In the case I am now to give, I have no reason to make fault with my horn-and-hoof friend. I could find none of his ordinary weakness, for he certainly did not only his best, but in a style so adroit, that if he had been the only person in the world he would have had reason to gratify himself with his own blessing—always, of course, framed so as to suit the wish that formed it; but, fortunately, he is not the only person in the world, for he was foiled in even his very best laid scheme, so that Burns might have put him in company with the unfortunate “mice and men,” only he had no name to give him beginning with the lip-letter; and then the rhythm would have suffered, as a friend of mine said, knowing I could not discover such learned niceties myself.

A watch was amissing one morning from a house in Picardy Place, in 1834. The story was mysterious. A man called Gardner, a sleazy connexion of the servant’s, had been in the kitchen; and when the girl’s back was turned, he had slipped into the drawing-room, where he had been seen by the lady, who he probably thought was out. She missed a gold watch, and running into the kitchen charged the man. He denied. A policeman was got, who searched him, but the article was not found on him. When he was brought up to the lieutenant he was discharged, though an old offender, for the good reason that no man saw him take the watch, nor was the same found on his person. Then the servant was suspected by us, but the lady had such faith in her that she could not join us in our suspicions; and the whole affair was rendered doubtful by the fact, that the door had been open during the forenoon while the girl was down to the cellar for coals.

It was altogether, in short, a mess, in which no detective “idea” could be discovered by Genius herself. There were suspicions as evident as millstones looked at through a microscope,—collusion between Gardner and the servant, the hiding of the watch by the latter, and so forth,—but these were rebutted by other considerations. The servant had been there for years with nothing amissing, and people don’t fall into the devil’s hands all at once with a fling as lovers do; and then the open door was enough itself to let in wind sufficient for the dispelling of these thin clouds of gas smoke. When in the evening I walked down to Picardy Place, I did not take credit to myself, nor do I do so now, for supposing I could, merely by walking the street and looking at the door, clear up the mystery.

I went only because the place had for me the usual charm of places where secret things have been done. It was dark, and about nine o’clock. I was passing from York Place to Picardy Place, north side, expecting to see nothing thereabouts but those spectres of cinderwomen, who, once in the lava streets, have a liking for charred things. After all, they are not very troublesome to us. If they get a silver spoon now and then, and don’t give it up, we can’t say much: the thing is thrown out, and they are so poor. Strange beings though, with characters never studied, for what interest can there be in a poor creature going about grubbing among ashes, and picking up things you would wonder at for it must be confessed, that cinders, to give them a gleam of heat at night in the holes they live in, are not the main object. Hopeful souls even in ashes, they expect something to “turn up” out of what others cast away. Yes, I say, they have characters,—they won’t steal unless the thing comes half in their way, for they have no courage to enable them to be regular thieves. Then they have almost always been Vemviennes, as they are to the end shrivelled toys of man’s heartlessness, and all their anger burned out of them by misery. To ask how they live would be vain, for they don’t live,—they only breathe and sigh, on food that is enough for their appetite, which is gone.

I saw them at their work, shadows of creatures going from backet to backet. They never look at you; they don’t think they have any right to look at a human being, having renounced the thoughts and feelings of our kind. And few look at them; fewer still give them anything, while sturdier petitioners get shillings and sixpences. But as I was thinking something in this way, I saw a male cinder-wife—excuse the expression; a man went up stealthily to a backet, and bent down, and then left it again. I could not comprehend this anyhow. Why had he not the bag? And without the bag, what could he do with cinders? I suspected he had seen me, for he stood in the middle of the street for a time till I had passed. My curiosity was excited; yet, after all, what more easy than to suppose he intended transporting the backet after turning out the ashes? A bit of humble larceny often enough practised by the lowest class of thieves. I stood at the turn of Broughton Street, and saw him approach the pavement again. This time he was bolder for his great enterprise, for I saw him lift the backet and carry it off towards Leith Walk.

“And not turned out the cinders,” muttered I, as I came up to the spot where the utensil had lain. Small things strike more sharply at times than big. I must see. He will empty it on the middle of the street. No, he doesn’t; he carries it on and on. He didn’t intend to empty it, and I might be left in rather a curious mystery. “Well, my lad,” I said on getting up to him, opposite the end of the north side of Picardy Place, “what are you to do with the backet?”

The old answer—“What’s that to you?” An answer which, if he had recognised me, as he didn’t, he would not have ventured, though I knew him. He had been six times through my hands, but I shied his looks, and kept my hat well down. “I want to know what you intend doing with the backet.”

“The backet?” “Ay, the backet.” “It’s my own.” “No, I saw you lift it.” “I’m going to empty it.” “Why?” No answer. “Then, Gardner,” said I, looking at him, “why don’t you empty it?” And so on.

“And so I do,” he said, as he heard his name; and suiting the action, not only to the word but the fear, he threw it down and was for off. “No, my old friend,” said I, as I seized him; “not so fast, or there will be a greater dust.” As I held him, I cast my eye, not without an “idea,” upon the ashes. There was something else there than charred coal. I stooped, still holding on by my man, and picked up a gold watch. “How was I to know that was there?” said he, with an air of triumph.

“Because you put it there in the morning, when you were in Miss’s house, under the fear of a search.”
“It’s a lie; and a foolish one; how could I know that it would be allowed to remain?”
“Easily answered,” said I; “but it is not my intention at present to satisfy your curiosity. Take up the backet and come with me.”

In the meantime, up comes the servant, crying out if anyone had seen a man with a backet.
“Yes,” said I, “here is the man and the backet too.”
“You, Gardner!” said the girl, “what, in the name of wonder, do you want with my backet?”
“It was not the backet he wanted,” said I, “but this watch, which your mistress missed in the morning.”

The girl’s head ran round as she looked at the man and me, and the backet and the dust.
“Good heavens!” she cried, “I will be blamed and ruined. It will be said I put it there that he, who is my cousin—oh, that I ever knew him!—might find it when I put out my ashes at night.”
“Never you fear,” said I, for I saw by the girl’s unfeigned surprise that she was innocent. “The whole story is clear enough.”
“Ay, to you and to me,” said she; “but how will I get my mistress to see it? Yes, the backet was in the kitchen, and when the policeman came it must have been put there by Gardner.”
“All too clear to need so much talk,” said I.
“Oh!” cried the terrified girl, “but will you come with me now and satisfy her?”
“No; I must take this precious cousin of yours to the office, backet and watch and all, and you will be called upon in the morning; meanwhile, go home and tell your mistress that M’Levy requested you to say that he thinks you innocent. If the lady has a spark of sense, she will see it all herself.”

But still, she wept pitifully.
“Ah, sir, our family have been ruined by this blackguard; my father fed him and clothed him, and he has been a disgrace to us all through life; and now, at last, he would be the means of making me suspected of robbing the best of mistresses.”

All the while, the hardened scoundrel looked as unmoved as the piece of wood which he used as the means of his villainy.
“Dry up your tears, my good girl,” said I; “we’ll never trouble you again, take my word for it.”

And still blubbering, so that the passers-by began to stand and inquire, she hung by me, imploring me to go with her and satisfy her mistress. It was with some difficulty I shook her off, but at length, I succeeded; and as I proceeded upwards, I still heard her sobbing among the crowd. Gardner was silent—perfectly unaffected at the misery into which he had brought his relation. He was safely provided for.

In the morning I went to Picardy Place. The girl opened the door, with a look so thankful, as if she considered me her preserver.
“Have you told your mistress?”
“Oh, sir, I couldn’t. I have not slept a wink all night.”
“Not told her, foolish girl!” said I. “No; but you will, and then she will believe.”
“Of course she will, and she will be better satisfied when she hears, as I hope she will by and by, that Gardner gets a passage over the seas.”

The girl ran quicker than she ever did along that lobby before, opened the door, then shut it behind me,—to watch and listen, no doubt; and who could blame her?

In a few words, I explained the whole story to Miss, a sharp and benevolent woman; she saw through the trick in a moment.
“But your poor servant is in a terrible state about it, lest you should suspect she had any hand in it.”

Without saying a word, she went to the door,—“Mary,” she called, with a loud voice.
No answer; Mary was caught; she was standing up by the wall, so that her mistress could not see her.
“Mary,” louder still.
“Yes, mem,” said a voice at her very side.
“Stupid girl, come in here,” and she took the timid creature by the hand and dragged her in.
“What are you afraid of?” Whimpering and sobbing.
“Give up; I have no fault to find with you.”
“Oh, but you have been so kind a mistress,” she said, in a choking kind of way, “that I could not bear—no—I could not bear—bear the very thought that you should suspect me.”

And then came another burst.
“Girl, have I not told you that I am satisfied with Mr M’Levy’s explanation, and that you are no more guilty of taking my watch than Mr M’Levy himself?”
“God bless you, mem, and God bless you, sir, and now I’m happy.”

And happy she ran away, relieved of a nightmare which had been upon her throbbing bosom all night, and, not contented with its night work, had clung to her all the morning.
“Ah, this accounts,” said her mistress, “for the miserable look she has borne since ever she rose; but that girl will be dearer to me than ever.”

That same day Miss and Mary came up and were examined. There was no doubt of Gardner’s guilt, yet it was viewed as a strange case, altogether without precedent. The magistrate said that “there really was no substantial evidence against the man upon which he could be charged for stealing the watch. It was altogether circumstantial; no doubt he did it, but no one saw him put the watch in the receptacle where it was found, nor was the watch actually, in a proper sense, found upon him. He might say that if he wanted to find the article, he could have rummaged the backet,—a far more likely act than running away with a load of dust. Indeed, it is not easy to see why he should have followed a course which was so likely to bring upon him the very people on the pavement. It is clear, however, that he may be charged with stealing the backet itself, and, if you please, the cinders; and, as I am told he has been convicted before, the issue will be the same.

It is proper for me to add, for the sake of the girl, that, in my opinion, she is perfectly innocent. It is impossible to bring home to her even a suspicion; for even, on the supposition of concert, how could she know that the ashes and the watch would not be tossed into the cart before her cousin came to take it away? Then she was not on the stair watching the result of a scheme; she came down only after the article was taken away, and finding it gone, ran after the thief, not even knowing it was Gardner that took it.”

Good news for poor Mary, and, perhaps, better afterwards, when her never-do-well relative was transported for seven years, just for stealing a backet. He was obliged to swallow the shell and throw out the kernel.

In this case, vice did not show her usual weakness. Everything was adroitly played, with the single exception, perhaps, of his running away with what he might have searched; but then he did search, and it was only when he heard the cart that he gave way to what appeared to him to be a necessity. Is not all vice a necessity? If it weren’t, I fear I would have skeely¹ for breakfast.