“Certainly, sir, certainly; it’s of nae value to me,” cried Sandy with forced alacrity. “Will I wrap it in a bit paper for ye?”
I declined the officious offer, put the fragment in my pocket, and shortly after took leave with McSweeny, who made a dive at once for the baths in Nicolson Square. A wash in water and a brush at the fragment seemed to confirm my suspicion. The ivory appeared to be fine, and was prettily carved, and it seemed to have been rudely smashed. I took the piece to a dealer in such articles, and he not only confirmed me in my suspicion, but showed me a complete casket of the same style of workmanship. It was a small thing, about six inches long by four broad, and might be used, the dealer said, for holding either jewels or money. They were very expensive, and but few were sold. This last bit of information I found to be correct, for after going over all the dealers in such articles in Edinburgh I could not find one who had sold a casket answering the description of the fragment I had found. I wished to find the owner for a particular reason. In examining the ivory one day it struck me that it had a smoked appearance—a kind of dingy hue which could never have been imparted by simply lying among soot. How could it have got that tinge? Not by being thrown into the fire, for there was not a burn on the whole fragment. Could Sandy have hung it up his own chimney like a red herring or a ham to give it that colour, or had it been so tinged when it came into his possession? The chimney in Sandy’s house had been the place which we searched most rigorously, so I was tolerably certain that he had no other interesting herrings there in pickle. I thought the owner of the bit of ivory and brass might help me to an answer, and at length decided to advertise for him. “An Ivory Casket, Carved,” was notified in the newspapers as having been found, and the owner was requested to call without delay upon me. The day that this advertisement appeared, Sandy called at Mrs Nolten’s house in George Square, and asked permission to go up on the roof to get a rope which he believed he had left there on his last visit. The request was put before the lady of the house, and promptly refused. Sandy then went to the next house and made the same request, and received as prompt a refusal. After the second appearance of the advertisement, a gentleman named Dundas called, and requested to see the “Ivory Casket.” There was a strange reserve about him, which I only understood when in confidence he imparted to me the suspicion that his own son had been the robber, at the same time emphatically stating that he was firmly resolved not to give in any charge against the runaway. On being shown the fragment, he identified it as part of the lid of an ivory casket stolen from his house, and containing at that time nearly £10 in gold and silver. The casket had not been missed till after the flight of his son, who had left a good situation and gone to London with the craze strong upon him to be an actor. I found, however, that Mr Dundas had a distinct recollection of employing Sandy to sweep his chimneys about that time, and as six months had since elapsed, Sandy had been there on the same errand but a month or two ago. On calling the gentleman’s attention to the smoky appearance of the ivory, he declared that it had not been so tinged when in his possession, and spontaneously remarked—
“It must have been hanging in some chimney.”
In a chimney certainly, but what chimney? whose chimney? I revolved the matter in my mind, and at length concluded that Sandy would never have been foolhardy enough to conceal anything in his own chimney. And yet there was pretty palpable evidence that the stolen article had been in a chimney.
After half a day’s cogitation, an idea struck me which gave such a feasible explanation of the thing that my only wonder is that it did not occur to me earlier. Sandy, if he wanted a chimney as a hide, was not limited in his choice to one or twenty. He visited some at regular intervals, and was in these cases the only man employed. What was to hinder him from using them boldly as establishments of his own? depots for goods which he could not conveniently store at home? I began to wonder how I could get hold of a list of these houses that I might inspect the chimneys. In sweeping a chimney it was often necessary for Sandy to lift out the grate, when it was what is known as a “Register,” and it seemed to me that in doing so he could easily make use of the space behind as a hide when the grate was put back; but in making this guess it will be found that I gave Sandy credit for less ingenuity than he possessed. While Mr Dundas was diligently hunting for the address of his runaway son, that he might fairly ask him if he had been the thief of the casket and its contents, I was ferreting out the most prominent of Sandy’s customers. In making the round of these it is singular, but true, that I never thought of calling at Mrs Nolten’s, and when I did find myself there, it was more by accident than from choice. Being on the spot one day, I thought I would go in and have the register grate lifted out; but when this had been done in presence of the lady and myself, and nothing found, Mrs Nolten recalled the recent visit of Sandy, and detailed to me the circumstances. I immediately conceived a strong desire to go up on the roof and have a look for that “rope which he thought he had left.” I did not look about the slates or rhone pipes, but went straight to the chimneys, though I confess I was at a loss to understand how anything could be safely concealed in them. After going over all the chimney-cans, I came to one inside which, just at the bottom where the can was embedded in mortar to secure it to the stones, I saw sticking a common three-inch nail.
It was all but hidden with soot, but enough was left bare to show that it had attached to it a bit of twine, which hung down inside the chimney proper. I grasped at the nail, easily pulled it out, and drew up with it the bit of twine. Something dangled at the end of the twine, which proved to be a paper parcel not very neatly tied up. I felt the contents of the parcel through the paper, and smiled out broadly.
“What a dunce I was not to think of this sooner!” was my comment upon myself.
I distinctly felt the shape of a bracelet through the paper, and did not trouble to open the parcel till I should get down into the house. I went down, and Mrs Nolten, seeing me smile and the parcel in my hand attached to the sooty string, instantly grasped at the truth.
“You’ve found them in my own chimney?”
A woman’s instincts seldom mislead her. The lady was right. I opened the paper parcel, and there, snugly reposing within, and not a whit the worse of the smoking, were the bracelet, the necklet, and the odd gold ear-ring. I left the house at once, taking the interesting parcel with me, and in a minute or two stood before Sandy in his own home.