The doctor came off; but poor Barney was stone-dead, while the skipper's skull was badly fractured. However, the paper was all there; so I supposed, and so it proved; and I shouldn't have cared if the skipper's head had been broken fifty times over.
We got our prisoners to the shore, leaving the craft in charge of a Thames police galley that came in answer to our signals; and late as it was, I drove with Peter Tilley in a cab to the City. Our people there were immensely glad, I can tell you; and when I went over to the Bank (for there was no need for secrecy or dodging now), I thought the gentlemen never would have left off paying me compliments. Poor Barney Wilkins that was dead deserved most credit; but it could not do him any good to say so now, so I let them go on. The paper was examined, and found to be exactly the quantity required; enough, I believe, to have made about twenty thousand bank-notes. Ah! if they had got into circulation!
I hope you will understand, however, that I did act fair and square; and when the reward was paid (and the Bank people did come down most liberal; I bought my house at Pentonville with my share), I told the gentlemen about poor Barney and his wishes; and I'm proud to say they found his sister out and took her away; and after a time she went abroad with kind people who looked after her, and took care of her money till she got married, and did well. Why, she sent me a snuff-box made out of pure Australian gold, with a letter signed by herself and her husband, who was a butcher in a great way of business out there; and they sent it as an acknowledgment of my having acted all fair and square. I promised so to do, and I did.
Edmund Byrle was never caught, and so far as we were concerned, was never heard of; and if it hadn't been for his father, I should never have understood a lot of things that puzzled me. I had given a pretty good guess as to how Miss Doyle came in the first place to inquire about Mr Byrle and the detective; a very clever idea in itself, but like many other clever things, it lost her the game. Mr Byrle had talked with his friends about employing detectives; and Miss Doyle knowing about the Bank paper, and being always on the watch, had got hold of just enough to mislead her. She went out with Edmund Byrle to Turkey, I think, and was married to him; and old Mr Byrle sent out a friend to see them; and it was in this way I got the particulars. It appears she knew me again—only as the limping labourer, of course—when she saw me talking at the ferry to Tilley. But she knew him as the detective at the Yarmouth Smack, and she thought that although it might be all right, yet a detective was a dangerous customer, and his acquaintances might be dangerous also. Consequently she tried to persuade Edmund to put off his journey; but he wanted the money for the paper, and wouldn't listen to her. But he agreed at last to go aboard in another boat, which satisfied her, as she felt so certain the skipper's boat would be attacked. As I have explained, her precaution saved him from fifteen years' 'penal,' which is the least he would have had. The skipper was sent for life, having killed a man in his arrest; but he didn't live six months in prison; he never got over the tremendous blow he received from Barney. All the reports spoke of his being a receiver of 'stolen goods.' The Bank paper was never mentioned, for the authorities did not want to unsettle the public again, or let them see what a narrow escape they had had.
And now comes about the queerest part of my story. Call me names if I didn't stop the thieving at Byrle's factory as well as recover the Bank paper, killing two birds with one stone.
It was all through my catching the bony ferryman. Finding that things was going hard with him, and hoping to make them easier, and being disappointed that those who were concerned with him did not come forward with money to provide for his defence, he 'rounded' on them; he split on them all, and owned how he was the means of taking the metal over to a fence on his side of the water, the things being stolen by a mechanic and a watchman who were in league. (I see I have used the word 'fence;' this means a receiver of stolen goods; but though I have been warned by the editor of this magazine, we can't do without some slang words.)
Peter Tilley got a tidy present, and was noted for promotion through this business. I was glad of it, for Peter was a capital chap—never wanted to play first-fiddle; and I admire people of that disposition. I tell you what I did: I got the newest five-pound note of all what the Bank gave me, and they were all very clean and crisp, and I wrapped old Bob the gatekeeper's own sixpence in it; and I went to the factory and I stood a pint of ale, and says: 'Bob, here's your sixpence!' He hadn't known exactly who I was till then, for I had made excuses as usual; and then I'm blessed if he didn't quite cry over his luck. Mr Byrle too thought a lot of Bob's kindness, for I told the old gent about it; and I heard that on that very account he put six shillings a week on Bob's wages, and I was glad to hear it.
They couldn't keep me off the detective staff after this; and although I am free to confess—now I am on my pension and nothing matters to me—that I only stumbled upon these discoveries by accident, I was praised to the skies by those for whom I worked. However, it all died away, as such things do; but I had managed to get my house at Pentonville, as I have hinted; and a pleasanter neighbourhood I don't know, or one more convenient for getting about. I have had some rather odd adventures since I have lived in my street; you can't help seeing strange things, if you keep your eyes open in London. But I didn't begin to tell about them. I have finished my account of the robberies at Byrle & Co.'s and my story finishes in consequence.