“But suppose,” I asked, “a person said to you, ‘I’ve only got so-and-so in the house—you can have that’: would you be satisfied?”
“Satisfied?” he replied. “No, we knows jolly well what there is afore we comes; and, for the matter of that, there’s no time for talk. We goes straight for the swag, and if anyone tries to ’inder us, we’re bound to let ’im ’ave the jemmy right across the face. That’s ’ow poor Peace got ’imself into trouble fust.” He then went on to tell me that he had a lovely (!) little jemmy about eighteen inches long and tipped with the finest tempered steel, capable of being carried up the sleeve, and so fine that it could be inserted into the smallest crack or hinge; “And,” he added, “once let me get ’is nose in, and make no mistake, I walks in very soon arter.”
This gentleman’s testimony is worthy of consideration. He was associated, as he informed me, with the butler in a well-known burglary of plate somewhere in Kensington, and where the butler, being knave enough to rob his master, was fool enough to entrust a large portion of the proceeds to his confederate to melt down and divide. As I understood him, half only of this bargain was carried out in its integrity.
The secrecy with which foolish women fancy they put away their jewels in secure safes let into the wall is a labour lost in vain. Their hiding-place is thoroughly well known, and probably its value, and other useful particulars. That they have hitherto escaped is merely an accident of time and opportunity; that they will ultimately be victimized is a foregone conclusion. The moral to be gleaned from this is, to be sure of your servants, a fool being almost as dangerous as a knave, and to abstain from flashing your jewellery before eager eyes, only too ready for a clue to its whereabouts.
If after this disinterested advice unprotected women are fools enough to barricade themselves and their treasures in defenceless houses, they have only themselves to thank. They should be careful, however, not to waste their visitor’s time when confronted by his “bull’s-eye,” as burglars are proverbially children of impulse. Houses containing little or nothing of value are never burglariously entered. Men won’t risk penal servitude on a chance; the prize and its price have been carefully calculated.
CHAPTER XXVII.
“JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY.”
I had now been many months in hospital, though all the care and kindness I received seemed incapable of improving my condition. Strengthening medicines, stimulants, tonics, all failed to rouse me, and the tempting food, that I had only to suggest to have provided, could not induce me to eat. I was subjected to a minute medical examination, and my lung was found to be affected. Later on a further examination proved that the malady was slowly progressing. To remain in prison was certain death, so my case was submitted to the Home Secretary, who, with the humanity that has characterised his tenure of office, ordered my immediate discharge. I shall never forget the morning when an impulsive turnkey rushed into my room, and saying, “It’s come!” hurriedly disappeared, and I understood that her Majesty’s gracious pardon had arrived, and I was free.
The preliminaries for departure were somewhat long in my case, and it was nearly eleven o’clock before I bade adieu to gloomy Clerkenwell. I had, however, been by no means idle. The resumption of my clothing was a matter of time and difficulty; and though they had, by the kindness of the Governor, been considerably taken in to suit my diminished proportions (eighteen inches in the girth and seven stone in weight), retained a hang-down appearance in the vicinity of the neck and shoulders, that involved an immense expenditure of pins and ingenuity. The clothes of prisoners after admission into prison are, as a rule, subjected to a very necessary process. I do not know whether any discretionary power exists as to dispensing with the rule in certain cases, but it seemed incredible that mine should have undergone the usual formula without retaining a vestige of the fact. Clothes are, however, subjected to a process of modified cremation, and placed in airtight lockers, and smoked in a phosphoric preparation supposed to be antagonistic to the respiratory organs of creeping things. But the smell of fire had not passed over mine, and I can only suppose that the ceremony had been dispensed with as a graceful compliment to the executors of my deceased tailor, whose representative I last met at the “House of Detention.” My hat, too, had either considerably expanded, or my head had considerably contracted, for it necessitated at least a yard of brown paper between the brim and my cranium, before being padded to wearable dimensions.
As I passed through the office, I caught the first glimpse of myself in a respectably-sized looking-glass, and could hardly believe that the scarecrow I saw was really myself. But what mattered it if I had half a lung more or less than of yore?—I was free! I was not going to die in prison, and contribute in my person an additional item to the dead-house inventory board.
With what different sensations did I again find myself in the office which I had not entered since my arrival some months before. It seemed as if all the formula would never be completed, and I would almost have foregone the handsome donation of ten shillings I had earned for laming malefactors to have got out a moment earlier. But business is business, and the labourer is worthy of his hire, and in a few moments I had received a rare gold coin (at least so it appeared to me at the time), known as half-a-sovereign. The warder that had accompanied me from the hospital now sent for a cab, and as I drove through the ponderous gate a load appeared to fall off my mind, and though shattered in health, as I breathed the free air of a London fog, my lungs began to expand as they had not done for months.