upon, and would hunt down his game with the unerring sagacity of a hound. Even here he failed sometimes, losing his clue unaccountably, and that just at a time when success seemed certain. The authorities happened upon one of these occasions to obtain proofs that it was not his sagacity but his honesty which had been at fault, and that a heavy purse had proved sufficient to render his eyesight temporarily defective. Thereupon Mr. Barton was dismissed the force in disgrace. This was fifteen years back; soon after that time he had married.
Mrs. Barton’s figure was in the strongest possible contrast to that of her husband. She was a large woman and enormously stout. Mrs. Barton was a Jewess, the widow of a Hebrew clothier in Houndsditch, who had left her a small fortune. She had been very handsome when young, but not the slightest trace of her good looks remained in her fat, coarse face. She was nearly as old as her husband, but there was not a white hair in the black bands on her low square forehead. What had induced Mrs. Barton to marry her present husband was a riddle which none of her friends could solve. It seemed, however, that he had been employed in some enquiry in which her late husband was interested, and she was a woman who could keenly appreciate the shrewdness and energy of the rather uncouth Scotchman. At any rate, when the days of mourning had expired, the widow signified her willingness to lay aside her weeds in his favour. As Robert Barton had just left the force, and was looking out for a fresh opening, he gladly accepted her offer, although even at that time, at five-and-thirty, the widow was, to say the least, large, and her good looks had completely flown. Indeed, he hesitated not a moment. He had saved up some money, and with that and the widow’s fortune and connection, he thought he saw his way very clearly before him. It is true that her friends were extremely angry with her for marrying a Christian; she became as it were excommunicate, and cut off from all participation in the service of the synagogue. This feeling, however, in no way interfered with their willingness to work with her in business, and as she had been a popular woman among her class during the lifetime of her first husband, her connections, with the exception of a few of the strictest set, soon forgave her her marriage out of the pale. A few weeks after his marriage Mr. Barton opened an office in the City, which he entitled “Barton’s Private Research and Detection Office.” In a very short time he began to do a good business, and once or twice made especially happy hits—succeeding in tracing stolen property, and in ferreting out an absconding clerk—when the regular detective force had given up the task in despair. After this his success was a certainty, and it was soon apparent that he had means of obtaining information altogether beyond the ordinary police sources of intelligence. Here it was that Mrs. Barton’s connection came into play. The whole of the agents he employed belonged to her persuasion, and so numerous and active were they, that scarce an attempt was made to pass a stolen note without Barton being informed of it. Even on the Continent, at Hamburg and other places where Jews congregate, he had numerous correspondents; and as most of the stolen property was likely, sooner or later, to find its way there, the information with which he was furnished enabled him frequently to make the most surprising captures in England. It must not be supposed that these men betrayed themselves or each other, or that they restored stolen property which they had purchased. They simply let him know that they had become possessors of it, and gave him such clues as would enable him to trace the thief. Besides this they arranged through him the terms for restoration of bills, and various other securities, and even for the recovery of bank-notes. There were, indeed, occasional murmurs heard against him. It seemed, men said, that although Barton was certain to bring the guilt home to the smaller class of delinquents, pilfering shop-boys, forgers for small amounts, or defaulting collectors, yet in cases of great importance, where perhaps the absconding clerk had made off with very large amounts, his zeal in following upon the scent, though apparently very great, was rewarded with singular ill-success.
Robert Barton’s business was not confined to the discovery of frauds; many of his researches were of a far more complex and delicate nature. Wives who sought missing husbands; broken-hearted fathers, missing daughters; claimants to property, who set him to work to find the lost link in their chain of evidence; husbands and wives who sought proofs of each other’s infidelity:—all came to Mr. Barton, and on the whole they were well satisfied with him. In these researches he seldom took any active part, contenting himself with sitting in the office, holding the threads of all the nets which his active subordinates were spreading round their victims. Occasionally, however, when the fit took him, or the affair was too important to be trusted to any hands but his own, he would put on a disguise, lay aside his stiff carriage, and transforming himself so completely that no one would recognise him, sally out upon his search.
“What have you got to-day, Barton—anything important?”
Robert Barton took out his pocket-book and examined the entries.
“Marriage certificate between John Rogers and Mary Hare, somewhere about 1792, probably in London. That’s a mere matter of sending circulars to all the parish clerks, offering a reward.—Register of baptism of William Pollard, 1822. Liverpool or Manchester.—Trace and recover notes and bills in Borough Bank robbery. That, of course, I cannot move in at present. It is a large sum, and I have no doubt, from the lot I believe are in it, that the notes will go over to Hamburg. I must write to Levy there to get hold of them and hold them for a time, and then I must find out how much they will give for them.—John Bell, cashier, Latham and Prodgers’, defaulter; determined to punish; offer £400. I shall soon lay him by the legs.—Evidence against Mr. Halfall, Bristol. That is rather a delicate matter. I must send Isaacs down, he is just the man for that; the fellow is so good-looking, he gets round the servant girls in no time. It is just nine, I must be off.”