Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi

by Joseph Grimaldi

"Never mind that," said the officer. "You put yourself into my hands, and I'll be the saving of your property, and the taking of them."

Grimaldi burst into many expressions of admiration and gratitude, and put his hand into Mr. Trott's hands, as an earnest of his readiness to deposit himself there.

"Only rid us," said Grimaldi, "of these dreadful visitors, who really keep us in a state of perpetual misery, and anything you think proper to accept shall be cheerfully paid you."

The officer replied, with many moral observations on the duties of police-officers, their incorruptible honesty, their zeal, and rigid discharge of the functions reposed in them. If Mr. Grimaldi would do his duty to his country, and prosecute them to conviction, that was all he required.

To this, Grimaldi, not having any precise idea of the expense of a prosecution, readily assented, and the officer declared he should be sufficiently repaid by the pleasing consciousness of having done his duty. He did not consider it necessary to add, that a reward had been offered for the apprehension of the same offenders, payable on their conviction.

They walked back to the house together, and the officer having inspected it with the practised eye of an experienced person, declared himself thoroughly satisfied, and stated that if his injunctions were strictly attended to, he had no doubt his final operations would be completely successful.

"It will be necessary," said Trott, speaking with great pomp and grandeur, as the inmates assembled round him to hear his oration,—"it will be necessary to take every portable article out of the back kitchen, the parlour, and the bedroom, and to give me up the entire possession of this house for one night; at least until such time as I shall have laid my hand upon these here gentlemen."

It is needless to say that this proposition was agreed to, and that the females at once went about clearing the rooms as the officer had directed. At five o'clock in the afternoon he returned, and the keys of the house were delivered up to him. These arrangements having been made, the family departed to the theatre as usual, leaving Mr. Trott alone in the house; for the servant girl had been sent away to a neighbour's by his desire, whether from any feeling of delicacy on the part of Mr. Trott, (who was a married man,) or from any apprehension that she might impede his operations, we are not informed.

The officer remained alone in the house, taking care not to go near any of the windows until it was dark, when two of his colleagues, coming by appointment to the garden-door, were stealthily admitted into the house. Having carefully scrutinised the whole place, they disposed themselves in the following order. One man locked and bolted in the front kitchen, another locked and bolted himself in the sitting-room above stairs, and Mr. Trott, the presiding genius, in the front-parlour towards the street; the last-named gentleman having, before he retired into ambuscade, bolted and barred the back-door, and only locked the front one.

Here they remained for some time, solitary enough, no doubt, for there was not a light in the house, and each man being fastened in a room by himself was as much alone as if there had been no one else in the place. The time seemed unusually long; they listened intently, and were occasionally deceived for an instant by some noise in the street, but it soon subsided again, and all was silent as before.