“Done!” I cried. “Oh, you fool! Why did you say so much? You’ve convicted yourself by speaking of an alibi. It was the only link awanting in the chain of evidence, for I could not conceive why you should pretend to be drunk and then get back to the High Street and have yourself locked up as drunk and incapable. Thank you, Benjie, for your help in this matter. It was all a clever alibi you were arranging?”
Benjie emitted one oath, and then became silent, conscious, doubtless, of the soundness of my remarks. An hour or two after he had been locked up, I had Peggy Reid brought to see him, when she unhesitatingly identified him as the man who had held the handkerchief to her mouth on the night of the robbery. This drove the last prop out from under Benjie, and he plaintively asked if Pauley was to be accepted as evidence. Being informed that that was a likely contingency, he thereupon stated that he would prefer to plead guilty, in order that Pauley might suffer along with him. His benevolent intention was humoured, and the three went to the Penitentiary together, Benjie getting the lion’s share in the number of years.
JIM HUTSON’S KNIFE.
Jim’s mother touched me on the arm as I ushered him into the Police Court for the first time. I remember it all as well as if it had happened yesterday. She had been loitering about the lobby, tearful and oppressed, but was roused as by an electric shock when “James Hutson!” was shouted out, and echoed through the corridor. She gripped my arm as I was hurrying him in at the door, and the whole arm attached to those rigid fingers shook as with an ague. The tearful eyes brimmed over freely, and the parted lips moved, but for a moment no sound came forth.
“Jim was aye a guid laddie,” she at length chokingly articulated. “He’s been led away; he was never meant for a thief. Save him! make it licht for him, and he’ll never come back here. Oh, Maister McGovan, he’s the only ane left me—the only ane oot o’ six.”
I did not hear any more, for I was in a hurry, and the roll that morning rather long, but the appealing face, the tears, and hurriedly breathed outpourings of that poor mother’s heart, followed me right into the court-room. Frantic and voluble appeals under such circumstances are common, but this one was quiet, sudden, and overpowering. I looked at the prisoner for the first time with special interest. He was a young lad of sixteen or so, rather strongly built, and manly-looking, but, of course, hanging his head in shame as they generally do the first time. The case was a very simple one. Jim was an apprentice plumber in a big workshop; quantities of brass-fittings, copper wire, and tin had been missed, and at last I was set to watch the workers. I followed several innocent ones for a time, but at length came to Jim. I should have overlooked him, for he had rather an innocent face, but for a certain bulkiness about his body. Jim did not go straight home, but took a certain broker’s on the way. He went through to the back shop, and I surprised him there in the act of unloading. The broker, of course, protested perfect innocence, but I took them both. The broker got off by some means, and Jim now stood there alone. The charge was theft, and confined to the articles taken with him, though that did not cover a hundredth part of his pilferings. Was he guilty?
“Yes sir, guilty,” was Jim’s hurried answer, with his head lower on his breast.
“Hae mercy on him!” rang out from the benches behind in the unmistakable tones of Jim’s mother, as the magistrate paused in doubt, possibly feeling to send such a fine lad to prison. “Let him off this time, and he’ll never come back again.”
I was motioned to the side of the magistrate to give my opinion in an undertone. I did try to make it light for the lad. I said I thought he had been prompted to the acts by some one who was uncaught, that his home training had been against such a course, and that he had never been in court before. But I could not refute the statements of his employers, that their losses had extended over more than a year, and been serious indeed. A few moments thought, and the magistrate spoke out without comment of any kind—“Thirty days.”
There was an impassioned outcry in a woman’s voice, but I did not turn in that direction, as I did not want to see anything. I hurried out the prisoner by the side door a moment or two later, and was again clutched by the mother.