The sliding scale is so far applicable to us as well as to thieves. As the latter proceed from crime to crime, the less to the greater—in the scarlet tint from the lighter to the deeper, so we slide on from trace to trace till we get to the fountain. And there is this similarity, too, between the cases. Our beginnings are small, but they are hopeful, and as the traces increase, we get more energetic and bolder: so with the thieves; there is an achieved success which leads to the greater triumph. Nay, I have known the parallel carried further. If we fail in one attempt, we try again; and I have a case to give, but not just now, where the urchin Gibbon’s first attempt at a till, from which he appropriated one farthing, and for which he was punished by confinement, was quickly succeeded by a greater triumph, to the amount of seventeen shillings and sixpence. My present case has a peculiarity, in so far as I contrived to make a paltry theft the lever whereby to raise up another of a serious description.

In 1840, Mr Ellis, the manager of the Queen Street Club, was exposed to much trouble, suspicion, and difficulty, by complaint after complaint, on the part of the officers frequenting and sleeping in the house, that money, in five and ten-pound notes, had been taken from their portmanteaus. The case was painful to Mr Ellis in more respects than one; for although no suspicion could attach to him, yet in all such concealed robberies, the natural shades that spread everywhere over all in positions liable to be suspected, require to be elevated or dispersed by the light of reason, and that light comes always with an effort. Mr Ellis came to the Office, and I got my charge. I saw at once that the culprit was one of the waiters; but then there were several in the house, and I knew all the difficulties of a case of that kind. The wider spread the suspicion, the less easy the concentration. I would do my best, and Mr Ellis had confidence at least in my zeal.

Repairing, accordingly, to the Club, one forenoon, I questioned Mr Ellis as to the habits of the waiters, and, in particular, which of them lived out of the house. I found that one man, Donald M‘Leod, had a house in Rose Street, with a wife and no children; and in order that I may not take too much credit to myself, I may state that that man was more suspected by his master than any of the others. I was now so far on my way. I called the waiters together in a room with closed doors.

“Now, gentlemen,” (that’s my polite way) “I have to inform you that there is a robber among you. Bags and portmanteaus have for a lengthened period been opened in this house, and sums of money extracted. All who are innocent will be glad to answer in the affirmative to my question. Will you consent to your trunks and persons being searched?”

“Yes,” answered every one.

“Donald M‘Leod,” continued I, “an honest married man, with a decent wife, I have no doubt can have no objection to my going to his house and taking a look about it—not that I have any suspicion of him because he lives out of the Club, but that his trunks being at home, I must make him like the others.”

“No objection,” replied honest Donald, whose honesty, however, did not sit so easy upon him as honest Rab’s of certain romantic notoriety.

“You will all remain here till I finish my process in the house.”

To which last question having got the answer I expected, I went out and told Mr Ellis to take care that no messenger should, in the meantime, be allowed to leave the house. The search among the trunks yielded me just as much as I expected—perhaps a little more, in the shape of certain love epistles, which might have made a little fortune to the street speech-criers. What a strange undercurrent, swirling in eddies, does love keep for ever moving! But what had I to do with love, who only wanted money,—two things that are so often cruelly separated, but which should be for ever joined.

I then proceeded to Rose Street, and soon finding my house, I knocked gently. A quiet, decent-looking woman opened it.

“Are you Mrs M‘Leod?”

“Ay,” she answered without fear or suspicion, for what did she know of James M‘Levy the thief-catcher?

“Well, my good woman,” said I, as I shut the door behind me somewhat carefully, and afterwards sat down, “you don’t know, I fancy, that some things have been amissing belonging to the gentlemen of the Club? Donald, no doubt, so far as I know, is innocent; but as all the waiters, like honest men, have consented that their trunks should be searched, it is but fair, you know, that I should take a look through your house, to put them all on a footing of equality.”

“And that’s right,” said she, with really so little timidity, or rather with so much apparent sincerity, that, if I had not been M‘Levy, I would have thought that Donald was an honest man after all.

With this permission, and under so kindly a sanction, I commenced my search, by no means a superficial one—perhaps deeper in proportion to Mrs M‘Leod’s seeming sincerity. It was not altogether unsuccessful—small thefts lead on in the scale to big ones, and superficial traces to deeper. I got some newspapers, one with the Club’s address, and putting them together, said—

“Mrs M‘Leod, you will allow me to take these papers; I fancy Mr Ellis allows Donald, as a favourite, to take away an old one now and then to amuse him at home, and, perhaps, to read to you.”

“Nae doot,” said she, “ye dinna fancy Donald wad steal them.”

“By no means. I never said it,” replied I. I was not bound to say I never thought it—a little beyond my candour.

So I bade Mrs M‘Leod good day, and making my way to the Club, I told Mr Ellis the result of my search.

“Well,” replied he, “you have got something, and you have got nothing.”

“Had Donald M‘Leod any authority from you to take these papers, and this one especially directed to the Club?”

“Certainly not; but the matter is so small, that I can’t see how anything can be made of it.”

“And you would give up the charge?”

“Yes; it cannot lead to my money.”

“Well,” said I, “if that is your decision, I bow to it; but I tell you this, that out of that solitary old newspaper I will get your money. Will you give me my own way?”

“Well, I have heard so much of your success in desperate cases, I don’t care though I do.”

“Agreed,” said I.

And without further parley, I went to Donald, who was at the time in the lobby.

“Donald,” said I, “I want you up to the Office.”

“Me,” replied Donald, with an ounce less blood in his cheek-veins than he had a minute before, “do you think I’m the robber?”

“I don’t say so,” said I; “but I want some information from you which I cannot so well get here.”

And Donald, a little reconciled, and with a little of the blood in the act of returning, took his hat.

When I got him to the Office, I immediately clapped him into a cell, and locking the door, was under way once more for Rose Street.

“Mrs M‘Leod,” said I, as the honest Gael opened the door, and shut it, “I am a little vexed.”

“What’s the matter? I hope naething’s wrang wi’ Donald?”

“Why, not much,” said I; “I am only troubled about these old useless newspapers. The authorities up the way—dangerous creatures these authorities—have taken it into their wise heads that Donald stole the papers from the Club; nay, they have locked him up in a cell as dark as pitch, with bread and water for fare, and, I fear, no hope of anything but judgment and punishment.”

“Fearfu’ news!” said the woman. “Oh, terrible news! condemn a man for an auld newspaper!” and hiding her face in her hands, she burst into tears.

I need not say I pitied her, for in reality I did; for at that time I had not the slightest reason to suppose that she could know that the papers were not given to Donald, or allowed to be taken as having served their purpose, and being consequently useless.

“But there’s hope,” said I.

“Hope!” she cried, “Hope!” as she took away her hands, “Whaur?—how?—speak, for God’s sake!”

“The charge is a small one,” said I, “and I have no doubt it would be scored off, provided the missing money were got. I’m sure you don’t have it; I have searched the house; but perhaps”——

“What?” she broke in, “what?”

“Perhaps you may know through Donald where it is?”

I watched her face, which was now pale. She began to think, and she did think; for if ever thought came out of a face, it might have been read in the point of her nose, sharpened by the collapse of the muscles through fear.

If in this agony she sat a minute, she sat fully five; but I was patient. I turned my face from her, and looked at nothing, perhaps because my mind was directed to something. She was under a struggle; I heard the signs,—the quick breath, the heaving chest, the sobs, the efforts to suppress them,—still I was patient and pitiful. Sad duties ours! Yes, we must steel ourselves against human woes; nay, we must turn nature’s yearnings to the advantage of official selfishness. At length,

“Are you sure the newspapers will be scored aff?”

“Sure.”

And then another sinking into the battle of her thoughts,—the lips quivering, the desultory movements of the hands, the jerking from one position to the other,—at length calmness—the calmness of one whose agony is over,—a rest of many minutes.

“And you’re sure,” she said again, as she fixed her eyes upon me, with such speech in them that my soul revolted at its very wickedness. Must I admit it? Yes, it is put upon us. A lie is one thing, the keeping deep down in our hearts the truth another. The one I abhor, the other is a duty. I knew that the money, if produced, would form a charge in place of the newspapers. I knew she didn’t think this; but I knew also I was not bound to tell her that she was wrong in not thinking it. Nay, there are worse cases than mine, that may be and are justified every day. When robbers are at the window, and you cry, “Bring me the gun,” when there is no gun in the house, you lie; but you are not bound to tell men whose hands are at your throat that you lie. There are necessities that go beyond all moral codes, and laugh at them. If this woman knew where that stolen money was, she was, by her own doing, under the sharp consequences of that necessity, and must abide the result as an atonement for an act not perpetrated under that necessity. Behold my logic! I am at the mercy of the public.

These were not my thoughts at the time; my conduct was merely the effect of them, and I was simply watchful. At length Mrs M‘Leod rose from the chair,—she stood for a moment firm,—she then went into a closet, where, having remained a little, she came forth, to my astonishment, changed; she was dressed—shawl, bonnet, and veil.

“Come with me,” she said in a low voice, sorrowful, but without a tremor.

I said nothing, only obeyed. She shut the door, and proceeding down the stair, beckoned me to follow her. Not a word was spoken. We got down to the foot of the stair, then to the street, and I followed her as she led. We proceeded in this silent way until we came to Frederick Street. We then went along that street till she came to the area gate of a gentleman’s house; that gate she opened, and going down the stair, she again beckoned me to follow her. We now stood before the kitchen-door, at which she rapped. The knock was obeyed, and a young woman made her appearance.

“Peggy,” said Mrs M‘Leod in a whisper, which I heard very well, “I ha’e come for yon.”

“Yon!” muttered I to myself; strange Scotch word—something like the mysterious “it,” when applied to a ghost.

“Weel!” replied the girl, “come in.”

We both entered, and were led along a dark passage till we came to a bedroom—no doubt that of the young woman. We entered it, and the servant, who seemed to be struck with the sympathy of our silence, proceeded to open a blue trunk, from which she took out a small bundle, composed of a roll of a red handkerchief.

“There it is,” said she, as she put it into the hands of Mrs M‘Leod.

We then left the room, returning again to the kitchen, from which we proceeded into the area.

“There’s the siller,” said she, as she put the bundle into my hands.

I took the parcel and placed it in my pocket. We mounted the stair, and Mrs M‘Leod left me. It is needless to say that I could not restrain my curiosity; nor did I try. I went down towards Princes Street Gardens, and seating myself on the parapet, proceeded to undo the red handkerchief. I found within a large bundle of banknotes, composed of tens and fives, and upon counting them found the amount to be £180. Now I fairly admit I was not satisfied. I wanted something more; and tying up my bundle I repaired again to Rose Street.

“Mrs M‘Leod,” said I, as I entered, “it will be necessary that you mark these notes for me. My masters, the authorities, will not believe I got them from you unless I get your name to them. Have you pen and ink?”

“Ay,” said she, “but I daurna mark them, Donald would be angry.”

“But you forget the authorities,” said I.

“The authorities!” she repeated, with a kind of a tremble at the very sound of the word.

“Yes, they may be angry, and you know the anger of the authorities is very different from that of Donald M‘Leod.”

“Very true,” replied she.

And bringing the pen and ink I got her name to every note. I was now satisfied, and taking the direction of Queen Street, arrived at the Club, where I saw Mr Ellis.

“How much money was taken altogether?” inquired I.

“Why,” said he, “I collected the different complaints, and adding up the sums found they amounted to £180.”

“The Highlanders are a very careful people,” said I. “The sum I have recovered, and which is tied up in this handkerchief, is just £180.”

“Recovered!” said he, in astonishment. “Why, I thought it was a forlorn hope. Where in all the earth did you get it; or rather, I should ask, how?”

“Just by means of the old newspaper with the name of the Club upon it. I think I told you that if I took my own way, and not yours, I would get the cash.”

“You did,” replied he; “but to be very candid with you, I had no hope, though I admitted I had faith in your name. But tell me where you got it, for I am dying to know?”

“I can hardly explain all in the meantime,” said I. “I am bent for the Office, and up for time. But I may inform you that Donald M‘Leod is the man, and we must keep him in custody.”

“The newspaper!” again ejaculated Mr Ellis, as if he was in great perplexity. “How a piece of printed paper should be the means of getting £180! Was the money marked upon it?”

“No; yet I repeat it was the means of getting your money. Of course I cannot leave the notes with you. You will get them after Donald receives his sentence.”

And with this I went away, leaving Mr Ellis to divine how the old newspaper came to have so much virtue. I then proceeded to the Office, where, having deposited the money, and explained the affair to the Superintendent, I was asked, “Where is the woman?”

And I knew that this question would be asked of me, and I knew also what would be my answer.

“Why, sir,” said I, “do you really think that I should be the man to apprehend that woman?”

“Strictly, you should,” said he, with a smile; “but if ever there was a case in which an officer might be passed over for a duty, it is this. I would rather go for her myself than put this duty on you. I acknowledge you were justified in the words you used, that the newspapers would be scored, and that you were entitled to your mental reservation. The question may be said to be a subtle one, suited to the logic of casuists, but I affirm that it may be resolved by a sturdy moralist. As for the rest, you have shewn a feeling creditable to the heart of a right man, in leaving the apprehension of the woman to another.”

Mrs M‘Leod was in the evening brought up by my assistant. The two were tried at the High Court, and Donald was sentenced to seven years’ transportation, while Mrs M‘Leod, as being under the iron rule of the Gael, was acquitted.