LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1934, 6 May 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

“ GOLD AMD SILVER BOUGHT.”—A DETECTIVE’S STORY. From T ink by Link. ( Concluded .) Blue Billy staggard slowly backwards until stopped by the wall, and there he stood helpless as a bag of wood propped for support. The experience was so new, the injustice so crying, that his limited vocabulary was ransacked in vain for an adequate expression of indignation and fury. And when, after a steady gaze of some minutes’ duration into the calm face of the broker, ho did find his tongue, he could only say, with the difference of one word, ‘ Well, I’m b;e« ed.’ • And I’ll tell yon whaV continued Gunton, in an injured tone, * I’ve begun to suspect that you are no better than yon look, and that that bit of metal which you sold me last week was stolen.’

‘Eh—what! stolen?’ mechanically echoed Billy, talking like one in a dream. ‘Yes, stolen and melted down,’ severely continued the righteous Gunton ; ‘ I’ll have to see what McGovan thinks of it when he names this way. You know there was a jewellery robbery over in the New Town only the other week—nearly £4OO worth of stuff taken—and who knows but McGovan,

wi;h a hint from me, might be cruel enough to say you have done it. Very hard, no doubt; these detectives are so auspicious and anxious for a case. And look here, do you see this peculiar brooch ; it’s second-hand you'll see, and been broken, p’r’apa sent into some jeweller’s shoo to mend. Do you know It ?’

‘ Think I should,’ growled Billy through his set teeth, with another oath ; 1 it’s one of the things I gave you last night.’ ‘ Humph ! ;there 'yon arc ! wandering in your mind again, 7 sweetly and pityingly observed Gnnton; ‘ thing again, and you will remember that you sold me this little brooch along with the piece of melted silver some time ago. If yon doubt my word, why look at my purchase-book, and you’ll see there all correct. ’

Billy wont through the form of gazing fixedly at the proffered book, and though he could not read, he firmly believed that Gu- ton spoke the truth, and fairly reaU.-et that there was one in the world more subtle, more rascally, and more developed in scheming powers than himself. There are blows which exasperate, and there are blows which subdue. If you smite a man on 'the cheek he will propably be infuriated and fight you toughly ; but if you give him a terrific blow in the stomach the chances are that he will be doubled up and more anxious to rub himself down and re cover breath than to molest you. Billy had been struck, figara ively speaking, straight in the stomach, and ha neither stormed, raved, nor gave utterance to the world of eloquence that welled within his breast. When Gnnton uttered the calm and busi-ness-like threat, and motioned him to the open door, he mechanic illy obeyed, and found himself pensively moving towards his own den in the Cowgate, faintly asking himself why the world was allowed to exist in such depravity and wickedness. • Sold ! ’ he growled out, with a gnash of the teeth, ‘and he looked so simple ; blast him! ’ and intense bitterness at being cheated in his own peculiarly snocessf-d line choked off words and oaths, and almost breath from the swindled rogue. And it was not his own execration alone which Billy had to endure. He was lat a putner in the concern ; and his compani ns in crime, who hitherto had placed implicit reliance upon his cunning and skill, now turned upon him with a zest of viger of revilement that would have induced his injured honor to seek peace in a suicide's grave bat for a feeling which had sprung up in hia mind since his melancholy exit from Gunton’a shop. That feeling, of course, was revenge Billy con’d not write himself, but one of his friends could Not being burthened with an ext naive correspondence, they did not keep a supply of writing paper by them, and a groce-’s tea bag had to do duty as a sheet of paper, the said bag bearing, by the way, the name and address in full of the grocer from whom it had been procured. On this eocent ic letter paper Billy caused to be inscribed the following message to me : “Jamio M’Govan.—You will gett they swag takin at the new ton robbery all att Cantons house, the broker, he bought it but cheted ns off the mony so look after him and weel forgiv ye. A. FklßtiDS. “ P. 5.—400 wuth and ohlidge. ” This epistle was folded in three and posted, and then Billy and his friends sat down to await the joyful culmination of their revenge I had little donht as to the genuineness of the information, for, brief as was the note, it revealed a sore spot—a why and wherefore—which quite accounted for the treachery on the part of the writers. With the proper warrant, I therefore proceeded to Gunton’s house at a time when I knew he would be away at his shop, and bad it searched as thoroughly as ever suspected reset’s house was searched. But we found not a trace of the plunder—not as much as a pin or a brooch ; and Gunton himself, who came in as we finished, only laughed lightly and airily at what he was pleased to call ‘a clever hoax of the police.’ ‘ I think my character is above suspicion,’ he virtuously remarked, and then striking his brow and starting violently, he added, ‘‘ I begin to suspect who has hoodwinked you, and to see that it Ibas been done in revenge. A very suspicious locking character sold me a lump of silver and an old brooch some time ago, and brought some more yesterday, but I refused to have anything to do with them till 1 had seen you,” ‘Where are the things he sold you,’ I asked without comment.

‘ Down at the shop. Oh, they're all right, been in the book ever bo many days ; but he did look ferocious when he went away.” A minute description of the thief followed, and I would have had Bi'ly in the cells in an hour, had the description given by Qunton only been within a hundred miles of a correct one. But for reasons of his own, and with a wholesome dread of further revelations if it came to a personal interview with the thieves, Mr Qunton drew so strongly upon his imagination that Billy’s own mother would not have recognised the portrait. This was the more tantalising as the old brooch was speedily identified as part of the stolen property, and the policeman on the beat was sharply reprimanded for not noticing it sooner when looking over Gunton’s books.

The wrath of Billy and his friends upon discovering how neatly Gunton had eluded them was too deep for expression in words. It called for action prompt and swift, and it was even gravely deliberated whether the treacherous broker should not be suddenly attacked and stabbed to the heart some dark night while going from his shop to his home. But a brilliant idea of Billy’s interrupted this arrangement. He pointed out that Gunton had made himself some hundreds of pounds richer by his duplicity; that the money so gained, as well as other sums illgotten, would probably be concealed in his house : what could be better, then, than to fire that house, burn It to the very ground, and perhaps the virtuous occupier with it ? The prop: sal was received with acclamation, and very speedily carried out. The flat below that occupied by Qunton chanced to be both unlet and in ruinous disrepair. Billy or his associates got in by one of the broken windows, and with seme straw, shavings, and wood managed to set it on fire.

The flames spread rapidly enough to alarm the whole land, but though a good deal of damage was done to the flat in which it originated, Gnnton’s house above was scarcely touched, and he and his wealth certainly uninjured. Gunton fiimself had a shrewd suspicion that the fire below him was not accidental, and, becoming alarmed, concocted a wild story of being continually haunted by a thievish-looking scoundrel, whose description tallied so closely with Blue Billy that I began to make inquiries for him with such steady persistence that he in turn became alarmed, and resolved on prompt action before quitting for a time our beautiful city. Gunton was going home rather late, on* dark night about a week after, when he was stopped at the foot of the Pleatanoe, by a woman who in a semblance of great alarm said—‘Don’t go up that way, if you value your life; there’s man waiting to stab you.’ Gunton turned to fly down the Back Canongate, when the woman again interposed— ‘ No, nor that way—there’s two watching down there ; follow me, if yon wish to get off.’

She ran off np the Cowgate, and he followed blindly, till she plunged into a narrow and dirty close, in stumbling through which Gunton was suddenly felled senseless by some hidden accomplice of the strange woman. When we awoke he was in a low cellar, of about three feet square, with an arched roof, damp and slimy, and with stalaolties of earth and lime depending from the roof snd thus indicating that he was below ground. He was sitting up, bound hand and foot, with a man before him with a oandle in one hand, and in the other a jug of water, with which he was liberally sousing the prisoner’s face. After a moment’s recollection, Gunton had no difficulty in recognising Blue Billy, if only by the ferocious and delighted grin mantling his ugly face, as he waved the candle to and fro before his own face and said—- ‘ Don't you know me, you blessed rascal and thief ?’ Don’t you know the innocent one as yon swindled ?’ Gunton nodded in a dazed way, and Billy proceeded—- ‘ You’re trapped and brought here, where no one can hear ye cry, to be starved to death ! I’m going away out of town forced to leave on account of my valuable health, which Jamie McGovan is askin’ after, and so is my pals ; but we’ve got you safe first, and we means to leave ye thus, and that ain t all, for I’ve give a boy an order to get mo a dozen gord rats from the brewery to keep

ye company ; he, he, he! You’ll be a happyfamily and all hungry aliko ; so it’ll will bo a fair bet which of you wins the fight and eats the other ; I’m afraid the rata will win, but that's just as yon manage it wi’ your ban a ai d feet tied fast.’ Screams and entreaties were alike unheeded by Billy. He turned away and closed the heavy door only to appear in a few hours with a bagful of rats, which ho had ingeniously fasten-d in with a slip loop of twice, which he ran through under tho door and let th-m 100 e with a tug after relocking it outside. The scenes which followed are t>o horrible for descript’on ; and I have no doubt Gnnton would have been devoured and gnawed to a skeleton by the rats had not illy been so anxious to leave the city with speed as to venture down to the railway station and V-odly tike out a ticket for Glasgow, I ha-pened to see a man resembling him step into a carriage, and was rewarded on turning back by seeing him nimbly leave hy the opposite door, scramble acmes th line and escape by Princess street Gardens at bis swifee-t pace in the direction of the Cowgrte. 17s did not get far ahead of me, and this swiftness on ray part was dne to two cir umstances. first. Gnnton’s W'fe, who was already in the lock-up cells, had repo, ted her h j&band’s mysterious disappearance ; end, second, the plasterers sent so r pair the erring of the house below that occuii-,d by Guntur, had reported* cnr'ons discovery t f jewellery immediately above the “ deafening ” between rocf and floor, -otne searching and comparing soon decided that the “ find ” consisted of a great part of the stolen jewellery ; and I was now as anxious to get Qunton as Billy, whom I had traced as the sender of the carious epistle through the grocer who supplied him with tea.

Following Mr Billy at my swiftest, I managed to keep him sight till he ‘burrowed ” in his deserted den. Here I watched till I could have the place surrounded, when I not only found XJilly, but hia amiable ag-nt, Mr Guntor # as well—much torn about the clothing, and bitten about the face and legs, bat still able to speak, declare, and reveal. They would have fought like tigers, had we not sent them to the office by diffe-ent r-utes, and were each upon their arrival in such Indecent haste to reveal all they knew against the other, that we had not the slightest trouble in extracting the groundword of the evidence, which afterwards gave each the well-deserved sentence of fourteen years’ penal servitude.