VI
LOST PROPERTY
I was delivering an address in the open air one Sunday when I noticed among the small congregation who had gathered round me, a man whom I knew, of the name of James Barker, Barker was a criminal whom I had reclaimed some two years before, and for the last two years I knew that he had been living an honest life. He was a clever cabinet-maker and commanded good wages. His original lapse had been due more to the effects of bad company and to the desire to get rich quickly than to any congenital criminal instinct in him. He not infrequently attended at the meetings which I conducted, and I noticed that now he was following my address with every appearance of the keenest interest. I was speaking on the subject of restitution, and pointing out that it is not enough to repent of the wrong we have done any man, but that we should strive, so far as possible, to make amends, and if he has suffered loss from us, to make that loss good.
Barker still lingered when the rest had dispersed, and I went up and spoke to him. We chatted of the weather and his work. He was fairly prosperous and had nothing to complain of. But I could see that there was something on his mind, and I was not surprised when he said that he would like to have a few words with me on a matter of business, if I knew of any place where we could go. I took him to a respectable coffee-house where I was known, and there, over a cup of tea and a pipe, he told me rather a curious story. It was the story of the last theft he had committed.
He was at that time temporarily employed by a builder at Lufbridge in Lincolnshire. While he was at work he made the acquaintance of the second housemaid at the Towers. The Towers was a house of fairly good style, and the residence in the country of Mr Augustus Havant, diamond merchant, of Hatton Garden. The housemaid, Mary, was a pretty girl, and I understood that Barker's attentions to her were at first entirely for her own sake, and not with any idea of extracting useful information. But the girl, like many servants, was a little given to bragging of the splendours of the house where she was employed. She talked, and Barker listened. As he said to me now in the coffee-room, it seemed to him as if the whole thing had been done up in a parcel and slipped into his hand, and that he would be a fool not to take it. He learned that Havant was in the habit of spending Saturday to Monday at the Towers and that the house was generally full of visitors at these times. Mrs Havant and some of her friends were deeply interested in diamonds, and Havant would frequently bring down a few specimens. It happened sometimes when he was entertaining his Jewish friends that a little business would be done, and the diamonds that came down from London in Havant's pocket would go back in the pocket of another dealer. There was a good safe in the gun-room where Havant kept any precious stones that he had brought down with him. James Barker laid his plans with some care, but he made far too much noise in opening the safe. He got away with a paper of diamonds of great value and importance, but he had been seen, and he knew it. The robbery was committed at about half-past four in the morning, and Barker succeeded in getting into the workmen's train which leaves Lufbridge at five. He was careful to enter the station at the last moment, dashed across the platform and jumped into a first-class carriage. As soon as the train had started he felt that he had jumped into a trap. Undoubtedly telegrams would be sent to all the stations up the line, and he would be arrested as soon as he stepped out of the carriage. As a matter of fact, he had no sooner stepped on to the platform at Sandys Junction than he was tapped on the shoulder. He had a perfect story to tell; he had been detained working overtime at Lufbridge, and this was the first train by which he had been able to get back. He knew nothing of Havant, but thought one of the housemaids there was a pretty girl. He was sorry to hear there had been a burglary, but he had nothing whatever to do with it, and was an honest working-man, as his bag of tools would testify. At his own request he was searched most carefully and no diamonds were found on him. He told me that they did not keep him more than a few minutes, and that it had been worth a good cigar and a pint of bitter to him.
"There you are. Barker," I said, "that incident shows that theft is not only wicked but in nine cases out of ten foolish as well. You take away a man's diamonds, and an hour later you have to throw them out of a carriage window to save your own skin."
"Begging your pardon, sir, but what's all this about carriage windows? I never threw the diamonds out of the window. I took one of the carriage cushions, cut a slit in the bottom of it, slipped in the diamonds, and sewed the slit up again. I can use a needle and thread as well as any woman. I left the diamonds in the carriage behind me, meaning to come back for them one day when things had quieted down. I could have made pals with the carriage cleaner and got them again somehow. But, as you know, before that time came I met with you and decided to chuck all crooked work. Well, the thing's been in my mind a good bit, and what you were saying in the Park to-day goes home. I'm not going to put my neck into a noose, I shouldn't be any the better for penal servitude, but it does seem to me that there might be some way of telling that man Havant where his diamonds are. It's restitution, there's sense and reason in it."
"It is the greatest pity," I said, "that you did not bring this story to me before. It would have been perfectly easy to have restored the diamonds to their rightful owner then. You could have sent him a typewritten and unsigned letter, saying where the diamonds were, and you might have safely left him to have done the rest. But now it's too late."
"Why is it too late?"
"I happened to be travelling on that local branch between Lufbridge and Sandys Junction only a few days ago. The carriages had been recently, I should say very recently, re-upholstered. By this time the cushion in which you hid the diamonds is probably burnt or sold, and it would be impossible to trace it."
It was not quite easy at first to make James Barker see that the cushion could not be traced. I thought it advisable to re-inforce my argument by saying that after all perhaps this was for the best. If Havant had received that typewritten letter, he would have communicated with the police, and they would have remembered, doubtless, the man whom they had searched at Sandys. "I am anxious, Barker," I said, "particularly anxious, that nothing should happen which would throw you again, either in prison or out of it, into the society of criminals. Your desire to make restitution is most laudable, but the opportunity has gone past."
He left me after some further talk, quite decided to do nothing further in the matter but not entirely satisfied. Personally, I was quite satisfied.
I thought it over as I walked back to my house in Bloomsbury. The story I had told James Barker was perfectly true. I had been on the local line between Lufbridge and Sandys, and I had noticed that the carriages had been recently re-upholstered, and that the rolling stock generally looked much smarter than it had done a year before. It was possible, of course, that the loose cushions in the first-class carriages had been merely re-covered. In that case the diamonds must have already been found. If, on the other hand, the cushions had been sold, there was clearly a chance for me.
I did not believe that the diamonds had been found.
Working men and women who deal with the re-covering of cushions and the re-upholstering of railway carriages are not experts in precious stones. The lucky finder would have taken the diamonds at once to the nearest jeweller to find out what they were, and what there value was. The thing would have been in all the newspapers; I should certainly have heard of it I went down to Sandys Junction and had a chat with the guard of one of the trains, an old acquaintance of mine. It was natural enough for me to say that I often wondered when one of those carriages was re-upholstered what was done with the old stuff.
"Well, the contractor takes that, of course, burns most of it, I expect. He might be able to make something out of loose cushions, ripping off the old covers and putting on new, but I couldn't say for certain."
This was not very good news. If the cushions were burnt the diamonds were lost; if the cushions were recovered the diamonds were found. And in either case I was wasting my time. However, I got the name of the contractor, a local man, and managed to find out from him what had happened. He had kept none of the stuff himself. He said proudly that he saw the state of it, and that it was not worth his attention. I said with innocent wonder that it must have been difficult for him to find a customer.
"Bless you I could have found a hundred, by putting my head out of the window and whistling. There's always somebody to buy anything, so long as the price is right. That lot went to a marine store-dealer in Yarmouth."
I hesitated whether it would be worth while to follow the matter up further, but railway journeys amuse me, and on the following day I went to Yarmouth. I had not got the dealer's name, and had not wished to arouse suspicion unnecessarily by asking for it. So I did not hit on the right man the first time, or the second, or the third, but I got him in the end. And when I reminded him of that lot of stuff out of the railway carriages that he had bought, he swore very heartily. He had paid too much for it, he said.
"And what do you do with that kind of thing?" I asked.
"Destroy the worst of it and make up the rest. Some of the loose cushions I sold just as they were, and a lot of them are still on my hands. You can have them at your own price, if you like. They take up a lot of room, and I should be glad to be quit of them."
I said that I doubted if it would be worth my while, but there could be no harm in looking. His son took me upstairs to an attic where they were stored. I turned every one of them over, and not one of them had the slit sewn up in the leather under-side that Barker had described to me.
The hunt was beginning to be a long one, and I was by no means certain of finding my quarry in the end. Again I thought of giving the whole thing up and going back to London for some work which would be more certainly remunerative. But I pictured the diamonds as Barker had described them to me, and could not bring myself to leave any chance. I went down to the dealer, asked what he wanted for the cushions and made a point of grumbling at the price. "You are likely to keep them," I said, "if that's what you want. The only people who would buy at that rate are safely shut up in the asylums."
"Well," said the dealer, "I'm asking you just the same that I got for the other lot that I sold."
"I'll bet a sovereign that's a lie," I said.
"Right," said the dealer, "I take that. I'm not over and above fond of being called a liar. This'll cost you something. If you'll just step into my office, I'll get the book out."
He showed me the book with a note of the transaction in it. He was quite correct, and I handed over my sovereign with a crestfallen air. I went away with the information that I wanted. The man who had bought the cushions was named Solway, and was a proprietor of bathing-machines and pleasure-boats at Hayley-on-Sea. The thing was becoming ridiculous. I fully expected that when I reached Hayley-on-Sea I should find that the enterprising Solway had shipped the cushions across to Holland for conversion into beef-tea or liqueurs. There was no trouble in finding Solway. Solway advertised himself at the station, and at my hotel, and on the beach. He was, it seemed, a prop and pillar of Hayley-on-Sea, and was looked upon with respect. The head waiter at the hotel expressed the opinion that Solway was "a warm man," and wished, with a sigh, that he had as many shillings as Solway had sovereigns. But there was no pride about the Solway family. The old man sat at the receipt of custom in a shed by the bathing-machines. His sons took visitors out in the pleasure-boats; his daughters had under their care a wide range of skimpy towels and excessive bathing-costumes. There was also a Solway nephew, but his only occupation was to fetch beer for the other Solways. They were a genial family and they drank a good deal of beer. I had not the least difficulty in getting into conversation with Solway, and in looking over the piled cushions of his many pleasure-boats.
I touched one of them with my stick, and said that it looked just as if it might have come out of a railway carriage.
Solway emphatically desired the Lord to bless his soul if this was not a funny thing. In effect they were railway cushions, and he told me with much detail how they were procured. I had taken a season ticket for his rotten bathing machines, and was in consequence a person to be treated with courtesy, including conversation if required.
I said that I was surprised that it was worth his while to buy cushions of that kind; probably every one of them had been cut about by some mischievous railway traveller at some time or another, Solway said he did not think so; the cushions were in fair condition.
I immediately bet him a shilling that the one which I touched had a slit in it somewhere. If the slit were sewn up it was to count just the same. He took my bet, and I lost. I repeated the bet about two other cushions, and lost again.
Then Solway desired the Lord to bless his soul again, if he was going on taking money in this foolish way. He had had the pick of the cushions when he bought them, and he had not had them for long. If they had been shabby they would not have done for his business. As a matter of fact, only one of the cushions that he had bought was at all damaged; that had a slit on the under side, and he knew that was not in the pile I was looking at, because he had given it away. He added that it seemed as if I was kind of interested in cushions.
"Ah," I said, "we were talking about you the other night up at the hotel, and they gave you rather a different character there."
"What do you mean?" asked Solway.
"Well, there was a man there in the bar who said that old Solway had never given anything to anybody in the whole course of his life."
Solway grinned appreciatively. He took this as a welcome compliment, but felt compelled to admit that he had been flattered beyond his deserts. He had not given away much, and that was a fact. He would not have been what he was, and where he was, if he had parted with things too readily. But it was true about the cushion.
"Then," I said, "give me a chance to get back some of the money that I have just been losing to you. I shall see that chap up at the hotel again to-night, and I think I could get a bet on with him. Of course he would want to know the name of the man to whom you gave the cushion. He wouldn't merely take your word for it."
Solway said proudly that he supposed his word was about as good as the Bible oath of most people, but he had no objection to giving the name. It was a funny thing, but he had given that cushion to a trade rival, if you could call him a rival. He was a poor old chap named Marsh, who had got but one boat, and his living depended on it.
There was not the least probability that Marsh would have parted with the cushion. I felt now that I could put my hand on it at any time, and, moreover, the sea air and my bathe had made me hungry. I went back to lunch. After lunch I went down to the beach, and made an enquiry or two. No, I could not have Marsh's boat. The old man was taking two young gents out for a sail in It. They went out every afternoon when it was fine. It did not look particularly fine this afternoon. A few drops of rain fell. I bought a newspaper, and betook me to a shelter to read. From this point I noticed that the astute Solway was refusing to let his sailing boats go out.
The storm is still well remembered at Hayley-on-Sea, and, of course, the disaster to Marsh's boat was in all the papers next day. Nobody quite knew how it happened, but not one of the three lives was saved. It might have happened in many ways. The boat was found floating keel uppermost. And somewhere, at the bottom of the English Channel, there is a railway carriage cushion containing a packet of valuable diamonds.
Had I gone straight on to Marsh directly after leaving Solway, those diamonds would now have been in my possession, or would have been sold by me to my friend in Brussels. On such small chances do success and failure depend. In my own, as in many more desirable occupations, long and patient work and abilities far beyond the average are impotent against a whim of destiny. I do not wonder that I am a fatalist, but it is strange to me that there are those who are not fatalists.
This was not one of the occasions on which I decided to drink. It was necessary for me to keep such powers as I have at their best for some immediately remunerative work. A series of thefts took place at Hayley-on-Sea, during the next week. Solway, for instance, lost a couple of hundred pounds of his savings. The local paper assured us that the police had a clue. I have reason to believe that they had not.