THREE ‘DETECTIVE’ ANECDOTES
I. – THE PAIR OF GLOVES
‘It’s a singler story, sir,’ said Inspector Wield, of the Detective Police, who, in company with Sergeants Dornton and Mith, paid us another twilight visit, one July evening; ‘and I’ve been thinking you might like to know it.
‘It’s concerning the murder of the young woman, Eliza Grimwood, some years ago, over in the Waterloo Road. She was commonly called The Countess, because of her handsome appearance and her proud way of carrying of herself; and when I saw the poor Countess (I had known her well to speak to), lying dead, with her throat cut, on the floor of her bedroom, you’ll believe me that a variety of reflections calculated to make a man rather low in his spirits, came into my head.
‘That’s neither here nor there. I went to the house the morning after the murder, and examined the body, and made a general observation of the bedroom where it was. Turning down the pillow of the bed with my hand, I found, underneath it, a pair of gloves. A pair of gentleman’s dress gloves, very dirty; and inside the lining, the letters Tr, and a cross.
‘Well, sir, I took them gloves away, and I showed ’em to the magistrate, over at Union Hall, before whom the case was. He says, “Wield,” he says, “there’s no doubt this is a discovery that may lead to something very important; and what you have got to do, Wield, is, to find out the owner of these gloves.”
‘I was of the same opinion, of course, and I went at it immediately. I looked at the gloves pretty narrowly, and it was my opinion that they had been cleaned. There was a smell of sulphur and rosin about ’em, you know, which cleaned gloves usually have, more or less. I took ’em over to a friend of mine at Kennington, who was in that line, and I put it to him. “What do you say now? Have these gloves been cleaned?” “These gloves have been cleaned,” says he. “Have you any idea who cleaned them?” says I. “Not at all,” says he; “I’ve a very distinct idea who didn’t clean ’em, and that’s myself. But I’ll tell you what, Wield, there ain’t above eight or nine reg’lar glove-cleaners in London,” – there were not, at that time, it seems – “and I think I can give you their addresses, and you may find out, by that means, who did clean ’em.” Accordingly, he gave me the directions, and I went here, and I went there, and I looked up this man, and I looked up that man; but, though they all agreed that the gloves had been cleaned, I couldn’t find the man, woman, or child, that had cleaned that aforesaid pair of gloves.
‘What with this person not being at home, and that person being expected home in the afternoon, and so forth, the inquiry took me three days. On the evening of the third day, coming over Waterloo Bridge from the Surrey side of the river, quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed, I thought I’d have a shilling’s worth of entertainment at the Lyceum Theatre to freshen myself up. So I went into the Pit, at half-price, and I sat myself down next to a very quiet, modest sort of young man. Seeing I was a stranger (which I thought it just as well to appear to be) he told me the names of the actors on the stage, and we got into conversation. When the play was over, we came out together, and I said, “We’ve been very companionable and agreeable, and perhaps you wouldn’t object to a drain?” “Well, you’re very good,” says he; “I shouldn’t object to a drain.” Accordingly, we went to a public-house, near the Theatre, sat ourselves down in a quiet room up-stairs on the first floor, and called for a pint of half-and-half, apiece, and a pipe.
‘Well, sir, we put our pipes aboard, and we drank our half-and-half, and sat a-talking, very sociably, when the young man says, “You must excuse me stopping very long,” he says, “because I’m forced to go home in good time. I must be at work all night.” “At work all night?” says I. “You ain’t a baker?” “No,” he says, laughing, “I ain’t a baker.” “I thought not,” says I, “you haven’t the looks of a baker.” “No,” says he, “I’m a glove-cleaner.”
‘I never was more astonished in my life, than when I heard them words come out of his lips. “You’re a glove-cleaner, are you?” says I. “Yes,” he says, “I am.” “Then, perhaps,” says I, taking the gloves out of my pocket, “you can tell me who cleaned this pair of gloves? It’s a rum story,” I says. “I was dining over at Lambeth, the other day, at a free-and-easy – quite promiscuous – with a public company – when some gentleman, he left these gloves behind him! Another gentleman and me, you see, we laid a wager of a sovereign, that I wouldn’t find out who they belonged to. I’ve spent as much as seven shillings already, in trying to discover; but, if you could help me, I’d stand another seven and welcome. You see there’s Tr and a cross, inside.” “I see,” he says. “Bless you, I know these gloves very well! I’ve seen dozens of pairs belonging to the same party.” “No?” says I. “Yes,” says he. “Then you know who cleaned ’em?” says I. “Rather so,” says he. “My father cleaned ’em.”
‘“Where does your father live?” says I. “Just round the corner,” says the young man, “near Exeter Street, here. He’ll tell you who they belong to, directly.” “Would you come round with me now?” says I. “Certainly,” says he, “but you needn’t tell my father that you found me at the play, you know, because he mightn’t like it.” “All right!” We went round to the place, and there we found an old man in a white apron, with two or three daughters, all rubbing and cleaning away at lots of gloves, in a front parlour. “Oh, Father!” says the young man, “here’s a person been and made a bet about the ownership of a pair of gloves, and I’ve told him you can settle it.” “Good evening, sir,” says I to the old gentleman. “Here’s the gloves your son speaks of. Letters Tr, you see, and a cross.” “Oh yes,” he says, “I know these gloves very well; I’ve cleaned dozens of pairs of ’em. They belong to Mr. Trinkle, the great upholsterer in Cheapside.” “Did you get ’em from Mr. Trinkle, direct,” says I, “if you’ll excuse my asking the question?” “No,” says he; “Mr. Trinkle always sends ’em to Mr. Phibbs’s, the haberdasher’s, opposite his shop, and the haberdasher sends ’em to me.” “Perhaps you wouldn’t object to a drain?” says I. “Not in the least!” says he. So I took the old gentleman out, and had a little more talk with him and his son, over a glass, and we parted excellent friends.
‘This was late on a Saturday night. First thing on the Monday morning, I went to the haberdasher’s shop, opposite Mr. Trinkle’s, the great upholsterer’s in Cheapside. “Mr. Phibbs in the way?” “My name is Phibbs.” “Oh! I believe you sent this pair of gloves to be cleaned?” “Yes, I did, for young Mr. Trinkle over the way. There he is in the shop!” “Oh! that’s him in the shop, is it? Him in the green coat?” “The same individual.” “Well, Mr. Phibbs, this is an unpleasant affair; but the fact is, I am Inspector Wield of the Detective Police, and I found these gloves under the pillow of the young woman that was murdered the other day, over in the Waterloo Road!” “Good Heaven!” says he. “He’s a most respectable young man, and if his father was to hear of it, it would be the ruin of him!” “I’m very sorry for it,” says I, “but I must take him into custody.” “Good Heaven!” says Mr. Phibbs, again; “can nothing be done?” “Nothing,” says I. “Will you allow me to call him over here,” says he, “that his father may not see it done?” “I don’t object to that,” says I; “but unfortunately, Mr. Phibbs, I can’t allow of any communication between you. If any was attempted, I should have to interfere directly. Perhaps you’ll beckon him over here?” Mr. Phibbs went to the door and beckoned, and the young fellow came across the street directly; a smart, brisk young fellow.
‘“Good morning, sir,” says I. “Good morning, sir,” says he. “Would you allow me to inquire, sir,” says I, “if you ever had any acquaintance with a party of the name of Grimwood?” “Grimwood! Grimwood!” says he. “No!” “You know the Waterloo Road?” “Oh! of course I know the Waterloo Road!” “Happen to have heard of a young woman being murdered there?” “Yes, I read it in the paper, and very sorry I was to read it.” “Here’s a pair of gloves belonging to you, that I found under her pillow the morning afterwards!”
‘He was in a dreadful state, sir; a dreadful state I “Mr. Wield,” he says, “upon my solemn oath I never was there. I never so much as saw her, to my knowledge, in my life!” “I am very sorry,” says I. “To tell you the truth; I don’t think you are the murderer, but I must take you to Union Hall in a cab. However, I think it’s a case of that sort, that, at present, at all events, the magistrate will hear it in private.”
‘A private examination took place, and then it came out that this young man was acquainted with a cousin of the unfortunate Eliza Grimwood, and that, calling to see this cousin a day or two before the murder, he left these gloves upon the table. Who should come in, shortly afterwards, but Eliza Grimwood! “Whose gloves are these?” she says, taking ’em up. “Those are Mr. Trinkle’s gloves,” says her cousin. “Oh!” says she, “they are very dirty, and of no use to him, I am sure. I shall take ’em away for my girl to clean the stoves with.” And she put ’em in her pocket. The girl had used ’em to clean the stoves, and, I have no doubt, had left ’em lying on the bedroom mantelpiece, or on the drawers, or somewhere; and her mistress, looking round to see that the room was tidy, had caught ’em up and put ’em under the pillow where I found ’em.
That’s the story, sir.’
II. – THE ARTFUL TOUCH
‘One of the most beautiful things that ever was done, perhaps,’ said Inspector Wield, emphasising the adjective, as preparing us to expect dexterity or ingenuity rather than strong interest, ‘was a move of Sergeant Witchem’s. It was a lovely idea!
‘Witchem and me were down at Epsom one Derby Day, waiting at the station for the Swell Mob. As I mentioned, when we were talking about these things before, we are ready at the station when there’s races, or an Agricultural Show, or a Chancellor sworn in for an university, or Jenny Lind, or anything of that sort; and as the Swell Mob come down, we send ’em back again by the next train. But some of the Swell Mob, on the occasion of this Derby that I refer to, so far kidded us as to hire a horse and shay; start away from London by Whitechapel, and miles round; come into Epsom from the opposite direction; and go to work, right and left, on the course, while we were waiting for ’em at the Rail. That, however, ain’t the point of what I’m going to tell you.
‘While Witchem and me were waiting at the station, there comes up one Mr. Tatt; a gentleman formerly in the public line, quite an amateur Detective in his way, and very much respected. “Halloa, Charley Wield,” he says. “What are you doing here? On the look out for some of your old friends?” “Yes, the old move, Mr. Tatt.” “Come along,” he says, “you and Witchem, and have a glass of sherry.” “We can’t stir from the place,” says I, “till the next train comes in; but after that, we will with pleasure.” Mr. Tatt waits, and the train comes in, and then Witchem and me go off with him to the Hotel. Mr. Tatt he’s got up quite regardless of expense, for the occasion; and in his shirt-front there’s a beautiful diamond prop, cost him fifteen or twenty pound – a very handsome pin indeed. We drink our sherry at the bar, and have had our three or four glasses, when Witchem cries suddenly, “Look out, Mr. Wield! stand fast!” and a dash is made into the place by the Swell Mob – four of ’em – that have come down as I tell you, and in a moment Mr. Tatt’s prop is gone! Witchem, he cuts ’em off at the door, I lay about me as hard as I can, Mr. Tatt shows fight like a good ‘un, and there we are, all down together, heads and heels, knocking about on the floor of the bar – perhaps you never see such a scene of confusion! However, we stick to our men (Mr. Tatt being as good as any officer), and we take ’em all, and carry ’em off to the station.’ The station’s full of people, who have been took on the course; and it’s a precious piece of work to get ’em secured. However, we do it at last, and we search ’em; but nothing’s found upon ’em, and they’re locked up; and a pretty state of heat we are in by that time, I assure you!
‘I was very blank over it, myself, to think that the prop had been passed away; and I said to Witchem, when we had set ’em to rights, and were cooling ourselves along with Mr. Tatt, “we don’t take much by this move, anyway, for nothing’s found upon ’em, and it’s only the braggadocia,2 after all.” “What do you mean, Mr. Wield?” says Witchem. “Here’s the diamond pin!” and in the palm of his hand there it was, safe and sound! “Why, in the name of wonder,” says me and Mr. Tatt, in astonishment, “how did you come by that?” “I’ll tell you how I come by it,” says he. “I saw which of ’em took it; and when we were all down on the floor together, knocking about, I just gave him a little touch on the back of his hand, as I knew his pal would; and he thought it WAS his pal; and gave it me!” It was beautiful, beau-ti-ful!
‘Even that was hardly the best of the case, for that chap was tried at the Quarter Sessions at Guildford. You know what Quarter Sessions are, sir. Well, if you’ll believe me, while them slow justices were looking over the Acts of Parliament, to see what they could do to him, I’m blowed if he didn’t cut out of the dock before their faces! He cut out of the dock, sir, then and there; swam across a river; and got up into a tree to dry himself. In the tree he was took – an old woman having seen him climb up – and Witchem’s artful touch transported him!’
III. – THE SOFA
‘What young men will do, sometimes, to ruin themselves and break their friends’ hearts,’ said Sergeant Dornton, ‘it’s surprising! I had a case at Saint Blank’s Hospital which was of this sort. A bad case, indeed, with a bad end!
‘The Secretary, and the House-Surgeon, and the Treasurer, of Saint Blank’s Hospital, came to Scotland Yard to give information of numerous robberies having been committed on the students. The students could leave nothing in the pockets of their great-coats, while the great-coats were hanging at the hospital, but it was almost certain to be stolen. Property of various descriptions was constantly being lost; and the gentlemen were naturally uneasy about it, and anxious, for the credit of the institution, that the thief or thieves should be discovered. The case was entrusted to me, and I went to the hospital.
‘“Now, gentlemen,” said I, after we had talked it over; “I understand this property is usually lost from one room.”
‘Yes, they said. It was.
‘“I should wish, if you please,” said I, “to see the room.”
‘It was a good-sized bare room down-stairs, with a few tables and forms in it, and a row of pegs, all round, for hats and coats.
‘“Next, gentlemen,” said I, “do you suspect anybody?”
‘Yes, they said. They did suspect somebody. They were sorry to say, they suspected one of the porters.
‘“I should like,” said I, “to have that man pointed out to me, and to have a little time to look after him.”
‘He was pointed out, and I looked after him, and then I went back to the hospital, and said, “Now, gentlemen, it’s not the porter. He’s, unfortunately for himself, a little too fond of drink, but he’s nothing worse. My suspicion is, that these robberies are committed by one of the students; and if you’ll put me a sofa into that room where the pegs are – as there’s no closet – I think I shall be able to detect the thief. I wish the sofa, if you please, to be covered with chintz, or something of that sort, so that I may lie on my chest, underneath it, without being seen.”
‘The sofa was provided, and next day at eleven o’clock, before any of the students came, I went there, with those gentlemen, to get underneath it. It turned out to be one of those old-fashioned sofas with a great cross-beam at the bottom, that would have broken my back in no time if I could ever have got below it. We had quite a job to break all this away in the time; however, I fell to work, and they fell to work, and we broke it out, and made a clear place for me. I got under the sofa, lay down on my chest, took out my knife, and made a convenient hole in the chintz to look through. It was then settled between me and the gentlemen that when the students were all up in the wards, one of the gentlemen should come in, and hang up a great-coat on one of the pegs. And that that great-coat should have, in one of the pockets, a pocket-book containing marked money.
‘After I had been there some time, the students began to drop into the room, by ones, and twos, and threes, and to talk about all sorts of things, little thinking there was anybody under the sofa – and then to go up-stairs. At last there came in one who remained until he was alone in the room by himself. A tallish, good-looking young man of one or two and twenty, with a light whisker. He went to a particular hat-peg, took off a good hat that was hanging there, tried it on, hung his own hat in its place, and hung that hat on another peg, nearly opposite to me. I then felt quite certain that he was the thief, and would come back by-and-by.
‘When they were all up-stairs, the gentleman came in with the great-coat. I showed him where to hang it, so that I might have a good view of it; and he went away; and I lay under the sofa on my chest, for a couple of hours or so, waiting.
‘At last, the same young man came down. He walked across the room, whistling – stopped and listened – took another walk and whistled – stopped again, and listened – then began to go regularly round the pegs, feeling in the pockets of all the coats. When he came to the great-coat, and felt the pocket-book, he was so eager and so hurried that he broke the strap in tearing it open. As he began to put the money in his pocket, I crawled out from under the sofa, and his eyes met mine.
‘My face, as you may perceive, is brown now, but it was pale at that time, my health not being good; and looked as long as a horse’s. Besides which, there was a great draught of air from the door, underneath the sofa, and I had tied a handkerchief round my head; so what I looked like, altogether, I don’t know. He turned blue – literally blue – when he saw me crawling out, and I couldn’t feel surprised at it.
‘“I am an officer of the Detective Police,” said I, “and have been lying here, since you first came in this morning. I regret, for the sake of yourself and your friends, that you should have done what you have; but this case is complete. You have the pocket-book in your hand and the money upon you; and I must take you into custody!”
‘It was impossible to make out any case in his behalf, and on his trial he pleaded guilty. How or when he got the means I don’t know; but while he was awaiting his sentence, he poisoned himself in Newgate.’
We inquired of this officer, on the conclusion of the foregoing anecdote, whether the time appeared long, or short, when he lay in that constrained position under the sofa?
‘Why, you see, sir,’ he replied, ‘if he hadn’t come in, the first time, and I had not been quite sure he was the thief, and would return, the time would have seemed long. But, as it was, I being dead certain of my man, the time seemed pretty short.’
ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD
How goes the night? Saint Giles’s clock is striking nine. The weather is dull and wet, and the long lines of street lamps are blurred, as if we saw them through tears. A damp wind blows and rakes the pieman’s fire out, when he opens the door of his little furnace, carrying away an eddy of sparks.
Saint Giles’s clock strikes nine. We are punctual. Where is Inspector Field? Assistant Commissioner of Police is already here, enwrapped in oil-skin cloak, and standing in the shadow of Saint Giles’s steeple. Detective Sergeant, weary of speaking French all day to foreigners unpacking at the Great Exhibition, is already here. Where is Inspector Field?
Inspector Field is, to-night, the guardian genius of the British Museum. He is bringing his shrewd eye to bear on every corner of its solitary galleries, before he reports ‘all right.’ Suspicious of the Elgin marbles, and not to be done by cat-faced Egyptian giants with their hands upon their knees, Inspector Field, sagacious, vigilant, lamp in hand, throwing monstrous shadows on the walls and ceilings, passes through the spacious rooms. If a mummy trembled in an atom of its dusty covering, Inspector Field would say, ‘Come out of that, Tom Green. I know you!’ If the smallest ‘Gonoph’ about town were crouching at the bottom of a classic bath, Inspector Field would nose him with a finer scent than the ogre’s, when adventurous Jack lay trembling in his kitchen copper. But all is quiet, and Inspector Field goes warily on, making little outward show of attending to anything in particular, just recognising the Ichthyosaurus as a familiar acquaintance, and wondering, perhaps, how the detectives did it in the days before the Flood.
Will Inspector Field be long about this work? He may be half-an-hour longer. He sends his compliments by Police Constable, and proposes that we meet at St. Giles’s Station House, across the road. Good. It were as well to stand by the fire, there, as in the shadow of Saint Giles’s steeple.
Anything doing here to-night? Not much. We are very quiet. A lost boy, extremely calm and small, sitting by the fire, whom we now confide to a constable to take home, for the child says that if you show him Newgate Street, he can show you where he lives – a raving drunken woman in the cells, who has screeched her voice away, and has hardly power enough left to declare, even with the passionate help of her feet and arms, that she is the daughter of a British officer, and, strike her blind and dead, but she’ll write a letter to the Queen! but who is soothed with a drink of water – in another cell, a quiet woman with a child at her breast, for begging – in another, her husband in a smock-frock, with a basket of watercresses – in another, a pickpocket – in another, a meek tremulous old pauper man who has been out for a holiday ‘and has took but a little drop, but it has overcome him after so many months in the house’ – and that’s all as yet. Presently, a sensation at the Station House door. Mr. Field, gentlemen!
Inspector Field comes in, wiping his forehead, for he is of a burly figure, and has come fast from the ores and metals of the deep mines of the earth, and from the Parrot Gods of the South Sea Islands, and from the birds and beetles of the tropics, and from the Arts of Greece and Rome, and from the Sculptures of Nineveh, and from the traces of an elder world, when these were not. Is Rogers ready? Rogers is ready, strapped and great-coated, with a flaming eye in the middle of his waist, like a deformed Cyclops. Lead on, Rogers, to Rats’ Castle!
How many people may there be in London, who, if we had brought them deviously and blindfold, to this street, fifty paces from the Station House, and within call of Saint Giles’s church, would know it for a not remote part of the city in which their lives are passed? How many, who amidst this compound of sickening smells, these heaps of filth, these tumbling houses, with all their vile contents, animate, and inanimate, slimily overflowing into the black road, would believe that they breathe this air? How much Red Tape may there be, that could look round on the faces which now hem us in – for our appearance here has caused a rush from all points to a common centre – the lowering foreheads, the sallow cheeks, the brutal eyes, the matted hair, the infected, vermin-haunted heaps of rags – and say, ‘I have thought of this. I have not dismissed the thing. I have neither blustered it away, nor frozen it away, nor tied it up and put it away, nor smoothly said pooh, pooh! to it when it has been shown to me?’
This is not what Rogers wants to know, however. What Rogers wants to know, is, whether you will clear the way here, some of you, or whether you won’t; because if you don’t do it right on end, he’ll lock you up! ‘What! You are there, are you, Bob Miles? You haven’t had enough of it yet, haven’t you? You want three months more, do you? Come away from that gentleman! What are you creeping round there for?’
‘What am I a doing, thinn, Mr. Rogers?’ says Bob Miles, appearing, villainous, at the end of a lane of light, made by the lantern.
‘I’ll let you know pretty quick, if you don’t hook it. Will you hook it?’
A sycophantic murmur rises from the crowd. ‘Hook it, Bob, when Mr. Rogers and Mr. Field tells you! Why don’t you hook it, when you are told to?’
The most importunate of the voices strikes familiarly on Mr. Rogers’s ear. He suddenly turns his lantern on the owner.
‘What! You are there, are you, Mister Click? You hook it too – come!’
‘What for?’ says Mr. Click, discomfited.
‘You hook it, will you!’ says Mr. Rogers with stern emphasis.
Both Click and Miles do ‘hook it,’ without another word, or, in plainer English, sneak away.
‘Close up there, my men!’ says Inspector Field to two constables on duty who have followed. ‘Keep together, gentlemen; we are going down here. Heads!’
Saint Giles’s church strikes half-past ten. We stoop low, and creep down a precipitous flight of steps into a dark close cellar. There is a fire. There is a long deal table. There are benches. The cellar is full of company, chiefly very young men in various conditions of dirt and raggedness. Some are eating supper. There are no girls or women present. Welcome to Rats’ Castle, gentlemen, and to this company of noted thieves!
‘Well, my lads! How are you, my lads? What have you been doing to-day? Here’s some company come to see you, my lads! —There’s a plate of beefsteak, sir, for the supper of a fine young man! And there’s a mouth for a steak, sir! Why, I should be too proud of such a mouth as that, if I had it myself! Stand up and show it, sir! Take off your cap. There’s a fine young man for a nice little party, sir! An’t he?’
Inspector Field is the bustling speaker. Inspector Field’s eye is the roving eye that searches every corner of the cellar as he talks. Inspector Field’s hand is the well-known hand that has collared half the people here, and motioned their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, male and female friends, inexorably to New South Wales. Yet Inspector Field stands in this den, the Sultan of the place. Every thief here cowers before him, like a schoolboy before his schoolmaster. All watch him, all answer when addressed, all laugh at his jokes, all seek to propitiate him. This cellar company alone – to say nothing of the crowd surrounding the entrance from the street above, and making the steps shine with eyes – is strong enough to murder us all, and willing enough to do it; but, let Inspector Field have a mind to pick out one thief here, and take him; let him produce that ghostly truncheon from his pocket, and say, with his business-air, ‘My lad, I want you!’ and all Rats’ Castle shall be stricken with paralysis, and not a finger move against him, as he fits the handcuffs on!
Where’s the Earl of Warwick? – Here he is, Mr. Field! Here’s the Earl of Warwick, Mr. Field! – O there you are, my Lord. Come for’ard. There’s a chest, sir, not to have a clean shirt on. An’t it? Take your hat off, my Lord. Why, I should be ashamed if I was you – and an Earl, too – to show myself to a gentleman with my hat on! – The Earl of Warwick laughs and uncovers. All the company laugh. One pickpocket, especially, laughs with great enthusiasm. O what a jolly game it is, when Mr. Field comes down – and don’t want nobody!
So, you are here, too, are you, you tall, grey, soldierly-looking, grave man, standing by the fire? – Yes, sir. Good evening, Mr. Field! – Let us see. You lived servant to a nobleman once? – Yes, Mr. Field. – And what is it you do now; I forget? – Well, Mr. Field, I job about as well as I can. I left my employment on account of delicate health. The family is still kind to me. Mr. Wix of Piccadilly is also very kind to me when I am hard up. Likewise Mr. Nix of Oxford Street. I get a trifle from them occasionally, and rub on as well as I can, Mr. Field. Mr. Field’s eye rolls enjoyingly, for this man is a notorious begging-letter writer. – Good night, my lads! – Good night, Mr. Field, and thank’ee, sir!
Clear the street here, half a thousand of you! Cut it, Mrs. Stalker – none of that – we don’t want you! Rogers of the flaming eye, lead on to the tramps’ lodging-house!
A dream of baleful faces attends to the door. Now, stand back all of you! In the rear Detective Sergeant plants himself, composedly whistling, with his strong right arm across the narrow passage. Mrs. Stalker, I am something’d that need not be written here, if you won’t get yourself into trouble, in about half a minute, if I see that face of yours again!
Saint Giles’s church clock, striking eleven, hums through our hand from the dilapidated door of a dark outhouse as we open it, and are stricken back by the pestilent breath that issues from within. Rogers to the front with the light, and let us look!
Ten, twenty, thirty – who can count them! Men, women, children, for the most part naked, heaped upon the floor like maggots in a cheese! Ho! In that dark corner yonder! Does anybody lie there? Me sir, Irish me, a widder, with six children. And yonder? Me sir, Irish me, with me wife and eight poor babes. And to the left there? Me sir, Irish me, along with two more Irish boys as is me friends. And to the right there? Me sir and the Murphy fam’ly, numbering five blessed souls. And what’s this, coiling, now, about my foot? Another Irish me, pitifully in want of shaving, whom I have awakened from sleep – and across my other foot lies his wife – and by the shoes of Inspector Field lie their three eldest – and their three youngest are at present squeezed between the open door and the wall. And why is there no one on that little mat before the sullen fire? Because O’Donovan, with his wife and daughter, is not come in from selling Lucifers! Nor on the bit of sacking in the nearest corner? Bad luck! Because that Irish family is late to-night, a-cadging in the streets!