Rogues and Vagabonds

by George R. Sims

Mr. Jabez gathered his information from the usual sources, but his legal training had taught him always to verify hearsay evidence, and he generally got pretty near the mark. In the present instance he ascertained that Mrs. Smith was still a grass widow, and that no husband had appeared upon the scene.

He was almost giving the ease up as a bad job, when, walking through the street on other business, he looked up at a passing four-wheeler, and just caught sight of a face which caused him to stand still and utter an exclamation of surprise.

It was the face of George Smith, the escaped convict.

In an instant Jabez guessed whither his prey was bound, and he did not take the trouble to follow him. He walked quietly back to his office, settled the business he had in hand, and then went to a detective with whom he occasionally worked, and concocted the plan for George’s arrest.

Jabez told the officer a romantic story, all intended for publication in the daily papers by-and-by, of how he had gone to work to discover the whereabouts of the runaway convict, and then arranged that the detective was to arrest George and take him off, and charge him with being a convict at large, while he telegraphed to the prison authorities, and he and Jabez were to share the reward offered for the capture, Jabez in addition getting the fame for his sagacity and ingenuity. The affair would be well reported, and would give Mr. Duck what he was pleased to call a rare ‘leg up’ in his profession. Who could say but that the authorities might not employ him by-and-by? He would start on his own account on the strength of the advertisement, and be sure of the private patronage of missing-friend and disappeared-daughter hunters.

So it was all arranged, and that afternoon, as the shadows fell and the inmates of the little parlour were sitting round the fire, Detective Johnson, with two men in uniform, came down the street, and reconnoitered the house from the opposite side of the way.

There was only one thing Jabez had forgotten, and that was to give his friend a description of the man.

Johnson remembered it afterwards, and would have gone back and asked whether he was young or old, and what he was like, but there was no time, as the bird might fly when the darkness came on.

Now it happened that at that very moment Shakspeare was flattening his face against the window-pane, and peering down into the street. His quick eyes caught those of the detective fixed upon the house.

‘Hulloh, father!’ cried Shakspeare; ‘look here! Isn’t that the ‘tec that we see so often at the races?’