The very next day the office porter at Thurles & Company—I never heard who the ‘Company’ was—received orders to go to Bristol on some errand for the firm, and wait for a packet, which he was to bring back with him. Thurles & Company had two out-of-door porters or messengers; but this was the man who attended to the head-clerk’s room, to the counting-house, and, of course, on Mr Thurles. He went, and I suppose his employers had written to the Bristol people asking them to keep the man down there for a while, as he was gone a very long time. In his absence, another person had to be appointed to perform his duties; and I may as well say at once that I was the temporary porter, and that the regular party had been purposely sent away to make room for me. Dressed in plain brown livery, with brass buttons, wearing a false pair of whiskers—I shaved quite close in those days—with collar and tie as much unlike my usual style as could be, without anything like a caricature, I was not easily to be recognised, even if—as was hardly probable—some of the clerks had ever seen and known Sergeant Holdrey of the metropolitan police. There were not many clerks at Thurles & Company’s, so on the first day of my taking office I knew them all. My inexperience in my duties occasioned me, and others too, some inconvenience at first, and would have been much worse but for a little assistance I derived from a clerk who observed it—a young fellow named Picknell. I had noticed him when I first went in, and did not like his looks. He was short and thin, very dark-complexioned like a gipsy, with eyes that you couldn’t fix, and couldn’t say whether they were watching you or not; and I never could make up my mind from first to last as to whether he had or had not a cast in his eye. However, he took compassion on me, and told me several things which were useful, and from the first seemed to take an interest in me. Well, on this day I could do but little. I kept my eyes open; noticed the manner and style of the clerks, and of the porters as well. These latter had not been suspected; but they were none the less likely to have been in the job, and of course I noticed thoroughly the window and its position as regarded the safe. Mr Thurles had said the robbery must have been committed by some one whose appearance was familiar to the people in the neighbourhood, as he would certainly be noticed; but after seeing the premises, I did not agree with him. The entry was made in just the way a regular ‘tradesman’ would have done it; but this was no guide, if the place had been prepared for him.