Part 14

Bet fought valiantly with the temptation till Mrs Colbrun was actually crossing the lobby to re-enter the room, when the old thieving nature struggled uppermost, and Bet, with one swift movement of her hand, had possessed herself of a bunch of the notes, and concealed them with magical celerity about her person.

The remainder of her stay in the house was torture to Bet, not only on account of the fear of discovery, but because she had a conscience, and could not disguise even to herself the dastardly act she had committed in robbing a benefactor.

They got away at last, but Bet was nearly an hour at home before she ventured to bring out the notes, which she did with a shaking hand, telling Mary they were for her marriage outfit, which she had better go and purchase forthwith.

Perhaps it was the tone in which the strange request was made, or the guilty look which accompanied the offer of the money, or possibly sheer astonishment at Bet possessing such a sum, that roused Mary’s suspicions; but she had scarcely taken the notes and counted them when a chill thought fell on her heart.

“Where did you get so much money, mother dear?” she tremulously asked. “Did Mrs Colbrun give it you?”

“No, no! ask no questions, but away you go and spend it to the best advantage,” hurriedly responded Bet, in a strange voice.

Mary stared at her for a minute, then began to tremble violently, and finally sat down with the notes in her hand, and burst into tears. Thoroughly alarmed, Bet sprang up and tried to soothe the young girl, but the first words which Mary could articulate stabbed her through.

“Mother, dear,” she cried, clasping the guilty woman in her arms, and trying in vain to get a clear look into the shrinking eyes, “tell me true and plain. There was a drawer in Mrs Colbrun’s room with a pile of bank notes in it. I saw them. You didn’t—oh, mother! forgive me for the horrible thought!—but say you didn’t take them—steal them—from Mrs Colbrun.”

“I didn’t” was shaped on Bet’s lips, but the words stuck in her throat, and the guilty look on her face, and her abashed attitude as she shrank before the accusing eyes gave the lie to the husky response.

“Oh, mother, how could you?—you have ruined us!” was all Mary could utter, but after an agonised pause she sprang up with startling energy, and said—

“I must take them back! I shall never allow her to be robbed!”

“And send me to prison for ten or twenty years?” cried Bet in reproach. “No; rather throw them into the fire. That will hide all.”

“I shall not! Mother, you are mad—you are not in your senses to propose such a thing. It would be robbery just the same, whether we use the notes or not, if we do not restore them. I shall take them back, but try to give them in a way that will not criminate you. Yes, whatever happens, you must be safe.”

Mary hurried on her things and left the house, amid the feeble protests of Bet. She had not been out of the place many minutes when I knocked at the door and entered. Mrs Colbrun had missed the notes immediately on the departure of Bet and Mary, and, shocked and indignant, had brought word to the Central. It needed but a word or two regarding Bet’s past life to convince me that she was the thief, and I took the address and went there direct. Bet, however, was bold as brass, and denied all knowledge of the notes, and officiously assisted me to search the house for them. I left her at last baffled, but not convinced, and made my way to Mrs Colbrun’s for consultation and advice. It was nearly dark when I reached the place, which was at the outskirts of the city, and on a very dark and badly-lighted road. As I approached the place I fancied that I saw a skulking figure cross the road and move round towards the back of the house. It was Mary, who had loitered about vainly trying to think of some mode of restoring the notes which should not re-act upon her benefactor, Bet. At length she had conceived the project of getting round to the back, raising the window of Mrs Colbrun’s room, and tossing the notes into some corner. Quite ignorant of these facts, I followed the figure; saw the dark window stealthily approached, and then was witness to an attempt to force up the window, which chanced to be fastened on the inside. When this had continued for a short time I slipped rapidly up behind, and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. She uttered a scream of terror, and instantly dropped the bunch of notes, which I as quickly picked up. I took her round to the front door, and introduced her to Mrs Colbrun, who besought me, as I have seldom been pleaded with, to let poor Mary go, “and say no more about it.”

That was quite beyond my power, and Mary—who had not a word to say in her defence, and even faintly admitted the identity of the stolen notes—was taken away and locked up.

No sooner did Bet hear of the capture than she appeared in a frenzied state at the office, tearing her hair and altogether conducting herself like a maniac, and loudly declared that she and not Mary was the thief. I had known so many cases in which a mother sacrificed all, even her reputation, to save her offspring from prison, that I felt certain this was but another instance of the kind, and we paid little attention to Bet’s story.

The same day Mary’s affianced appeared at the office, and was allowed to see the prisoner, when he besought her in the most piteous accents to declare the truth and save her name, but to all this Mary would say nothing. At the trial she was informed that her sentence would be lighter if she pled guilty, and “Guilty” she pled accordingly.

Her sentence was one month’s imprisonment, but the moment it was pronounced she turned to her affianced, who had been seated behind her, and whispered with a face positively radiant—

“Now, I may speak, Herbert. Yes, I am innocent.”

Strenuous efforts were immediately made to quash the conviction and have Mary released, but the law gives forth no uncertain sound on the point, and Mary served the full month like an ordinary malefactor.

When the position was explained to me by her lover, I said to him—

“Stick by her. She is a noble girl. Marry her when she comes out; for, when she could sacrifice so much from love of her mother, what would she not sacrifice for her husband!”

He thought the advice good enough to act on, and I believe has never regretted his choice.

M^cSWEENY AND THE MAGIC JEWELS.

A kick from a brute having iron toe-plates on his boots had placed me on the sick, or rather the lame, list, and so the scientific gentleman, with his strange story of robbery, was referred to M^cSweeny. The gentleman, who was well known as an author and student, and whom I may here name Mr Hew Stafford, insisted that none but the very cleverest and most acute detective on the staff could properly follow and understand the almost supernatural events connected with the robbery of the jewels, and as my chum’s opinion has always been that he answers to that description, and every one else was busy, he was allowed to take the case in hand.

“I’m Detective M^cSweeny, at your service, sur,” he said, bowing stiffly, as the old gentleman blinked at him through his spectacles. “I daresay you’ll have read my experiences? They are published in books, and that’s how some call me the great M^cSweeny.”

“No, I have not had that pleasure,” politely responded Mr Stafford. “I never heard the name before.”

“Ah, I know how that is,” returned M^cSweeny, with alacrity. “It’s because a kind of assistant of mine puts his name to the books. Ye see, sur, I’m troubled wid a kind of stiffness in me right hand, and writin’s bothersome to me, so I let him do it. His name’s M^cGovan, and he gets all the praise and all the money for the books, which I wouldn’t mind at all, at all, if he didn’t try to make me look as small as possible. If ye believe him, I can’t do a dacent job without him. For a story-teller, I’ll back him agin all the world.”

“Yes, I think I have heard his name, but I never look at that kind of literature,” wearily answered Mr Stafford.

“An’, good for you, sur; for the lies that’s in it—especially about me—no wan knows better than meself; but it’s no use me saying anything, for paiple believe every word he writes. He drives his own carriage, while I’ve to walk on futt. Never moind! I’ve the pull on him in cleverness. Give me your difficult job, and see if I don’t run down the thafe better than a dozen M^cGovans rolled into wan.”

“I understand—you mean that he is but a lame detective?”

“He is that,” said M^cSweeny, with a twinkle in his eye, as he thought of the kick which had laid me up. “If there’s a lame detective annywhere in the world this minit, it’s him.”

“Then I am delighted to have met you instead,” exclaimed the innocent Mr Stafford, “for of all the mysteries that ever were brought here to unravel, none could be more incomprehensible than the robbery which has brought me here. You can understand how valuables might go where there are hands to take them,—servants or professional thieves,—but for jewels to vanish before one’s eyes in a locked room, with windows fastened, and not a living creature near, seems as nearly impossible as anything I can imagine, yet that is exactly the case which I have brought to you.”

“Nothing at all—nothing at all to us,” said M^cSweeny, with the most unbounded confidence in himself. “Just go over the whole story, and I’ll soon put it all to rights.”

“Well, I am, as you probably know, a bachelor, and live out at Newington in a self-contained house of my own. My servants are a housekeeper, a kitchen-maid, and good-for-nothing page—a boy of thirteen, who eats his own weight of food every day, and torments the life out of me generally. I must tell you at once, however, that it is quite impossible that any of these three servants can be the thief.”

M^cSweeny smiled knowingly to himself, but made no remark. He had already decided that the good-for-nothing page-boy was the thief.

“You will understand how it is impossible that the servants could be involved, when you learn the circumstances,” pursued Mr Stafford. “A young relative of mine is getting married, and, as I am not exactly a poor man, I decided upon giving her a handsome present. I said nothing about my intention to anyone, but went to the bank and drew £200.”

“£200,” said M^cSweeny, gravely noting down the facts, with a severe official frown on his brow, in imitation of some peculiarity of my own.

“With that money in my pocket I went over to Princes Street, and bought, in a first-class jeweller’s, a necklace, brooch, and ear-rings. They were set with diamonds and pearls, and, I believe, full value for the money I paid for them, which was only a pound or two less than I had drawn from the bank. They were very pretty trinkets, and, though no admirer of such things generally, I could not help looking more than once at these. I mention these facts just to let you understand that they were _bona-fide_ jewels, paid for at the highest price, and bought from a man above suspicion, and no trick affairs made up in some magic way to deceive the eyes or fingers, and then vanish into gas or air before one’s eyes. After I had paid for the jewels they were put into a small casket covered with morocco and lined with velvet, and this casket, wrapped in paper, was placed in my own hands, and carried by me to my own home. I still said nothing of my purchase to anyone. The page-boy was in the hall as I entered, but the casket was at that moment in my coat pocket, and he could not possibly have guessed that I carried anything uncommon. I left my hat, and umbrella, and boots in the hall, and went straight up to my study. This room is always closed with a check-lock, and no one can enter it during my absence. There is no furniture in the room which could screen any person from sight. When you enter the room you see at a glance all that is in it—my book-case, my writing-table, and a sofa and four chairs. There is a fire and fire-place, of course, but no one could conceal himself there, as the grate is a small register one, and the fire was blazing up when the magical disappearance took place. I always light the fire and trim it myself, and the page never gets further than the outside of the door when he fills and brings up the coal scuttle. The floor is covered with one piece of wax-cloth, so there are no crevices or holes into which any small trinket could drop or roll. You are following me clearly, I hope?”

“Yes, sur—as clear as day,” answered M^cSweeny, with rather less confidence in his tones.

“Well, on entering the room, I knocked up the fire, put on fresh coals, and then seated myself before my writing-table, directly in front of the fire. I took out the casket of jewels and placed it on the table before me. The door, you will remember, was shut, and cannot be opened from the outside except by me, who carry the only key. I could see all the room, and both door and window, and am certain no human being but myself was in that room. I thought I should like to have another look at the trinkets, and opened the casket and laid them out, one by one, on the writing-table before me. I felt them—touched them—turned them over, and in every possible manner was convinced that they were exactly as I had received them from the maker. Now listen. After I had admired them for some little time, I replaced them in the case, which was fitted with grooves to hold them. I did not close the case, but began to reflect on the possible weal or woe which might await the young girl who was to receive them. While thus reflecting, my eyes left the table for a few minutes, and rested on the window and the distant green hills and clear sky. I was in what is called a brown study for perhaps five minutes. When I awoke from that reverie, and brought my eyes back to the table, the jewels were gone!”

“Gone?” echoed M^cSweeny, incredulously.

“Yes, gone—casket, and necklace, and brooch, and ear-rings had vanished bodily, leaving not a trace of their existence before me on the mahogany table.”

“You’d drapped them on the flure, mebbe?” suggested M^cSweeny, whose hair was beginning to rise on end.

“Not at all, though, like you, I thought at first that that was possible,” calmly continued Mr Stafford. “I looked at my feet, over the table, under the table, and into every drawer and cranny about the table. I did not find them. I tried the door; it was firmly closed. The window the same. I felt every pocket. All in vain. The jewels and the case were gone.”

“Ay, but how? There must have been some greedy fingers to take them,” said M^cSweeny, who seemed to instinctively guess the suggestion that was coming.

“Perhaps not,” said the old gentleman, as calmly; “a spirit hath not flesh or bones. Did you never hear of evil spirits?”

M^cSweeny almost jumped to his feet, and fumbled apprehensively with his red scalp.

“Faith have I,” he answered, with a shudder, thinking probably of the “Spirit Rappers” described in “Strange Clues.” “If it’s a good healthy ghost of the owld-fashioned kind your going to mintion, it’s all right, but your table-rapping ones I’ll have nothing to do with.”

“I don’t profess to say what kind of spirit took them,” solemnly replied Mr Stafford, “but it must have been a covetous spirit. I’ve told you all I know of the affair. The jewels are gone, and that’s exactly how they vanished. I could not ask the servants about them, for they never saw them, and were not near me at the time. I don’t feel inclined to lose them, yet I am certain that no human hand took them.”

“Rats, mebbe?” hopefully suggested M^cSweeny.

“No; there is not a hole in the room.”

“A jackdaw then—it might have come down the chimney.”

“Impossible. I must have heard it, and seen it. No; the jewels disappeared right under my nose, without a sound. I leave you to solve the mystery and recover the property.”

M^cSweeny had asked for a difficult case, and now that he had got one he was bound to express himself highly elated at the apparently unsolvable mystery. He volubly promised the robbed gentleman not only that he would speedily lay the thief by the heels, but that, spirit or no spirit, he would recover the property as well. His inward resolve, of course, was that if he found himself making no progress with the case, he would shove the finishing of it on me, while, if by some rare stroke of good luck he did succeed, the greater renown would attach to his efforts on account of his emphatic declarations. Full of these assurances, he accompanied Mr Stafford out to that gentleman’s house at the South Side, and was taken up to the room in which the jewels had so magically disappeared. He got Mr Stafford to sit down in the exact spot and attitude he had occupied when the robbery took place. When this had been done, and every part of the room examined, M^cSweeny was more puzzled than ever. His reason told him most emphatically that the valuables could not have gone without hands, and yet he could not suggest even to himself how fingers could have got at them. There was not a crevice in the room—the house was a modern one, and therefore could not have any invisible stairs, doors, or passages in the walls; and even if these had existed, he could not conceive it possible for anyone to enter the room and remove the jewels before the owner’s eyes, and he sitting there wide awake, looking straight before him. However, he had promised great things, and by his confident looks, and winks, and nods hinted at greater, so all he could now do was to take refuge in a little boldness. In entering the house he had got his eye on the page-boy, who was in the act of stuffing something out of sight into one of his pockets. As M^cSweeny reached the boy’s side a whiff of the page’s breath ascended to his nostrils, and seemed to point to the cause of the hurried act of concealment.

“Tobacco, the young spalpeen!” was M^cSweeny’s mental exclamation. “The boy that can smoke is fit for anything. Just wait a minit, my jewel, and I’ll frighten the very sowl out of ye.”

Having inspected Mr Stafford’s study, and made nothing of the work, M^cSweeny had no difficulty in working himself up into a fit of rage against the page.

“Just ring the bell, plase, for that boy in the tight jacket and buttons,” he said to Mr Stafford when they had returned to the sitting-room. The bell was rung, and the page appeared, when M^cSweeny grandly requested to be left alone with the quaking boy. Mr Stafford accordingly withdrew, when M^cSweeny elaborately took from his pocket first a note-book and pencil, and then a pair of handcuffs, which he clanked noisily down on the table before the boy’s eyes.

“Now, you boy—your name?” he sternly began.

“William Lister, sir,” said the page, visibly alarmed.

“Well, William, I’m the great detective M^cSweeny, and I’ve come here on a great case. You know what I can do to you, I suppose?”

“Ye—ye—yes, sir,” stammered the page, nearly crying, and shaking on his legs.

“Now look me in the face, sur,” and M^cSweeny grabbed the boy suddenly by the arm, and forced him down on his knees—no very difficult task—while he chained him with his fierce eyes. “Now, sur! you’ve been robbing your master!”

“No—no—no—sir!” cried the boy, clasping his hands in an agony of terror, and beginning to howl.

“You tuck them; I can see it in your eye,” sternly returned M^cSweeny. “Now, where have ye hid them? Out with it, or off to jail ye go!”

More abject howling and protesting, and then the boy blubbered out—

“It was for my mother I took them.”

“Your mother, ye villin. She’s fond o’ them things, I s’pose?” derisively returned M^cSweeny.

“Ye—ye—yes, sir.”

“And she’s got them now, eh!”

“Yes—oo! hoo! hoo!”

“And where does she live?”

“Bu—bu—bu—ccleuch Street, sir.”

“Then we’ll go there now,” sternly observed M^cSweeny, highly elated with the success of his bold measures; “and luck here now, if ye try to escape I’ll shoot you—shoot you! with a double-barrelled poker.”

The terror-stricken culprit rose and got his cap; and they were moving out of the lobby when Mr Stafford appeared.

“It’s all right, sur,” whispered M^cSweeny, with a significant wink; “you’ll have them here for identification in an hour.”

“But how was it done?” cried the gentleman in amazement.

“Done? What trick is there that’s too difficult or dirty for an idle vagabone of a boy?” responded M^cSweeny with a wise look. “I knew what a scamp he was the minit I smelt tobacco on him,” and M^cSweeny got out his own pipe ready for lighting when he should be outside the door.

The boy, all the way to his home, was tremulously asking what would be done to him, but his captor smoked away in dignified silence, more terrible to the prisoner than the most voluble of threats. At length the great oracle spoke, and gave the boy to understand that the nature and duration of his punishment would depend very much upon himself—if he agreed to tell how the robbery had been accomplished, and all other particulars, his punishment would probably be extremely light. This gracious concession gave great comfort to the boy, who instantly promised to keep back nothing. They had then arrived at the house in Buccleuch Street.

It was a poor hovel of a room, both damp and dark, being on the ground floor. A woman who opened the door was promptly introduced to M^cSweeny as the boy’s mother. The boy whispered to her for a moment, and then led M^cSweeny to the fireplace. A small fire burned in the grate, and on that fire was a pot of broth. The boy lifted down the pot on to the hearth, and, handing an old ladle to M^cSweeny, told him to “take them out.”

“What a hiding-place!” was M^cSweeny’s inward comment. “The young scoundrel’s as clever as if he had been wan of my bairns all his life. To think of him making broth of jewels!—begorra, he deserves a prize for fine cookery.”

As he made these comments M^cSweeny began to rake up the contents of the pot, but found no trace of the magic jewels.

“What do ye mane, ye young spalpeen?” he cried at last, in terrible tones, to the boy and his quaking mother. “Didn’t you say they were here, in the pot?”

“Yes—that’s them,” said the boy, stopping his whimpering to point to a heap of beef bones, with some shreds of meat still adhering to them, which M^cSweeny had removed one by one from the pot.

“What?” The thought was too humiliating—too horrifying; and M^cSweeny could find voice for only the one word.

“That’s them,” repeated the boy, touching the steaming bones, “and I’d never have taken them, only the servant said they were no use.”

“It’s jewels I’m after!” shouted M^cSweeny in a great rage. “Jewels! £200 worth of jewels!”

“Jewels? I never saw them,” cried the boy, drying up his tears with marvellous alacrity. “You said bones, I thought—at least it was the only thing I ever took, and thought you meant them.”

All this was dreadful to M^cSweeny, and yet it was so simply and naturally spoken, that he could not for a moment doubt the truthfulness of either. With a great show of bluster and official activity he searched the whole of the little hovel, but, of course, found no trace of jewellery of any kind; indeed, the page-boy protested loudly that he had never seen his master with jewellery in his possession, and so could not possibly have stolen it.