Part 14

The wretched young man declared that he had never before been guilty of a dishonest act. This was, he solemnly protested, his first offence. His whole career had been blasted by yielding to the one temptation. He also poured into the indifferent ear of his legal adviser the story of his wretchedness from the moment when he clutched his ill-gotten money. He had, he said, endured an agony of remorse. In wild excitement he had afterwards, until his arrest, obtained his only relief from the pangs of conscience. Several times he had resolved to throw himself upon the mercy of his late employer; but the savage sternness of that gentleman's character made him tremble on the threshold of that good resolution.

Mr. Shark saw at once, and almost admired, the ingenuity of the device adopted by the prosecution for throwing the loss of the money upon the bankers. He did not think it necessary to enlighten his client on this head, and allowed him to indulge the belief that Mr. Crapp's evidence contained an involuntary misstatement of fact. He did not, he said to himself, think it any part of his duty to interfere between the prosecutor and his bankers. The prisoner had scarcely any object to gain by the denial of the forgery; and he would assuredly get no one to believe him.

This criminal practitioner saw just one use he could make of his client's frank instructions. The threat of an explanation on the one hand, and the promise of silence on the other, might get a strong recommendation to mercy from the prosecutor.

Mr. Shark called upon Mr. Croak. What passed at the interview may be guessed at through the result. When at the trial Mr. Snayke repeated the speech of which I have given an outline, he added that the prosecutor, who had been convinced that this was the prisoner's first crime, and was anxious that he should have an opportunity of recovering his lost character, instructed his counsel to recommend him to the merciful consideration of the court.

The facts were proved, and something more than the facts were sworn to. The jury found the prisoner guilty. The judge, after giving, as he said, full effect to the generous recommendation of the prosecutor, sentenced the culprit to four years' penal servitude.

The bankers allowed Mr. Crapp the amount of the stolen cheque, which had been declared a forgery by the deliberate judgment of a criminal court.

* * * * *

About twelve months out of the four years of hard punishment allotted to the dishonest clerk had been served in patience and unrepining penitence. He had won the good opinion of warders, governor, and chaplain. He was granted such indulgences as were consistent with the discipline of his prison. He was not unlikely to get a ticket of leave as soon as one could be granted.

One evening, amid the calm thoughts which solitude engendered, there came a notion that he ought not to have allowed that error of Mr. Crapp's about his own autograph to have gone uncorrected. It was, he had always understood, desirable to tell the truth--if for no special or other reason, for the abstract interests of truth. And, for his own sake, was it not desirable to let the real facts be known? Why should he suffer under the odium of a deeper criminality than he had been guilty of? He determined to speak to the chaplain on the subject. He did so. The chaplain thought he was right in desiring to make these explanations. The reverend gentleman, in his simplicity, said he would write to Mr. Crapp and so endeavour to lighten the burden of that gentleman's prejudice, and perhaps get his signature to a memorial on his late clerk's behalf. The chaplain, in an accidental bit of wisdom, mentioned the story of the convict to the governor. The governor saw at once, or suspected there had been, an object in Mr. Crapp's evidence, although he hardly knew what it was. His brother-in-law, who was a solicitor, was then on a visit at his house for a couple of days. The whole story was repeated by the chaplain and governor to the lawyer. He traced the successful fraud in his imagination at once. The circumstances were accordingly mentioned to the proper authorities, who directed that the facts should be communicated to Messrs. Undertail, the bankers.

The head of the banking firm who had been so defrauded out of 50_l._ 4_s._ 1½_d._, consulted their solicitors, and was informed that under the new law of evidence the testimony of Thinshanks could be used in a prosecution against Mr. Crapp, which they recommended as an act of simple justice, and for the interests of the banking community. Mr. Undertail's partner was a truly generous man. He shrunk from the destruction of a respectable tradesman, and the firm was by this partner led to hesitate. Mr. Undertail consulted the solicitors again on the subject, and they still thought the firm were bound to prosecute.

There were some difficulties about the case. The evidence of the convict might be disbelieved. Mr. Snayke, or whoever might be Mr. Crapp's counsel for his defence, would assuredly argue that the convict had, in the solitude of his prison, invented this story, in order to gratify a revengeful feeling against the master who, although he had prosecuted him to conviction under a stress of duty, had recommended him to mercy. Yet there were some corroborating facts to be laid before the jury. Experts might testify that the signature was not a forgery. Mr. Crapp's hurry might be sworn to by the convict; his visit to the theatre, which caused it, might be proved. The motive of throwing the loss upon the bankers could be argued.

Second thoughts in a counting-house at Lombard Street ran in the same direction as in the solicitors' office. It was determined to prosecute Mr. Crapp, in the prospect of his conviction for the good of society.

Within a few hours of the formation of this opinion Mr. Crapp fled from his house, and as a living man was never again heard of. The body of a man resembling him was ten days afterwards washed ashore at Barking Creek.

I suspect that Mr. Undertail's partner was led by his excessive generosity to warn the wretch of his peril, that he fled in consequence, and that, dreading capture, shame, and punishment, he committed suicide by drowning.

Does the reader wish me to answer the question at the head of this narrative? He is welcome to my opinion, and at liberty to differ from it if it does not please him. I think Mr. Crapp was worse than his clerk; I think that Mr. Croak was a greater criminal than either; but I consider that the vilest knave of the lot was Mr. Snayke.

A GRAND RAILWAY "PLANT."

Does the reader know that all the money taken at a railway station is sent up to head-quarters every night? Such is the arrangement. The money is put into a box, constructed as well as may be to render peculation or robbery on the way difficult, if not impossible, and off it is sent. An "advice" is of course also sent by the station-master or cashier from the particular station to the head-office. The money for paying salaries and wages is also sent in a like manner in a reverse course from head-quarters to the tributaries from which it originally came. The chief station, terminus, or office, is in fact the centre of an arterial monetary system. Every thing in the form of cash comes in there and goes from there.

The mode of paying wages, or at least of conveying the wages from head-quarters, is this. In order to guard against robbery or fraud, a list of all the porters, engine-drivers, guards, and other servants who belong to or are allotted to each station for payment, is sent up to head-quarters. On a given day--say Friday or Saturday--this list is taken back to the station by a clerk from the cashier or secretary's office, who also takes with him the sum required to pay all these servants their wages. The clerk makes a journey from one end of the line to the other, depositing, as he goes along, a parcel of money packed up with the wages-list. These parcels are received from the hands of the clerk by some one who is always on the lookout at each place of deposit, with that eagerness or care men usually betray when they expect to obtain the reward of their industry. The arrival of the cash-bearer is always either known by fixed arrangement or by a special telegram which is sent down the line.

The reader is, I dare say, also quite unaware of the fact that, until a year or two ago, there existed a gang of the vilest scoundrels, who derived enormous gains by the systematic plunder of railway companies. Their modes of operation were as various as the devices of wicked ingenuity could possibly make them, and their ramifications were astonishing to the most practised detectives. Their subterfuges, plans, and arrangements furnished me with many a long and lucrative job; and very many cases, it is fair to suppose, went undiscovered, or even unsuspected. They brought actions for injuries never received, by persons who were never present at collisions or smashes; they made demands for lost parcels which, as an Irishman might be excused for saying, had never been lost; they stole passengers' luggage; they appropriated goods in course of transit; and they had other schemes of plunder. So widely ramified was their machinery, that in nearly every large station there would be a confederate ostensibly doing the company's work, receiving the company's pay, and ranked among the company's faithful servants. On every ninth or tenth train there was a guard who had a connexion, either as principal or agent, with the plunderers. At the head-quarters of many lines of railway throughout the kingdom--in the secretary's, chief cashier's, and manager's offices of several lines--they had their spies, informers, and associates.

The usefulness of these spies at head-quarters was enormous. Take the case of a pretended accident by way of an example. An action was once brought against a company having its chief station in the metropolis. The plaintiff asked damages or compensation for the injuries sustained through a collision. The company did not see its way to resist the claim entirely, but as they considered the amount wanted by the plaintiff to be excessive, they thought it could be reduced by negotiation. Two thousand pounds was the sum originally asked. The plaintiff, however, in the course of the negotiation, reduced his expectations to 1000_l._ This was, his attorney said, the very lowest he would accept. The company's solicitors reported this one day, and were authorised to settle by payment of 800_l._ and costs. The company's solicitors thereupon offered 700_l._ as their very highest figure. If this was declined, they must, they said, fight to the end, and see what a jury would give. It was of course their intention to spring 100_l._ at the last moment, rather than let the negotiation break down. The plaintiff's attorney, however, in reply to the offer of 700_l._, wrote back to say that he had seen his unfortunate client, who, in order to put an end to dispute and litigation, would take 800_l._, but not 1_s._ less; and added, that it was useless to negotiate further if that concession were not met at once by an assent. It did not appear, nor was it at all remarkable, that the negotiation should be thus conducted up to the very point at which the company's solicitors were empowered to settle; but the real cause of the plaintiff's agreement to accept 800_l._ was the information he had received that that sum was the most he could hope to get without passing through the ordeal of a public investigation--a test the gang would always yield much to avoid.

It happened, by a singularly fortuitous combination of circumstances, that I had under my vigilant eye at that time a man who was concerned in getting up a forgery. In the course of my watch I saw letters passing to and from the secretary's office of an important railway. It was no part of my business to report the circumstance. To have done so might have spoiled the game I was playing; so I took no notice, or rather made no sign. In less than a week after the delivery of the last letter, about six o'clock in the evening, my plot was ripe, and I seized my man. Extraordinary inadvertence, and wonderful care! He had destroyed one link in the chain I was constructing with his own unconscious aid, but he had preserved one link in another chain of equal value and utility to his other foes. On his person I found a note, in cipher it is true, but written on paper which had an impression of one of the company's seals.

The cipher was, moreover, not so very hard to decipher. A friend, to whose skill I paid a deserved compliment in my former volume, soon unravelled that mystery.

Would the reader like to guess what the letter contained? It was a transcript in cipher of the minute of the board in relation to that case of damage and compensation! A confederate of the gang, or at least one of its spies, actually held a confidential situation in the secretary's office, so near to the heart of the company's innermost secrets that he could copy the minutes from the book in which their resolutions were recorded. It was under this guidance the plaintiff instructed the attorney, employed by the gang for that action, to take his stand upon 800_l._ precisely, and it was through this infamous betrayal of the company's confidence that the plunderers got the money.

Of course I now handed the document over to the company. The money had, however, been paid. My prisoner was found guilty on another charge, so that it was not requisite to prosecute _him_ for the railway fraud. The clerk was also not prosecuted. He escaped that fate under the shelter of his respectable connexions. He solemnly assured the directors that he had not participated in the plunder, that the forger was not one of his regular associates, that he had learned the cipher, but as an amusement, playfully, and that he merely told him the effect of the board's resolution in order that he might induce his friend, the plaintiff (who he supposed had been indeed hurt), not to persist in his excessive demand. The directors believed, or affected to believe, this story. Perhaps they did not like it to transpire that fraud and villany had nestled in their head-quarters, and so near to the very centre of their administration. However that may have been, I know that they reprimanded, censured, and dismissed the clerk, and that they abstained from his prosecution.

When this young gentleman, who had copied the minute, was discharged, the company imagined no doubt that they had weeded out the fraudulent elements which tainted their confidence. How great their mistake was will now appear. The matter I am about to speak of occurred only about twelve months after the episode just narrated.

It so happened that, at the date of this grand "plant," a clerk attached to the chief cashier's office, whose duty it was to convey the wages down the main line, had arranged to take his annual month's holiday and to start on Friday--the day on which he had always delivered out the money.

"What is to be done about the wages, sir, this week?" the clerk inquired of the chief cashier.

"Oh, that's easily managed, Wilson," replied that gentleman; "you must pay on Thursday."

"Thank you, sir. But shall I telegraph to the stations and tell them we pay this week on Thursday?"

"That may be as well, Wilson," added the chief cashier.

Now, whether any message was handed to the telegraph-clerk by Wilson, or not, is a mystery yet unsolved. He says that he did so. The telegraph-clerk says he did not. Between these conflicting statements there hangs a painful suspicion to this day. It would seem only probable that the liar was a confederate of the gang, but that is not a certain inference. The written message may have been handed by Wilson to one of his fellow-clerks in the chief cashier's office, in a confusion or excitement resulting from his impending holiday; or it may have been inadvertently placed aside by the telegrapher, and one of his associates may have destroyed it in order to favour the criminal enterprise which its suppression (from whatever cause arising) did render possible.

The board of directors could not, and perhaps could not be reasonably expected to judge between the conflicting declarations of the two clerks, so they dismissed both from their situations, and thought they had done all which impartial justice and their duty to the shareholders required.

The only certain fact is a negative one. The telegraphic message was not sent. The wages were looked for, and looked for in vain, on the Friday.

Wilson, laden with a good round sum of money, went down the line on Thursday, as he had arranged with his chief. He went, as ill luck would have it, according to his promise in the telegram, by an afternoon express, and, as if the elements favoured the fraud, a heavy autumnal mist, nearly amounting to a fog, lasted during the whole of his journey; although I don't know that events would have taken any other form or colour if the day had been distinguished by sunshine.

As Wilson approached each station the train slackened speed, according to usage when he travelled by it on such an errand, and he put out his head from the carriage in which he enjoyed a separate compartment. As soon as it appeared he was greeted by a friend--or at least some one who knew his features very well.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Wilson. You're early this week. Never too soon to take money. Hope you'll enjoy your holiday, Mr. Wilson."

These sentences embody the pleasant wishes of his quondam friends, and with slight variations confirm the letter, as well as the substance, of all the greetings he received.

As each friend so greeted the clerk he took the money designed for a particular station, and in double quick time the train was again in motion.

In some cases the train didn't stop at all. The money was dropped out much in the way that mail bags are dropped; an attendant being on this Thursday, as on previous Fridays, in readiness to meet the expected boon.

At one station--it was a large station--a man, who was there patiently waiting to receive the cash from Mr. Wilson, was disappointed. An old acquaintance caught a glimpse of the cash-clerk as the train slackened speed.

After a moment's shaking of hands Wilson offered the station-clerk the money.

"Here it is," said Wilson.

"What?" inquired the other.

"The screw."

"It's only Thursday."

"Yes; I'm off to-morrow for my holiday."

"Oh! very well. It's just as welcome to-day as to-morrow, I dare say; but why didn't you say you were coming to-day? 'Pon my word, I wasn't looking out for you; and what an awful lark it would have been if you had had to take the money back to London!"

"I did telegraph on Monday."

"The d--l you did! The gaffer never told me any thing about it. It's just like him; but never mind, I'm mum about his carelessness. He's a good sort."

The train moved on again, and the expectant thief went empty away.

From another station the money was lost. That is to say, it reached neither the hands for which it was intended by the company's cashier, nor those who laid a plan to divert it into other channels. It went in a direction that neither party contemplated.

The train did not stop at this station, and a man was there to receive the money, but his movements had, he thought, been noticed. He was cautious--perhaps needlessly timid. He thought that as the train approached two faces were peering at him from the station-master's office. So he turned, went into the station, asked when the next down-train which stopped at that station would arrive, and sneaked away.

Wilson arrived at this station in due course, and saw what he took to be a man in waiting for him. Unluckily the wheels did not properly bite the rails, owing to the damp and their slipperyness, so that he had not sufficient time for observation, although the condition of the atmosphere rendered careful notice doubly requisite. Into the hands, as he supposed, of the official in waiting, the incautious (and I think I must, after all fair allowances, say very negligent) clerk dropped his packet, which lay there unnoticed until morning.

An old man and woman, passengers by the market train, then saw it, picked it up, took it home, said nothing, but inserted it in a hole up the cottage chimney for a long while; after which they informed the parson of the parish that an uncle of the husband's mother had sent this money to them. It was the amount of a legacy. The clergyman thought it remarkable that this money should be received abruptly, without his knowing a word about any previous correspondence with lawyers; but the parson was not a suspicious man, and he made no inquiries.

The sum, although not large (only about 53_l._), was very much more than the usual weekly apportionment to the station where it was dropped. The wages there were not more than 8_l._ per week. There was, however, a sum due from the company to a cattle-dealer, as compensation for the unpublished destruction of a part of his freight; and this was forwarded along with the wages to the station-master, with strict directions about the form of the receipt he was to take for it.

The clergyman advised that the money should be laid out under the guidance of Messrs. Seal and Delivery, highly respectable solicitors in the neighbouring town of H----. He gave an introduction to those gentlemen by a letter, which explained the matter as it had been explained to him; and this introduction, and his explanation, saved all inquiries as to the source of the funds, which they profitably invested for the childless couple, who will never enjoy a penny of it.

The two miscarriages I have mentioned were the only failures of the plan of the gang to capture one whole week's wages throughout the line of the Great ---- Railway Company.

Next day (Friday) Mr. Wilson went on his holiday trip to Paris. The company's servants were expecting him, as usual--except at the one station to which a misadventure had taken the money intended for its use. It is needless to say that no Mr. Wilson and no money reached either of these places from London, as expected. Until rather late in the afternoon, when the chief cashier's office was closed, and that exalted functionary and all his clerks had gone home, nothing was said about the affair. It had not indeed until then become very remarkable; but as soon as the fact became the subject of particular notice, it rose to the magnitude of a grievance, and threatened to become a scandal.

"We've had no money, and ain't likely to get none till to-morrow," said a porter at one of the extremest stations to the guard of an up-train.

"Oh, bosh; don't come that, you know. I sha'n't lend you another shilling in a hurry," retorted the guard, who had two days before lent that small amount to the friendly porter.

"'Pon my soul, we ain't," rejoined the porter; and he appealed to his fellow-servants for a corroboration, which they supplied.

"It will be all right to-morrow," said the guard. "I suppose the chief cashier has got a headache and hasn't been to the office, or Wilson has got the belly-ache, or some fine thing or other. Well, it's lucky for me my old woman isn't without a pound; so she can go to market, if we are as bad off at our station as you are here; and I suppose we're all in the same pickle."