“Our supper was brought, and was progressing finely; we had each taken a glass of champagne, and possibly two glasses, and, as the servant came into the room bringing something I had ordered, he was followed by the head of the firm and the man in blue. Johnson was arrested for theft, and his sister for being an accessory to the theft. Both turned pale; the young lady fainted, so that we had to dash water in her face—seriously injuring the elegant dress she wore. Johnson stoutly denied his guilt. He was taken from the room before his sister recovered. When she came to her senses, we told a pardonable falsehood, and said that he had confessed everything. She supposed our statement true, and then acknowledged that she had first urged her brother to the commission of the theft, in order to gratify her love for finery. With an eye to economy, she had always induced him, when stealing on her account, to take enough to pay for making up the material, so that she would not be subject to any expense at the dress-maker’s.
A CONFESSION.
“Johnson maintained his innocence until his sister told him that she had made a confession. Then he acknowledged his guilt, and explained how the robberies had been carried on.
“He had managed to ingratiate himself with the porter who swept out the place after the day’s work was over. During the day he would fold the silk he intended to steal into a bundle that might resemble a lot of waste paper, watch his chance, and throw it in a place just large enough to receive it, under a shelf, a few inches above the floor. When the porter swept the store, he brought out the package with his broom, taking care to have a sufficient quantity of waste paper and rubbish lying near to prevent attracting attention to the package. In this way he would get it outside, and take it to his home, where Johnson would call for it. The porter received something for his efforts in the cause of dishonesty, and the stolen property would be taken to Laura’s house, whence it would go either to the dress-maker or to a receiver of stolen goods.
“The porter was arrested an hour later, and both he and Johnson received the punishment due to them for their crime. As for the girl who was the cause of the theft, she was allowed to escape, on condition of leaving the city immediately. The firm would have prosecuted her, had it not been for my intercession. I liked the girl, and was ashamed of the trick I had played upon her; but then, you know, it was in the interest of justice, and a man ought to be willing to do anything for the sake of honesty.
“It is a little off color to make love to a girl, and pretend you want to marry her, just for the sake of entrapping her into the disclosure of a crime; but this is the way of the world, and anybody who thinks differently does not know the whole duty of the detective. Why, I have been to a fellow whom I suspected, and told him that his wife and children had been killed by a railway accident, and got him worked up to a terrible condition of anguish. I did it just to throw him off his guard, make him a little crazy perhaps, and then, while he did not know what he was about, I would accuse him of a crime, and get him to own up.
“If a man is going to be a good detective, he must not go frescoing around with anything like fine feelings. If he does not go in for all the tricks of the business, he is not likely to succeed in his profession.”