CHAPTER XV.
CONTAINS A CURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF DETECTIVE
PHILOSOPHY, AND IS AN IMPORTANT LINK IN THIS HISTORY.
“Well, I shall be off to town,” said Mr. Bales to the superintendent of the Brazencrook police, on the third morning after his arrival. “This case is a floorer to me.”
The constable smiled, and thought he had certainly done the detective.
“I have been connected with Scotland Yard for some years now, and had a tolerable experience in America too, and I don’t think I have felt so helpless as I do in this business; so I called in to say good-bye, and wish you well through the case.”
“Don’t go for a few minutes,” said the superintendent: “rather a singular disappearance of bank notes has been reported to me just now; you may like to hear the story; being here on spec, you know, and not a very successful spec, perhaps you might like to try your hand at another case.”
The speaker smiled a little sarcastically, but as much as to say, having beaten your head off in this Montem business, I can afford to be generous.
“All right,” said Bales; “better luck next time.”
“Will you hear about this note job?”
“Certainly,” said Bales.
Whereupon three gentlemen entered the room. The first, a fat, fussy little man, said he was the proprietor of the Brazencrook Music Hall; that half an hour ago he went to the Old Bank to pay in three hundred pounds. It consisted of a miscellaneous roll of notes. He pushed the money upon the counter towards the receiver in the usual way; and at that moment “this gentleman,” pointing to the Rev. Thomas Barnes, curate of All Souls, asked him a question about some subscription to a fund for a poor family formerly in his employ, and when he turned round the money was gone.
The second speaker was the receiving clerk at the bank, who said when Mr. Flooks came in he noticed that the gentleman pushed a parcel upon the counter; but when he laid down his pen to take it there was no money to be seen.
“What were you doing when Mr. Flooks entered the bank?” asked the chief of police.
“I was casting up some figures.”
“Did you attend to Mr. Flooks at once?”
“I did not; I finished my casting first.”
“Did you see the notes on the counter?”
“I saw something which appeared to be a bundle of notes.”
“When did you know the money was gone, Mr. Flooks?”
“As soon as I turned round. I expected the receiver had taken it up, but he said, ‘Where’s the money?’”
“And there were only you and Mr. Barnes here in the bank at the time?”
“That’s all,” said Flooks.
“And did nobody come in and go out?”
Upon this point there was a little difference of opinion. The curate believed a person passed out whilst he was speaking to Mr. Flooks. The cashier also thought a man came in and went out again.
When it was discovered that the notes were gone, careful investigation was made by the manager of the bank on the spot, and a search was instituted, which had been considered rather offensive by the receiver; but the money was gone, and here the story ended.
“Have you the numbers and description of the notes, Mr. Flooks?”
“No; I very seldom take any precautions of that kind about notes, because I always make a point of paying all cash into the bank myself.”
Here, it seemed to Bales, was another case as free from a clue to the criminal as that of the murder at Montem. He felt as if his skill were specially challenged, and he resolved at once to delay his return to London.
“You will really not be offended at my meddling in this case?” he said to the Brazencrook chief.
“Not at all—not at all. I question whether Mr. Flooks really put any money on the counter. These professionals, as they call themselves, are up to so many dodges for advertising and all that sort of thing. If he did put any money on the counter, I suppose the fact of a parson condescending to speak to him flurried him, and he forgot where he was, because they have been preaching against his entertainment.”
The superintendent was quite friendly in his conduct towards Mr. Bales, and said he should be glad if he hit the mark in this business better than he had done in that other little affair.
Mr. Bales, after paying Mr. Flooks a private business visit, and seeing several letters referring to £280 (which was really a payment to Flooks for the goodwill, scenery, &c., of a small music-hall establishment at Severntown), went to his lodgings, reported himself for two days further leave of absence, lit a cigar, and quietly thought over the story he had just heard. There was clearly nothing in the Brazencrook officer’s idea about Flooks having lost no money: there was the transaction before him accounting for the receipt of £280 out of the £300. Could the cashier himself be the thief? No. The curate?—the receiver? No. Had the job been done by a professional thief? He thought not. He could not exactly say why. He thought that this was a case of sudden temptation and robbery. This was his theory: the receiver had been busy at his desk; Flooks, the Casino proprietor, flurried, as the policeman had said, by talking to a parson—had been engrossed in the clerical conversation; a third party had come in on business, and had walked out again unobserved with the notes in his pocket. Under such circumstances, the thief would naturally become worried and nervous, when he got into the street, as to his next step. What would he be likely to do? Brazencrook was a large town—a town of some eighty thousand inhabitants—a busy, bustling place. What would the fellow do—slink away? If he were a professional thief, no doubt he would. But a new hand—there was a cab-stand close by, and he would call a cab—of course he would, Bales repeated to himself. He made inquiries at once. There were only two flys on the stand, and the drivers had not taken a fare that morning.
“Drive me to the next stand,” said Bales, stepping into the first cab.
He was unsuccessful at the second stand and at every other. No driver remembered having taken up any person near the Old Bank at about eleven o’clock. He determined to see every cab-driver in Brazencrook before he gave up this first part of his theory of the robbery. The Abbey chimes were slowly hammering out the morning hymn for the second or third time that day, when the detective alighted from the last cab to prosecute his inquiries on foot, resolving to stop every fly he met in the streets.
The chimes had hardly finished, when an old fellow pulled up an empty cab near the Abbey entrance, and got off his box to tie a dirty hay-bag upon his horse’s nose.
Bales put his question to him—had he taken up anyone near the bank that morning?
Near the bank! Yes, he had.
“Who?”
“A gentleman’s servant.”
“Did he come out of the bank?”
“He did.”
“Here is half-a-crown—take me to the spot where you took him up.”
“Certainly, with pleasure, sir,” said the man, and in a few minutes he pulled up within a few yards of the Old Bank.
“And now drive me to the place where you put him down.”
In ten minutes he pulled up again. Bales alighted.
“Well, where did he go?”
“He went into that house yonder—the last in the crescent.”
Then Bales made the driver describe the servant carefully, and after taking a note of the number of the fly, he knocked at the door of the last house in the crescent, feeling convinced that he was on the track of the roll of notes.
A maid servant came to the door.
“Is James in?” asked Bales, familiarly.
“We have no James here,” said the girl, smiling. “Our James is a Thomas.”
“Well, is he in the house?”
“No, he ain’t,” said the girl.
“He was in this morning,” said Bales.
“Yes, but he ain’t now; he’s gone into the country.”
“When did he go? I want to see him very particularly.”
“About an hour ago. His aunt’s took very bad.”
“Where does she live?”
“That I can’t tell you.”
“When is he coming back?”
“Ah, that’s what master’s just asked me; but that’s what I don’t know.”
“All right,” said the detective to himself, as he left the house. “This is my man.”
He made inquiries at the railway station, but nobody remembered having seen “Thomas” there. Only one train had gone out within the hour, and that to London. Bales telegraphed to Paddington, but at the same time felt pretty well satisfied that Thomas had not gone away by train.
He made inquiries about other conveyances leaving Brazencrook. There was a coach to Severntown, but only on Monday and Friday, and this was Tuesday.
“There’s a carrier’s cart to Avonworth,” said the ostler at the Verner Arms.
“Avonworth! That is on the high road to Severntown and London?”
“Yes, it be.”
“When does it go?”
“About four o’clock on Tuesdays, and six on Saturdays.”
The carrier’s cart had been gone two hours, and there was a train to Avonworth half an hour hence. “Perhaps my friend started to walk, and the carrier will pick him up. The road to Avonworth is his most likely way. He may have started with the carrier and gone the whole journey. It is what he might do, innocent or guilty,” thought Bales.
In a short time Bales had donned his countryman’s attire—the smock and all-rounder, without which he never travelled; and by half-past six he was at Avonworth. The carrier’s cart had not arrived. He loitered about, and presently had the satisfaction to see it come creeping along the dusty highway, and finally enter the “Lion” yard, and, what is more, out stepped “Thomas.”
The man did not enter the inn, but walked away out of the town and along the road towards Severntown. By-and-by he left the highway and turned into the turnpike road. He wore an overcoat and an ordinary hat, but nobody could have mistaken the light brown livery trousers.
Bales followed him at a distance for a couple of miles, and then “Thomas” entered a roadside inn. Shortly, the detective was sitting in the same room, where he had ordered brandy-and-water hot. And lo and behold, Mr. Bales recognised the face of our poor friend, Thomas Dibble.
The detective directed the girl to bring him a pint of hot ale and gin, known by the euphonious title of dog’s-nose, of which smoking liquor he politely offered a glass to “Thomas.”
Poor Dibble treated this little act of courtesy coldly, but tasted the liquor notwithstanding, and then Bales began to talk. He was a farmer, going to be married; he was on his way to Brazencrook to see his Sarah, who lived in service there. How far was it to Brazencrook? Dibble did not know. It was a nice place, Bales had heard? Yes, he believed it was. And then Bales ordered some more gin and ale, for the night was closing in wet and cold.
At length the ice was thoroughly melted, and the two men talked and smoked and drank in good-fellowship. “Thomas” was highly amused at the detective’s simplicity.
As the evening wore on Dibble gradually became thick and confused in his speech, and then Bales saying it was time for him to go, rang the bell and asked the girl to see if the landlord could change him a fifty-pound note. This was the sum he had saved for the purpose of marrying Sarah at Brazencrook!
“You shan’t schange a fifty-pun’ note,” said Dibble; “noshing of the short.”
“No, master could not change a fifty-pound note,” the girl said; “pretty well, he thought, if he could change a five-pound note.”
“All right,” said “Thomas,” thrusting his right hand into a breast-pocket of his coat, and producing a roll of notes, “I’ve got a five pun’ note.”
Poor Dibble! When the detective showed him a pair of handcuffs, and charged him with robbery, he burst into tears.
It was as the detective had guessed, a case of sudden temptation. The robbery had been committed just as he had suggested; but there was no thirst for money for its own sake in poor Dibble’s wickedness. For weeks and months he had brooded over his wife’s misfortunes; her taunts had sunk deep into his heart; he was miserable beyond description to think how she had been reduced; and all in a moment this bundle of notes had seemed to offer him and his wife release from their troubles. He had been sent to the bank to change a cheque. The notes were close to his hand; he touched them; nobody was looking; he seized them, and walked out of the bank as he came. Hurrying back to his master’s, he gave the cheque to an under-servant, as though he had not had time to go to the bank, and then after that one bit of cleverness, he made a shambling excuse about an aunt in the country, and left Brazencrook.
Poor Dibble! He did nothing but moan about his poor dear wife,—his poor injured wife.
This smart bit of police detection was destined to lead to more important and startling results than the capture of Thomas Dibble, otherwise we should not have narrated it so circumstantially.