Traced and Tracked; Or, Memoirs of a City Detective

by James M'Govan

I have to give here the adventures of three £50 bank-notes. These notes had been paid to Mr George Lockyer, a builder, who dabbled a little in money lending, by a friend in quittance of a bond on some property. The payer of the money was but a working man, else the transaction would probably have been settled with a cheque; and the fact that this man was in working clothes had an important bearing upon the whole case, apart from the absence of a cheque altogether. The money had been drawn from the bank, but neither the teller who paid over the notes nor the receiver of them thought of noting the numbers.

Mr Lockyer, however, though anything but a careful or methodical man in regard to money, chanced to notice the number of the top note, from the fact that it was formed of two twenties, thus—“2020.”

The notes were scarcely opened out—they were quickly counted—the necessary papers handed over to the payee, and the whole transaction, and some friendly conversation as well, was all over in about fifteen minutes.

When the payee was gone, Mr Lockyer lifted the lid of his desk, and carelessly placed the notes, folded in three, on the top of some papers, intending to take them out in a short time, and bank them on his way home to dinner. He did not take them out or bank them—he forgot all about them. About half an hour later he left the little office, locking the door after him, and taking the key with him.

This little office was part of a small erection attached to the building yard. That part which Mr Lockyer used as an office was not above ten feet square. It was fitted up with two desks, as at times the builder employed a clerk, but at that time was entered by no one but himself, or any callers he might have to receive while there.

The remainder of the erection was used as a kind of tool-house, and was fitted all round with shelves. This apartment entered from the building yard, and at one time the door between the two places had been open, but now it was not only closed and locked, but crossed on the tool-house side by the shelves aforesaid. This door had not been open for years, and the builder had not even a key for the lock. The other door, and that now in use, entered from the street, close to the gate of the yard.

Mr Lockyer remained away from his office during the whole afternoon, the reason being that he found some friends waiting him, and had no particular press of business to call him away. Late in the evening, however, he remembered suddenly of the three £50 notes left so carelessly in his desk at the office, and started up and whispered to his wife that he would have to go out on business for half an hour.

“I have left some money in the place which should have been in the bank or here,” was his explanation, “and I must go and get it, for the place is a mere shed;” and as the word “money” rouses the strongest instincts of some wives, he was suffered to depart in peace.

He reached his office in ten minutes, and found it to all appearance exactly as he left it. It was then quite dark, but he was so sure of the spot on which he had placed the three notes that he did not trouble to strike a light, but merely raised the lid of the desk and groped for the notes. His fingers did not touch the soft, greasy papers, but the harder and smoother pile of accounts which had been beneath them. He groped and groped; he struck a light—first only a match, then the gas—but in vain. The three bank-notes were gone.

“Did I leave them here? Did I not put them in my pocket?” was his first wild thought, followed by a hurried groping and searching for his pocket-book.