LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2631, 12 September 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A PI ASK OF TEA: A DETECTIVE'S

STORY.

At a large ftefcory on the outskirts of Edinburgh they were workiug overtime to fulfil a I'.ovy contract one evening towards the end of February. Usually the workers, some hundred* in r.uruber, left the place ftt six o'clock, but upon this occision it had been arranged that they «hould st»y till eight, though in the case of at least two of th»t number this arrangement was to be com pletely upset. The second storey of th-i building, cunr-isting of one entire department in which the workers were mostly youog girls and women, was uncer the care and control of a foreman, named Lfa-ry Gibson—a handsomo, sturdy young fellow, with laughing tye3 and enrly hair, about whom half of the girls in the factory were dsffc, the more so, perhaps, as he laughingly affected to dfspue them all. Barry, though sharp and striot enough in keeping the girls at their tasks, and ia sealog that the work was properly dene, was a general favorite with both girls and men ; and, indeed, when I was called in, every one roucdly asserted thit Barry had not a single enemy in the works, or one who would wish him evil.

In the flat [superintended by this favorite young foreman there w»s a good deal of machinery, over which Harry exerc!sod a watchful superintendence j and on the night in question it chanced that a portion of this machinery, involving the idleness of more than a dozen women, went wrong, and ia his anxiety to get It repaired speedily Barry worked like a slave for nearly half-an-hour, getting all right in that time, but emerging from his oramped position into the hot room and glaring lights bathed with perspiration and thoroughly exhausted. 'You'll ba tired now?* remarked one of the workers.

* Yes, und dry as a lime kiln,' he breathlessly answered j and then, wiping the sweat from his brow, he walked into a little room cloao by, In whioh his coat snd hat hung, and ttikiog a tin flask cf cold tea from the coat pocket, he put it to his lips and imbibed a long, steady draught. Before drinking, he had shaken the flask sharply to 'stir up the sugar,, as he afterwards said, bnt the moment the fltek had left hla lips he made a wry face, like a child after t, sallowing physio, aul said to himself, ' That besom of a 1 widlady has forgotten to wash out ths flask I Faugh! it tastes like senna and salts !' With this smothered curse he cooked up the flask, replaced it in his coat pocket, and returned to the great work-room, fell of busy worke a and rattling women, close by. The door by which he entered was at the extreme end of the room, and as it closed with a weighted pulley, t ie bang of shutting for the moment attracted some fifty pairs of eyes to the spot. A strange spectacle met these eyes and riveted them there. Harry, however grimy at times he might be, was generally of a ruddy and healthy hue ; bnt now, standing against the dark, closed door, he looked so pale, so ghastly, and as anguished and corpse-like, that simultaneously a dozen voices exclaimed, 1 What's wrong Harry P Have you hurt yourseif ?* The young foreman did not answer immediately, bnt olenohed his hands on his breast as if he would have torn it open, and uttered a groaning cry that was heard above the rattle of machinery right to the other end of the flat.

*My God ! howl Buffer!' ha cried, as a number ol glrla ran forward to support him, thinking he wa3 about to faiat; ' oh, I burn! There's something burning me through I' ' What have yen taken 7 Did you drink anything ?' inquired a number, ia the utmost alarm and boncera.

'Nothing I Nothing but a drink of cold tea, whtoh I brought with m»,' he answered, writhing In agony in the kindly arms supporting him; ' yet it had an awful taste ; there must have been something in the flask. 1 feel as if I was poisoned.' The greatest consternation now spread through the orowded workers, and the words " Harry's poisoned 1' ran through the room like w ia fire, and thus reached the ears of one worker in particular, who was just leaving her post at the extreme end of the room. This was a girl named Maria Lees, who, for her youth, and beauty, and neatnesß, and tidiness in dress, had been dubbed 'The Bolle of the Mill.' She had been ei har more Intent on her work, or more busy with her own thoughts than her companions, when Harry staggered in at the other end ot the flat, and was only dimly aware that something had occurred when the dreadful ory reached her ears, ■ Harry's poisoned—Harry's poisoned with something in his tea. Then she ran, swift and white as a ghost, to the clustering and paralysed orowd surrounding the strioken man, and noting his deathlike aspect and half-cloied eyes, she threw up her olenohed hands towards the ceiling, and emitted three awful and prolonged soreams. ' Oh! oh! Poisoned ! Yes, ho is poisoned I Oh, I have killed him!' Ai she hurled forth the awful cry in a tone of heart broken self-reproaoh, she dropped like a stone to the ground, and showed so little signs of recovery—going from one hysterical fit into another—that at last it was decided to send her home in a cab. As for Harry Gibson, he bad become to siok and prostrate, that after oarrying him hastily to the nearest chemist, and getting what relief they oould for him, they were advised to send him into the infirmary. The came oab which brought his all but inanimate form to that place brought the manager of the works to the Central Police Office, with a report of the oiroumstanoes of the oase to me. My first suspicion, of course, was, that there had been some jilting or disastrous love affair between Maria Lees and the poisoned man, if there were any connection whatever between her Agitation and his illness j but on going out to the mill and sharply questioning a number of girls, I oould discover nothing to confirm the suspioion. Maria, they all agreed, was a singularly modest and retiring young girl, interfered with no one, and had never been seen speaking tJ the foreman other than as was necessary in connection with her work. She did not' walk with lads ' a; all, one girl told me, and the same knowing authority gave It as her opinion th»t Maria, pretty though ahe was, did not care a pin for men, or sweethearts, or any one but an old aunt with whom she stayed. Thus disappointed regarding the girl, I turned to the chief sufferer in the affair to learn whether he had not annoyed her la any way, or flirted with her, or pestered her with disagreeable attentions, but here [again I was astonished to receive as sharp and decided a negative as the weakness and snffeting of the patient would allow,

' I never looked at her, or spoke to her, or thought of her since she o»me to the wor&,' he said, and though ho had been told decidedly that he had baen poisoned with tartar emetio intrcduced into hia flask of tea he decidedly added, 'I don't believe the girl knew what she was saying when she «:ied out that she had killed me She 1b too good to try such a thing, even if she had cause. There isn't a quieter or better in the whole work. I've watched her olosely when she didn't think of it, and think I should know.'

Thus pulled up I thought I would go back to the beginning, and trace the his ory of the fltak of tea step by step till its contents glided so disastrously down Barry Gibson's throa'i. I went to his landlady, and found that, oontrary to his own supposition, she had carefully washed the flask out, and scoured and polished the outside before fiillicg tn the tea j that she had also rinsed the teapot before making the tea and that she had sweetened it from the same sugar basin she herself had used that afternoon with great impunity; and that she had no motive for wishing such an accident to befall him. Having made sure of these facts, I followed the flaek of tea, if I may so speak, into Barry's coat pocket, out of the house, throngh several streets, and into the little room or closet already mentioned, which contained only a few work-books, some tools and oil flasks, and Harry's coat and hat. This room was generally looked, and when this was the case Harry himself carried the key, as, being on the landlng-pla e, and ccaj taining articles of value aod importance to him, and being passed during the day by hundreds of workers it was thought necessary to secure it against intrudes. When the flask of tea was left In it that afternoon, however, it was believed to have been left unlooked ; at least, Harry himself could not remember fastening the door, or unlocking it when he returned thirsty and heated from the great room close by. So far the mystery wen intelligible; and I began to entertain a strong convict i a that

the tartar emetio foiled In the flask had been introduced during that interval by some evilly.disposed person, with the deliberate intention of poisoning the _youag foreman. That a good deal of this support on wss

hasty and erroneous I shall presently show ; but the groundwork was sound tnough to allow me to begin with the tracking of the oriminal. harry Gibson lay in a sufficiently critical state to warrant me in fearing that a c»eo of murder, daßtaroly as it saemed deliberate, would spring out of the simple facti I have g:von ; and I was proportionately anxious ta get a olue of some kind before the socnt got cold or the criminal quietly evaporated.