One of Two. A novel, etc

Preface

. O one of Mr. Thackeray's stories — which is so English, that no one would have the slightest suspicion that it was a transplantation — the author appends a note, explaining that the plot came from a foreign source. In a like manner, the writer of the following pages would acknowledge his indebtedness to M. Emile Gaboriau for the motif of this story, and for outlines of some of the principal characters. He hopes, however, that as his "scene" — to speak dramatically — is as thoroughly English as that of the "Bedford Row Conspiracy," VI

PREFACE.

. referred to above, so also the puppets which move and speak upon his stage — many of which appear for the first time — may be claimed as original, and entirely of our country; while the " time " of the story is more than forty years anterior to the date of that which sug gested it. Exigencies of narration have made the Author take a slight liberty with the Criminal Law, which his good-natured critics will, he hopes, be as ready to pardon as he is to con fess his necessary shortcoming. As, in the progress of this work, in the pages of a magazine, a critic suspected that he could discover " portraits of contemporaries, thinly veiled," the writer begs to be permitted to explain that the quotations from the news papers are from contemporary sources. FREFACE. VII These volumes were written at intervals during an illness so severe and dangerous, that the author was debarred from reading the proofs of another work; and he asks the public to look leniently on the faults of this. ONE OF TWO.

Chapter I. What Was Found At Acacia Villa, Kensal-green

§H|N FRIDAY, the 3rd day of October, in ____] the year 1829, being a few days after Michaelmas Day — which in that year fell on a Tuesday, as the reader will find by counting back on his fingers — an old man, a tall boy, and three women, took the trouble to walk all the way from Kensal-green — a pretty village not far from London, and not then disfigured by that huge stonemasons' yard, the Cemetery — and to present themselves at the door of the VOL. I. B police office in Marylebone — or, as they called it, " Marrybone-lane." Having been allowed to enter, and having wondered at the place, which was quite new, as well as the New Police — who had only been put on duty four or five days previously — the spokes woman of the party endeavoured to tell her tale ; when Mr. Inspector — who, in his new blue coat and pewter buttons, looked very like an officer of his Majesty's land forces — interrupted her, and pointing to the male person, begged him to say what was wanted.

Whereon Mr. Jasper Snape, Tailor and Pigeon Fancier, began. This was his narrative: — For several days the neighbourhood of Kensal green — that is to say, Jasper Snape himself and his neighbours — had been troubled and exer cised by the fact that a certain widow, Mrs. Martin, or, as she was usually called, "Madame," had not been visible to mortal eye. She was Snape's neighbour, and lived in a little house, standing alone in its own garden. She used to admire his, Jasper Snape's, pigeons. He bred pigeons, besides earning his living by tailoring. He had been to her house lately — that is to say, to-day, Friday — with these good people; he had knocked several times: there was no answer. Both windows and doors were shut: the win dows by shutters, which were, of course, fastened on the inside. Had knocked at all the shutters.

The tall boy had peeped through the keyhole, and even offered to climb up on the roof, and to get down the chimney. It was a low house — not low in a bad meaning, on the contrary, very genteel; but of one storey — so it would have been easy to have carried out the tall boy's pro posal; but he, Jasper Snape, had told them that it was "agen the law;" and they had come up all that way for a search warrant. " Perhaps," said the Inspector, " the woman's jrone out on a visit." Mr. Jasper Snape here smoothed his hair, and pulled at his waistcoat, as if he were about to B take a new thread off his neck, and thread his needle again. He recommenced: — You should understand him, Snape, no; de cidedly, no! He knew the value of law, and did not want to trouble it. Madame — that is, the widow — had been seen to go in, but not to come out.

She had been seen, that is to say, on Michaelmas Day. Her rent was paid: she was a particular person in paying rent. She and Snape inhabited houses belonging to the same landlord ; in fact, he paid her rent two or three days before it was due. She then shut her door — after being last seen on Tuesday evening, at about six — and said she should go to bed. He had heard her close her shutters. The woman had seen those shutters closed: the tall boy could corroborate all that had been said. The Inspector rubbed his chin, flicked his pen, and looked at the charge sheet. "Why did y7ou come up here? Was there not the proper head -constable up at that place?" "It was not very far," said Snape; "and the new Act — Bobby Peel's New Police Act — had commenced. The Charleys, very useful men in their time, had gone out, and we wanted new brooms."

Snape — who, being a tailor and keeping pigeons, must needs be a politician and an ad mirer of Major Cartwright — intimated that, upon the whole, he approved of the Act. " There was," he said, " a blessed deal too much of Tom and Jerry larking with the old Charleys. An old friend of his, a Charley, had been put into the canal close by, box — i.e., watch-box — and all ; and as near as could be drownded — dead! " " You won't have no more of them larks now," said the Inspector, sternly, to Snape. He was angry that the majesty of the law should be so dealt with ; and he was puzzled what to do with the case which Snape and Com pany had brought him. Presently, while the tall boy was vainly looking through the rails of the Inspector's desk, a gentlemanly man, about thirty, came in, and passed through to the court.

The Inspector, struck with a sudden thought, jumped off his stool and followed him. " Mr. Boom sits to-day, sir," he said. "Umph!" said Mr. George Horton, stipendiary magistrate. " I know that, Stevenson ; but I want to refer to some cases. Anything new — it all works smoothly ?" " Ye — es," said the Inspector; " very smoothly, sir. But here's a curious case I want to know about, sir." And he followed the magistrate into the private room, and read over Mr. Jasper Snape's communication. After a while, the young ma gistrate said that he would not only grant the warrant, but go with Stevenson — if he could put another inspector on duty. Yes, he would go with the Inspector and a plain-clothesman — whom, indeed, we should now call a detective — and see about the matter. " Something strikes me that it is a serious matter, Stevenson."

" Yes, sir," said that officer, sharply enough. When the chance of a "case" turned up, most " officers " were on the alert, for the honour of the new corps was dear to them. " Here are these people, sir. What am I to do with them?" " How many?" asked the magistrate. Stevenson went to the door and counted. " One, two, three — five, sir," he said. " Get a cab to the door for you and me, and a hackney coach for the witnesses and the plain clothesman." " Yes, sir." And away the Inspector creaked. " Stevenson !" shouted Mr. Horton. Yes, sir. " They have come all the way from Ken sal-green. Give them some beer ; here's the money." He threw the Inspector half a crown, and the latter caught it, murmuring, " My eye and Betty- Martin!" — a favourite oath of the period — "recently appointed, arn't he?

New to the business !" Kensal-green was a pretty little village, made all the prettier by the new canal which ran through it and through hundreds of acres of hay-fields round it. It was quiet, perfectly coun trified or rural, more so than many a village nowadays which lies near a railway, and cele brated as a health-resort. Very small people, who had made very small sums of money, came and lived there, cultivating small patches of ground and humble memories, and living in a state of perfect and Paradisaical innocence, but for the swearing of the bargees who navigated the canal. These fellows were more lively than ever they are now — doing, indeed, a brisker trade as carriers — and quite frightening some of the people out of their tenements ; so that it resulted that all the better houses were built at some distance from the canal.

Otherwise, the neighbourhood was bright and pretty enough At a short distance lay the Edgware-road ; and along that the coaches from the North used to run several times a-day into the Oxford-road, and thence to Holborn. The yellow-bodied cab, with the police ma gistrate and the Inspector seated side by side under a huge black leather hood, and driven by a driver with a sleeve-waistcoat and a black eye, who sat by their side in a separate box or com partment, soon got to the cross-roads on the Green ; for the bay mare with the cock-tail in the shafts was a good one, and had been a racer. Upon the Green the cab awaited the hackney coach, which came up with smoking horses ; for the yellow-bodied cab, with its tall wheels and light fare, had "cut along pretty sharply," as the Inspector said. "Now, then, old slow coach!" said the driver with the black eye.

"D'yer want me to break their wind?" said the coachman, angrily. "You couldn't, if so be you tried; it's done a'ready," returned the other. During this passage of arms, Snape and Com pany descended. The tailor, leading the way, and followed by the stipendiary magistrate and police, the tall boy, the women, and a few child ren, also by the cabman with the black eye, turned to the right hand of the Green, to a little side road, and in a few minutes gained a pretty little box of a villa, which, with all its shutters shut in the broad daylight, looked as if it had gone to sleep. A light ornamental railing ran in front of the house, and dwarf walls divided it from others — one only of which, and that uninhabited, stood beyond it. The little villa had a ground floor and a first floor, and altoge ther did not number more than six small rooms and a wash-house.

Somehow, as the people ap proached it, they shuddered and felt dull — the house looked so deserted and so tightly closed. "Yes," said Jasper Snape; "that's the place — look at it!" The magistrate, placing a policeman at the little fore-garden gate, and taking the Inspector and Snape with him, knocked with his silver headed cane at both door and shutters. There was no answer. "Aye, you may knock," said one of the women to the other. " You won't get no answer; shell never open that door agin." Mr. Horton turned round, and said to the policeman at the door — who was regarded in that rural district almost with awe, as a powerful and antagonistic novelty — "Send for a locksmith." A young fellow with a rush basket on his shoulders hereon stepped forward. Carefully7 dusting the stone doorstep with his white apron, he knelt down, took his rush basket off his shoulders, shook the door, tried to look through the keyhole, and then selecting a fine picklock of much power, placed it in the lock.

The door opened easily, and the little party entered. There was an eager movement from the crowd without ; the women pressed closer together, the children even dared to push the policeman in their eagerness to get in at the gate. Mr. Jasper Snape's worst anticipations were too well founded. The very passage, which was small enough, exhibited to the excited senses of the searchers something indicative of the coming revelation. The mat had been kicked up; the kitchen candle, which had burnt itself out in its tin candlestick, had flared and guttered down with a brown-red grease that looked almost like blood. On the left-hand side was the "drawing-room" of the little villa. In it was a desk, broken open, and the drawer wrenched out, bending the thin brass pin which fastened it. Papers were scattered about; and an Indian shawl of some little value, thin and filmy, which had lain in the bottom of a work-box, was thrown on the sofa, the work-box upset on the top of it, and the pocket of the work-box was torn open.

"Whoever he was," said the plain-clothes man, "this cracksman was in a hurry." In the next room, the door of which faced the other, the same hurry was observed. Some cold meat and an egg were put for some one to eat; a bottle — with the cork out — of brandy stood near it: the brandy was of that dark, mahogany colour, then fashionable; but by its side there was something not then found in small houses, a bottle of claret. The cloth, laid carefully, very white and good, was pulled on one side towards the door, as if some person had suddenly risen. • A napkin and a napkin ring, unused, but with some stains upon it, lay upon the floor. The stains were of blood. The little sideboard had been forced open ; but the thief had forgotten to take two or three silver tea spoons, the only plate there. " He's a rum cracksman," said the detective, " and not a very old hand."

Mr. Brownjohn, who ventured that opinion, was an old hand himself, drafted from Bow street into the New Police, and was celebrated in his way. Neither Mr. Horton nor the Inspector — both men of more reflection than Brownjohn, who owed his reputation to instinct, orto happy guesses — said anything. Either the owner had been very careless, which might have been the case, or the guilty person had, in an eager search, moved nearly every article. Through this dining-room a door led into the neat little kitchen, which was merely suffi cient to prepare food for an old, or a very young couple in their honeymoon — and, indeed, the little Cockney village was much resorted to by humble young people who had just married. After looking round the dining-room, the magistrate, closely followed by Jasper Snape, entered the kitchen.

The latter no sooner had put his head in the little room, than he gave a cry, and rushed forward. " There she is ! — there ! there ! Poor Mrs. Martin! Poor Madame!" The old pigeon fancier knelt down by the side of the corpse — and there, sure enough, the head lying in the cinders, was the body of the Widow Martin. Part of the cap and part of the hair were burnt. Curiously, the water of the kettle had been spilt in the struggle or attack, and had flowed over the body and ex tinguished the flames. It was probable that the murderer would have been well pleased had the body been burnt, and all evidence os the crime thus destroyed. "Where has the poor woman been wounded?" •aid the magistrate. " In the back, between the shoulders, twice," said the Inspector, turning back the shawl. " A small hole enough the weapon left, but 'tis enough."

" She is quite cold," said Snape, in a whisper, as if he dared not speak aloud. " Been dead at least three days," said the Inspector. " What blood there is, is dry7. She must have bled inwardly. One blow went through the heart. I should think she had not time to cry out ' Oh ! ' ' "Poor creature!" ejaculated Mr. Horton, in deep pity and disgust. " Could not the vil lains have robbed the house without murdering her ? Pass the word for a doctor. Stevenson, take an inventory of the matters here. Mr. Snape, come with me into the next room ; and, while we wait here, tell me who was this woman ? " Mr. Snape followed the magistrate, who sat down in the tumbled and deserted drawing room. The Inspector passed the word for a doctor ; and, in some mysterious way, all the people outside seemed to have been made acquainted with the facts inside.

The con stable of the village came up and took the place of the policqman at the gate ; and that functionary in blue was sent back in the yellow-bodied cab to Homer-street, New-road, for a more efficient aid ; for the Inspector looked with a jealous as well as a supercilious eye upon the plain-clothesman, Brownjohn. " There's no time to lose," said he. " Brown john is flummoxed quite. We shall want Old Daylight here." And so having determined, the cabman in the sleeve-jacket and with a black eye, having seen his blue-coated fare in his swing cabriolet, was despatched to Homer-street at a fast trot. "Why do you send for Old Daylight?" said the policeman, sulkily. " It's plain enough this aint no professional cracksman. It's some fellow as has been suddenly took. He's got a good start, but I'll have him."

" There's more in it than you think for, Brownjohn," said the Inspector, severely. "Tom Forster's the only man for delicate work like this." Tom Forster was the proper name of Old Daylight. The plain-clothesman stood rebuked and sulky ; and, in the little kitchen, such was the silence that they heard the clear voice of Mr. Horton ask Snape the question — " Who was this woman ?" VOL. I. C

Chapter II. Mr

TOM FORSTER PUTS HIMSELF ON THE QUI VIVE rr|||HAT Mr. Jasper Snape, Tailor and Bird aMfll Fancier, could not tell the magistrate, Mr. Horton contrived to gather from the neigh bours, while the yellow-bodied cab went literally at a swinging trot for Old Daylight ; and In spector Stevenson was at once pleased and de lighted with the clear, concise, and efficient way in which the magistrate went through his exami nations. Indeed, it was not to be wondered at. Air. George Horton was a rising barrister of great promise, and many of his friends thought that he was unwise to accept the thousand a-year of the stipendiary magistrateship. But his reason will have to be explained. In the meantime, let us tell the reader who Mrs. Martin was. In 1827, about two years before this, Madame Martin had arrived at the little village in a hackney coach full of linen and crockery, had driven right up to Acacia Villa — both the acacia, from which it took its name, and the villa were very small — had produced a key, and had en tered the house, which had been previously very neatly furnished with the contents of one van.

She was a yearly tenant — the landlords at Ken sal-green, for their own reasons, preferring their rents paid quarterly, and in advance. Mrs. Martin was what is called a bony wo man, and in youth was certainly bonny too. She was upwards of fifty years old, strong, vigorous, and in full health. She spoke English with a very slight accent, for she was a native of Trouville, near Boulogne, and had been brought up in an English family; but she was altogether French in look, manner, and feeling. She had lived much in the world, and was of that age when a lone woman takes upon herself much of C the independence and roughness of man. She walked about the Green, made her purchases, hired her little servant — who came for two days in the week, and never slept in the house — and was beholden to nobody, except to Jasper Snape, who went and paid her rent for her, and whose pigeons she admired.

She herself had kept pigeons at a small chateau in the little valley of Trouville. With those whom she met she was very free spoken. She had been a voyage or two, and even farther than from Boulogne to Dover; and she knew something about the sea. In her drawing room was a handsome Japanese cabinet, a great deal too good for so small a house, but one of those things which seafaring people get hold of, and present to those whom they love. She said that her husband, a Boulognese, was dead — he had been lost at sea — and a good job too! It was a pity some people ever married. When two young people, who were very fond of each other, settled not far from her, and were seen walking fondly together, she had been heard to say — "Ah! all very well — new brooms! new brooms! Fresh and fair, no doubt. He'll care for her about a year, that's all."

From which he, Jasper Snape, believed that she was not happily married. Mrs. Martin, called Madame, was looked upon as a rich woman — for the Green. She always paid her rent, was generous to her little servant, ate well, slept well, and drank well. It came out that her female neighbours knew how many bottles of brandy she got from the Stanley Arms, on the Green; and the Kilburn carrier had driven out of his way to deliver a wooden box full of wine — probably, thought Mr. Hor ton, a case of claret. Once, even the canal men had brought something to her; and one of them had been admitted, and treated to some brandy and water, which he said was "prime." "Put that down, Inspector — it's important. The plain-clothesman pricked his ears. Mrs. Martin had, it would seem, the best of everything; and, as a rule, was evidently not liked in the neighbourhood by any, save by Jasper Snape.

She had said several rude things to the women. To one young girl she hinted that, "With her beautiful face, she would make her fortune in Paris or London;" and women do not love such phrases. Moreover, Mrs. Martin lived, as Dr. Johnson said a gentleman did, "with no visible means of gaining an honest existence;" and she lived better than her neighbours. They were, consequently, jealous; and even her terrible death did not seem to evoke any pity, except in the breasts of Mr. Horton and Jasper Snape. Yet, there she lay, killed in full health and vigour, still as straight and vigorous as a young woman. That keen eye was closed; that bold, hawk-look for ever blank; that quick, determined step would never march out of that door again. Besides the matter of offence which the immense vigour and aplomb of Madame gave, there were many other reasons why she was disliked.

She was always sneering at virtue, at romance, at the English, and at the Protestant religion. The parson could make nothing of her. She went, it is supposed, once or twice — on festival days, Easter Sunday and Christmas Day — to Spanish-place to mass; but that was all — if that. Her daily habit was to eat and drink a good deal, although she was spare of body and very far from fat; and to retire early, shutting herself closely up, and bolting all her doors and windows. Ill-natured people said that before she went to bed she had taken enough of brown brandy. At this stage of the evidence — gathered from various people painfully, by question and answer, and bit by bit — the constable at the gate signi fied that the yellow-bodied cab was in sight; and presently it dashed up, and from it descended the policeman in blue and a quiet little man in brown.

Mr. Thomas Forster — for it was he — stepped down carefully from the cab, and walked circum spectly into the garden. He had been found at home, of course; and found, as he would have been at any time, neatly dressed in the fashion of perhaps twenty years previous. A brown spencer covered a brown coat; but both were open, and showed a neat black kerseymere waist coat, double-breasted, and with flaps ; under this, brown pantaloons, tight-fitting to the knee, were terminated by Hessian boots, fashionably made, but with leather tassels tightly sewn to the top, like a bunch of fringe. A thick white cravat, neatly tied round the old gentleman's neck, com pleted his costume, if you except a rakish and smart-looking beaver hat, curled at the sides. From his fob, under his waistcoat, hung a gold watch chain, of a copper colour and a heavy flat link, almost as broad as a riband; at the end of this was a somewhat round but excellent silver watch of the best London make, and upon this our friend placed implicit reliance.

His hands were covered with good Woodstock gloves, and in them he held an old favourite blackthorn, very polished and nobby at the top. Mr. Tom For ster, in spite of his littleness, looked a substan tial person. He was not exactly a gentleman: he looked more like a well-to-do innkeeper or householder. He was utterly unlike a trades man of the period, and stood stoutly in his shoes. He was well known to Sir Richard Birnie, and the officers of Bow-street; for in many a celebrated raid had he helped them. Latterly, he had separated himself from the office, having had money left him ; but when any great case offered itself, Old Daylight — as they called him, because he was supposed to let day light into the darkest cases — was perfectly ready. He bowed with much respect to the magistrate — for Tom Forster loved and honoured fo rensic genius, and Mr. George Horton was well known to him as one of the keenest cross-exa miners that ever said " My lud"- — and then, taking off his gloves, he sat down, the plain clothesman looking at him with jealousy.

For Mr. Brownjohn — afterwards so celebrated in the annals of our detective police, and who, indeed, died from a wound got in a fray with some desperadoes — had been cruelly hurt by the Inspector. He knew his weight, and had with good cause been highly recommended when " turned over" from the chief office to Maryle bone. Give him a clue, and he would follow it out to the last. He had not that clue yet. He would soon have it. Why, he argued, call in Old Daylight? But never mind, it would be a race between them yet ; and he would bet twenty to twenty that he was even with Daylight. Old Daylight's method was altogether different from that of Brownjohn. He was a natural phi losopher ; and, naturally so, on the inductive principle. He put together piece after piece of evidence; and, when he had amassed a huge heap, he gave a sudden jump.

"Great wits jump" was a quotation that he had never heard, but which he had often proved true. Little by little the light given by each fact accumulated, until he saw his way clear, and then nothing could shake him. Many a time he had persisted in the truth of his deduction, though everybody was against him; and many a time he had been right. Hence his great reputation. For delicate cases, neither the celebrated Leadbetter, nor the more celebrated Forrester — who were the heroes of a hundred stories — could compare with Tom Forster. The Inspector himself was no fool. He had been a constable when the New Police were only7 dreamt of, and he meant to be an honour to the New Police. He had a prodigious memory for faces. Whenever he looked upon a man for two or three minutes — and he looked upon many — he never forgot him.

Something, he said, in the play of the eye was different in every man, and upon the eye he depended; hence he never pre tended to recognize or recall dead people more than another man; but a living man he was down on. He, too, hoped to pick something out of this case; but his method was, he saw, scarcely^ wanted here, and he had made up his mind that the job was for Tom Forster. Mr. Forster, saluting the magistrate, took off his hat, and showed a bald head, covered at the back and sides with thick iron-gray hair. His eyes were dark hazel, twinkling and merry enough, and very sharp. His back was bent, and his head held forward eagerly. He pro duced a gold eyeglass, put it to one eye, and perused the magistrate's notes. He did not take a minute to run over them; then he rose, went into the kitchen, and came back again, saying — " Very good — very good."

What he said was not applied to the murder, but to the notes. Then, turning to Mr. Horton, he said — "Your worship has not designated the time when the woman Martin was last seen." Mr. Horton placed his hand on the paper, and with his finger pointed out that which Old Day light had overlooked. At the side— covered by his thumb, probably, when he read it — were the figures, "twenty minutes past six in the even ing." " On Michaelmas Day. She must have gone to rest early." " Her habit," said Mr. Horton. " You are sure of the time ?" "Exactly. Here is the witness, Smith, who had bought a goose for her dinner, and who went to fetch a little gin from the public-house for her husband's digestion. The Stanley Arms is about five minutes' slow walk from this little Acacia Villa. Smith, coming home, saw Mrs. Martin standing at her door, who told her that French brandy — cognac — was better to drink than English gin."