Traced and Tracked; Or, Memoirs of a City Detective

by James M'Govan

While this discovery was being made, or possibly a short time before, a curious arrest was being made in the High Street, which, as everyone knows, is about seven minutes’ walk from the Meadows. Benjie Blunt had made his appearance in the High Street, not far from the Central Station, uproariously drunk and apparently reckless of all consequences. He staggered about, shouting out sundry sounds which were supposed to represent a song, he insulted everyone within his reach, and, finally, in making a mad grasp at some of the tormenting gamins clustered about him, he fell forward on his face, and was so overcome that he could not get up again. A crowd cannot gather in the High Street at any time without almost instantly attracting our attention. The man on the beat was soon at Benjie’s side, and on telling him to get up was rewarded with a kick on the shin bone. Another man had to be summoned, and between them, with the greatest difficulty, they managed to carry the limp and drooping figure of Benjie into the station, by which time that worthy was quite incapable of speech, and was locked in a cell to sober at leisure. Benjie passed the night in a profound slumber, and was next morning placed at the bar of the Police Court, and fined in five shillings, or seven days. When had a professional thief five shillings to spare? or the inclination to part with the sum, unless he had urgent and profitable work awaiting him outside?

Benjie declared himself bankrupt, and made a pathetic appeal to the Sheriff to be let off “just this once,” and was then hustled out and taken to the cells, no more depressed than if he had been starting for a week’s holidays. Indeed, from the manner in which he thrust his tongue into his cheek, and bestowed on me an impudent wink as he was led off, it struck me that Benjie was highly delighted with himself or his oratorical display. I failed to see any cleverness in it; I was to think differently later on.

I had been out at Dr Temple’s cottage not an hour after the discovery; and as I found the servant perfectly recovered, and with not a scratch to show as the result of the attack, I rashly concluded that she herself was the thief, with or without an accomplice. My idea was that the lying in the lobby with the door open and apparently insensible was a mere feint to throw suspicion off herself while her companion escaped with the booty. My only wonder was that she had not been found bound and gagged as well, and it was that omission which made me wonder if she had done the whole thing single handed. With this thought uppermost I searched the whole cottage and garden very carefully, expecting to find the plunder there buried or hidden. The dog kennel already noticed stood on feet, and was about four inches off the ground, and it seems strange to me now that I did not have it moved or looked below. However, the oversight—which I actually made—mattered little, for at that time the plunder was not there. I merely mention the fact to show what a narrow escape the girl made, for had the stolen things been got there she would certainly have been arrested; and that they were not there found was not through any planning or skill of the thief. That which complicated the case to all concerned proved a blessing to the servant girl.

Peggy Reid, when questioned by me, asserted her belief that she would know the man again who had held the handkerchief over her mouth and nostrils, and stated that she had noticed a man resembling him hanging about the place, and passing and repassing some days before. I had no faith in her ability to do so, for at that time I strongly suspected herself, but I made a raid among “my bairns,” and picked up two fellows, who were shown to her without success.

She was positive that neither of them was the man, and they were liberated. If Benjie Blunt had been at liberty I might have thought of him, but at that time he was demurely picking oakum in Calton Jail to wile away the tedium of his sentence of seven days. He had been carried into the Central Office, dead drunk, an hour before the robbery was reported, and what could be more satisfactory to us? Candidly, the thought of Benjie in connection with the singular and daring robbery never once rose in my mind.

Failing with the two first arrests, I kept my eyes open for the spending of the money which had been the chief part of the plunder. A flutter of interest quivers through the whole thieving community the moment a big haul is taken by any of their number. It will not hide; you see it in their faces, in their manner, in their gorging and drinking, and in a certain indescribable furtive uneasiness and excitement which they show when visited and questioned.

The only one whom I found to be unusually flush of money was a man named Pat Corkling, better known as “Pauley.” Pauley was more a beggar and tramp than a thief, and had got his nickname by evading hard labour during a sentence for vagrancy by pretending that he had a “pauley,” or paralysed, right hand. Pauley, then, was spending money freely, and yet always too drunk to go out begging. I therefore removed him to the Central, and had him searched.

We found more money on him than he could account for, but none of it could be identified, and Peggy Reid, on being shown Pauley, declared most positively that he was not the man.

Pauley was therefore released, and went away triumphant, with the money in his pocket, to resume his drinking and gorging.

At this stage of the affair there occurred a most singular and unaccountable event. Benjie Blunt was set at liberty, having duly served his term of seven days, and that very night the policeman Bain, on the beat past Dr Temple’s cottage, was suddenly attacked in a ferocious manner by a man who ran off the moment the assault was made. Since the discovery of the robbery Bain had been ordered, with Dr Temple’s permission, to enter the garden by the gate during the night, and make the circuit of the cottage to see that all was secure. He had done so on that occasion, and was scarcely out of the garden when a powerful hand drove the hat over his eyes, while a powerful foot administered a vicious kick to the small of his back. While he was dropping to the ground in agony a voice growled out something to the effect that he was to “take that you thief!” Bain managed to spring his rattle; but when he scrambled to his feet again he found himself alone, the nimble assailant having flown like the wind. No arrest was made, though Bain had to get a substitute for the rest of the night, and go home to bed.