“No. But I’ll send him up here if you like to wait. Is it worth half-a-crown?”
McSweeny considered for a moment, and then said that it was. The man slowly rose from his place by the fire and held out his hand for the money; but the clever and cunning McSweeny only winked hard, and made a few remarks about great detectives, famous all over the world, not being easily cheated.
“No, no, my jewel,” he added; “ye’ll get the money when ye’ve earned it—not a minute sooner.”
The man scowled horribly, and slowly slunk out of the room and the house. Was ever an escape more neatly effected? That clean-shaven, cropped-haired man was Johnston! The moment he had entered the city he had gone to a barber and got shaved and cropped—I afterwards spoke to the man who did it—and the alteration which such an operation effects on the appearance can be understood only by those who have seen it performed. Had Johnston been placed at that moment under the eyes of Mr Goodall he most certainly would not have been able to identify his late guest; nay, I am not sure but he might have sworn most positively that that was not the man.
McSweeny waited patiently for nearly half an hour, and then it began to dawn upon him that he had been done. The grins of the occupants of that kitchen as he went out did not tend to soothe his feelings. Not a word was said on either side; it was all understood. What had first roused my chum’s suspicion of the truth was the recollection that the man had passed out of the room without a head-covering, and that the remainder of his body was covered with a very loose-fitting old suit of blacks. Now the clergyman had made Johnston a present of just such a suit, and being himself a stout man, had not been able to give him a very good fit. Along with the suit went a broad-brimmed clerical-looking dress hat; but that Johnston had only assumed when out of McSweeny’s sight. What made the thing more aggravating was that McSweeny had seen the hat hanging on a window-shutter in one of the rooms in searching the house, yet had never thought of connecting it with the evil-looking wretch by the fire. Not long after McSweeny’s discomfiture, one of the county police appeared with a full description of this suit of clothes and broad-brimmed hat—just too late, of course.
When McSweeny had spent a deal of time in hunting for the man who had so neatly escaped him, and appeared to report to me, I was in a very bad temper, for I was conceited enough to think that, if it had been I who had clapped eyes on Johnston, he would not have got off—an opinion which I changed when I knew the rascal better.
Like Jim Macluskey, [See Brought to Bay, page 5] he had the rare faculty of being able to change the whole expression of his face by ingeniously contorting his features, and could speak in any kind of language or tone to suit. McSweeny’s mistake was really not so surprising or stupid as it appeared to me at the moment, or as it now appears in print.
I had no time to say much, for I felt that Johnston must have realised that the city was too hot for him, and would get out of it at his swiftest. If I was to get him it must be at once.
What route or means was he most likely to take? That was the all-important question with me. First I decided that he would not go near any of the railway stations, else I should have hopefully turned in the direction of the Forth and the North—quite a favourite route for escaping criminals. Then it struck me that, having gone the length of sacrificing his fine beard and hair, and been so successful in thus altering his appearance, he might boldly try the most dangerous route of all, as that on which he was least likely to be looked for—the road for Glasgow. He was not to know that, when it was too late, we had penetrated his disguise, and at that moment was probably exulting over his cleverness. I did not expect him to walk all the way to Glasgow, but thought he might go out a good distance, and then take train at some obscure railway station for whatever town he meant to favour with his presence. My idea was that Glasgow itself was to be thus favoured, but that point did not concern me for the present.
Now, there were the three roads all crossed by the railway to choose from, and I was a little puzzled which to try. He had come by that leading through East Calder, and I scarcely thought he would take that. That left the Bathgate and Linlithgow routes to choose from. I got a gig with a strong stepping horse, and drove out the Linlithgow road till I came upon one of the county police, who satisfied me that no such man had passed along that road within the last three hours. My reason for trying that route was that there was a possibility of him, when once on the railway skirting that road, branching away to the north by way of Stirling, and so escaping. However, there was nothing for it but to drive back in all haste and get on to the Bathgate road, which is the favourite one for tramps. When I was a few miles from the city, I could scarcely believe my own eyes when I saw a man approaching me from the opposite direction, clad in a suit identical with that I was looking for. There it was—loose-fitting, shabby, old, and black, with the broad-brimmed hat to crown all. The man’s face had no beard either, but it was roasted brown with the sun, and had on the chin a stubbly growth of hair some days old. Nevertheless, I pulled up and stopped him.