McLevy (3 page)

“Brawly.”

And so I left the tavern. I had got my trace, and knew where to go for my men, and I had, moreover, a well-grounded suspicion not only as regarded him whose name I had mentioned, but also his
companion. I sent immediately for two constables, and having procured these, and been joined by my assistant, I proceeded to Brodie’s Close in the Cowgate. Arriving at the foot of a stair, I
planted there my constables, and mounted till I came to a door familiar to me on prior occasions.

I gave my quiet knock,—a signal so regular, that, as I have sometimes heard, it was known as “M’Levy’s warning”. Whether known as such now, or not, I cannot say,
but it was quickly enough responded to by no less a personage than the famous Lucky Shields herself. The moment she saw me she recoiled, but only for an instant, and then tried to detain
me—the ordinary sign that I should be in. Without saying a word I pushed her back, and making my way forward, got at once into the middle of one of those scenes of which the quiet normal
people of the world have no more idea than they have of what is going on in the molten regions of the middle of the earth, on the surface of which they are plucking roses. A large room, where the
grandees of a former time drank their claret to the tune of “Lewie Gordon”; all about the sides a number of beds—one or two rattled up of pine stumps—another with black
carved legs, which had supported fair dames long since passed away, alongside another with no more pretensions to decayed grandeur than could be put forth by a sack of chaff and a horse-cloth.
Close to that a ragged arm-chair, with a bundle of hay rolled up in an old napkin, to serve when there was an additional lodger. A number of chairs, marrowless, broken, and rickety; a white table
in the midst of all, covered with glasses and tankards, all replete with the ring of drinking echoes, and shining in the haze of tobacco smoke, illuminated by bright gas.

My ears were more bewildered than my eyes; for the room, with its strange furniture, was familiar enough to me; but I had some difficulty for a minute or two in distinguishing the living
articles. Round the fir table sat my hero of the box, Patrick Shields; alongside of him, Henry Preger,—so true an associate of Shields, as to render it impossible for me to doubt his
participation in the affair at Coates Crescent; and along with these Daniel O’Hara, a gentleman with a peculiar turn of thought, which induced him to believe that a watch in another
man’s pocket was out of its proper place. The two first were still fuming with the effects of Mrs Devlin’s whisky, and O’Hara seemed to be great, as master of the new-brewed
potation, whisky-punch, which he had been handing round to the young women. I don’t want to paint vividly, in my slap dash way, where picturesqueness is only to be effected at the expense of
the decencies of life, and you don’t want pictures of vice. Then, what boots it to describe such women. Their variety is only a combination of traces which are as uniform as the features of
sensuality. Yes, these young women, who were quite familiar to me—Agnes Marshall, Jessie Ronald, Elizabeth Livingstone, Hannah Martin, Julia Shields—were simply representatives of
thousands bearing the same marks,—one, a demure but cunning catcher of hearts and purses; another, a fair and comely living temple, with a Dagon of vice stuck up in it; another, never sober
except when in a police cell, and never silent except when asleep, and scarcely then, for I have heard the cry of her wild spirit as it floated in drunken dreams; and another, the best resetter in
the city, from whom a century of years in prison would not have extorted a Brummagem ring of the value of a glass of whisky. If I force so much of a picture upon you, it is because, as a part of
society, you deserve to know what your laws and usages produce.

It was not for a little time after I entered that the confusion of tongues ceased. Their spirits had received such an impetus from the effects of the spirituous, that the speed could not be
stopped; and even when the noise was hushed, it was only after the muttering of oaths. Meanwhile, a glance told me I had got into the very heart of the reset-box of Mr Jackson’s fine
jewellery. Finger and ear-rings glittered in the gas-light, and the expensive coats, at the top of the fashion, made Shields and Preger look like gentlemen who had called in from Princes Street to
see the jewelled beauties. I have always had my own way of dealing with such gentry. I took out my musical box, and pulling the string, set it agoing. I have heard of music that drew
stones—mine drew bricks. Shields and Preger fixed their eyes wildly upon me; and the women, who knew nothing of the meaning of M’Levy’s music, first shot out into a yell of
laughter, and then, rising, began, in the madness of their drunkenness, to dance like so many furies, keeping time, so far as they could, to the tune of the instrument. I could account for this
insensibility to danger by no other way than by supposing that they had not previously seen the box, and did not see the consequences that were likely to result from my visit.

After the hubbub ceased, I addressed my man in the first instance.

“Patrick,” said I, “I am come to return your box.”

“It’s not mine,” replied the youth; “I have nothing to do with it.”

“It’s mine anyhow,” cried the unwary mother, who all this time was looking through the smoke like a tigress. “The spaking thing is mine anyhow, for didn’t me own
Julia get it from a raal gintleman to learn her to sing, and isn’t what’s hers mine?”

And how much more of this Irish howl I might have heard, I can’t say, if the son had not shot a look into her which brought her to a sense of her imprudence.

“And it’s not my box afther all, ye vagabond,” she cried, in trying to retreat from her error: “for wasn’t mine an ivory one, and didn’t it play real Irish
tunes? Come here, Julia; is that your box?”

“No,” said Julia.

“And wasn’t yours raal ivory?”

“Yes,” replied the girl.

“Now, didn’t I tell you, you murtherin’ thief, it wasn’t my box. A way wid you, and never show your ugly face here again among dacent people.”

The ordinary gabble of all such interviews. I gave a nod, to my assistant, and in a few minutes the constables were at my back.

“Well,” said I, addressing the men, “you can carry the top-coats on your backs to the office; but as for you, ladies, there are certain finger and ear ornaments about you
which, for fear you lose them, I must take.”

These few simple words quieted the turmoil in an instant. I have often produced the same effect by a quiet exercise of authority. The boisterousness of vice, with no confidence to support it,
runs back and oppresses the heart, which has no channel for it in the right direction; the channel has been long dried and seared.

“Search them,” said I.

A process which, as regards women, we generally leave to our female searchers, but which I was obliged to have recourse to here in a superficial way to guard valuables, so easily secreted or
cast away, and a process which requires promptness even to the instant; for on such an occasion, the cunning of women is developed with a subtlety transcending all belief. The hair, the hollow of
the cheek, under the tongue, in the ear, up the nostrils, even the stomach being often resorted to as the receptacles of small but valuable articles. We contrived all four to dart upon the
creatures at once, each seizing his prey. The suddenness of the onset took them by surprise, and in the course of a few minutes, we had collected into a shining heap nearly the whole of Mr
Jackson’s most valuable jewels.

We then marched the whole nine up to the Police-Office, I carrying the magic box, which, if I had been vainglorious, I would have set agoing as an appropriate accompaniment to our march up the
High Street.

They were all tried on the 25th July 1843; Preger got fourteen years, and Shields ten. The women got off on the admission that they got the jewellery from Shields and Preger. I remember that,
after the trial, Mr Jackson addressed me something in these terms:—

“Mr M’Levy, I owe the recovery of my property to you. I will retain my jewels, but as for the articles of apparel, I am afraid that were I to wear them I might myself become a thief;
so you may dispose of them, and take the proceeds, with my thanks. The musical box I will keep as a useful secret informer; so that in the event of my house being robbed again, it may have a
chance, through its melody, of recovering my property.”

❖

I
have often heard it said that the past part of my life must have been a harassing and painful one; called on, as my reputation grew, in so many
cases,—obliged to get up at midnight, to pursue thieves and recover property in so wide a range as a city with 200,000 inhabitants, and often with no clue to seize, but obliged in so many
instances, to trust to chance. All this is true enough, and yet in fails in being a real description, insomuch as it leaves out the incidents that maintain and cheer the spirit,—for I need
scarcely say, that if any profession now-a-days can be enlivened by adventure, it is that of a detective officer. With the enthusiasm of the sportsman, whose aim is merely to run down and destroy
often innocent animals, he is impelled by the superior motive of benefiting mankind, by ridding society of pests, and restoring the broken fortunes of suffering victims; but, in addition to all
this, his ingenuity is taxed while it is solicited by the sufferers, and replayed by the applause of a generous public. A single triumph of ingenuity has repaid me for many a night’s
wandering and searching, with not even a trace to guide me.

On the 28th of September 1848, the house of Mr Gravat, butcher in Hanover Street, was entered in the forenoon, by keys, and a large quantity of jewellery and article of clothing were abstracted.
I got immediate notice; and having examined the people who saw the thieves coming out of the stair, I was enabled, from my general knowledge of almost all the members of the tribe—at that
time, though only twelve years ago, so much more numerous than now—to fix upon my men. I have made the cheering remark “so much more numerous then than now,” and it is suggestive
of a consideration. Society itself has always made its own pests, and it astonishes one to think how long we have been in coming in to this thought,—nay, it is comparatively only a few years
old, as if we had been always blind to the fact, that there are two kinds of thieves and robbers: one comprising those that have no choice but to continue their early habits, got from their parents
and associates, and who are wicked from the necessities of their position; the others, those that are born outlaws. The latter are not so numerous as one would imagine, and though, from their
natures, independent from any care or culture, could be easily managed. To reclaim is nearly out of the question; but a speculation on that subject is beyond my depth, my duty being to catch them,
and get them punished. But I repeat that I don’t believe they are so numerous as is generally thought. As for the other class, let our Social Science friends just act up to the modern
invention of anticipating the natural wants of human creatures, and the numbers of thieves and robbers will diminish further still.

The young men engaged in the robbery I have just mentioned were just a part of these pests which we have been making for ourselves, by allowing parents to do what they like with their
children,—a privilege we don’t allow to the masters of dogs, which, if they show a tendency to be dangerous, may be laid hold of before they bite. Yes, Alexander M’Kay, David
Hunter, and Thomas Ogilvy, who committed the robbery, and whom I apprehended, would probably have never been in my hands if they had been simply put to a trade, though the medium of a ragged
school, or some other mean of that kind of benevolence; which is a duty to society itself. I had got my lads,—for men they could hardly be said to be,—but where was the jewellery? The
mere fact of their having been seen coming out of Mr Gravat’s stair was not enough even for a small supplement to habit and repute, if it was anything more than a trace to discover them
by.

I therefore set about the discovery of the jewels and clothes,—a far more difficult task, if the thieves are cunning, than the seizure of their persons,—and here I found myself at
fault, notwithstanding the most unwearied trudging amongst brokers, resetters, houses of bad fame, and inquiries and searches into even the most unlikely places, not a ring or even a handkerchief
could I find, so that I was fast arriving at the conclusion that the articles had been “planked”, as they call it, somewhere, perhaps in the outskirts of the town, behind a hedge, or
under the ground, or in some of the many holes and boles about the old town, left by the gentry, it would almost seem, for the accommodation of their successors. I must try another mode. I have
often succeeded in getting young offenders to be communicative. Though all adepts at using their fingertips, they are not so adroit in using, or rather not using, their tongues. One of the
three,—Hunter,—seemed to me to be a likely blabber, if I could once set the instrument a-going. Having got him by myself,—

“Now, Hunter,” I said, “I want you to tell me where those things are you and your friends took out of Mr Gravat’s house.”

“Know nothing about them;”—the old story.

“Well, I’ll convict you, anyhow,” said I; “a single handkerchief will do the job; you know you have been ‘up’ before, and it don’t take much in that
case.”

“But you haven’t got the handkerchief,” said he, as he began to watch my face.

“Don’t be too sure,” I said, as I noticed some sign of his being, at least, apprehensive. “I think you know I seldom fail.”

He was silent, but not dogged.

“I will be your friend”, I continued, “and make you a witness.”

His eye began to gather some light. “What do you want?”

“Just to tell me where the stolen things are, no more. I don’t want you to confess that you were one of the robbers.”

“Do you not? And you will make me a witness?”

“I think I will manage that for you, if you don’t deceive me.”