Part 3

“Maybe she’s croaked at last,” suggested Rodie. “See if she breathes.”

Joss hopped in, and soon answered in a gleeful negative.

“It’s a good job,” said Rodie, “for she’d never have been of any more use.”

“Three cheers for her death!” cried the comical fiend, and as there was nobody to laugh at his joke, Rodie being too sullen, Joss laughed the required quantity for a dozen people himself.

Rodie tried to kick Billy, but, finding himself unable to stand on one leg, he contented himself with some horrible threats, and then they went back comfortably to their drinking. Billy cried and cried—softly, so that the men should not hear him—with his arms round the still form, till he fell asleep, and there they lay all night, the living and the dead. Next day Rodie and Joss put all their implements and money out of sight, and sent word to the poorhouse, and a medical inspector came and glanced at the wasted body, and asked a few questions, and signed a paper, which Billy took to the undertaker, who brought a coffin the next day, and placed Kate’s form in it, and then asked if they wished it screwed down. Rodie and Joss were too drunk to reply, but Billy, never tired of looking at the wide open eyes, and fancying they were looking at him, said he should like it kept open as long as possible.

The funeral took place the day after, and there was only one mourner to follow the coffin to the grave—Billy himself, in his ragged jacket and bare feet. The only mournings he had to put on were the tears which flowed down his cheeks all the way. Even when the coffin was hid in the ground, and the earth tumbled in, and the turf spread over the top, he could not put off his mournings, or leave the place chatting gaily about business matters, as is the custom at funerals. He still seemed to see Kate’s open eyes shining up at him through earth and turf, and he had a firm idea that she could still hear him speak, though herself unable to reply. He loitered long after the gravediggers were gone, and stuck a little twig in the ground so that he should know the spot again, and then, when no one was near to see, he lay down on the grass and whispered to Kate through the openings in the turf. He had but two thoughts to reiterate—the regret that Rodie had not kicked him out of the world instead of Kate, and the wish that he might live to “bite Rodie” for what he had done to Kate. Whenever Billy was in trouble after that he came to the graveyard to whisper his griefs to Kate through the turf. He told her of all his adventures and the tortures of the comical fiend and the kicks of Rodie; and though he got no reply, he felt quite certain that he had Kate’s sympathy in every word he uttered. Billy’s was not a large mind, or a very acute one, but when an idea did get fairly in, it stuck there firmly. When Kate had been some months in the grave, Rodie and Joss prepared a lot of florins—their most successful effort in base coining—and informed Billy that they were going through to Edinburgh to attend the Musselburgh Races, on business, and that he was to accompany them, and have the honour of carrying their luggage—an old leather valise containing the base florins. Joss and Rodie, for prudential reasons, went by different trains, and Billy, though he accompanied Rodie, had strict orders to sit at the other end of the carriage, and take no more notice of Rodie than of any stranger.

It chanced, however, that by the time the train drew up at the Waverley Station platform, that particular carriage was empty of all but Billy and Rodie, and the base coiner had no sooner glanced along the platform than he uttered an oath and drew in his head with surprising quickness.

“Do you see that ugly brute standing over there, near the cabman with the white hat?” he observed to Billy.

“That ugly brute” was I, the writer of these experiences, on the look out for any of my “bairns” who might be drawn thither by the race meeting, and Billy quickly signified that he did see me.

“Well, keep clear of him, or we’re done for. That’s M^cGovan, and he’s a perfect bloodhound,” and Rodie cursed the bloodhound with great heartiness. “If he gets his teeth on us, we’ll feel the bite, I tell ye.”

“Ah!” it was all Billy said, and it was uttered with a start, for Rodie’s words had suggested a strange idea to him.

“Yes, if he gets us at it it’ll mean twenty years to us if it means a day,” continued Rodie, still wasting a deal of breath on me. “Now you get out first, and go straight to the place I told ye of, while I jink him and get round by the other.”

Billy obeyed, and was soon lost in the crowd, while Rodie—who mistakenly believed that his face was as familiar to me as mine was to him—cut round by another outlet, and escaped to the appointed rendezvous.

Meantime Billy had only gone far enough with the crowd to get behind one of the waiting cabs, whence he watched Rodie leave the station. Then he crept out of his hiding-place, and walked back to the spot where I stood, and touched me lightly on the arm.

“I’m Rodie’s boy,” he said, while I stared at him in astonishment. “I’ve come from Glasgow with him, and we’re to go ‘smashing’ at the races to-morrow. Would it be twenty years to him if you caught us at it?”

“What Rodie do you mean?” I asked at length. “Is his other name M^cKendrick?”

“That’s it; and Joss Brown is with him,” said Billy with animation. “He says you’re a bloodhound, and can bite. Twenty years would be a good bite, wouldn’t it?”

“Ah, I see, he has injured you, and you want to pay him back,” I said, not admiring Billy much, though his treachery was to bring grist to my mill.

“He kicked Kate, my sister, and she died, and I’ve told her often since then that I would bite him for it, and now I’ve got the chance I must keep my word.”

I took Billy into one of the waiting-rooms and drew from him his story. Billy told the story much better than I could put it down though I were to spend months on the task. He showed me also the piles of base florins put up in screws ready for use, and offered them to me. But while he had been telling the story I had been studying the position. I had perfect faith in Billy’s truthfulness. The tears he shed over the narrative of Kate’s death would have convinced the most sceptical. I therefore explained to him that in order to secure Rodie the full strength of a good bite it was necessary that I should take him and Joss in the act, and if possible with the supply of base coin in their possession. To that end I arranged to see the three next day at the race-course, and explained to Billy how he was to act when he got from me the required signal.

I had the idea that Billy was densely stupid—almost idiotic—and that therefore the scheme would be sure to be bungled, but in this I misjudged the boy sadly. If Billy had been the most acute of trained detectives he could not have gone through his part with more coolness or precision. When I had my men ready and dropped my handkerchief, Billy quickly wriggled himself out of a crowd and hastily thrust the valise containing the reserve of base florins into the hands of Rodie, who hid the same under his jacket and looked nervously round. The comical fiend helped him. They had not long to look. We were on them like bloodhounds the next moment. Joss was easily managed, but Rodie fought hard, and struggled, and kicked, and finally threw away the valise of base coin in the direction of Billy, with a shout to him to pick it up and run. Billy looked at him, but never moved.

“You kicked Kate, and she died. It’s Billy’s Bite,” he calmly answered, when Rodie worked himself black in the face, and the comical fiend nearly choked himself with hastily concocted jokes.

The two got due reward in the shape of fifteen and twenty years respectively, but Billy was sent to the Industrial School, and is now an honest working man.

THE MURDERED TAILOR’S WATCH.

(A CURIOSITY IN CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.)

The case of the tailor, Peter Anderson, who was beaten to death near the Royal Terrace, on the Calton Hill, may not yet be quite forgotten by some, but, as the after-results are not so well known, it will bear repeating.

Some working men, hurrying along a little before six in the morning, found Anderson’s body in a very steep path on the hill, and in a short time a stretcher was got and it was conveyed to the Head Office. The first thing I noticed when I saw the body was that one of the trousers’ pockets was half-turned out, as if with a violent wrench, or a hand too full of money to get easily out again; and from this sprang another discovery—that the waistcoat button-hole in which the link of his albert had evidently been constantly worn was wrenched clean through. There was no watch or chain visible, and the trousers’ pockets were empty, so the first deduction was clear—the man had been robbed.

Robbery, indeed, appeared to me, at this stage of the case, to have been the prime cause of the outrage, and an examination of the body confirmed the idea. The neck was not broken, but there were marks of a strangulating arm about the neck, and the injuries about the head were quite sufficient to cause death. These seemed to indicate that two persons had been engaged in the crime, as is common in garroting cases—one to strangle and the other to rob and beat—and made me more hopeful of tracking the doers. On examining the spot at which the body had been found, I found traces of a violent struggle, and also a couple of folded papers, which proved to be unreceipted accounts headed “Peter Anderson, tailor and clothier,” with the address of his place of business. These might have given us a clue to his identity had such been needed, but his wife had been at the Office reporting his absence only an hour before his body was brought in, and we had only to turn to her description of his person and clothing to confirm our suspicion.

Anderson, on the fatal night on which he disappeared, had unexpectedly drawn an account of some £10 or £12 from a customer, and in the joy of receiving the money had invited the man to an adjoining public-house to drink “a jorum,” and one round followed another until poor Peter Anderson’s head was fitter for his pillow than for guiding his feet. On entering the public-house—which was a very busy one, not far from the Calton Hill—Anderson, I found, had gone up to the bar, and before all the loungers or hangers-on pulled a handful of notes, and silver, and gold from his trousers’ pocket, saying to his companion—

“What will you have?”

Afterwards, when they got into talk, they adjourned to a private box at the back; but it was there I thought that the mischief had been done. Anderson had a gold albert across his breast, and might be believed to have a watch at the end of it; but the chain, after all, might have been only plated, and the watch a pinchbeck thing, to a thief not worth taking; but the reckless display of a handful of notes, gold, and silver, if genuine criminals chanced to see it, was a temptation and revelation too powerful to be resisted. The man who carried money in that fashion was likely to have more in his pockets, and a gold watch at least. If he got drunk, or was likely to get drunk, he would be worth waiting and watching for; so, at least, I thought the intending criminals would reason, never dreaming of course of the plan ending in determined resistance and red-handed murder. Your garroter is generally a big coward, and will never risk his skin or his liberty with a sober man if he can get one comfortably muddled with drink.

There was no time to elaborate theories or schemes of capture. A gold watch and chain valued at about £30, and £14 in money, were gone. A rare prize was afloat among the sharks, and I surmised that the circumstance would be difficult to hide. The thief and the honest man are alike in one failing—they find it difficult to conceal success. It prints itself in their faces; in the quantity of drink they consume; in the tread of their feet; the triumphant leer at the baffled or sniffing detective, and in their reckless indulgence in gaudy articles of flash dress. I went down to the Cowgate and Canongate at once, strolling into every likely place, and nipping up quite a host of my “bairns.” I thought I had got the right men indeed when I found two known as “The Crab Apple” and “Coskey” flush of money and muddled with drink, but a day’s investigation proved that they owed their good fortune to a stupid swell who had got into their clutches over in the New Town. Coskey, indeed, strongly declared that he did not believe the Anderson affair had been managed by a professional criminal at all.

“If it had been done by any of us I’d have heard on it,” was his frank remark to me.

I was pretty sure that Coskey spoke the truth, for in his nervous anxiety to escape Calcraft’s toilet he had actually confessed to me all the particulars of the New Town robbery by which his own pockets had been filled, and which afterwards led to a seven years’ retirement from the scene of his labours.

The hint thus received prepared me for making the worst slip of all I had made in the case. I went to Anderson’s widow to get the number of the watch, and some description by which it might be identified. She could not tell me the number or the maker’s name; she could only say that it had a white dial and black figures, but declared that she would know it out of a thousand by a deep “clour” or indentation on the back of the case.

“I was there when it got the mark,” she said, “and I could never be mistaken if the watch was put before me. A thief might alter the number, but nobody could take out that mark, for we tried it, and the watchmaker could do nothing for it. My man was working hard one day with the watch on, when a customer called to be measured. The waistcoat he wore wasn’t a very bonny one, and he whipped it off in a hurry, forgetting about the watch, which was tugged out, and came bang against the handle of one of his irons. The watch was never a bit the worse, but the case had aye the mark on it—just there,” and the widow, to illustrate her statement, showed me a spot on the back of my own watch, and then so minutely explained the line of the indentation, its length and its depth, that I felt sure that if it came in my way I should be able to identify it as readily as by a number.

This would have been all very well if her information had there ended, but it didn’t.

“You are hunting away among thieves and jail birds for the man that did it,” she bitterly remarked, “but I think I could put my hand on him without any detective to help me.”

“You suspect some one, then?” I exclaimed, with a new interest.

“Suspect? I wish I was as sure of anything,” she answered, with great emphasis. “The brute threatened to do it.”

“What brute?”

“Just John Burge, the man who was working to him as journeyman two months ago.”

“Indeed. Did they quarrel?”

“A drunken passionate wretch that nobody would have any thing to do wi’,” vehemently continued the widow, waxing hotter in her words with every word she had uttered, “but just because they had been apprentices together Peter took pity on him and gave him work. They were aye quarrelling, but one day it got worse than usual, and I thought my man would have killed him. It was quite a simple thing began it—an argument as to which is the first day in summer—but in the end they were near fighting, and after Peter had near choked him, Burge swore that he would have his life for it—that he would watch him night and day, and then knock the ‘sowl oot o’ him in some dark corner, before he knew where he was.’ That was after the master and the laddies had thrown him out at the door and down the stair; and for some days I wouldn’t let Peter cross the door. But he only laughed at me after a bit, and said that Burge’s ‘bark was waur than his bite,’ and went about just as usual. And all the time the wicked, ungrateful wretch was watching for a chance to take his life.”

“Why did you not tell us of this quarrel at first?” I asked, after a pause.

“Because I thought you detectives were so sharp and clever that you would have Burge in your grips before night, without a word from me; but you’re not nearly so clever as you’re called.”

“But he never actually attacked your husband?” I quietly interposed, knowing that wives are apt to take exceedingly exaggerated views of their husband’s wrongs or rights.

“Oh, but he did, though. He came up once, not long after the quarrel, and said he had not got all the money due to him, and tried to murder Peter with the cutting shears.”

“Murder him? How could he murder him with shears?” I asked, with marked scepticism.

“Well, I didn’t wait to see; but ran in and gripped him by the arms till my man took the shears from him. The creatur’ had no more strength than a sparry, though he’s as tall as you.”

“No more strength than a sparrow?” That incidental revelation staggered me. It seemed to me quite impossible that a weak man could have been the murderer of Anderson, unless, indeed, he had had an accomplice, and that was unlikely with a man seeking mere revenge. For a moment I was inclined to think it possible that Burge might have tracked his victim to the hill and accomplished the revenge, and that afterwards, when he had fled the spot, some of the “ghosts” haunting the hill might have stripped the dead or dying man of his valuables; but several circumstances led me to reject the supposition—wisely, too, as it appeared in the end. Burge, the widow told me, was a tall man, with a white, “potty” face, and a little, red, snub-nose, and always wore a black frock coat and dress hat. I took down the name of the street in which he lived—for I could get no number—and turned in that direction. In about fifteen minutes I had reached, not the street, but the crossing leading to it, when I met full in the face a man answering his description, and having the unmistakable tailor’s “nick” in his back.

“That should be Burge,” was my mental conclusion, though I had never seen him before. “If he’s not, he is at least a tailor, and may know him,” and then I stopped him with the words—

“Do you know a tailor called John Burge who lives here-about?”

“That’s me,” he said, with sudden animation, taking the pipe from his mouth, and evidently expecting a call at his trade, “who wants me?”

“I do.”

“Oh,” and he looked me all over, evidently wondering how I looked so unlike the trade.

There was a queer pause, and then I said—

“My name’s M^cGovan, and I want you to go with me as far as the Police Office, about that affair on the Calton Hill.”

A wonderful change took place in his face the moment I uttered the words—a change which, but for the grave nature of the case, would have been actually comical; his “potty” white cheeks became red, and his red snub-nose as suddenly became white.

“Well, do you know, that’s curious!” he at length gasped; “but I was just coming up to the Office now, in case I should be suspected of having a hand in it. I had a quarrel with Anderson, and said some strong things, I’ve no doubt, in my passion, but of course I never meant them.”

I listened in silence; but my mental comment, I remember, was, “A very likely story!”

“I was coming up to say what I can prove—that I was at the other end of the town that night, and home and in my bed by a quarter to eleven,” he desperately added, rightly interpreting my silence.

I became more interested at the mention of the exact hour; for I had ascertained beyond doubt that Anderson had not left the public-house and parted with his friend till eleven o’clock struck. He had, in fact, been “warned out,” along with a number of bar-loafers, at shutting-up time.

“Did any one see you at home at that hour?” I asked, after cautioning him.

“Yes, the wife and bairns.”

“Imphm.”

“You think that’s not good evidence; but I have more; I was in a public-house with some friends till half-past ten; they can swear to that; and they went nearly all the road home with me,” he continued with growing excitement. “Do I look like a murderer? My God! I could swear on a Bible that such a thing was never in my mind. Don’t look so horrible and solemn, man, but say you believe me!”

I couldn’t say that, for I believed the whole a fabrication got up in a moment of desperation; and little more was spoken on either side till we reached the Head Office, where he repeated the same story to the Fiscal, and was locked up. I fully expected that I should easily tear his story to pieces by taking his so-called witnesses one by one, but I was mistaken. His wife and children, for example, the least reliable of his witnesses in the eyes of the law, became the strongest, for when I called and saw them they were in perfect ignorance both of Burge’s arrest and the fact that he expected to be suspected.

They distinctly remembered their father being home “earlier” on that Friday night, and the wife added that it was more than she had expected, for by being in bed so early Burge had been able to rise early on the following morning and finish some work on the Saturday which she had fully expected would be “disappointed.” Then the men with whom he had been drinking and playing dominoes up to half-past ten were emphatic in their statements, which tallied almost to a minute with those of Burge. Burge had not been particularly flush of money after that date, but, on the contrary, had pleaded so hard for payment of the work done on the Saturday that the man was glad to compromise matters and get rid of him by part payment in shape of half-a-crown. The evidence, as was afterwards remarked, was not the best—a few drinkers in a public-house, whose ideas of time and place might be readily believed to be hazy, and the interested wife and children of the suspected man; but in the absence of condemning facts it sufficed, and after a brief detention Burge was set at liberty.