In September 1850, Mr M——o, solicitor in Regent Terrace, had his bank account in the National Bank operated upon by a forged cheque to the extent of £195. So far as I remember, the forgery was not discovered at the time: nor did the startling intelligence come to him singly—at least it did not remain long single, for there was a crop of minor fabrications that started up like lesser evils round a great one. The forger, whoever he might be, had begun in a small way, as these abnormals generally do—boggling at the first step, then another as the terror waned and the confidence increased, then another and another, till primed for the great leap at length taken. The small cheque-books often kept by gentlemen in the names of their children with the Savings Bank, for the purpose of inducing habits of care and economy, were forged to the effect of abstracting such accumulations of the little daughters as £3 10s., and thereby—small sums and small sufferers—and then came the great feat on the great victim. How true a history of the progress of vice—the sliding scale of crime; fear leading passion to prey upon the weak and helpless, and passion throwing off fear, to rush headlong upon the strong!
At first there was a great obscurity as to the depredator. It was with a recoil that Mr M——o thought of his clerks, until suspicion began to be raised by the fact of the absence from the office of one of them, of the name of William L—— O——, who (as usual) seemed to be the very last on whom the mind of a confiding master could fix as the author of an act so treacherous, heartless, and cruel. The determination was at length come to, that he should be secured, and the charge of doing so was committed to me. I got my description, and how true it is that almost every case of the kind presents marks of personal aspect the very reverse of those we would expect; nay, I would say that, with the exception of a side look, expressive of fear, there is nothing about the face of a criminal that would imply either one thing or another as to the existence of tendencies towards even the greater crimes. Hence the common expressions, “Who would have supposed it?” “He was so unlike it,” and so forth; all perfectly true. I have seen a devil with the meek face of an infant not less often than I have witnessed the softness and smoothness of infancy overlying nerves of steel leading to powder-pouches of fury and revenge. So be it; but I would not give a very long or very decided squint for all your fanciful expressions of this devilry or t’other; and so in this case. I had enough of marks; but I soon learned that I was now, or later, sure of my man, for I ascertained that, like most other novices, he had taken to drink, to keep up his nerve and down his shame—a resource which throws a sought-for personage into my hands the quickest of any. He had changed his lodgings, and for a time I could only find traces of his fiery passage through taverns, as he flew, sometimes trembling with drink and horror, from one to another, seeking from a fiend, whose gift is delirium, that peace which can only be got from one who behind a rough providence hides a smiling face. His friends, who knew nothing of the charge against him, told me that he had gone with the quickness of a shot into this wild life, and that they considered him mad. I knew otherwise. I deemed that his disease was not remorse, though all such fits are placed to the account of that mysterious power; he was simply under the despair of terror, and as the impulse of fear is the quickest of all passions to take the wind out of a man, I had no doubt I would overtake him between the fiend’s temple and the suicide’s death-bed.
Nor was my expectation long delayed. The search among the lodgings was difficult; he must have changed in lucid intervals, for he cleared away so effectually all behind him, that no one could tell me where he now lived. But at length I discovered his retreat. Placing a couple of constables at the foot of the stair for fear of a window-drop, I ascended to his room, at the door of which I placed my assistant. It was not a case for premonition by knocking, so I opened the door, which was merely on the lock-catch, and behold my sporter of the little Savings-Bank portions! He was sitting at a table, with a glass and bottle before him; but I could mark from the state of the bottle that his potations at this time had only commenced; nor was I blind to the conviction that the drink-fever was still careering through his veins; the old signs so familiar to me—the trembling hands—the flush—the tumid swellings at the top of the cheeks—the hare-brained eye, with its lightnings of fear.
I doubt if he knew who I was, but he needed no personal knowledge of me to quicken an apprehension that responded, no doubt, to every movement, even to that of a mouse. The first look of me bound him to the easy-chair,—not made for terror-ridden criminals these rests,—to which he fixed himself by hands grasping the soft cushioned arms; his mouth gaped quite open, so that I could even see his parched tongue, as it quivered like a touched jelly-fish, and his eye shot like a fox’s when the hounds rush on him with their yell. I am not exaggerating—I doubt if any one can in such a case; at least all language appears to fall far short in depicting the real state of a man in this young offender’s position. Even the best describers in such cases are only botchers. We see only physical conditions,—mere palpable signs given in the flesh; nor know aught of the spirit, with its agonising recollections of home,—father, sisters, brothers,—hopes once entertained of a successful future to shed happiness upon them,—all blasted and destroyed, and the only contrast a jail and ignominy.
Yet amidst all this I had a calm part to play.
“You are Mr William L—— O——?”
“Yes.”
“You were clerk to Mr M——o, of the Regent Terrace?”
As I uttered the words, I saw in an instant a change come over him, of a kind I have often noticed in people merely nervous from temperament and not drink. He clasped the arms of the chair more firmly, his trembling ceased as if in an instant, and his eye became steady. Yes, the energy of the instinct of self-preservation shot up through the drink-fever, confirmed his nerves, and prepared him for an onset. I have seen fear run into firmness like the congelations of a liquid metal; but such appearances, which I have learned to understand, never in any case shook my suspicions.
“Yes,” replied he; “and what then?”