‘Yes, they said. It was.
‘”I should wish, if you please,” said I, “to see the room.”
‘It was a good-sized bare room down-stairs, with a few tables and
forms in it, and a row of pegs, all round, for hats and coats.
‘”Next, gentlemen,” said I, “do you suspect anybody?”
‘Yes, they said. They did suspect somebody. They were sorry to
say, they suspected one of the porters.
‘”I should like,” said I, “to have that man pointed out to me, and
to have a little time to look after him.”
‘He was pointed out, and I looked after him, and then I went back
to the hospital, and said, “Now, gentlemen, it’s not the porter.
He’s, unfortunately for himself, a little too fond of drink, but
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he’s nothing worse. My suspicion is, that these robberies are
committed by one of the students; and if you’ll put me a sofa into
that room where the pegs are – as there’s no closet – I think I
shall be able to detect the thief. I wish the sofa, if you please,
to be covered with chintz, or something of that sort, so that I may
lie on my chest, underneath it, without being seen.”
‘The sofa was provided, and next day at eleven o’clock, before any
of the students came, I went there, with those gentlemen, to get
underneath it. It turned out to be one of those old-fashioned
sofas with a great cross-beam at the bottom, that would have broken
my back in no time if I could ever have got below it. We had quite
a job to break all this away in the time; however, I fell to work,
and they fell to work, and we broke it out, and made a clear place
for me. I got under the sofa, lay down on my chest, took out my
knife, and made a convenient hole in the chintz to look through.
It was then settled between me and the gentlemen that when the
students were all up in the wards, one of the gentlemen should come
in, and hang up a great-coat on one of the pegs. And that that
great-coat should have, in one of the pockets, a pocket-book
containing marked money.
‘After I had been there some time, the students began to drop into
the room, by ones, and twos, and threes, and to talk about all
sorts of things, little thinking there was anybody under the sofa –
and then to go up-stairs. At last there came in one who remained
until he was alone in the room by himself. A tallish, good-looking
young man of one or two and twenty, with a light whisker. He went
to a particular hat-peg, took off a good hat that was hanging
there, tried it on, hung his own hat in its place, and hung that
hat on another peg, nearly opposite to me. I then felt quite
certain that he was the thief, and would come back by-and-by.
‘When they were all up-stairs, the gentleman came in with the
great-coat. I showed him where to hang it, so that I might have a
good view of it; and he went away; and I lay under the sofa on my
chest, for a couple of hours or so, waiting.
‘At last, the same young man came down. He walked across the room,
whistling – stopped and listened – took another walk and whistled –
stopped again, and listened – then began to go regularly round the
pegs, feeling in the pockets of all the coats. When he came to the
great-coat, and felt the pocket-book, he was so eager and so
hurried that he broke the strap in tearing it open. As he began to
put the money in his pocket, I crawled out from under the sofa, and
his eyes met mine.
‘My face, as you may perceive, is brown now, but it was pale at
that time, my health not being good; and looked as long as a
horse’s. Besides which, there was a great draught of air from the
door, underneath the sofa, and I had tied a handkerchief round my