horror and dismay proceeded from ’em in the dock!
‘At the Old Bailey, when their trials came on, Mr. Clarkson was
engaged for the defence, and he COULDN’T make out how it was, about
the Butcher. He thought, all along, it was a real Butcher. When
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the counsel for the prosecution said, “I will now call before you,
gentlemen, the Police-officer,” meaning myself, Mr. Clarkson says,
“Why Police-officer? Why more Police-officers? I don’t want
Police. We have had a great deal too much of the Police. I want
the Butcher!” However, sir, he had the Butcher and the Policeofficer,
both in one. Out of seven prisoners committed for trial,
five were found guilty, and some of ’em were transported. The
respectable firm at the West End got a term of imprisonment; and
that’s the Butcher’s Story!’
The story done, the chuckle-headed Butcher again resolved himself
into the smooth-faced Detective. But, he was so extremely tickled
by their having taken him about, when he was that Dragon in
disguise, to show him London, that he could not help reverting to
that point in his narrative; and gently repeating with the Butcher
snigger, ‘”Oh, dear,” I says, “is that where they hang the men?
Oh, Lor!” “THAT!” says they. “What a simple cove he is!”‘
It being now late, and the party very modest in their fear of being
too diffuse, there were some tokens of separation; when Sergeant
Dornton, the soldierly-looking man, said, looking round him with a
smile:
‘Before we break up, sir, perhaps you might have some amusement in
hearing of the Adventures of a Carpet Bag. They are very short;
and, I think, curious.’
We welcomed the Carpet Bag, as cordially as Mr. Shepherdson
welcomed the false Butcher at the Setting Moon. Sergeant Dornton
proceeded.
‘In 1847, I was despatched to Chatham, in search of one Mesheck, a
Jew. He had been carrying on, pretty heavily, in the bill-stealing
way, getting acceptances from young men of good connexions (in the
army chiefly), on pretence of discount, and bolting with the same.
‘Mesheck was off, before I got to Chatham. All I could learn about
him was, that he had gone, probably to London, and had with him – a
Carpet Bag.
‘I came back to town, by the last train from Blackwall, and made
inquiries concerning a Jew passenger with – a Carpet Bag.
‘The office was shut up, it being the last train. There were only
two or three porters left. Looking after a Jew with a Carpet Bag,
on the Blackwall Railway, which was then the high road to a great
Military Depot, was worse than looking after a needle in a hayrick.
But it happened that one of these porters had carried, for a
certain Jew, to a certain public-house, a certain – Carpet Bag.
‘I went to the public-house, but the Jew had only left his luggage
there for a few hours, and had called for it in a cab, and taken it
away. I put such questions there, and to the porter, as I thought
prudent, and got at this description of – the Carpet Bag.
‘It was a bag which had, on one side of it, worked in worsted, a
green parrot on a stand. A green parrot on a stand was the means
by which to identify that – Carpet Bag.
‘I traced Mesheck, by means of this green parrot on a stand, to
Cheltenham, to Birmingham, to Liverpool, to the Atlantic Ocean. At
Liverpool he was too many for me. He had gone to the United
States, and I gave up all thoughts of Mesheck, and likewise of his
– Carpet Bag.
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‘Many months afterwards – near a year afterwards – there was a bank
in Ireland robbed of seven thousand pounds, by a person of the name
of Doctor Dundey, who escaped to America; from which country some
of the stolen notes came home. He was supposed to have bought a
farm in New Jersey. Under proper management, that estate could be
seized and sold, for the benefit of the parties he had defrauded.
I was sent off to America for this purpose.