Part 20

The policeman, by a question or two, elicited the fact that the captain had got a good look at the thief, and promptly advised him to go up to the Central Office and report the case, assuring him that it was by no means uncommon, when a case was thus quickly reported, for us to recover the stolen property in a few hours. This friendly exaggeration sent the captain up to the Central, when it became necessary for me to tone down his hopes a little. By the description given of the thief, I recognised Tommy Tait unmistakably, for Tommy had certain peculiarities of ugliness about his figure-head which, once seen, were always remembered, and I firmly assured the captain that I could easily lay hands on the nimble pickpocket in an hour’s time; but as to recovering the watch, that was altogether a different matter. I could not pledge myself to that.

“Why, it’s the chronometer I want,” exclaimed the bluff seaman, looking quite aghast. “I’ll give twenty pounds this minute to the man who puts it into my hands safe and sound. What do I care for the blessed thief? Though you got him and gave him twenty years on the treadmill, that wouldn’t do me a bit of good.”

“There’s a chance of getting the chronometer, too, if we get the man,” I quietly observed. “Just leave your name and address, and all particulars, while I go and see if I can lay hands on Tommy.”

I fully expected that I should get Tommy at some of his usual haunts, and return within the hour, but I was giving Tommy credit for far less ability than he possessed. I chanced to know his favourite hiding-place, and went to that direct. He was not there, and had not been near it for days. All his haunts were tried with a like result. Then, a little annoyed, I “tried back,” and discovered the entry and common stair in the Low Calton in which he had burrowed while his pursuers rushed by. Two boys had seen him there, and they testified that he had turned back towards Greenside as soon as it was safe to venture forth; and from that point all trace of him disappeared. I hunted for him high and low, for days on end, in vain; and what added to my mystification was the fact that Tommy’s relatives and acquaintances were as puzzled and distressed at his disappearance as I could possibly be. At first I thought it possible that he had left the city, but in a day or two had reason to believe that such was not the case. Tommy never went farther than Glasgow or Paisley, and as he had not been heard of or seen in either of these places, a queer thought came into my mind. Could it be possible that Tommy had wandered into bad company and got knocked on the head—in other words, murdered—for the valuable treasure he carried? I note the strange suspicion, not because it turned out to be correct in regard to the loss of Tommy’s valuable life, but because the treasure he carried was to bring him trouble quite as unexpected as his disappearance had been sudden. While I had thus been hunting in vain, and Tommy’s friends had been almost mourning him as dead, and even ungenerously hinting that I had had a hand in his slaughter, Tommy was enjoying the sweets of a well-earned repose in—of all places in the world the last I should have thought of—the Infirmary! He had got hurt, then—run over with a cab or something—in his flight? Not at all. Seized with a fever, then? Neither. He was as sound in body and limb as myself. It was simply this. Before the chronometer had come in his way, Tommy, who was lazy and hard-up, had gone once or twice to the Infirmary complaining of some imaginary trouble, which the doctors could not understand. His object was to get admitted as a patient, and have a month or two’s rest and retirement from the uncertainties of the thieving profession—to be coddled up in bed and tended night and day, and fed up with wine and other delicacies too often denied to the most ingenious malingerer in prison. Tommy was one of those clever malingerers, but he preferred to practise the art in a place where he could at any moment gain his liberty by ending the distressing symptoms of disease.

That was the position. The thought of making the Infirmary his hiding-place came to him as an inspiration. In Greenside he caught a ’bus which took him up to the head of Infirmary Street for a penny. He just managed to get within the gate of the Infirmary when he was seized with such a paroxysm of his trouble that he dropped almost insensible at the feet of the janitor. The house surgeon was summoned, and, as Tommy was then too far gone to be removed with safety to his home, he was borne in an invalid’s chair to the nearest ward, and there put to bed. Close to the head of this bed, and below the sash of one of the windows, was a little shelved cupboard, in which was stowed some of the other patients’ clothing—tied up in bundles till they should be needed again. Tommy’s agony was never so bad but that he could look after the folding up of his clothes, and more especially his trousers, in the pocket of which now reposed a gold chronometer worth at least £60. Such tender solicitude did he evince for the safety of these worn and shabby articles that the attention of more than one person was attracted, and the surgeon sharply demanded whether he had not any tobacco concealed about the pockets, to which Tommy gaspingly replied that he never used tobacco or snuff—a pathetic lie. As soon as the clothes were bundled up and put away in the little cupboard, Tommy had a relapse which occupied the surgeon and nurses for an hour at least, and effectually banished from their minds all remembrance of the little incident of the clothes.

Next forenoon, when the time arrived for the professors and students to make their round, it was found that Tommy’s trouble had all settled in his back and neck, for in the one he had such dreadful pains that he could scarcely lie in bed, and in the other a chronic stiffness which a year or two’s rheumatism could hardly have equalled. There was much grave consultation around his bed, and Tommy tried hard to learn the result of the deliberations, for he had a wholesome dread of being scarified on the nape of the neck with hot irons, or cupped on the shoulders, as he had been in the prison hospital for a similar attack, but all that passed was spoken in whispers, and sometimes in a language which Tommy did not understand.

Tommy was left ill at ease on two points. He feared some surgical appliance of a painful nature, and he had fidgetty feeling regarding the safety of his hard-earned chronometer. He never took his eyes off the door of the little cupboard except in sleep, and even then the slightest footfall roused him to wakefulness. Then there was a danger of some patient recovering and needing his clothes, and taking out those of Tommy by mistake. Tommy fidgetted himself almost into a fever over that possibility, the more so as he had on one side of him an evil-looking cabman, with a face as bloated as a Christmas pudding, who he was sure was a thorough rascal. In the bed on the other side was an innocent-looking Irishman, named Teddy O’Lacey, who sympathised with him very heartily, and whom Tommy set down as a born idiot and simpleton.

He had no fear of the fool of an Irishman; it was the bloated cabman he watched and dreaded. After considering the whole matter, Tommy decided that the chronometer was not in a safe place, and that night waited till every one in the ward was sound asleep, and the night attendant out of the way. Then he nimbly slipt out of bed, opened the cupboard, took out his clothes, and hid the chronometer under his pillow. He could there feel it with his hand almost constantly, and, if any nurses came to make his bed, could conceal it in his hand till they were gone. At all events he felt more comfortable with it beside him, and acutely reasoned that, even if it were seen, in its chamois leather cover it would excite no suspicion, as several patients had watches hanging by their beds or under their pillows.

Another day passed away, and all Tommy’s fears had subsided. The professors ordered nothing but harmless physic, and the chronometer was safe under his pillow, so Tommy settled himself to the full enjoyment of his well-earned repose. He slept soundly that night, and was so refreshed in the morning that he did not immediately think of his chronometer. After breakfast, when he did thrust in his hand, the treasure was gone! Tommy could scarcely believe his own senses. He grabbed wildly under the pillow, over the bed, under the sheet—everywhere; he even forgot in his sweat of mortal agony that he had a stiff neck, and stooped over the edge of the bed to see if haply it had fallen to the floor.

All in vain. The prize had vanished. Worse and worse, he dared not report the loss, for if the chronometer were hunted for and found, no matter who should be the thief, a police case would certainly follow, and Tommy get seven years at least. He looked around. The Irishman was sleeping, as was his wont; the cabman, on the contrary, was eyeing Tommy in a manner that convinced the latter of his guilt.

“You’ve got it then?” was Tommy’s savage thought. “I’ll see if I can’t take it back from you. I always know’d that cabmen was thieves, but I hardly think they’ll match a professional.”

The day passed away, and the hour for visitors arrived, bringing Teddy O’Lacey’s wife, who spent an hour with her husband, and was introduced to Tommy, and departed, hoping that he would soon be well.

Tommy paid little attention to her kind words, for all his powers were concentrated on the cabman. He watched the man till his very eyes became telescopic, and gloated over the fact that the scrutiny was evidently painful to the suspected one. After the gases were lit his patience was rewarded by seeing the cabman furtively take from under his pillow something in shape of a watch enclosed in a chamois leather cover. The sight was too much for Tommy.

He sprang out of bed, forgetful alike of pains in his back and stiffness of neck, and pounced on the watch with a cry of joy.

“That’s my watch, you plunderer!” he shouted; but to his surprise the cabman resisted stoutly, and stuck to the watch, dealing Tommy at the same time several blows, which sent him reeling back on his bed. The man was big-bodied and strong; such an unequal contest could never be maintained by Tommy; so he snatched up a kind of tin flagon, which stood handily near, and hurled it at the cabman’s head, closing up one of that patient’s eyes and scattering the contents all over his bed. Up sprang the cabman, and the next moment Tommy knew what a real pain in his back meant, for his breast bone had nearly driven the spine out of him through a tremendous blow from his opponent. The din of the battle, the shouts and imprecations, and the cries of the other patients, brought a number of nurses and attendants to the spot; and at length the combatants were torn apart and some explanation offered. Each accused the other of being a dastardly robber in attempting to steal a watch.

The cabman stated his case, and proved beyond question that the watch he held was his own—a silver lever, with his initials engraved on the case. Tommy had then very little to say, except that he had been robbed of a watch, which no one had ever seen, and which was certainly not in his possession when he entered the Infirmary. On the whole, Tommy looked and felt rather foolish, and not even the sympathy of Teddy O’Lacey, who warmly took his part, could quite convince him that he had not done a rash thing. This fear was confirmed when the house surgeon came round and audibly commented on Tommy’s astonishing agility and freedom from pain during the encounter, and ended in saying—

“I’m afraid you’re an impostor and malingerer, but we’ll see to-morrow when the professors come round.”

Morning came, and Tommy was sternly asked whether he would rise and put on his clothes and depart, or wait till a policeman was sent for to assist him from the place. With a deep groan Tommy chose to leave the building unaided. It cut him to the heart to make the decision, for had he not been robbed of the chronometer, and was he not thus putting himself farther than ever from the thief? O’Lacey, the simple Irishman, almost wept in sympathy with him, and hoped they would meet again when Tommy was free from all such persecutions and wicked conspiracies. They wrung hands pathetically, while the cabman, with a bread poultice on his eye, audibly wished that he might be present at Tommy’s execution.

While this affectionate adieu was taking place, I was entering the gate of the Infirmary with no thought of Tommy in my mind, but intending to see a miserable girl in another part of the building. I wished to see this girl, with the chaplain by my side, and had to get that gentleman before going farther. When this had been arranged, we crossed the quadrangle together, so intent on the subject of conversation that, when Tommy appeared before me, I looked him full in the face without seeing him, and should have passed on had he but been as inattentive as myself. He made sure I had come for him, and dashed away down the steps towards the Surgical Hospital. A high wall surrounded the building, covered with iron spikes, and facing the High School Yard. A ladder left by some workmen stood near, and Tommy pounced on that as a godsend, bore it to the wall, and was up like a monkey before I could reach the spot. The ladder was short, and he had to reach up and grasp the iron spikes to hoist himself up. As he did so, the rotten and rusted iron gave way, and down he flopped at my feet with a sprained ankle, a broken leg, and many more pains and aches than he had simulated for the past few days. He was carried into the building, and his leg set, and then I told him to be ready to accompany me as soon as he was able to leave the establishment. He would say nothing regarding the captain’s chronometer; but one of the nurses chanced to speak of the battle, and his strange accusation against the cabman, and I gradually pieced the facts together well enough to clear up all mystifications but one. That was—where was the chronometer?

The cabman had it not; and every other patient and crevice in the ward was searched with a like result. I firmly believed that the chronometer had never been in the place, and that the charge against the cabman was only some eccentric ruse on Tommy’s part to draw our attention from the real hiding-place. I visited him occasionally during his stay in the Infirmary, and at length, when he was able to move, took him with me and had him charged with the theft. But here an awkward circumstance arose, apparently to defeat justice. Captain Hosking had gone off to sea again before my capture of Tommy, and was not returned, so that Tommy’s identification could not be made. There was nothing for it but to remand him, when he kindly came to our help by confessing all that I have put down. But he declared most positively that he had been robbed of the chronometer during his sleep, and, as one of the nurses had been discharged on suspicion of having pilfered from a dead patient, I lost a deal of good time in ferreting after her. She proved to be innocent, having been out of the building on that particular night, and I was left as far from success as ever. A chance remark of Tommy’s about the “simplicity” of Teddy O’Lacey drew my attention to that patient, and one day when I was in the building I walked to the old ward to have a talk with him. He was gone, and his bed occupied by a new patient. I got an outline of his address, and began hunting for him in the West Port. While making this tour through one of the worst rookeries in the place I met a Roman Catholic priest well known to me, and hailed him at once with the question—

“Do you know one Teddy O’Lacey?”

The face of the priest became grave in a moment, and he appeared to me to _think well_ before he answered.

“Who are you after now? and what do you want with O’Lacey?” he slowly asked, when he had done thinking.

He was a keen-eyed, intelligent man, beloved as much for his acuteness as for his benevolence, and I saw that his eyes were reading every line and expression of my face—much as I have seen those of an anxious mother do when I have asked for her son.

“Never mind what I want, but tell me where he lives,” I laughingly replied. “I want to see him, if you will know.”

The priest made no answer for a full minute.

“Mr M^cGovan,” he said at last, with a tremor of deep feeling in his tones, “perhaps I know what you’re seeking, and perhaps I don’t. But answer me one question—do you believe me? can you depend on my word of honour as a Christian gentleman?”

“From my soul I can!” I warmly responded, grasping his proffered hand.

“Well, then, take my advice, and don’t show your face in that land to-day. If you do, _I think_ what you seek will be destroyed. Wait another day, and I will try to help you all I can. The man O’Lacey has been very ill, and he believes it is the visitation of God, which I do myself,” and he lifted his hat and looked reverently upwards. “Will you have patience for another day, especially when I assure you, on my soul’s salvation, that by going there now you will not get, and never see, what you’re after?”

“I will,” I answered, after revolving the proposition for a moment or two, and so we parted.

Next day a starch box, wrapped in brown paper and addressed to me, was handed into the office. Inside, in many folds of paper, was the captain’s chronometer, in its chamois leather cover, bright, beautiful, and perfect as when it left the maker’s hands. Pinned to it was a paper, on which were badly written these words—

“A contrite sinner restores what was wickedly stolen, and lifts a mighty load off his mind.”

I smiled, and though I made some inquiries after O’Lacey, they never came to anything. Tommy Tait was duly identified by the captain, and sentenced to seven years’ retirement, the captain getting back his chronometer, and saying and doing some handsome things on the occasion.

THE TORN TARTAN SHAWL.

A servant in a house at the outskirts of the city had been tempted by the clear air and dry frost to leave a whole “washing” of things out over night. She wanted them to get a nip of the frost, she said, but instead they got a nip of another kind. The girl woke at four o’clock in the morning and happened to look out at the green, when the clothes were there all right. She rose again at six, and, looking out, had to rub her eyes to make sure that she was not still in bed and dreaming. Nearly the whole of the things were gone.

Satisfied that she was awake, she first asked herself if some kind “brownie” had taken the brunt of the morning’s work off her hands by taking down and folding up the things; but then, remembering that these useful fairies had all vanished before the steam engine and electric telegraph, she ran out of the house, fearing theft and hopeful of catching some of the thieves. No one was visible. The very best of the clothes were gone; the clothes pegs, all scattered over the ground, the empty ropes, and a few articles of trifling value alone being left to tell of the robbery. At least so the girl thought as she ran into the house and roused all within it with the news. Of course the servant got the blame, and received notice of dismissal at once, although, as she afterwards informed me, it had been by her mistress’s express orders that the things had been left out. The lady denied that—it is convenient at times to have a bad memory—and so the disgrace rested on the girl’s shoulders. Had the lady, instead of indulging in recrimination and wrangling, sent word promptly to us, the whole case might have assumed a very different aspect, as we could thus have sent word to most of the pawnbrokers by their hour of opening. A good haul had been made, including some gentlemen’s shirts of fine linen, the best of the lady’s underclothing, and some twenty or thirty pairs of worsted stockings, of all sizes and sorts, as there was a big family. The most of the linen was marked with the letters “A. M. B.,” and some of the stockings had the same initials worked into them with pink worsted near the top of the leg.

When the news reached us I went out to see the place and get a list of the stolen articles. Six valuable hours had been lost, and I frankly told the lady that she need scarcely hope to recover all she had lost, and all through that stupid delay. The green had been left exactly as the servant had found it when she rushed out in the morning—the clothes pegs littered the ground; and while I glanced over the approaches to the green, the girl began to pick up these pegs and put them into a cotton bag which hung about half-way up one of the clothes poles. This bag was suspended from a nail at a height convenient for the hand, and at the head of the nail there fluttered a little pennon, which had never been meant for that queer flag-staff. It was a shred of bright coloured tartan, which appeared to have been rent out of some one’s shawl, as the owner hurriedly switched past.

“You’ve been damaging your shawl, Maggie,” I remarked to the servant girl, who was busy laying off to me her wrongs and grievances, and the deplorable failings of mistresses in general.

“It’s no mine—I dinna wear shawls,” said Maggie shortly as she continued her task. Her head was full of her troubles—mine was far away from what she was most anxious to speak of.

I took down the shred of tartan. It began narrow at the nail head which had caught it, and got gradually broader, till it ended, liked a filled-up A, in a fringe of the same colours. I spread the piece out along my palm, and then called to Maggie.

“Look here, now, and tell me if any one about the house, or living near, wears a shawl of that pattern?”