RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONDON DETECTIVE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 23 May 1891, Page 4

RECOLLECTIONS OF A LONDON DETECTIVE.

No. 4.— The Tiger-Headed Malacca. If I was watching outside a high-class Gambling house in the West End when I first sighted the slim ladylike figure. 'ih<? ground was white with a thick coating ot . snow, which had fallen softly since midnight, and occasionally a break in the clouds allowed the moon to shine down on that side of the street with a steel-like glitter which, showed every object in sharp relief against the white ground. I kept moving. of course, so as not to attract attention, for I was waiting for an acquaintance who had promised to take me inside, and I had to keep my eyes on all who entered and left the house. My real business was to trace a forger of French bank-notes, named Alphonse Moulpeid. He was not a Frenchman, but a daring sharper of Irish extraction, though he spoke the language like a native. , When the ladylike girl first passed me T innocently thought that she was only some poor dressmaker hurrying home at that late hour without escort, and in terror of every man she met, but when I had gone to the other end of the street and turned, and met her full in the face again, I knew that she was loitering, and must be doing so for some object. The street is quite a quiet one, and not at all like Regent Street about the same hour, so I was at a loss to know what could have brought her there. There was a possibility, however, that she was watching me, so as that is a proceeding I do not relish, I decided to stop it after the next turn. When she was again passing me I stopped, and said rather harshly— " You'd better be off ; r'm a police officer." To my surprise, instead of hurrying away, or indulging in some swearing or abuse, the girl started and stood still, looking at me curiously with a pair of widely-opened and innocent blue eyes. I saw that I had made a mistake, yet my wonder increased. She was very pretty, and quite girlish in face and figure — what could she want -on the ttreets alone at one o'clock in the morning ? " I beg your pardon, sir, but I did not know I was doing anything wrong," she modestly and sweetly answered. " May I not wait here for my husband ? He went in there— l saw him go— and I thought he would come out again soon," and tears walked into the blue eyes, and a quiver of the lips and voice told a tale of their own. f " Oh, yes, you may wait as long as you please," I answered with a bow, instinctively raising my hat, " but I thought " and then I did not tell her what I thought. " You must be a detective, for you wear no uniform," she said, after she had let the tears have their own way for a little. " You must know what takes so many into that house. Oh, sir, would it not be good for me to know what kind of place it is ? We are not two years married, and he is so changed— no, no ! he cannot be changed— but he seems changed, and is hardly ever at home, and so cross, and — no, not cruel, but impatient. He did not mean to hurt me," and then the tears mastered her, and the words were choked off. Her feelings had evidently been long pent up. Probably I was the first human being to whom she had breathed a hint of the truth, and that had only been done in the impulse of the moment, and while she believed that she would never meet me again. She had to stagger back against the iron area railing, and have it out. She sobbed there till the poor little heart had nearly burst. " It's only a gambling house," I said, to fill up the awkward interval, " but if your husband has any money they'll soon strip him of it in there." " Oh, now I understand why he always speaks of being so poor, though he got so much when he married me. Perhaps he has lost all that. Well, I should think nothing of that if he had not lost his love for me and Baby Pet." "Ah, you have a child, then ?" I said, with some surprise, she looked so little removed from a child herself. " Oh yes, sir," and the blue eyes fairly shone through the tears still lingering there ; " the dearest, sweetest little girl you ever looked at. He was very fond of her, and ot' me too, till he be^an to keep co.np.iny with that wretch — I can call hi:n nothing else — who went into that house with him just now." " A man ?" I inquiringly remarked. . " A man ? Well, he looks like a man, but there's a devil under it all. Mephistoplieles would be a better name. I never see hi 3 fine face and glossy black hair, but I fool inclined to tear him to pieces, and, all the while, there he is smiling in your face as if he didn't know it, or knew it and en* joyed your ancer and dislike because it cou'dn'thurt him.' " What is he, at all ?" I asked, noticing a kind of frenzy getting into her tone, and not wishing her to go off into hysterics there and then. " A gentleman's son he calls himself— a French marquis, he says, is his father, and he pretends to have a large fortune in his own right. Why isn't there a law to keep such wretches from getting between a wife and her husband ? He robs me every day and every hour, yet I can do nothing to him." " French, you say ? What is his name ?'• I quietly asked, for I got interested in her description. I fully expected to hear her answer " Moulpied," but instead she gave " Bordelaise." That was a trifle, though, for the man in my mind had as many names as a visitors' list. I got her to describe him more minutely—dark brown eyes, with a wicked twinkle in them, handsome features, fine teeth, neat hands, and a diamond ring on the little finger of the left hand. But, most curiously, he carried a cane with a thick head of solid ivory, which was carved to represent a tiger's head with the mouth open, as in snarling. That tiger-headed cane was down in my list, furnished by }he Paris police, Moulpied was said never to part with that cane, and to have a super* stitious idea that if he did lose it his luck would go with it. He had certainly been •lucky so far, for he was thirty-five, and had only been got into prison twice for trifling terms. " You know French pretty well, I suppose 1" I said to the lady before me, speak* mg in French. " Oh, yes, sir, very well," she answered with animation. " I lived in Paris for three yeirs when I was a girl." "Well, does this Bordelaise speak the tongue like a native ?" " Well, scarcely ; but then he may hay« been a long time in England." Moulpied had the same peculiarity. It was scarcely possible *hxi two different men could resemble each other in so many particulars. " What is your husband's name ?" I asked. "Alfred Warren." I got her to describe him-r-young, of course, only twenty-five, fat, good-looking, and a great card and billiard-player; he fancied himself able to beat the whole world at these— just the qualifications for a good fat pigeon. Moulpied, on the other hand, was said to have taken lessons from a great French conjuror, and was one of the most nimble and expert Greeks that Paris could produce. Three different times I had come on traces of the tiger-headed malacca, yet I had ntvef •ttn 'either the cane or iti owntr, And iv« U 1 htd inn th«m, I mid htvt mat