Traced and Tracked; Or, Memoirs of a City Detective

by James M'Govan

The actual perpetrator of the robbery had really been the swell-mobsman, Micky having had no hand in it but the resetting of some of the things; but some of the evidence appeared to implicate him, and he was found guilty, and sentenced to the same term as his companion in the dock—seven years’ penal. Corny, of course, had been released as soon as we got Bess to make a clean breast of it, and he appeared as a witness at the trial, and got some handsome commendations from the presiding judge. His case attracted some attention, and a gentleman willing to help the old porter came to me for advice in the matter, to make sure that the case was a deserving one. The result was that Corny’s lot was made more easy; and when his son was released, they were all helped out of the country by the same generous hand, Pat proving one of the exceptions to the rule, “Once a thief, always a thief.”

A BIT OF TOBACCO PIPE.

Criminals vary in character and degree of guilt as much as the leaves of the forest do in form and colour, but there is always a large number whom no one of experience ever expects to reform. They are the descendants of generations of thieves; they have known nothing else from babyhood, and will know nothing else till they are shovelled into the earth. It would be far cheaper to the country to keep them in perpetual imprisonment, but so many objections can be raised to such a scheme that I question if it will ever become law.

To this class belonged Peter Boggin, otherwise known as “Shorty.” He had received this name not so much on account of his height, which was medium, as on account of his temper, which was of the shortest. I question, indeed, if Shorty would ever have been in prison at all but for his temper.

Shorty’s boon companion and working pal was a quiet, lumpish-looking fellow named Phineas O’Connor. Phineas, when his tongue was loosened by drink, was wont to assert that he was descended from the Irish Kings, and therefore had been derisively dubbed “The Fin.” He was a still man, rather sullen, and not lacking in deadly ingenuity, as will appear before I have done.

Among the many schemes proposed or tried by Shorty and The Fin was one for entering a big house in the New Town, occupied by a fashionable family much given to receiving company. The Fin had noted this circumstance, and had also ascertained beyond a doubt that the family were really, and not apparently, wealthy. By following the line of houses with his eye to one of the common streets of Stockbridge, close by, The Fin then decided that to enter the upper part of the major’s house would not be difficult. The place was marked and watched for some time before the opportunity occurred, as no intimation of his intention regarding parties was ever sent by the major to either Shorty or The Fin.

One evening, when the season was at its height, and the nights conveniently long and dark, the two, when taking their customary stroll for inspection, found the house lighted from top to bottom, and the longed-for party in full swing. The usual dinner hour they knew was six o’clock, and, as that hour was approaching, Shorty set out for a tour of inspection in the next street, while The Fin patiently waited for the dinner gong to sound.

The first warning had been given by the gong when Shorty returned and reported the road clear, and the two took their way to the next street, where they ascended a common stair, and by standing on the railing at the top managed to reach the hatch leading to the roof, by Shorty climbing up on The Fin’s shoulders and then pulling his helper up as soon as he had forced the hatch and reached the low den between that and the slates. There was another hatch yet to force—that which led out on to the slates—and to reach that the two had to crawl along in a stooping position, carefully feeling with their feet for the cross beams lest they should suddenly plunge through the lath and plaster into the room below. In crawling along thus they felt and passed the water cistern which supplied the whole tenement beneath them, which stood as close in under the slope of the roof as its height would admit of. Getting open the upper hatch proved no difficult task, and then they tossed up who should get out and make his way along the housetops to the major’s house.

The lot fell to Shorty, and he got out and patiently worked his way along the slates and over ranges of chimney cans to the more aristocratic street hard by. When he reached the attic windows of the major’s house he looked at his watch and decided that the whole household and all the guests must then be busy downstairs, the dinner in full swing, and the servants too excited and flurried to think of coming near the bedrooms or upper flats. One of the attics, presumably occupied by the servants, had its window open, and Shorty had merely to raise the sash a little higher to pass within and have the free range of the whole of the house but the area and first flat.

An experienced man, Shorty did not hurry with the task. He went over the trunks of the servants first, but found nothing worth lifting but a small gold brooch and a silver ring. The ring was not worth two shillings, and Shorty was at one moment inclined to toss it back into the box, but he changed his mind and took it with him. He should have left it. Leaving the servants’ room, with many an inward imprecation on them for keeping bank books instead of money in their boxes, Shorty softly ranged through all the other rooms and bedrooms within his reach, and soon had quite a respectable pile of plunder gathered into his capacious coloured cotton handkerchief. He took nothing but articles of jewellery and the contents of two ladies’ purses, which he found in one of the bedrooms; and among the articles there chanced to be a very heavy gold chain—either a bailie’s or a provost’s chain of office. Although the haul was a fair one, Shorty was dissatisfied, for he had expected to get something out of the plate chest in the tablemaid’s room. He found the room and the chest in it conveniently open, but inconveniently empty. All the plate was on the dinner table, or downstairs ready to be placed there, and Shorty, forgetting that he owed his ease and success to the dinner and guests, was ungrateful enough to curse both. Even thieves are never content.