He had entirely deluded her as to the object of his search by telling her that he was a lawyer’s clerk, commissioned by his employer to hunt for a codicil which had been hidden somewhere in that house by an old man who had lived in it in the year ; and he had contrived, in the course of conversation, to draw from the old woman, who was of a garrulous turn, all that she had to tell about the “Softy.”
It was not much, certainly. Mr. Hargraves had never changed a banknote with her knowledge. He had paid for his bit of victuals as he had it, but had not spent a shilling a day. As to banknotes, it wasn’t at all likely that he had any of them; for he was always complaining that he was very poor, and that his little bit of savings, scraped together out of his wages, wouldn’t last him long.
“This Hargraves is a precious deep one for all they call him soft,” thought Mr. Grimstone, as he left the lodging-house, and walked slowly towards the sporting public-house at which he had left the “Softy” under the watchful eye of Mr. Tom Chivers. “I’ve often heard say that these half-witted chaps have more cunning in their little fingers than a better man has in the whole of his composition. Another man would have never been able to stand against the temptation of changing one of those notes; or would have gone about wearing that identical waistcoat; or would have made a bolt of it the day after the murder; or tried on something or other that would have blown the gaff upon him; but not your ‘Softy’! He hides the notes and he hides the waistcoat, and then he laughs in his sleeve at those that want him, and sits drinking his beer as comfortably as you please.”
Pondering thus, the detective made his way to the public-house in which he had left Mr. Stephen Hargraves. He ordered a glass of brandy-and-water at the bar, and walked into the taproom, expecting to see the “Softy” still brooding sullenly over his drink, still guarded by the apparently indifferent eye of Mr. Chivers. But it was not so. The taproom was empty; and upon making cautious inquiries, Mr. Grimstone discovered that the “Softy” and his watcher had been gone for upwards of an hour.
Mr. Chivers had been forbidden to let his charge out of sight under any circumstances whatever, except indeed if the “Softy” had turned homewards while Mr. Grimstone was employed in ransacking his domicile, in which event Tom was to have slipped on a few paces before him, and given warning to his chief. Wherever Stephen Hargraves went, Mr. Thomas Chivers was to follow him; but he was, above all, to act in such a manner as would effectually prevent any suspicion arising in the “Softy’s” mind as to the fact that he was followed.
It will be seen, therefore, that poor Chivers had no very easy task to perform, and it has been seen that he had heretofore contrived to perform it pretty skilfully. If Stephen Hargraves sat boozing in a taproom half the day, Mr. Chivers was also to booze or to make a pretence of boozing, for the same length of time. If the “Softy” showed any disposition to be social, and gave his companion any opportunity of getting friendly with him, the detective’s underling was to employ his utmost skill and discretion in availing himself of that golden chance. It is a wondrous provision of Providence that the treachery which would be hateful and horrible in any other man, is considered perfectly legitimate in the man who is employed to hunt out a murderer or a thief. The vile instruments which the criminal employed against his unsuspecting victim are in due time used against himself; and the wretch who laughed at the poor unsuspecting dupe who was trapped to his destruction by his lies, is caught in his turn by some shallow deceit, or pitifully hackneyed device, of the paid spy, who has been bribed to lure him to his doom. For the outlaw of society, the code of honour is null and void. His existence is a perpetual peril to innocent women and honourable men; and the detective who beguiles him to his end does such a service to society as must doubtless counterbalance the treachery of the means by which it is done. The days of Jonathan Wild and his compeers are over, and the thief-taker no longer begins life as a thief. The detective officer is as honest as he is intrepid and astute, and it is not his own fault if the dirty nature of all crime gives him now and then dirty work to do.
But Mr. Stephen Hargraves did not give the opportunity for which Tom Chivers had been bidden to lie in wait; he sat sullen, silent, stupid, unapproachable; and as Tom’s orders were not to force himself upon his companion, he was fain to abandon all thought of worming himself into the “Softy’s” good graces. This made the task of watching him all the more difficult. It is not such a very easy matter to follow a man without seeming to follow him.
It was market-day too, and the town was crowded with noisy country people. Mr. Grimstone suddenly remembered this, and the recollection by no means added to his peace of mind.
“Chivers never did sell me,” he thought, “and surely he won’t do it now. I dare say they’re safe enough, for the matter of that, in some other public. I’ll slip out and look after them.”
Mr. Grimstone had, as I have said, already made himself acquainted with all the haunts affected by the “Softy.” It did not take him long, therefore, to look in at the three or four public-houses where Steeve Hargraves was likely to be found, and to discover that he was not there.
“He’s slouching about the town
