Secret Service; or, Recollections of a City DetectiveForrester, Andrew
General
Secret Service; or, Recollections of a City Detective
Forrester, Andrew
Detective and mystery stories, English; Fiction; Short stories
There were some difficulties about the case. The evidence of the convict
might be disbelieved. Mr. Snayke, or whoever might be Mr. Crapp's
counsel for his defence, would assuredly argue that the convict had, in
the solitude of his prison, invented this story, in order to gratify a
revengeful feeling against the master who, although he had prosecuted
him to conviction under a stress of duty, had recommended him to mercy.
Yet there were some corroborating facts to be laid before the jury.
Experts might testify that the signature was not a forgery. Mr. Crapp's
hurry might be sworn to by the convict; his visit to the theatre, which
caused it, might be proved. The motive of throwing the loss upon the
bankers could be argued.
Second thoughts in a counting-house at Lombard Street ran in the same
direction as in the solicitors' office. It was determined to prosecute
Mr. Crapp, in the prospect of his conviction for the good of society.
Within a few hours of the formation of this opinion Mr. Crapp fled from
his house, and as a living man was never again heard of. The body of a
man resembling him was ten days afterwards washed ashore at Barking
Creek.
I suspect that Mr. Undertail's partner was led by his excessive
generosity to warn the wretch of his peril, that he fled in consequence,
and that, dreading capture, shame, and punishment, he committed suicide
by drowning.
Does the reader wish me to answer the question at the head of this
narrative? He is welcome to my opinion, and at liberty to differ from it
if it does not please him. I think Mr. Crapp was worse than his clerk; I
think that Mr. Croak was a greater criminal than either; but I consider
that the vilest knave of the lot was Mr. Snayke.
A GRAND RAILWAY "PLANT."
Does the reader know that all the money taken at a railway station is
sent up to head-quarters every night? Such is the arrangement. The money
is put into a box, constructed as well as may be to render peculation or
robbery on the way difficult, if not impossible, and off it is sent. An
"advice" is of course also sent by the station-master or cashier from
the particular station to the head-office. The money for paying salaries
and wages is also sent in a like manner in a reverse course from
head-quarters to the tributaries from which it originally came. The
chief station, terminus, or office, is in fact the centre of an arterial
monetary system. Every thing in the form of cash comes in there and goes
from there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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