“Stiff! naw; but the other stiff was the genuine article, and the old man driv off after it in great shape, as happy as a clam, yes, sir.”
“Did they ever find out who smuggled the goods?”
“No; but they never tried that trick on again, that I know of.”
Here I noticed a detective sauntering up and down the platform.
“Well, John,” said I, “what’s on to-night, anything up?”
“Just wait a while and you’ll see,” with that wise and knowing air which only a detective can assume. At that moment the headlight of the locomotive drawing the train from Hamilton appeared at the west end of the station, and the detective suddenly became very alert. He stood midway on the platform, and as the train came to a standstill and the passengers came pouring out he scanned the features of every one who stepped upon the platform. Suddenly he made a swift little movement, dived through the crowd, dodged round a kissing and hand-shaking group and
LAID HIS HAND ON THE SHOULDER
of a middle-aged man, accompanied by a young woman. I was quite close by, and couldn’t hear what was whispered in his ear, but the change that came over that man’s face was something terrible to see. He turned white, then red, and finally a greenish yellow shade settled on his wild and drawn face. Like a boy caught stealing apples he whined, “let me go, let me go; oh, for God’s sake let me go.” He shook like a man with ague, and he would have fallen only the detective’s firm hand sustained him. The girl by his side was, as far as outward appearance was concerned the most self-possessed of the two, but her startled eyes and pale face told that she, too, was suffering. A curious crowd had gathered round, from which the detective skilfully extricated them, and then the trio made their way to the Central station. They were searched, and a large quantity of money found on both of them, but the girl was allowed to go to an hotel, while the man, weeping like a baby, was taken down into the cells. He went down like a drunken man, stunned, helpless, miserable. The story may be interesting. He was a country storekeeper, influential, respected, trusted. He was a Sunday school teacher, he led at prayer-meeting, he was a delegate to conference, he was grand patriarch of a temperance lodge, he conducted family prayer in his house morning and evening, in fact he was looked up to as a model man. He had a wife and six children. The former was sickly. He engaged a girl young and inexperienced in the world to assist his wife in household work. She attended his bible class and looked up to him as
A SUPERIOR BEING.
He wasn’t a bad man as the world goes, but he was not a strong man morally. He and the girl made a mistake, he, because he was morally weak—she because she believed that he could do nothing wrong. From that hour he began his downward career. He borrowed, embezzled and even stole money, and one afternoon by a preconcerted plan the pair took the train for Toronto. Deluded wretch, swift as went the train bearing him away, he thought forever, from the scene of his misdeeds, a tiny wire string along the track bore a message swift as thought past him. So swift indeed, that a detective had time to go home, eat a quiet supper, and walk leisurely down to the Union station and smoke a good cigar on the platform while waiting for the victims that were sure to come. And all this time the pair were sitting in the railway carriage planning schemes for the future, and never dreaming of what was before them. The man was sent back to his own county for trial, and the girl’s father came down a few days afterwards and took her home.