Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 by Various

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The Abbe de l'Epee died at Paris on the 23d of December, 1789, in the
seventy-eighth year of his age. Had he been spared two years longer, he
would have seen his school, the object of his fond cares, adopted by the
government, and decreed a national support. But though this act, and the
accompanying vote, which declared that it was "done in honor of Charles
Michel de l'Epee, _a man who deserved well of his country_," were
creditable to the National Assembly, and the people whom it represented,
yet we cannot but remember the troublous times that followed,--times in
which no public service, no private goodness, neither the veneration
due to age, the delicacy of womanhood, nor the winsome helplessness
of infancy, was any protection against the insensate vengeance of a
maddened people; and remembering this, we cannot regret that he whose
life had been so peaceful was laid in a quiet grave ere the coming of
the tempest.

It is but justice, however, to the French people to say, that no name
in their history is heard with more veneration, or with more profound
demonstrations of love and gratitude, than that of the Abbe de l'Epee.
In 1843, the citizens of Versailles, his birth-place, erected a bronze
statue in his honor; and the highest dignitaries of the state, amid the
acclamations of assembled thousands, eulogized his memory. In 1855, the
centennial anniversary of the establishment of his school for deaf-mutes
was celebrated at Paris, and was attended by delegations from most of
the Deaf and Dumb Institutions of Europe.

But sixty-eight years have elapsed since the death of this noble
philanthropist, and, already, more than two hundred institutions for the
deaf and dumb have been established, on the system projected by him and
improved by his successors; and tens of thousands of mutes throughout
Christendom, in consequence of his generous and self-denying zeal, have
been trained for usefulness in this life, and many of them, we hope,
prepared for a blissful hereafter. To all these the name of the Abbe de
l'Epee has been one cherished in their heart of hearts; and, through
all the future, wherever the understanding of the deaf-mute shall be
enlightened by instruction, his memory shall be blessed.

WHO IS THE THIEF?

(_Extracted from the Correspondence of the London Police_.)

FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE, OF THE DETECTIVE POLICE, TO SERGEANT
BULMER, OF THE SAME FORCE.

London, 4th July, 18--.

Sergeant Bulmer,

This is to inform you that you are wanted to assist in looking up a case
of importance, which will require all the attention of an experienced
member of the force. The matter of the robbery on which you are now
engaged you will please to shift over to the young man who brings you
this letter. You will tell him all the circumstances of the case, just
as they stand; you will put him up to the progress you have made (if
any) towards detecting the person or persons by whom the money has been
stolen; and you will leave him to make the best he can of the matter now
in your hands. He is to have the whole responsibility of the case, and
the whole credit of his success, if he brings it to a proper issue.

So much for the orders that I am desired to communicate to you. A word
in your ear, next, about this new man who is to take your place. His
name is Matthew Sharpin; and between ourselves, Sergeant, I don't think
much of him. He has not served his time among the rank and file of the
force. You and I mounted up, step by step, to the places we now fill;
but this stranger, it seems, is to have the chance given him of dashing
into our office at one jump,--supposing he turns out strong enough to
take it. You will naturally ask me how he comes by this privilege. I can
only tell you, that he has some uncommonly strong interest to back him
in certain high quarters, which you and I had better not mention except
under our breaths. He has been a lawyer's clerk; and he looks, to my
mind, rather a mean, underhand sample of that sort of man. According to
his own account,--by the bye, I forgot to say that he is wonderfully
conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand to
look at,--according to his own account, he leaves his old trade and
joins ours of his own free will and preference. You will no more believe
that than I do. My notion is, that he has managed to ferret out some
private information, in connection with the affairs of one of his
master's clients, which makes him rather an awkward customer to keep in
the office for the future, and which, at the same time, gives him hold
enough over his employer to make it dangerous to drive him into a corner
by turning him away. I think the giving him this unheard-of chance among
us is, in plain words, pretty much like giving him hush-money to keep
him quiet. However that may be, Mr. Matthew Sharpin is to have the case
now in your hands; and if he succeeds with it, he pokes his ugly nose
into our office, as sure as fate. You have heard tell of some sad stuff
they have been writing lately in the newspapers, about improving the
efficiency of the Detective Police by mixing up a sharp lawyer's clerk
or two along with them. Well, the experiment is now going to be tried;
and Mr. Matthew Sharpin is the first lucky man who has been pitched on
for the purpose. We shall see how this precious move succeeds. I put
you up to it, Sergeant, so that you may not stand in your own light by
giving the new man any cause to complain of you at head-quarters, and
remain yours,

Francis Theakstone.

FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.

London, 5th July, 18--.

Dear Sir,

Having now been favored with the necessary instructions from Sergeant
Bulmer, I beg to remind you of certain directions which I have received,
relating to the report of my future proceedings, which I am to prepare
for examination at head-quarters.

The document in question is to be addressed to you. It is to be not only
a daily report, but an hourly report as well, when circumstances may
require it. All statements which I send to you, in this way, you are, as
I understand, expected to examine carefully before you seal them up and
send them in to the higher authorities. The object of my writing and of
your examining what I have written is, I am informed, to give me, as an
untried hand, the benefit of your advice, in case I want it (which I
venture to think I shall not) at any stage of my proceedings. As the
extraordinary circumstances of the case on which I am now engaged make
it impossible for me to absent myself from the place where the robbery
was committed, until I have made some progress towards discovering the
thief, I am necessarily precluded from consulting you personally. Hence
the necessity of my writing down the various details, which might,
perhaps, be better communicated by word of mouth. This, if I am not
mistaken, is the position in which we are now placed. I state my own
impressions on the subject, in writing, in order that we may clearly
understand each other at the outset,--and have the honor to remain your
obedient servant,

Matthew Sharpin.

FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE TO MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN.

London, 5th July, 18--.

Sir,

You have begun by wasting time, ink, and paper. We both of us perfectly
well knew the position we stood in towards each other, when I sent you
with my letter to Sergeant Bulmer. There was not the least need to
repeat it in writing. Be so good as to employ your pen, in future, on
the business actually in hand. You have now three separate matters
on which to write me. First, you have to draw up a statement of your
instructions received from Sergeant Bulmer, in order to show us that
nothing has escaped your memory, and that you are thoroughly acquainted
with all the circumstances of the case which has been entrusted to you.
Secondly, you are to inform me what it is you propose to do. Thirdly,
you are to report every inch of your progress, (if you make any,) from
day to day, and, if need be, from hour to hour as well. This is your
duty. As to what _my_ duty may be, when I want you to remind me of it, I
will write and tell you _so_. In the mean time I remain yours,

Francis Theakstone.

FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.

London, 6th July, 18--.

Sir,

You are rather an elderly person, and, as such, naturally inclined to be
a little jealous of men like me, who are in the prime of their lives
and their faculties. Under these circumstances, it is my duty to be
considerate towards you, and not to bear too hardly on your small
failings. I decline, therefore, altogether, to take offence at the tone
of your letter; I give you the full benefit of the natural generosity of
my nature; I sponge the very existence of your surly communication out
of my memory; in short, Chief Inspector Theakstone, I forgive you, and
proceed to business.

My first duty is to draw up a full statement of the instructions I have
received from Sergeant Bulmer. Here they are at your service, according
to my version of them.

At Number Thirteen, Rutherford Street, Soho, there is a stationer's
shop. It is kept by one Mr. Yatman. He is a married man, but has no
family. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Yatman, the other inmates of the house are
a lodger, a young single man named Jay, who occupies the front room on
the second floor,--a shopman, who sleeps in one of the attics,--and a
servant-of-all-work, whose bed is in the back-kitchen. Once a week a
charwoman comes to help this servant. These are all the persons who, on
ordinary occasions, have means of access to the interior of the house,
placed, as a matter of course, at their disposal.

Mr. Yatman has been in business for many years,--carrying on his affairs
prosperously enough to realize a handsome independence for a person in
his position. Unfortunately for himself, he endeavored to increase
the amount of his property by speculating. He ventured boldly in his
investments, luck went against him, and rather less than two years ago
he found himself a poor man again. All that was saved out of the wreck
of his property was the sum of two hundred pounds.

Although Mr. Yatman did his best to meet his altered circumstances, by
giving up many of the luxuries and comforts to which he and his wife had
been accustomed, he found it impossible to retrench so far as to allow
of putting by any money from the income produced by his shop. The
business has been declining of late years,--the cheap advertising
stationers having done it injury with the public. Consequently, up
to the last week, the only surplus property possessed by Mr. Yatman
consisted of the two hundred pounds which had been recovered from the
wreck of his fortune. This sum was placed as a deposit in a joint-stock
bank of the highest possible character.

Eight days ago, Mr. Yatman and his lodger, Mr. Jay, held a conversation
together on the subject of the commercial difficulties, which are
hampering trade in all directions at the present time. Mr. Jay (who
lives by supplying the newspapers with short paragraphs relating to
accidents, offences, and brief records of remarkable occurrences in
general,--who is, in short, what they call a penny-a-liner) told his
landlord that he had been in the city that day, and heard unfavorable
rumors on the subject of the joint-stock banks. The rumors to which he
alluded had already reached the ears of Mr. Yatman from other quarters;
and the confirmation of them by his lodger had such an effect on his
mind,--predisposed, as it was, to alarm, by the experience of his former
losses,--that he resolved to go at once to the bank and withdraw his
deposit. It was then getting on toward the end of the afternoon; and he
arrived just in time to receive his money before the bank closed.

He received the deposit in bank-notes of the following amounts:--one
fifty-pound note, three twenty-pound notes, six ten-pound notes, and six
five-pound notes. His object in drawing the money in this form was
to have it ready to lay out immediately in trifling loans, on good
security, among the small tradespeople of his district,--some of whom
are sorely pressed for the very means of existence at the present time.
Investments of this kind seemed to Mr. Yatman to be the most safe and
the most profitable on which he could now venture.

He brought the money back in an envelope placed in his breast pocket;
and asked his shopman, on getting home, to look for a small flat tin
cash-box, which had not been used for years, and which, as Mr. Yatman
remembered it, was exactly of the right size to hold the bank-notes. For
some time the cash-box was searched for in vain. Mr. Yatman called to
his wife to know if she had any idea where it was. The question was
overheard by the servant-of-all-work, who was taking up the tea-tray at
the time, and by Mr. Jay, who was coming down stairs on his way out
to the theatre. Ultimately the cash-box was found by the shopman. Mr.
Yatman placed the bank-notes in it, secured them by a padlock, and
put the box in his coat pocket. It stuck out of the coat pocket a very
little, but enough to be seen. Mr. Yatman remained at home, up stairs,
all that evening. No visitors called. At eleven o'clock he went to bed,
and put the cash-box under his pillow.

When he and his wife woke the next morning, the box was gone. Payment
of the notes was immediately stopped at the Bank of England; but no news
of the money has been heard of since that time.

So far, the circumstances of the case are perfectly clear. They point
unmistakably to the conclusion that the robbery must have been committed
by some person living in the house. Suspicion falls, therefore, upon the
servant-of-all-work, upon the shopman, and upon Mr. Jay. The two first
knew that the cash-box was being inquired for by their master, but did
not know what it was he wanted to put into it. They would assume, of
course, that it was money. They both had opportunities (the servant,
when she took away the tea,--and the shopman, when he came, after
shutting up, to give the keys of the till to his master) of seeing the
cash-box in Mr. Yatman's pocket, and of inferring naturally, from its
position there, that he intended to take it into his bedroom with him at
night.

Mr. Jay, on the other hand, had been told, during the afternoon's
conversation on the subject of joint-stock banks, that his landlord had
a deposit of two hundred pounds in one of them. He also knew that Mr.
Yatman left him with the intention of drawing that money out; and he
heard the inquiry for the cash-box, afterwards, when he was coming down
stairs. He must, therefore, have inferred that the money was in the
house, and that the cash-box was the receptacle intended to contain it.
That he could have had any idea, however, of the place in which Mr.
Yatman intended to keep it for the night is impossible, seeing that he
went out before the box was found, and did not return till his landlord
was in bed. Consequently, if he committed the robbery, he must have gone
into the bedroom purely on speculation.

Speaking of the bedroom reminds me of the necessity of noticing the
situation of it in the house, and the means that exist of gaining easy
access to it at any hour of the night. The room in question is the back
room on the first floor. In consequence of Mrs. Yatman's constitutional
nervousness on the subject of fire, which makes her apprehend being
burnt alive in her room, in case of accident, by the hampering of the
lock, if the key is turned in it, her husband has never been accustomed
to lock the bedroom door. Both he and his wife are, by their own
admission, heavy sleepers. Consequently, the risk to be run by any
evil-disposed persons wishing to plunder the bedroom was of the most
trifling kind. They could enter the room by merely turning the handle of
the door; and if they moved with ordinary caution, there was no fear
of their waking the sleepers inside. This fact is of importance. It
strengthens our conviction that the money must have been taken by one of
the inmates of the house, because it tends to show that the robbery, in
this case, might have been committed by persons not possessed of the
superior vigilance and cunning of the experienced thief.

Such are the circumstances, as they were related to Sergeant Bulmer,
when he was first called in to discover the guilty parties, and, if
possible, to recover the lost bank-notes. The strictest inquiry which he
could institute failed of producing the smallest fragment of evidence
against any of the persons on whom suspicion naturally fell. Their
language and behavior, on being informed of the robbery, was perfectly
consistent with the language and behavior of innocent people. Sergeant
Bulmer felt, from the first, that this was a case for private inquiry
and secret observation. He began by recommending Mr. and Mrs. Yatman to
affect a feeling of perfect confidence in the innocence of the persons
living under their roof; and he then opened the campaign by employing
himself in following the goings and comings, and in discovering the
friends, the habits, and the secrets of the maid-of-all-work.

Three days and nights of exertion on his own part, and on that of others
who were competent to assist his investigations, were enough to satisfy
him that there was no sound cause for suspicion against the girl.

He next practised the same precautions in relation to the shopman.
There was more difficulty and uncertainty in privately clearing up this
person's character without his knowledge, but the obstacles were at last
smoothed away with tolerable success; and though there is not the same
amount of certainty, in this case, which there was in the case of the
girl, there is still fair reason for believing that the shopman has had
nothing to do with the robbery of the cash-box.

As a necessary consequence of these proceedings, the range of suspicion
now becomes limited to the lodger, Mr. Jay. When I presented your letter
of introduction to Sergeant Buhner, he had already made some inquiries
on the subject of this young man. The result, so far, has not been at
all favorable. Mr. Jay's habits are irregular; he frequents public
houses, and seems to be familiarly acquainted with a great many
dissolute characters; he is in debt to most of the tradespeople whom
he employs; he has not paid his rent to Mr. Yatman for the last month;
yesterday evening he came home excited by liquor, and last week he was
seen talking to a prize-fighter. In short, though Mr. Jay does call
himself a journalist, in virtue of his penny-a-line contributions to the
newspapers, he is a young man of low tastes, vulgar manners, and bad
habits. Nothing has yet been discovered, in relation to him, which
redounds to his credit in the smallest degree.

I have now reported, down to the very last details, all the particulars
communicated to me by Sergeant Buhner. I believe you will not find an
omission anywhere; and I think you will admit, though you are prejudiced
against me, that a clearer statement of facts was never laid before you
than the statement I have now made. My next duty is to tell you what I
propose to do, now that the case is confided to my hands.

In the first place, it is clearly my business to take up the case at
the point where Sergeant Buhner has left it. On his authority, I am
justified in assuming that I have no need to trouble myself about the
maid-of-all-work and the shopman. Their characters are now to be
considered as cleared up. What remains to be privately investigated is
the question of the guilt or innocence of Mr. Jay. Before we give up
the notes for lost, we must make sure, if we can, that he knows nothing
about them.

This is the plan that I have adopted, with the full approval of Mr. and
Mrs. Yatman, for discovering whether Mr. Jay is or is not the person who
has stolen the cash-box:--

I propose, to-day, to present myself at the house in the character of a
young man who is looking for lodgings. The back room on the second floor
will be shown to me as the room to let; and I shall establish myself
there to-night, as a person from the country, who has come to London to
look for a situation in a respectable shop or office. By this means I
shall be living next to the room occupied by Mr. Jay. The partition
between us is mere lath and plaster. I shall make a small hole in it,
near the cornice, through which I can see what Mr. Jay does in his room,
and hear every word that is said when any friend happens to call on him.
Whenever he is at home, I shall be at my post of observation. Whenever
he goes out, I shall be after him. By employing these means of watching
him, I believe I may look forward to the discovery of his secret--if he
knows anything about the lost bank-notes--as to a dead certainty.

What you may think of my plan of observation I cannot undertake to
say. It appears to me to unite the invaluable merits of boldness
and simplicity. Fortified by this conviction, I close the present
communication with feelings of the most sanguine description in regard
to the future, and remain your obedient servant,

Matthew Sharpin.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

7th July.

Sir,

As you have not honored me with any answer to my last communication, I
assume, that, in spite of your prejudices against me, it has produced
the favorable impression on your mind which I ventured to anticipate.
Gratified and encouraged beyond measure by the token of approval which
your eloquent silence conveys to me, I proceed to report the progress
that has been made in the course of the last twenty-four hours.

I am now comfortably established next door to Mr. Jay; and I am
delighted to say that I have two holes in the partition, instead of one.
My natural sense of humor has led me into the pardonable extravagance
of giving them both appropriate names. One I call my Peep-Hole, and the
other my Pipe-Hole. The name of the first explains itself; the name of
the second refers to a small tin pipe, or tube, inserted in the hole,
and twisted so that the mouth of it comes close to my ear, when I am
standing at my post of observation. Thus, while I am looking at Mr. Jay
through my Peep-Hole, I can hear every word that may be spoken in his
room through my Pipe-Hole.

Perfect candor--a virtue which I have possessed from my childhood--
compels me to acknowledge, before I go any farther, that the ingenious
notion of adding a Pipe-Hole to my proposed Peep-Hole originated with
Mrs. Yatman. This lady--a most intelligent and accomplished person,
simple, and yet distinguished, in her manners--has entered into all my
little plans with an enthusiasm and intelligence which I cannot too
highly praise. Mr. Yatman is so cast down by his loss, that he is quite
incapable of affording me any assistance. Mrs. Yatman, who is evidently
most tenderly attached to him, feels her husband's sad condition of mind
even more acutely than she feels the loss of the money; and is mainly
stimulated to exertion by her desire to assist in raising him from the
miserable state of prostration into which he has now fallen. "The money,
Mr. Sharpin," she said to me yesterday evening, with tears in her eyes,
"the money may be regained by rigid economy and strict attention to
business. It is my husband's wretched state of mind that makes me so
anxious for the discovery of the thief. I may be wrong, but I felt
hopeful of success as soon as you entered the house; and I believe,
that, if the wretch who has robbed us is to be found, you are the man to
discover him." I accepted this gratifying compliment in the spirit in
which it was offered,--firmly believing that I shall be found, sooner or
later, to have thoroughly deserved it.

Let me now return to business,--that is to say, to my Peep-Hole and my
Pipe-Hole.

I have enjoyed some hours of calm observation of Mr. Jay. Though rarely
at home, as I understand from Mrs. Yatman, on ordinary occasions, he has
been in-doors the whole of this day. That is suspicious, to begin with.
I have to report, further, that he rose at a late hour this morning,
(always a bad sign in a young man,) and that he lost a great deal
of time, after he was up, in yawning and complaining to himself of
headache. Like other debauched characters, he eat little or nothing for
breakfast. His next proceeding was to smoke a pipe, a dirty clay pipe,
which a gentleman would have been ashamed to put between his lips. When
he had done smoking, he took out pen, ink, and paper, and sat down
to write, with a groan,--whether of remorse for having taken the
bank-notes, or of disgust at the task before him, I am unable to say.
After writing a few lines, (too far away from my Peep-Hole to give me
a chance of reading over his shoulder,) he bent back in his chair, and
amused himself by humming the tunes of popular songs. I recognized "My
Mary Anne," "Bobbin' Around," and "Old Dog Tray," among other melodies.
Whether these do or do not represent secret signals by which he
communicates with his accomplices remains to be seen. After he had
amused himself for some time by humming, he got up and began to walk
about the room, occasionally stopping to add a sentence to the paper on
his desk. Before long, he went to a locked cupboard and opened it. I
strained my eyes eagerly, in expectation of making a discovery. I saw
him take something carefully out of the cupboard,--he turned round,--it
was only a pint-bottle of brandy! Having drunk some of the liquor, this
extremely indolent reprobate lay dawn on his bed again, and in five
minutes was fast asleep.

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