Part 18

“Well, I’ll tell you what you are!” he shouted, working himself nearly black in the face; and he then proceeded to declare that I had been bought over by his enemies, and that he would now trust, not to the police or the law for redress, but to himself. He looked so like a maniac in his rage and fury, that I did not trouble to reply, but left him and got back to Edinburgh, where other work soon drove the recollection of the baker’s petty affair out of my head.

Coglin’s detective work did not begin where mine left off. He had quite settled in his own mind who was the guilty one, and his only difficulty was to decide on what punishment should be meted out to the herring hawker. Many plans suggested themselves, but they mostly had the objectionable feature of bringing the self-appointed judge and executioner within reach of the law. At length a chance remark of Burfoot—who, all unconscious of impending evil, was still on friendly terms with the baker—prompted him to a scheme as ingenious as it was diabolical. A son and heir had been born to Burfoot, and he gleefully told the baker that he should soon hold a party of rejoicing over the event, when the christening could conveniently take place. He did not invite Coglin to form one of the party, but that oversight did not distress the baker.

“I wish I could poison the whole of them,” was his inward comment as he turned to his bakehouse, and out of that remark sprang the great scheme.

Coglin of course knew something of the baking of fancy bread, and the same evening, as soon as his ordinary work was over, he set to and made a fine christening cake. He was careful to cover up the windows and every chink in the door before beginning. In making up the cake he hesitated long between some arsenic which he had got for the rats in the bakehouse and another powerful drug as a seasoning; but, having made his choice and hurried up the cake, he waited and watched the firing of it as eagerly and attentively as if a Princess Royal had been intended as the joyful recipient. The cake did not rise well, probably owing to the queer spicing it had got, but Coglin chucklingly decided that the sugaring would cover that. He snowed it over with a preparation of white sugar, and then flowered it over the corners and edges with pink, and finished up by lettering it boldly in sugar as “A Present from Edinburgh.”

When the cake was finished, he covered it with a strong wrapper of brown paper, and addressed it to “James Burfoot, Fishdealer,” adding the name of the town in which they both lived, and the words “_per_ rail—carriage paid.” He was careful, in writing the address, to disguise as much as possible his handwriting, and, it is needless to add, he did not as usual put a printed label on the parcel bearing his name and address.

Next morning he considerably astonished his son Bob, a boy of twelve, by telling him that he needed him to go an errand.

The command was an awkward one for Bob, who had arranged with two companions to spend the day at a town not far off, at which there were to be races, and no end of shows and sports. Bob accompanied his father to the bakehouse about as nimbly as a murderer going to execution.

Above the cover bearing the name and address, Coglin had tied a wrapper of paper to conceal the address, and inside that had placed a sixpence wrapped in paper to pay the carriage. The parcel thus arranged he sternly placed in Bob’s hands.

“You’re to take that to Edinburgh, and hand it in at the railway parcel office. They’ll find the address and the money inside. You’re to say nothing—just put down the parcel and walk out; do you understand?”

“Could I not take it to the railway station here?” sulkily returned his son. “It’ll go just as well.”

“No! You’re to go to Edinburgh, and ask no questions, or I’ll half murder you!” cried Coglin. “It’s a present, and the—the customer doesn’t want the folk to know who sent it, or where it comes from.”

“And am I to walk all the way to Edinburgh?” groaned the boy, ruefully.

His father tossed him a sixpence, with the words—

“You can take the train;” and Bob’s spirits rose somewhat, but scarcely to their normal level.

At the end of the lane he found his two companions patiently waiting. They were overjoyed to see the sixpence, but the sight of the parcel was a terrible damper. That load was all that lay between them and a day of pure, unalloyed joy. They could have kicked the parcel; and one seriously suggested to Bob that they should quietly drop it into the river or the sea, and go their way undisturbed. Bob reluctantly declined the proposal, but was easily persuaded to go to Portobello first instead of to Edinburgh, and have his fill of fun before taking the parcel to that city.

“It’s a present,” the boys reasoned, “and they’re not to know who sends it or where it comes from, so it doesn’t matter whether they get it soon or late, or whether they get it all, for that matter.”

Reader, did you ever, when a boy, tramp to Portobello and spend half a day there on a light—a very light—breakfast? I have, and can testify that the edge which that fine seaside resort puts on a boy’s appetite would make chuckie stones or hedge leaves seem princely fare. The wonder is—at least my wonder used to be, when we went in droves—that some small boy, juicy and tender, in the gang, did not mysteriously disappear on the return journey. The three travellers enjoyed themselves famously on the sands. The sixpence of train money vanished like magic. They bathed seven times, like the ancient pilgrims of Jordan. They saw the races, and Punch and Judy, and every kind of cheap delights, dragging that parcel about with them, and each taking turns at carrying it through the crowd. At length Bob and another decided to have another bathe, and left their clothes and the parcel in charge of the third on the hot sandy beach. When they returned, the wolfish guardian had the paper covers off the cake, and was volubly explaining how a bit of the sugar coating must have been broken off during their travels. He had eaten the bit, as it was of no further use, and “Edinburgh” had disappeared. The two bathers looked on with wonderful calmness. Their teeth were chattering, and they were longing for a “hungry bite.” The remaining words of the inscription were suggestive—“A Present from ——.” A mysterious unseen donor was offering them a present.

“The folk wouldn’t like to get a broken cake like that,” suggested one of the boys to Bob. “If we were to eat it, they’d never miss it.”

Hunger quickens the reasoning faculties. Bob at once saw the point, and without waiting to dress he broke up the cake, and they all filled their stomachs. The cake just fitted the three nicely; and then they tore up the covers, annexed the sixpence found within, and had a glorious somersault on the sands to celebrate their victory.

But “pleasures are like poppies spread,” and poppies, as everybody knows, contain a deal of poison. These three conquerors were in turn to be conquered—the fate of all. They began to feel queer, as if the wild war-dance had not agreed with them. They got worse, and another bathe was proposed; but their clothes were scarcely off, and their toes in the sea, when they fell down writhing and howling. It was a clear case of cramp. A great crowd gathered about them; rescue-men distinguished themselves in hauling the three boys out of a full inch of water; and they were borne howling to the baths. They roared while they had breath, and then lay limp and insensible. A doctor summoned in haste placed his hand on one of the stomachs—he must have been a family man—a pump was sent for, but before it arrived they had each begun to relieve themselves. Still they were very ill, and it was quite clear to the doctor that they had been poisoned. As they said nothing of the sugared cake they had devoured, but admitted that they had eaten a pennyworth of gingerbread among them, the poor seller of the gingerbread was pounced upon by the police, and lugged off to prison as a wholesale poisoner. The three hapless victims being quite unfit for removal, a telegram was sent to their parents, stating that they had been poisoned, but were expected to recover.

The effect of this message upon the parents of the two companions was alarming, but Coglin it only enraged. At first he stood horrified like the rest, but then, guessing something like the truth, he burst into a fit of passion, and said that it was all Burfoot’s doing. His mode of reasoning was this—Burfoot had been the cause of him having to prepare the poisoned cake; through him preparing that cake his own boy had been poisoned; therefore Burfoot, in addition to his past crimes, was guilty of a deliberate attempt to murder the baker’s son. What reprisal, what punishment, could be too great for such a wretch?

Coglin resolved to be his own avenger as before, and went to Portobello to see his son. He affected to believe Bob’s story of being poisoned by the pennyworth of gingerbread, and reminded him of how often he had warned him against eating anything that was not baked at home. Bob was delighted to get off so easily, and humbly promised to remember the advice, which he did by never again putting a cake baked by his father within his lips. When the boys were brought home, and the unhappy seller of the gingerbread had been liberated, with his raven locks turned grey with terror of the scaffold, Coglin was at liberty to punish the criminal. This time he resolved to make his vengeance sweeping in its character, and to confide the execution of it to no one but himself. To decide on the special punishment required a deal of thinking, but all Coglin’s thinking pointed to one qualification—the retaliation must include personal loss to Burfoot. Coglin had already lost considerably by Burfoot’s crime; it was but just that Burfoot should suffer in the same manner. While Coglin was at a loss to decide the matter, the newspapers or public press kindly came to his aid. In these he saw described a case of fire-raising by wandering tinkers, who had made up a pellet of chemicals, procurable at any drysalter’s, which, on being thrown down among straw or wood, spontaneously ignited, and burned so fiercely that the whole place was speedily in a blaze. Coglin for nights on end devoted himself to amateur chemistry, and with such ardour that he at length produced a pellet, quite good enough to set the whole of Burfoot’s donkey-shed and pig-styes in flames. The pellet, when finished, resembled a lump of badly-dried clay; and to ensure its safety, Coglin, when it was finished, placed it in one of his metal confection pans, and locking it in his bakehouse, went to survey his foe’s premises and decide upon the best spot for throwing the pellet. He succeeded to perfection. There was easy access to the place, a convenient window to the shed, plenty of straw inside, and the whole of the sheds were of wood as dry as tinder, and promising a grand blaze. It gave Coglin additional satisfaction to know that Burfoot’s place was not insured. While the baker was thus settling matters at the other end of the town, a curious incident was taking place on his own premises. His shop and house were in the front street, and the bakehouse in a lane at the back. While Coglin was gone, his wife attended to the shop, and while doing so was asked by a customer for a little barm. To get that she had to take down the key of the bakehouse from its accustomed nail, and go down to the place herself, while the customer waited in the shop. She was not long gone, but woman’s curiosity in that short time had induced her to peep into the closed pot. Finding only a dirty piece of clay inside she examined it closely, and then tossed it into a corner among some chopped wood there stacked, and then hurried off to her customer with the barm. They conversed earnestly for a time, and then parted mutually pleased. When the barm-buyer had gone, a boy ran into the shop with the startling message—

“Your bakehoose is bleezing!”

It was blazing, and had been for some time, as the infuriated tailor above could testify. He had barely time to secure his kirkgoing suit and his spectacles when the whole tenement was in a blaze. He swore at the bakehouse and its owner as the ruin of him and his prospects. His furniture and effects were all lost, and he did not hesitate to hint that the whole had been done intentionally.

He was in the midst of these recriminations when Coglin appeared, and stood speechless before the blazing house.

“You did it on purpose, because you kent I wasna insured, and because you thought I went into your bakehouse and spoilt your batch,” cried the distracted tailor, pouncing on the astonished baker and trying to throttle him black in the face; “but I’ll hae the law to you, or I’ll tak’ your life wi’ my ain hands.”

They fought madly for some moments, and were then, considerably damaged, torn asunder by the bystanders. The tailor raved like a madman, and, astonishing to all, the baker listened to his frenzied accusations with the greatest meekness and calmness.

The truth is that the tailor, in his passion, had allowed several words and expressions to escape him which for the first time made Coglin doubt his own acumen in accusing Burfoot of the first outrage, and ask himself at the same time if it was not possible that the real perpetrator was Thomas Elder, tailor. The man had a strong hatred to him, and they had quarrelled quite as bitterly as he and Burfoot.

The words and expressions would admit of no other explanation than Elder’s guilt, and now several circumstances recurred to Coglin’s memory to confirm the idea. The tailor had bought herrings on that day, and witnessed the quarrel, and might easily have conceived the plan of entering the bakehouse and smearing the window and board with herring scales to convey the idea that the herring hawker was the criminal.

While Coglin was slowly evolving these ideas, a hand was placed on his arm, and, looking round, he found Burfoot at his side with genuine concern and consternation on his face.

“I’m real sorry for this,” he said, wringing Coglin’s hand, “and if the loan of thirty or forty pounds will help you in your strait, you can depend upon me.”

“Good God! no!” cried Coglin, chokingly.

“But I say, yes. I can surely help a friend in distress,” persisted Burfoot, warmly.

“A friend?” said Coglin, helplessly. “Yes.”

“And I’m almost glad to have the chance, for that tailor has lost everything,” added Burfoot, in a whisper. “Nobody can be sorry for him, for, between ourselves, I believe he was the man who entered your bakehouse and spoiled your flour.”

“What?”

“Yes; I was told by one who knows, but wanted to keep it quiet, that the tailor was seen coming out of your bakehouse window at about one o’clock in the morning.”

“And you never told me!” cried Coglin, reproachfully.

“I can’t tell you even yet; I only say I think it,” said Burfoot, cautiously.

Coglin was conquered at last, and he and Burfoot left the spot arm-in-arm and fast friends for life. Some of these facts came out long after, when I had the tailor in my hands on another charge, and some were given me by Coglin himself. He is in business still, and prospering in a town on the opposite side of the Forth, and Burfoot often goes through to spend a few days there with his firm friend, golfing on a nice links near the place. As he knows all about the baker’s misconceptions and plans for his punishment, and the names are all changed here, I have decided that the giving of the details can do no harm now, and may at the same time teach those seeking revenge that it is possible for punishment intended for another to drop very neatly on to their own shoulders.

ONE LESS TO EAT.

The number of mysterious disappearances in great cities can be calculated upon with almost the same certainty as the death rate. A very few of these are accounted for; a body is found and identified, or a man vanished is found to have been in difficulties, and it is shrewdly or rashly surmised that he has fled to escape the consequences; but the majority of the cases pass into the great unknown, so far as either police or public are concerned.

No. 7 Hill Place, at the South Side, leads to a back court of wretched dwellings occupied by the very poor. At the west side of that court is a block or “land” of houses which are now rather worse than they were at the time of which I write, for a theatre has been built up against the back windows, almost shutting out the light of day from one side of the building. At that time the top windows looked into an auctioneer’s yard, and, having a better share of light than the lower flats, were considered rather respectable abodes for working men. In one of these lived George Mossman, a journeyman baker. The house consisted of two rooms, and had been at one time very nicely furnished; but on the Saturday night of which I write the two places were almost empty, for Mossman had been off work for many months with a poisoned hand, which refused to heal, and so kept him and his wife and family “living on the furniture.” At first Mossman, who was of a cheery, blithe disposition, had made a joke of his disabled hand, and laughingly declared that he had “an income in his hand, but nane in his pouch;” but as month after month went past, and the hand showed no signs of healing, joking was hushed on his lips. Hunger, starvation, and perhaps death stared them in the face; for Mossman shared the common horror of pauperism, and would have dropped dead before he could have applied at the Poorhouse for a dole.

The terrible pinchings which had been endured by that family were scarcely known outside their own door, for it was believed that Mossman was getting an allowance off some sick fund or trade society. There were two boys and three girls, the youngest of these being an infant at the breast, and the eldest only ten; but these children were so drilled and trained by their parents in their own spirit of independence, that not a whisper of the truth reached the neighbours.

“When things are at their worst they begin to mend.” These were the words of the poor, disabled baker to his wife on this Saturday night, but as they did not satisfy hungry bairns, a council was held to accelerate the mending. The house was empty, and the whole family almost naked, so of late they had been seldom outside the house. The general messenger was Johnny, the eldest boy, and he it was who appeared to feel the position most keenly. Johnny was ashamed of his rags, and had a firm opinion that he was a strong, able-bodied man, instead of being the skinny little shadow he was, and that his proper sphere was the sea, to which he had more than once threatened to run away, not returning till he was a captain all covered with gold lace, and with a fair share of the same metal in his pockets for his parents.

“If I was away,” he remarked on the present occasion, “there would always be one less to eat.”

“We might all say that,” said his father, who had grown somewhat sharp and fierce with famine and fretting. “I have thought about it myself often of late. A poor man in trouble and without a friend in the world would be far better out of it.”

This sentiment was received with a strong and general protest, the mother especially having got frightened of late at some of the desperate looks and words of the disabled baker.

“You’re not without friends, if you like to apply to them,” she remarked, after a pause, to let him cool down a little. “There’s Borland, for instance, your old companion.”

“He’s a master now,” said Mossman, snappishly.

“So much the better—he may be the readier to help you, for you could work it up to him when you are well. At any rate, something must be done to-night, for the bairns canna want ower Sunday.”

“I quarrelled wi’ him over a game at draughts,” said Mossman, stubbornly, “and I havena spoken to him for ten years, and I winna now. He’d only crow over me.”

“You were at the schule thegither, and apprentices in the same shop. I dinna believe he would laugh at ye,” persisted the wife, “but if ye like I’ll gang mysel’.”

“I winna gang, and I winna let you be seen in such rags,” said her husband, determinedly.

“I’ll gang then, faither,” eagerly cried Johnny. “I dinna care though he laughs at me, if he only helps us.”

Johnny was kissed by his mother for the brave speech, and the darkness hid the tear that came with it, though Johnny felt the tear all the same. It fired his mind and made him blurt out a thought which otherwise he would have kept in his own head.

“It couldn’t be so very bad to steal a loaf,” he remarked with a wistful look round on the hungry ones. “I felt near doing it this mornin’ when a baker asked me to help his board off his heid. The smell o’ the new bread just took my heart, and I was like to bolt wi’ ane.”

His father’s bony fingers gripped him by the ear, and the touch was no gentle one.

“If ever you turn thief while I’m living,” he fiercely hissed out, “never come near me or look me in the face again! I wad rather see you deid, ay, and mysel’ too,” he brokenly added, with a quiver getting into his tones.

The boy was moved and awed, and hurriedly answered—

“I ken that, faither, but I couldna help the thought getting into my heid. I’ll run down to Mr Borland’s, and ask him to trust you two loaves till your hand gets weel. It’ll be nothing to him; I’ve seen you bring hame as much into your wages.”

The father remained silent, but after a little pressing and pleading, said with a weary sigh—

“Do as you please; it’ll sune be a’ ower noo.”

The boy darted out of the house, afraid that his father might change his mind and command him to stay.

Johnny, be it observed, was in rags, and wore boots which a cinder-gatherer would have passed in contempt in a dust-heap. Pinching hunger had given him a haggard and disreputable look, and all that he wanted to pass for one of my “bairns” were a dishonest heart and hand.

Ten minutes’ walking brought him to the baker’s shop, which he thought was Mr Borland’s, but which had been quitted by that master more than a year before, in favour of one in a better locality. However, it was a baker’s shop still, and Johnny, noticing no change in the name, and seeing the place closed, began to knock gently at the door in hope that the occupant might be still within. There was no answer, and at length the boy, with a hazy idea that the baker might live behind the shop, went through a narrow entry to have a look at the back.

By the dim light he picked out the window of the back shop. There were bags of flour and shelves of loaves dimly discernible within, but no light and no human face. A moving thing he did see, and a pair of shining eyes gruesome enough to have frightened the wits out of one less hungry, but a steady look for a moment or two showed him that the living creature was only a cat, which had got shut in, and was now mewing most piteously, as if imploring to be let out. The misery of another creature often draws us from our own. Johnny became interested in the cat, and its desperate scratchings and mewings, and, after watching it for some time—quite forgetful of the fact that he might be watched as well—said to himself—

“It would be easy to push up the window and let the puir brute out.”

Accordingly, putting his small strength to the frame, he raised the sash high enough to let the cat scramble out into freedom. But, alas! his efforts did not end there.