One day, also in Captain Stewart’s time, a gentleman came to the head-office late in the afternoon. There were several detective officers present, ready for any emergency. He was much excited; more so, indeed, than was consistent with the principal cause of his application, but not
more than might have been expected from the circumstances attending it. He stated, that in the morning of that same day he and his wife had left his house in Haddington Place (a flat) to go to the country, where they intended to sojourn for some time. Their children, and the care of their house, they left to the sympathy and trustworthiness of the servant, a young girl, in whom, for her gentleness, religious feelings, and general good conduct, they had the most unbounded confidence.
For some reason which, I think, he did not state, he returned himself in the afternoon, and, to his horror, found the door locked, and no trace of the key. He knocked, but all that he heard was the weeping and wailing of his children, all very young, and one, indeed, only newly weaned. Even amidst this very eloquent evidence of something being wrong, he could not at the instant, nor for some time, suspect any foul play on the part of the gentle Helen, but after waiting longer, he heard one of the young creatures sobbing behind the door, and crying out that Nelly had gone out long ago, and that they had got nothing to eat. He was now satisfied that there was something very wrong, and, hurrying for a blacksmith, he got the lock picked, and the door opened. On getting inside he observed an extraordinary scene. The newly-weaned child had been laid in the cradle, where it had wept itself nearly blind—its eyes swelled, and its face all wet with its, tears. Another was lying on the ground, in a perfect agony of fear; a third was sitting looking wistfully out of the window, which it could not open, and where it had been knocking and ‘crying to the passers-by for hours, without having been responded to; and two others were running backwards and forwards, not knowing for what object, but just in obedience to an impulse that would not permit of rest.
But what was more strange, they had, from sheer hunger, got hold of a loaf of bread, no doubt to eat it ravenously; and yet there was the loaf untouched, as if the desire to eat had been overcome by their fear, so that, while the stomach craved, the muscles of the mouth disobeyed even this primary instinct. But he had not yet seen everything. On examining further, under the suspicions excited by the sobbing, weeping words of the poor young creatures, he found that the bureau where he kept his money had been broken up with a poker, and sixteen pounds extracted. He now understood everything too well, and having got a neighbour to attend to the children, and give them something to eat, he hurried up to the office. Captain Stewart having heard the strange story, questioned the gentleman in the ordinary way.
“ What like is the girl? ”
“ Rather pretty, about nineteen years of age, dark eyes, aquiline nose, small mouth, and a mole on the left cheek.” “ How was she dressed? ” A more difficult question—rather befitting the gentle- man’s wife. He could scarcely answer. “ This beats me,” replied he; “ but I have a notion
she has red ribbons on a white straw bonnet. I could not say more; and if it had not been that Mrs B had remarked to me, on the previous day, that Nelly was a little too gaudy (and consequently she probably thought giddy) about the head, with these glaring red ribbons of hers, I would not have been able to condescend even upon this particular, so little attention do I pay to these things.” Captain Stewart noted, and several officers were sent right and left, while I sat meditating a little. “All good-enough marks these,” I thought; “but the girl
may have got out of the town.” Going up to the gentleman, I whispered (for I wanted the answer to myself —not that I lacked faith in Captain Stewart’s tact, but that sometimes I found it more convenient to take my own way, and report afterwards)—

“ Is she an Edinburgh girl? ”
“ No,” said he, in a similar under-tone, from probably mere sympathy.
“ Then where does she come from? ” was my next question. “ Glasgow.”
“ You will find me turn up, perhaps, in the morning,” I said to the Captain, who had confidence in me, and did not wish to lay open my intentions, whatever they were, to those alongside.
“ Very well,” cried he. “ I only hope you will catch the mole.”
“ I have caught as deep a moudiewart¹ before,” said I, as I prepared to depart. But I wanted an answer to another question.
“ Have you any reason,” I inquired further, “ to suppose that the girl suspects you know her friends’ whereabouts in Glasgow? ”
“ No,” replied the gentleman; “ because I never knew that, neither does my wife.”
“ Of what bank were the notes?” “ British Linen Company.”
“ Enough;” and with an idea in my head—a very easy to be found one, and no other than that most animals, whether moles, or mud-larks, or men, (and far more women,) generally, when pursued, seek their old holes and lurking-places—I set out. I knew that the afternoon coach to Glasgow would leave about this very hour, and expected to be all in good time; but on arriving at the office, I found that it had left only a few minutes before. I knew that I could not make up with it on foot, and therefore hailed a cab. In the meanwhile, and while it was coming up, I made out, from a few rapid questions at the clerk,—whether there were any young girls among the passengers, what like they were, and so forth,—that there was one coming near my mark, not of the mole, or of the dark eyes, or aquiline nose, but of the red ribbons.
“I can’t be wrong about the red ribbons on the bonnet,” said he; “only I think there are two—one inside and one out.”
“ Did any of the girls change a note? ”
“ Yes, one of them.”
“ Let me see it.”
“ British Linen Company,” said the clerk, handing it to me. “ The changer inside or out ? ” said I.
“ Outside.” “ All right,” said I; and, mounting the cab—“ Now, cabby, you are to overtake the Glasgow coach at any rate, if you should break your horse’s wind, your own neck, and my collar-bone.” And the man, knowing very well who I was, set out at a gallop at once, and so furious a one, that it almost put me out of a study—no other than the examination of all the bonnets I could see in Princes Street; for I had, for the nonce, become a student of the beau monde, at least of the beaux of the world of bonnets;—in short, I was curious to know the proportion, in a hundred colours, of my new favourite one of red;—and so furious, moreover, was his driving, that the eyes of the whole street were turned upon us—those under the shadow of red ribbons being, fortunately, unconscious that I was doing all I could to reduce the renown of their favourite colour. We soon passed the Hay-weights, and were fairly on the high road to Corstorphine. Nor was it long till I could see the red badge waving very proudly on the top of the coach, just as the clerk had told me; nay, it even appeared to me that the cabman’s ambition was roused by the pennant, for he drove harder and harder, till at length the coach stopped, no doubt in obedience to the conviction of the driver that he was to get a too-late fare.
“ Make haste,” cried the coachman, as I got alongside and was getting out. “ We have room for one, but no time for parley,” “ Room for one,” said I, as I looked up into the face of the gentle Nelly, where the mole was, and where there rose upon the instant something else, first a blush as red as her ribbons, and then a pallor as white as the bonnet.
“ Rather think you’ve got one too many.”
“ No, the Act of Parliament says we are entitled to carry___ ”
“Not that girl with the red ribbons,” said I, producing my baton. “You come down, Miss Helen
N_____ .” (I forgot to say I got her name from her master.) “ I want to give you a ride back to town.”
She wouldn’t though, and seemed inclined to resist to the uttermost; but the passengers seeing she couldn’t, for want of will, come of herself, took her by force, and handed her down to me, who thanked them for so pretty a charge. Having got her into the cab, I next got out her box, and, placing that alongside her, I drove her direct up to the office. Captain Stewart, recollecting the red ribbons and the mole, and casting his eyes over her head-gear and the face, smiled in spite of his usual gravity. We soon found that the gentle Nelly wanted to prove as untrue to us as she had been to her master, for she absolutely swore that she was not only not guilty of doing anything against the laws, but that she was not even Helen N at all, notwithstanding of the ribbons, the mole, and the black eyes, and the really fine aquiline nose ; so it did actually seem necessary that we should prove, to her own satisfaction, who she was. After searching her, we thought that the exact sum of £15,14s. found on her—which, with the 6s. for her fare, made up the .£16—would have removed her scepticism as to her identity; but even this was insufficient, and the resolute Nelly might have remained in her utter ignorance of herself till doomsday, had it not been that Mr B called at the office, and satisfied her that she was herself. And not only was she then convinced, but she had reason not to relapse again into her ignorance; for, during the six months she was doomed to remain in prison, she was so much by herself, with seldom another to confound her notions of who she was, that she could not have avoided herself, however willing.

1. moudiewort – a mole ↩︎