A Terrible Ride

If two persons, from the fact of having met before, might dispense with the ceremony of introduction, in nine cases out of ten, my readers would not need a word of preface from me, but would be content with my proceeding with my story at once. In fact, I shall do so, after a brief description of myself, not as I am, but as it is my wont to appear in public.

Are you living in the country? Then the chances are that at a not very remote hour you have seen prowling about the neighborhood a man who might have been a tramp, a bricklayer out of work, an ex-pugilist, a dog-stealer—any one or all of these, as his dress would present such a strange combination as to utterly confound your attempt to guess the particular grade to which the stranger belonged. That man was Detective Trace.

Are you a resident of the West End[,] who know by heart the faces of those whom you meet during your promenade in Regent Street and the parks? If so, you have perhaps seen a man who has puzzled you—a “swell,” faultlessly “got up” as to his dress, and with a profuse yet quiet display of jewelry. You may have noticed that, while he apparently participated in the pleasures of the gay crowd of idlers, his eye was restless, and failed not to scan the features of every masculine and feminine face that passed him, and this too without the slightest approach to rudeness, and your keen eye detected that his jewels were paste, and you could not, do what you would, “make him out.” He was Detective Trace.

Does your business ever carry you through the purlieus of St. Giles, or the foul courts and alleys of Whitechapel? If I may take it for granted that such is the case, you will perhaps remember noticing during your progress a man who apparently did not know what to… Read More