My Strangest Case by Guy Newell Boothby (i am reading a book txt) 📕

Having resigned my position in the police of the Northern Colony, I was not to be tempted to reconsider my decision. My liking for the life, however, and my interest in the unravelling of mysterious crimes, proved too strong, and I joined the Detective Staff in Melbourne, seeing in their service a good deal of queer life and ferreting out not a small number of extraordinary cases. The experience gained there was invaluable, and led me, after one particularly interesting piece of business in which I had the good fortune to be most successful, to entertain the notion of quitting Government employ altogether, and setting up for myself. I did so, and soon had more work upon my hand than I could very well accomplish. But I was too ambitious to be content with small things, and eventually came to the conclusion that there was not enough scope in the Colonies for me. After fifteen years' absence, therefore, I returned to England, spending a year in the Further East en route in order to enlarge my experience, and to qualify myself for any work that might come to me from that quarter.

On a certain bitterly cold day in January I reached Liverpool from the United States, and took the train for my old home. My father and mother had long since died, and now all that remained to me of them was the stone slab that covered their resting place in the quiet little churchyard at the foot of the hill.

"Well, here I am," I said to myself, "thirty-three years old, and alone in the world. Nobody knows me in England, but it won't be my fault if they don't hear of George Fairfax before very long. I'll be off to London and try my fortune there."

Next day I made my way to the Great Metropolis, and installed myself at a small private hotel, while I looked about me preparatory to commencing business. To talk of gaining a footing in London is all very well in its way, but it is by no means so easy a task to accomplish as it might appear. Doubtless it can be done fairly quickly if one is prepared to spend large sums of money in advertising, and is not afraid to blow one's own trumpet on every possible occasion, but that is not my line, and besides, even had I so wished, I had not the money to do it. For a multitude of reasons I did not feel inclined to embark my hard-earned savings on such a risky enterprise. I preferred to make my way by my own diligence, and with that end in view I rented an office in a convenient quarter, furnished it, put a small advertisement in a few of the papers, and then awaited the coming of my clients.

As I have a long and curious story to tell, and this book is only intended to be the narration of a certain episode in my life, a detailed description of my first three years in London would not only be superfluous, but in every way a waste of time. Let it suffice that my first case was that of the now notorious Pilchard Street Diamond Robbery, my success in which brought me business from a well known firm in Hatton Gardens. As the public will doubtless remember, they had been robbed of some valuable gems between London and Amsterdam in a singularly audacious manner. My second was the case of the celebrated Russian swindler, who called herself the Countess Demikoff. This case alone took me nearly six months to unravel, but I did not grudge the time, seeing that I was well paid for my labours, and that I managed to succeed where the police had failed. From that time forward I think I may say without boasting that I have been as successful as any man of my age has a right to expect to be. What is better still, I am now in the happy position of being able to accept or decline business as I choose. It is in many respects a hard life, and at all times is attended with a fair amount of risk, but you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs, and if any one chooses to spend his life running to earth men who are waging war against Society, well, he must not grumble if he receives some hard knocks in return.

After these preliminaries I will proceed to show how I came to be mixed up in the most curious case it has ever been my good, or evil, fortune to encounter. It showed me a side of human nature I had not met before, and it brought me the greatest happiness a man can ever hope to find.

All business London, and a good many other people besides, must remember the famous United Empire Bank Fraud. Bonds had been stolen and negotiated, vast sums of money were discovered to be missing, and the manager and one of the directors were absent also. So cleverly had the affair been worked, and so flaring were the defalcations, that had it not been for the public-spirited behaviour and generosity of two of the directors, the position of the bank would have been most seriously compromised, if not shattered altogether. How the culprits had managed to slip through the fingers of the law in the first place no one could say, but the fact remains that they were able to get out of England, without, apparently, leaving a trace of their intentions or their whereabouts behind them. Scotland Yard took the matter up with its usual promptness, and at first were confident of success. They set their cleverest detectives to work upon it, and it was not until more than a month had elapsed that the men engaged were compelled most reluctantly to admit their defeat. They had done their best: it was the system under which they worked that was to blame. In the detection of crime, or in the tracing of a criminal, it is best, as in every other walk of life, to be original.

One morning on arriving at my office I found a letter awaiting me from the remaining directors of the bank, in which they inquired if I could make it convenient to call upon them at the head-office that day. To tell the truth I had been expecting this summons for nearly a week, and was far from being displeased when it came. The work I had expected them to offer me was after my own heart, and if they would only trust the business to me and give me a free hand, I was prepared on my part to bring the missing gentlemen to justice.

Needless to say I called upon them at the hour specified, and after a brief wait was conducted to the board room where the directors sat in solemn conclave.

The chairman, Sir Walter Bracebridge, received me on behalf of his colleagues.

"We wrote to you, Mr. Fairfax," he said, "in order to find out whether you could help us concerning the difficulty in which we find ourselves placed. You of course are aware of the serious trouble the bank has experienced, and of the terrible consequences which have resulted therefrom?"

I admitted that I was quite conversant with it, and waited to hear what he would have to say next.

"As a matter of fact," he continued, "we have sent for you to know whether you can offer us any assistance in our hour of difficulty? Pray take a chair, and let us talk the matter over and see what conclusion we can arrive at."

I seated myself, and we discussed the affair to such good purpose that, when I left the Boardroom, it was on the understanding that I was to take up the case at once, and that my expenses and a very large sum of money should be paid me, provided I could manage to bring the affair to a successful termination. I spent the remainder of that day at the Bank, carefully studying the various memoranda. A great deal of what I had read and heard had been mere hearsay, and this it was necessary to discard in order that the real facts of the case might be taken up, and the proper conclusions drawn therefrom. For three days I weighed the case carefully in my mind, and at the end of that time was in a position to give the Board a definite answer to their inquiries. Thereupon I left England, with the result that exactly twelve weeks later the two men, so much wanted, were at Bow Street, and I had the proud knowledge of knowing that I had succeeded where the men who had tried before me had so distinctly failed.

As will be remembered, it was a case that interested every class of society, and Press and Public were alike united in the interest they showed in it. It is not, however, to the trial itself as much as another curious circumstance connected with it, that has induced me to refer to it here. The case had passed from the Magistrate's Court to the Old Bailey, and was hourly increasing in interest. Day after day the Court was crowded to overflowing, and, when the time came for me to take my place in the witness-box and describe the manner in which I had led up to and effected the capture of the offenders, the excitement rose to fever-heat. I can see the whole scene now as plainly as if it had occurred but yesterday; the learned Judge upon the Bench, the jury in their box, the rows of Counsels, and the benches full of interested spectators. I gave my evidence and was examined by the Counsels for the prosecution and for the defence. I described how I had traced the men from England to their hiding-place abroad, and the various attempts that had been made to prevent their extradition, and had just referred to a certain statement one of the prisoners had made to me soon after his arrest, when an interruption caused me to look behind at the rows of spectators. At the further end of the bench, nearest me, were two men; one was evidently tall, the other very short. The taller was the possessor of silvery white hair and a long and venerable beard. He was a handsome looking man of about forty, and my first glance at him told me that he was blind. As I have said, his companion was a much smaller man, with a smooth, almost boyish face, a pair of twinkling eyes, but a mouth rather hard set. Both were evidently following the case closely, and when on the next day I saw that they were in the same place, I took an even greater interest in them than before. It was not however until the trial had finished and the pair of miserable men had been sent to penal servitude for a lengthy term of years, that I made the acquaintance of the men I have just described. I remember the circumstance quite distinctly. I had left the Court and was proceeding down the Old Bailey in the direction of Ludgate Hill, when I heard my name pronounced.

Turning round I discovered to my astonishment the two men I had seen in the Court, and who had seemed to take such an interest in the case. The smaller was guiding his friend along the crowded pavement with a dexterity that was plainly the outcome of a long practice. When I stopped, they stopped also, and the blind man addressed me. His voice was deep and had a note of pathos in it impossible to describe. It may have been that I was