IT is an age of detective stories. This would seem to imply that it is also an age of crime, and probably the inference is a correct one. At any rate there seems nothing so popular at present in the fairy domains of fiction as the running of criminals to earth, and unravelling the mysteries of their crimes. The miraculous achievements of Mr. Sherlock Holmes have attracted universal attention, and now almost every magazine tries to outvie its confrères, and throw all previous detective exploits into the shade by the brilliant record of how some tiny clue in the hands of the representative of Scotland Yard — a triangular slip of paper containing a magic hieroglyphic, or the print of a finger-nail — followed up through many mazes and labyrinths, with Job-like patience, lynx-like sagacity, and Herculean industry has finally brought an unsuspected murderer to the gallows, or led to the restoration of her priceless ancestral jewels to some robbed and heart-broken Countess.

      Sceptics and scoffers rather sneer at all this, and point to the fact that in spite of the performances of such paragons on paper, the trade of the burglar is still a profitable one in practice.

      But however this may be, I beg to say at the outset of my story, that if anyone expects anything similar here in the shape of a thrilling narrative of rascality defeated and outraged law avenged, he will be very much disappointed. It is a very simple tale indeed that I have to tell.

      It is based on fact, and is therefore much more interesting to me than any flight of imagination.

      It sets forth how a distinguished detective failed in the very hour of his triumph, or rather voluntarily chose not to pursue his success, but to give up his case; it was an affaire de cœur in which his handcuffs were worsted by his heart-strings, in consequence of which he became an ex-member of the force of which he had long been such a conspicuous ornament, and has been happy ever since, nor I think has ever regretted his action on that occasion.

      I will change the names and compress the facts into as brief a compass as possible.

      It was told me by my friend, Arthur Hamilton, a barrister, who has now risen high in his profession; if I told you his real name you would recognise one of the leading lights of the day.

      In his early days, when his abilities were still in embryo, and his fame and fortune unmade, when he was in fact in that briefless stage which is so familiar to many a barrister at the outset of his career — he shared rooms with that famous detective Robert Hewitt.

      They were great chums, and each found the other very helpful on many occasions.

      I had better let Mr. Hamilton tell the story in his own words, as he told it to me in the course of friendly conversation as we smoked the pipe of peace together one night in his chambers at Lincoln's Inn.

 

      I never saw such a clever chap as Bob in my life, sharp as a needle. Talk about five senses, he'd got six or seven. He could see through a case, and into a man in no time — read your mind like a book and tell you what you were thinking of as soon as you knew it yourself. And such quiet ways about him, too. You'd think he never observed anything, but didn't he just? — and what's more he didn't forget it. He'd notice a person in the street, and fix every point about him on his memory clear as a photograph. I've known him go into a room for the first time and when he came out he could describe that room even to the smallest minutiæ, down to the maker's name on the barometer, and the firm in Paris where the clock came from.

      He'd always been employed on the most difficult cases since the day he ran down the man who stole Lady G.'s jewellery in broad daylight — you remember the affair, it set all England by the ears. Yes, Bob nailed him, but it took him a long time, for he was on a wrong scent first. He tracked him after a tedious quest, to Amsterdam, and nabbed him in disguise as a garçon at a restaurant, and got back all the jewels, valued at £50,000.

      He was then sent out to America to investigate some cunning railway robberies, and was successful as usual, and came back with a reputation more securely established than ever.

      He resumed his old rooms, though he could now have afforded much better ones, but he was good enough to say he liked my company, and I certainly liked his, so many fine chats we had together in the evenings.

      He was getting up in years when I first knew him, and the strain of his anxious profession was beginning to tell upon him.

      He had also had domestic troubles which had sorely tried him.

      His wife, to whom he had been passionately devoted, had died many years before at the birth of his only child.

      This child, a daughter, had been a great grief to him. She, when only eighteen, had some few years before the time of which I am speaking, formed the acquaintance of a wealthy young man about town, who seemed to have no particular business, but plenty of money. Bob didn't at all approve of the connection, and told his daughter so — perhaps he didn't tell her that he knew him to be a gambler and suspected him to be a card-sharper.

      Nellie continued to see him in secret, blinded by the glamour of youth, and one day told her father that she had consented to be his wife.

      Well, of course old Hewitt was furious, said he'd rather see her in her grave than married to that scoundrel, and a few other hot remarks customary on such occasions escaped his lips. Finding that he was not likely to give in, the girl took the matter into her own hands in the usual orthodox, or heterodox, way.

      The detective coming home one day found the conventional note, saying she could not live without her lover, that they had been married that day and were going abroad. She asked his forgiveness, but gave no clue to their destination.

      Poor Bob was terribly cut up for a time — he made enquiries which led to nothing, and then gave himself up more exclusively than ever, heart and soul to his profession, to drown his trouble.

      Still there were times when he felt his grief acutely, and he carried about with him, even in his most successful ambitions, the scar of an unhealed wound.

      At the time to which my story refers, Bob had a particularly puzzling case in hand.

      It was a case of forgery and uttering counterfeit coin. The gang was an artful one, and there was a woman in it.

      Bob had done his best, but either his head or hand had lost its cunning, for as yet all his efforts had been unavailing. He was beginning to get quite ill over it. And moreover, another man, named Sharpe, who had begun to make a name, and was eager to outstrip Bob, had taken the case in hand.

      To beat the best man in the force was a big stake to play for, but it was what Sharpe had undertaken nevertheless.

      He had once before run some one to earth, when by a mere technical error, Bob had failed to do so, and he was as much elated in consequence, as Bob was sore on the point.

      This was a mere piece of good luck for Sharpe, but it made the men rivals in a sense. So that now that government had offered a large reward for the arrest of the forgers, and it was known that both men were on the war-path, there was some considerable excitement afloat as to which of them would prove the better man.

      One evening, Bob, who had been out all day, came home about seven, and I could see at a glance that he was more than ordinarily excited, though it was excitement kept under firm control, and only showing itself in an unwonted fire in his eyes, and lips tightly compressed.

      He did not speak for a time, and seemed lost in thought.

      "Aren't you going to have some dinner?" I queried at last.

      "No time," he curtly replied, "I must be off immediately to Stepney. Will you come too, you may be able to help me? A cab will be round in a minute."

      I consented, and did not bother him with further questions, as I knew he would explain all on the way.

      "I've come across the right clue this afternoon," he said, as we were driving eastwards. "I don't think I shall muff it this time, and that fellow Sharpe is off the scent over this job; he'd give his ears to forestall me, but there's not much fear of my losing the prey now. If one of the gang isn't under lock and key to-night, I'll leave the force!"

      Judging by the quiet look of determination on his face, and the grim smile of satisfaction, I saw that the gang would have hard work to escape this time.

      He explained that he believed the leader of the gang was a man who had been killed by an accident that day at the docks, that the other two were mere tools whom he expected to have no difficulty in tracing after he had arrested the wife of the dead man, who, he had reason to suspect, was concealed in a low lodging in Stepney.

      Leaving the Commercial Road, we traversed one grimy street after another, till Bob stopped the cab at a corner and told the driver to wait there till his return.

      He then led me some little way forward up a dirty alley. The staircase was dark and rotten.

      "Let me go up first," he said, "you wait here, follow me in a minute, top-landing, right hand side."

      He took two loaded revolvers from his pocket, and gave me one.

      "They may be more than I think, and on their guard — you may want it, but it isn't likely."

      He then ascended the stairs alone.

      After a minute, which seemed to me an age, I followed according to my directions.

      There was no noise of a struggle going on, no sound at all in fact, and I was beginning to think the bird had flown, and was already commiserating poor Bob on his fearful disappointment, when I heard a man's voice trying to speak in tones which were choked with sobs and groans.

      "Ah!" I thought to myself, "some old skunk's whining for mercy now he's nailed; he won't find that game pay with Bob."

      So I pushed open the door with pleasing anticipations of witnessing a neat capture.

      Judge my blank amazement at the sight I saw!

      Those sobs and groans came from Bob himself. Bob, the man of iron nerve and unfailing self-control, who had faced death without turning a hair, who had sent murderers to their doom and felons to the dock without a pang of pity or compunction. Who would believe it was Bob? Who would recognise the dauntless detective kneeling on the dirty floor by the side of a squalid bed, holding to his heart the form of a woman, who was still beautiful and refined. A head, still fair, was pillowed on his breast, and his hands were smoothing back the golden locks from a wan and weary face; on which his own tears were fast falling.

      "Nellie, my darling, in a place like this — can it really be? You know me, say you know your father. Quick, don't lose a minute, we must get you out of this. No one knows but me, dearest, no one shall ever know. I will save you, but quick — quick!"

      Who would have known the detective? But no, it was not the detective who crouched and cowered there; in his place knelt a sorrow-stricken, loving father — gone were all his dreams of renown and rewards, clean vanished from his mind was the purpose on which he had come there; but one idea was in his mind; a frantic, frenzied longing to get his daughter out of that wretched slum.

      He turned and saw me, and knew that I knew all.

      "Ha, Arthur, I said you would be able to help me; but I little thought how. You won't desert me, say you won't desert me?"

      "My dear fellow, trust me to do my utmost."

      "But we must be quick," poor Bob kept on saying. "Supposing anyone should come — suppose Sharpe had by some chance hit on the track? The very thought seemed to paralyse all his limbs.

      I saw that I must come to his aid. "Leave it to me. I will fetch the cab to the door, and take her wherever you direct me. You mustn't be seen at present with her."

      On my return poor Bob was calmer, he gave me the address of a great friend of his at Liverpool, and I took the poor girl there by the midnight mail, and left her in safe keeping, returning myself by the first train in the morning.

      What she had suffered by her own hasty folly we only gathered afterwards. Neglected by her brutal husband, compelled to assist him in his nefarious practices, ill-fed, beaten, abused, she had indeed had a terrible time of it. The very shame of her surroundings had deterred her from seeking out her father.

      A week later Bob sent in his resignation.

      The death of the leader of the gang, who was identified, simplified Bob's settlement with the authorities.

      How far he was justified in his course it is not for me to judge. I only know there was a happier look on his face when I told him Nellie was safe at Liverpool, than there ever was when he consigned a rascal to gaol.

      Of course he came in for much sarcastic criticism on his failing to follow up his clue. Sharpe had a good deal to say on the matter, and he hinted that his resignation was not a minute too soon for the credit of Scotland Yard. "He was getting quite past his work," he would say to his private friends.

      But Bob is as well and hearty as ever, and cares not what they say.

      After a little time he rejoined his daughter at Liverpool, and they shortly afterwards sailed for America. She has quite recovered her health and strength, and all thought of the sorrowful past is buried in oblivion.

      Bob is one of the most popular men in New York.

      The Yankees dub him "Judge," and have a high opinion of his abilities.

      I had a letter from him only the other day. He wants me to go out there and attend his daughter's wedding, for she is engaged to one of the leading citizens with her father's full consent and approval.

      And I think I shall go, too. I should like to see old Bob again.

      So that is the story of the "Detective who failed."

 

      "But he didn't fail," I objected, at the conclusion of Arthur's narrative.

      "Oh, well, the world said he did; but I must leave you to settle that for yourself," he replied.

      And I in turn must leave it to my readers to settle for themselves.

J. HUDSON.     

(THE END)