Watched and Watching

A Detective Story

It was a bitter cold night in December. The snow was some inches think in the fields, and in the streets of London all was slop and filth—in a word, everything was miserable. Even the professional thief was afraid to come out of his lair, and pickpockets could find no one in the streets whose pockets they might pick.

I sat by my fire late in the evening gazing intently on the blazing coals, and hoping some “job” would turn up in a day or two, for rent was high, and coals and brandy-and-water were absolutely necessary to keep out the cold. My rooms were rather luxuriously furnished for a detective; but I had been brought up well, and was used to, and liked a comfortable home. My profession too, sometimes, was highly remunerative.

I grew tired, but it was not bedtime; so I drew the sofa to the fire, and laid myself down and dozed.

*     *     *     *     *

And now I was watching behind some corner to pounce on an unlucky defaulter as he passed, and, as I grasped at him, he seemed to vanish;— and then, again, I was going, armed to the teeth, to some den to seize a burglar or a robber, and although I knew the place well, could not find it;— and now I was going over again all my old journeys and adventures, my pursuits and my retreats;— and then I was aboard a steamer, ploughing the vast Atlantic in chase of a defaulter who had fled to another land, and I heard the winds howling, and the sea roaring, and the thump-thump of the waves against her side, and the harsh word of command to the sailors.

I shake off my dreams, and find the thumping of the waves to be a knocking at my door; and the hoarse command, a mild request from Superintendent Smith to let him in. A tall, dark form in plain clothes stalks stealthily in, as if there were thieves even in my room.

“A job, Sir?”  I asked.… Read More