Traced and Tracked; Or, Memoirs of a City Detective

by James M'Govan

“She’s no gaun now,” said the queer old woman with a slight softening in her tones. “She’ll never get to a foreign country till she reaches the better land. The puir thing’s sinking fast. I wad ask ye to come and see her, but I’m feared the sicht o’ you wad upset her as it did before. She’s never been weel since ye was here.”

This news startled me. Why should my presence agitate the invalid? Could it be possible that she was the thief? How could she, when she had not been able to leave the house for months?

The old woman determinedly refused to speak, and while we were arguing the point, Abercorn himself appeared. He appeared quite overwhelmed with confusion when the position of affairs was explained to him. I told him that his housekeeper, Marjory, was arrested, and that he must go with her. He made no complaint or demonstration of any kind, except when I regretted that his daughter was so ill that I could not take her too, when he gave me a glance so full of anguish that I half regretted having spoken the words. He quietly asked leave to go in and see his lassie, and to satisfy myself that the girl was really unable to go with us I accompanied him. The girl, by a kind of instinct, seemed to read the dreadful truth in our faces, and I thought she would have died before we got her and her father parted. Only one exclamation I thought strange—that was when she was clinging to him and raining her tears in his face, and cried bitterly—

“Oh, father, I’ve brought all this on you—I’ve brought it all on you, and I meant to save you!”

When the old man and his housekeeper were examined they had no declaration to emit—nothing to say. They had made it up between them, I suppose, to take refuge in stern silence, and perhaps on the whole the course was as wise a one for themselves as any they could have been directed to follow. Not an hour after they had been locked up, I got an urgent message from the invalid daughter to come and see her. How urgent it was may be judged from one expression in the message, which was, “Come to-night—to-morrow may be too late, for then I may be dead.”

I found her in a state of great prostration; but she roused up at the sight of my face, and was able to dismiss her attendant, in order that none might hear what passed between us.

“You can never know what I have suffered since you were first here,” she said with an earnestness fearful to behold. “I have sent for you to see if it is not possible to save my father. It is the real robber you wish to put in prison, is it not? My father is innocent, except that he was tempted, and that his love for me made him weak. Would it not be in his favour—would it not save him—if you were put in the way of taking the real criminal?”

“I cannot pledge my word that it would save him, but it would certainly go far to lighten his punishment,” I soothingly returned. “If he is really innocent it can do him nothing but good to reveal all you know. Nothing is more certain than that, as the case now stands, he will be convicted and probably severely punished.”

“I will trust all to you—I may not live to see it, but I will leave you to do what is best for my poor old father,” she said, weeping freely. “I only suspected something of the truth when you came here first and said there had been a robbery. I had noticed something strange about my father for a day or two, and when he told me that at last he was to get the money that was to take me abroad and make me strong, it was said in such a queer way, that I didn’t know whether to cry or be glad. I fretted over the horrid thought for a whole night, and then I spoke to him about it. I saw by his face that he had done it—that he had become a criminal for me. I was horrified, but could I be angry? It was his love for me—it was to save my life he had risked his whole life, and reputation, and immortality. Who could be angry at being so loved? Then he told me all he had done. The Arthurlies used to keep a man-servant, but he was put away for drunkenness and dishonesty. I have seen him once or twice. His name is David Denham. This man met father one day and asked for me, and was sorry to hear that father could not get the money to send me abroad. Then he said that he could get the money, and would get it if father would just lend him the keys of the Freelands for one night. Father would not hear of it at first, but the other kept tempting him, and saying how cruel it was of him to let his only daughter die, and at last he gave in. The keys were only out of his keeping for one night, and Denham knew where the keys of the safe were kept, and so got at the silver plate and carried it all off. It was sent to Glasgow to some one who had agreed to buy it, and Denham brought the money to father after dark. I could not bear to look at it or touch it. I seemed to see in it the thing that was to part me and my father for ever, instead of letting us spend eternity in heaven, with neither poverty nor suffering. I bundled it up and wrote the note which you would get with it. I felt so happy when it was gone, and I made Marjory send it in a way that would not give you a chance to find out the sender. But you did find it out, and I have done more harm than good. It would have been better for my poor father if I had had no conscience troubling me.”

I soothed and cheered her as well as I could, and then went after Denham. I found he had gone to Glasgow, and, by sending off a telegram, had him neatly nipped up at the station by Johnny Farrel. Denham was thoroughly taken by surprise, and in his amazement did a rash thing. He had had some disagreement with the fence about the plunder, and had gone through to settle that, but only to find himself nipped up at the station. What could be clearer? He had been betrayed by the swindling fence. Would it not be a fair retaliation to betray the fence in turn? He thought it would, and did so; which greatly rejoiced our hearts, for it enabled us to recover a deal of the plunder before it went into the melting-pot.