SHORT STORY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2216, 12 January 1904, Page 3

SHORT STORY.

The Case of Slider ?, Spoofe, M.P, lx will doubtless be remembered that a few years ago London and its western suburbs were startled and mystified into a very disagreeable stale of apprehension by a series of burglaries, in their way quite as remarkable as the Whitechapel murders. That is to say, neither the public nor the police ever knew any more about them than the bare fact that they were committed, time after time, in various parts of the Metropolitan area, with a secrecy, neatness, and dispatch which conclusively proved them to be the work of a past-master in the gentle art of burgling. The man who planned them and the men who assisted him to execute them are at present living in unimpeachable respect* ability on the spoils of a long spell of prosperous industry and the profits of the last grand coup, a description of which is now for the first time made public. The present names of these experts do not In any way concern the present narrative. There are many ether presently respectable citizens who would object strongly and justly to having the origins of their fortunes exposed in public priut, and as the details were communicated to me under a pledge not to make them public in such fashion as should lead to unpleasant inquiries on the part of the Criminal Investigation Department, I shall content myself with giving only the professional name of the chief , operator. This was Slider. It was not an assumed name, simply because the man who bore it did not assume it; it was given to him by the baffled and disgusted myrmidons of che law, who tried so hard and with so little result to get upon his tracks. They got to call him Slider, partly because they knew of no other name to give him, and partly because he invariably slid with such neatness and celerity from the fields of his exploits that he left nothing behind him save the vacancies created by the removal of the objects of value and convertibility which he took away with him. . From all that could be seen of his achievements it was manifest that Slider had reduced burglary to an exact science. He never used violence, and if he carried lethal weapons it was certain that he did so only for use in a last resort, which never was reached. Unlike other exact scientists, he never bungled, and like all good strategists he made himself so perfectly familiar wuh the field of his proposed operations that the moat ingeniously laid traps for his capture invariably failed. Plant after plant was arranged, but no matter how skilfully the twig was limed, the wary bird never lighted upon it. As an example of his daring and acuteness, I may mention in passing that on one occasion when a certain house bad been most skilfully prepared aud baited with a large assortment of valuable, portable property by an enterprising Inspector of Police, the wrong gang of burglars got into it and were caught, and when the inspector got home towards daybreak he found that lus own house had been artistically burgled by Slider, who left a note for him on the table, thanking him for his absence at the other place. The excitement and indignation caused by this long series of successful exploits was at its height, when they suddenly came to a stop about five years ago ; and from that day to this no burglary has been discovered bearing the impress of the master hand of Slider. For a long time news of such an achievement was confidently, but vainly, expected at Scotland Yard; but it never came, for reasons which have boen already hinted at, and which will now be made plain in detail, together with the explanation of another occurrence which once occasioned not a little wonder and disgust in the mind of the ipublio. The name of Mr Jeptha Sharkie Spoofe is still a household word, especially among the Nonconformist section of the investing pnblio. Some five years ago this gentlemen was one of the most respected members of the community; he was a Member of Parliament, a great financier and philanthropist, and a man of wealth whose cheque book always opened to the appeal of persons interested in religions and charitable work, provided always that they proposed to issue subscription lists to account for their receipts. For many years Mr Sharkie Spoofe had carried on the good work of encouraging thrift by the payment of large dividends on deposits oat of capital, and with other people’s money he had embarked on several great enterprises, which for a time redounded greatly to his pnblio credit and private profit. He lived in a charming house in Surrey, which was justly reputed to contain as pretty a collection or easily-removed valuables as ever attracted the professional attention of a highly-skilled burglar. Mr Slider, it is needless to say, had had this very eligible crib on his books for a very considerable time, for it so happened that Spoofe, M.P., actuated by a suspicion which harmonised but ill with the character which be bore before the world, had managed to protect his treasures by such an ingenious complication of mechanical precautions that even the genius of a Slider was baffled for the time by the contemplation of them. His usual careful reconnoitring had revealed the discouraging fact that there was not a window or a doc* in the honse that was negotiable— not one which could have been tampered with, even by the most adroit fingers, without setting in motion some diabolical mechanism which wonld not only alarm the house, bnt communicate the news of the attempt to the two nearest police Stations by means of private telephone wires. Slider thought the job over and over again with the air of a man who has never been beaten and doesn't care to break his record, bnt the more he thought of it the more hopeless did the task appear -Plan after plan flitted through his fertile brain, only to be dismissed on the discovery of some fatal flaw which proved the scheme impracticable. At length, when even he wps completely at his wiia’ end, a chance occurrence showed him a way oat of the difficulty aud into the ■ house'. The plan was the very perfection of simplicity. It was simply to walk in at the front door, take what he wanted, and walk out again. This is how this admirable plan was suggested to him. One night, after hia usual careful preparations, he operated upon the private residence of the head of Sneakem’s wellkvown detective agency, and in the patent burglar and fire-resisting safe in Mr Sneakem’s private room he came across a little packet of papers endorsed ‘ Re Sharkie Spoofe.’ The name caught his eye, and, acting on tho impulse of the moment, he slipped the packet into his pocket. : The first thing he did when he got safe home was to open the sealed and tape-tied parcel and read the contents. To his amazement he found that they were the net result of elaborate inquiries, the effect of which was to show that the man whose well-stored crib he had SO long sought a means of successfully cracking was himself a burglar on a scale which dwarfed tho operations of himself and hia allies into exasperating insignificance. In other words, where Slider had stolen hundred? Sharkie Spoofe had got away with ',bou-and-»; for while Slider was only a Virglar. albeit at the head of his craft, Spoofe, M P., was director and manipulator of a g-eat building society and several other concerns of almost equal pretentiousness and rottenness. Most ,significant of all the pap r? was a letter from an eminent criminal la wyer to Mr Sneakem, the concluding paragraph ran thus : ‘ The is now practically complete, ind ws haw\enoagh to justify us in apply, ktg for although, for reasons

which I will explain to you when I see you, this had better not be dona until ws have got the smaller men safe.’ Mr Slider thought deeply over this letter, and early on the following day he sought an interview with a friend of his in the force, one Inspector Snooper, to whose timely advice his immunity from capture had more than once been due. The two were closeted together for some time iu tho inspector’s office at Scotland Yard, and when Slider left he had in his pocket an excellent counterfeit of a warrant for the arrest of Jeptha Sharkie Spoofe, Member of Parliament, end Jostice of the Peace. Late that evening, three men, whom anyone might have been excused for taking for plain clothes detectives, knocked at the door of Mr Spoofe’s country residence. A card enclosed in the envelope was sent into the master of the house. On the face of the card was printed ‘lnspector Snooper, Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard," and on the baok was scribbled in pencil: ‘I must have a few minutes’ conversation with you in private.’ Mr Sharkie Spoofe changed colour visibly when he read the curt message, and in voice that was not quite his own told the footman to show the gentleman into his study. The meeting was characterised! by considerable disquiet am the part;of rtheo unwilling host, ®ad inn ceasy 3xut pollis assurance on Itbe part of hiss visitorp, who?, after the usual preliminaries, oommurimated as gently as anight tbe tthe unwelcome tidings that he was tho bearer of a warrant for the arrest of Mr Spoofe on a charge of being concerned in a series of gigantic frauds in connection with the Emancipator Building? Sdoiafcjry andi its allied concerns. The warrant was produced and duly served, and the officer intimated that he had two men out in the hall, and that the best thing Mr Spoofe could do under the circumstances was to let him send one of them for a cab, and come away with him without any trouble. Of course, if Mr Spoofe preferred to order his own carriage, it would look better, and serve the ends of justice just as well/ Mr Spoofe received the news of the coming disaster with the air of a man who had for some time been more than half expecting it. He took two or three turns up and down the room with his hands behind his back, and his ohin buried in his chest, while the officer stood near the door, apparently unwilling to beak in upon his thoughts. Suddenly he stopped, and said : ‘ Look here, Mr Inspector, I’ll be quite frank with you—’ The officer held up his hand, and said; 1 It is my duty to remind you that everything yon say may be used against you in evidence.’ ‘ I don’t care about that,’ said Spoofe; ‘ the evidence is clear enough, I know, and the game’s up. Now I want to ask you, as a man of the world, what you’ll take ia hard cash to believe that I started this evening for Scotland, and to take that warrant to Inverness after me ?’ The officer scratched his chin meditatively, and said: ‘ That’s a big job. If I did a thing like that my career would be ruined, and I should ba lucky if I got off doing time myself. Then, you know, there are my two men outside; they know that I’ve got you, and they’d have to be squared, too.’ * "Well, well, anything in reason,’ said Mr Spoofe, brightening up when he saw that his overtures were at least entertained. ‘ I tell you quite plainly that I have made all my preparations for—ah, well—for a lengthy journy, and I have a considerable sum of money in that safe in gold and notes. How much do you want F’ The officer scratched his chin again, and then he looked up and said : ‘From the evidence in our possession, you’re not getting away with less than £IOO,OOO, and the odds are that you’ve got another £500,000 planted safely somewhere. When the Emancipator smashes, you know as well as I do that it will go for something over a million. Now, considering the risk to me and my chaps and the service to you, it's worth every penny «f five per cent of the plunder.’ ‘Whatl’ said Mr Spoofe, aghast- ‘On the £600.000 !’ *Ah !’ said the officer with a smile. ‘ I wasn’t far out then. Yes; that’s it; 6 per cent on the lot—£3o,ooo, and cheap at the price, it means a fortune and freedom to you in South America instead of ten to fifteen years at Portland, and that’s the lowest figure.’ Mr Spoofe tried expostulations, but the officer stood firm, and a hint that the price of freedom would go up fifty per cent if he called his men in, sent Mr Spoofe with reluctant alacrity to the safe, out of which he produced several wash-leather bags of gold and a goodly roll of notes. The notes were counted up there and then. One bag was opened and the rest taken for granted. The officer stowed them away about his person, Eut the warrant back into his pocket, shook ands with Mr Spoofe, and walked out of the house with his two subordinates. The next morning the notes ware changed for gold at the Bank of England, and by the afternoon a rumour ran through the City that Mr Sharkie Spoofe, M.P., had vanished. The rest of the story, with the exception of one incident, is well known to the public through certain proceedings at the Old Bailey and in thb Bankruptcy Court. The incident which the public does not know of is a meeting which took place two months later at a cafd in Buenos Ayres. Mr Sharkie Spoofe, then living in safe and opulent retirement in a land where extradition treaties were at that time unknown, found himself face to face with a gentleman, whose clean-shaven countenance he immediately recognised as that of the officer from whom he had bought his freedom for the sum of £30,000. The regognition was mutual, and as there was no ill-feeling, Mr Spoofe held out his hand and said ; ‘ Ah, Inspector Snooper, and so we meet again I’ The other took the proffered hand in a hearty grip, saying. ‘Tes, we meet again; but I’m not Inspector Snooper—he is in England. He came into a little money a few weeks ago and retired from the force.’ ‘ Then who on earth might you be P’ ejaculated Mr Spoofe with a stare of astonishment. ‘ Did you ever hear of a person spoken of as Slider, the invisible cracksman ?’ ‘ Ye—es; but what has he got to do with it?’ ‘ Well, I’m Slider, and now that we are both in the land of the free, I don’t mind telling you that the arrest was a put-up job and that the warrant was a forgery. I’d often wanted to crack that pretty orib of yours, but those patent contrivances were too many for me. Now, don’t get angry, because you were bound to be arrested, and a regulai trap might not have let you off so easily, even if he had let you off at all; so you see I really did you a good turn after all, and, as I told you before, it was dirt cheap at the price. ‘ It’s the most infernal swindle I ever heard of!’ gasped Mr Spoofe, literally white with passion. *lf you’ll go baok to England and ask Mr Justise Hawkins ha’ll tell you it wasn’t a patch on the Emancipator business,’ calmly replied Mr Slider. As all the world knows, Spoofe, M.P., did go baok to England soon after in the custody of e more incorruptible officer of the law than Inspector Snooper, and paid the due penalty of his peculiar financial methods. Slider is still at large, and neither Inspector Snooper nor Spoofe, ex.M P., is likely to £ive him away—the former for two obvious reasons, anl tho latter because the late Invisible Cracksman is acting both faithfully and profitably as the trustee of what was left of Spoofe’s plunder when the grip of the law at length closed upon his basis.— Gaosas Qsmizas.