“Oh, just an affiliation case—decree for ten pounds and expenses, and the usual aliment. I’ve been all over Fife after him, and he knows it. Fourpence a mile will never pay me for all the trouble I’ve had. I know he’s in here, but I’ll wait till he comes out. I wouldn’t go into that den for a hundred pounds. They’d jump on me and stave in my ribs, or break my leg as soon as look at me.”
“Then, if you’re sure he’s in here, let’s go in together,” I answered; “I’ll warrant they won’t jump on me, or break my leg either. I want Poulson, too; what are we to do with him when we get him, eh?—halve him?”
“Oh, you can keep him if we get him,” he returned, with a gruesome shrug of the shoulders. “He’ll be as safe with you as any one.”
We ascended the stair and knocked, and after some delay were admitted. Poulson, they said, was not there, and of course we did not see him. After locking the outer door on the inside and pocketing the key, I went over the three rooms. In the windows of two apartments adjoining each other there were fixed boxes, with lids, which appeared to be used as seats.
I lifted the lid of one. There was nothing inside, and the space revealed was only about three feet long by a foot and a half deep. I got into the next room after a little, and saw the exact counterpart of this box seat in the window of that. It also was empty, but in length was rather shorter than the other. Something about one of the ends attracted my attention, and I put my hand to it. The whole end moved a little. I touched a small nail in the centre and pulled it. The end slid easily towards me, and, looking through, I saw that the two window seats were one compartment with a movable division. In the long end—that is the end I had searched first—Poulson was lying on his side, and he looked considerably astonished when I hauled him out by the leg.
But when we got him out of the house, and he learned that he was wanted by me more than the sheriff-officer, his surprise increased. He could not understand it at all. When we got him to the Central, and the charge was made known, he broke out into the most indignant protestations of innocence. He had never heard of the robbery of the organ-grinder’s money-bag, and had not dreamt of the man possessing such a sum.
“If I had thought it,” he added, “I would have asked him to lend me enough to get over this difficulty.”
He was locked up, and every search made for the stolen sovereigns, but without success; and after a few days’ detention he was handed over to the sheriff-officer. As he pledged himself to pay all his debts, he was released under certain conditions.
This fact having been made known to me, I had him strictly watched, as I had the idea that the money would be drawn from that pile of sovereigns taken from the organ-grinder. No such call, however, was made upon that store. Poulson proceeded to “realise” upon his furniture and effects, and with that and the little money he had for buying a new stock, he managed to clear himself of the disagreeable surveillance of the sheriff-officer. He was still being watched closely by McSweeny, and as he soon became conscious of the fact, he became very unhappy. His recent misfortunes had somewhat broken his spirit, and he began to drink and loaf about instead of bestirring himself to retrieve his position. There was not the slightest indication that he had the organ-grinder’s sovereigns hidden anywhere; and in his straits he was dependent chiefly upon the organ-grinder and the lame man, Tom Joson. One day when he had reached his last coin and was groaning over the fact that he was the object of such attention from the police, it was proposed to him by the lame man that he should get rid of the espionage by a sudden flight.
“I’ll lend you enough to pay your passage to London,” said the generous Joson confidentially; “and to tell you a secret, I’m thinking of going there myself if I can manage to give the wife the slip.”