LOT 217—A TALE OF AN IRON SAFE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 498, 22 December 1869, Page 2

LOT 217— A TALE OF AN IRON SAFE.

(From Chambers* Journal.) "At forty shangs ! — going at forty shangs 1 Did I hear two gum-ness offered P — Thank you, sir. Two gum-ness is in time. Por the first time at two gum-ness ! Fdr the second time 1 Any advance on two gum-ness ? For the third and last time — going at two gum-ness !" Rap ! " Name, if you please, sir ?'" " John Trumway," I said, for the lot was mine— Lot 217. Whatever made me buy the lot ? I am sure I didn't want it. I am afraid lam one of those great grown-up children who are not safe to be trusted out with money in their pockets, unless coppers. The coins in my purse always leap up with frantic desire to buy everything I see, and the result is, that no matter what sum I go out with, I always come home penniless. What on earth could I want now with a-second-hand patent fire-proof, powder-proof, bomb-proof, thief-proof iron safe, constructed to resist fifty burglar-power (nominal), casehardened, undrillable, unpickable, to be sold a bargain, owing to the key being lost, and the only man who knew how to make another having gone to sleep with his fathers ? When I reflected about my purchase, I began to feel quite hot. There is no doubt it was a bargain, or might have been, to somebody ; but then, patent, unpickable iron safes, with the keys lost, and owner proof as well as thief -proof, are not everybody's money, bowever cheap. I had a cold creeping doubt if they were mine. While the auctioneer was describing it, and the people all round the room were yearning for it in bids, I, seemed to see many remarkable qualities emanating from the safe, like perspiration, so that its acquisition appeared to me then peculiarly desirable. Other people seemed similarly affected, for. its value increased momently. Some ten or a dozen persons had all in turn desired to be its fortunate possessor, and all at increased rates. The man who bid " forty shangs" certainly must hare seen his way to turn the safe to account, or why did he bid " forty shangs" at all ? And if so, of course it was plain there must be a way to turn it to account, and one which a few moments' quiet reflection, apart from the excitement of the sale-room, would doubtless reveal. It was something of this feeling made me bid the " two gum-ness," or, it may be, the vaguer conviction that here was an object suddenly become extremely desirable to a number of my fellow-creatures, which evoked a corresponding and envious desire in my own breast. But now that the tiling was mine, all the latent value which had before perspired from it under the auctioneer's hands seeme i absorbed again iuto' it* shamefully rusty iron Hides— it had be-

come a miserable hundredweight of useless old iron — and I loathed the very sight of it, especially when I thought of Mrs Trumway. My wife is not a woman of many words; by no means the kind of woman verbally to upbraid me for buying inconvertible bargains, and she has had previous opportunities for so doing, if so disposed. Mrs Trumway never says anything. But the amount of meaning conveyed by one of Mrs T.s sniffs is voluminous— nay, encyclopaedic. It means: " O dear, yes ; I knew how 'twould be. You've beeu at it again, have you ? Been out with money in your pocket, and come home with nothing but your pocket lett ? Just like water in a cullender; the cullender don't run away— mores the pity. No ; it's always ready for more. And here am I, pinching and screwing, aud saving money, and allowancing the house down to one box of ' Tandstickors ' a week, and you going fooling money away like this. Remonstrance, John, is perfectly useless. I have awaked to the conclusion that I have married an incorrigible idiot; but I don't complain. No; a noodle you may be, but lam your affectionate wife, Martha Trumway." It means far more than this; it means every recriminatory epithet which a naturally sensitive person, like me, can apply to himself, after making the pleasing discovery that he has taken himself in. I went home to dinner, which had been waiting an hour. I said nothing about my purchase. There was a small sniff — a very small one— expressive of ; " It's not at all unlikely, John, though, mind, I don't accuse you of it without evidence; but, now I come to consider, it's rather more likely than not that you've something on your mind, and nothing in your purse." After dinner, I escaped upstairs to my study. In the evening I saw it coming up my garden-path on a pair of trucks. Should Igo down; no, Irefleeted; I would not go down. How I detested the thing now 1 It didn't look worth half-a-crown. " Yes," Iheard the servant say in answer to the man with the trucks; '•' this is Mr Trumway 's." « So's this," said the man ; " and I wish him joy of it, and I shouldn't mind a glass of beer to wish it him in." Which conversation had the effect of bringing out Mrs T. Her comprehensive mind must have taken in the situation at a glance. " Where is this from ?" she asked the man". "From the sale-room, 'm." "Johnl" It was the voice of my affectionate wife addressed to her husband. "Have you been buying anything at a sale ?" " O dear, yes," said I, calling down-stairs. "Didn't I tell you ? It's a— a — safe." Although two pair of stairs separated me from the partner of my bosom, I was aware of the sniff which succeeded, and implied: "O yes; you're quite right, my man; this is Mr Trum way's. You needn't be afraid you've mistaken the house. There isn't such another man in the neighbourhood as lives at No. 19." But, aloud, she proceeded, " Quite right; bring it in please. John ! Do you wish the man to leave it in the passage ?" Sniff (being interpreted): " Or would I like it taken into the drawing-room; or placed on the dressingtable of the sp<tre room, perhaps; or on the study mantel-piece I" 1 thought it better to go downstairs. " Oh, leave it in the passage,?' I said: " no one will steal it." " O dear, no," said my wife with a little smile; "no one will steal it, that's quite certain." I admit it was not a seductive-looking object now. When we were alone, Mrs Trumway asked me what 1 intended to do with the safe, which was the very question I had been asking myself ever since returning from the sale. " What do I intend doing with it, my dear ?" I repeated, to gain time; " why — yes- ah !— that is— do with it ? Why, open it, of course." She sniffed a sniff equal to two columns of printed matter. Although my answer was not premeditated, I didn't think it altogether a bad notion. Accordingly for the next two or three weeks my house became the constant resort of blacksmiths, whitesmiths, locksmiths, and people in the engineering way, all of whom, however, failed utterly in the attempt to open the unpickablc.undrillable fire and thief-proof Lot 217. They fairly owned it beat them. I wanted the safe opened, however, for the reason that, being opened, it might become an ai■"tiele perhaps useful or saleable, whereas now it was neither. One morning, an idea of unusual brilliancy occurred to me, and I put on my bat and went out to put it in practice. . I walked up to our great model gaol, and saw the governor, with whom I had previously some acquaintance. I told him I should feel deeply obliged if he could render me assistance, and then came to the purport of my, visit. " Have you, my good sir, such a thing as a good strong burglar on the establishment that you could lend me for an hour or two ?" ' And I explained what I wanted bim for. But the governor shook his head, and said he was sorry to disoblige me, but it really couldn't be done, as all their burglars were in use, and couldn't be spared off the premises. Very good; but supposing I were to send the safe up to the gaol, did be think he could allow a burglar to while away a few hours of his leisure at a congenial pursuit ? — No. He didn't see that he could ; it would be against the rules ; besides which, •their burglars had become so reformed by attention to the ministrations of the chaplain that iferwas 'exceedingly doubtful if they would be willing to return to sinful ways, such as breaking open safes, lest it might show a worldly spirit that would interfere with their tickets-of -leave ; and then, again, there were no burglars' tools in the gaol. " I'll tell you what, though," he said after a bit ; "I daresay I could find you a ticket-of-leave man who would do it. They report themselves to us at stated intervals, so that we always know where to find them. Indeed, I think I know just the very man, and will send him to you." One evening, in the twilight, about a week afterwards, our servant came in, in some alarm, to say that two very ill-looking men were at the back door, who said they had " come to crack the guvnors money-box." They were not nice-

looking men. One of them, a great brawny ruffian, -with a head and neck like a hull, and a wisp of coloured handkerchief over a shirtless chest, hairy as Esau's, gave me a stolid nod when I went out. " The boss up at the Model," he said, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the gaol, " asked me if so be as I would oblige you by crackin' a little bit of a box you've got. You see, guvnor, I ain't any tools o' my own, so I've brought a; pal who's got his ' Lady's Companion' with him to do the job ;" indicating his friend, who carried a parcel of tools done up in matting. I should say he was not a nice man to have for a friend. A spare, short, cunning little fellow, with restless eyes ; a face that gave yoii the impression of a weasel's; and a thn nose, with a continual nervous twitching in the nostrils, like a rabbit's, as though he was an animal always on the scent for game or hunters, which perhaps he was. His name was Toney. I brought them in, and pointing out the safe, asked it they thought they could open it. " Open, it 1" repeated Toney, with ineffable contempt, " why, a kid could open it with a pen-nive ! It's one of them Unimpeachables, Bill," he "said to his mate; " you remember^'em ; like we had at (Some name I couldn't catch). Why I could bl *w it open with an ounce of baccer in a quarter of a hour." "Well," I said, " I would give you five shillings to open it." " Would you, De-gar ?" growled the big man, -"Our terms is 'arf a suv'rin — me and Toney — and two pots of beer, and two ounces of baccer; and then it's a favour, on account of our doing it to oblige the bo3s. And we ain't a going to do it here, un'stah ; but if you've got e'er a bit of a out-house put at the back, where we can be private, we'll do the job there on the quiet." I was obliged to accede to their terms (indeed, they were both persons I would not have had a difference with for the world). So they carried the safe into the tool-house i in the garden, where I supplied them with the quantity of ale and tobacco agreed on, end they shut themselves in. " It's only a case for the 'alderman,' Bill," I heard the little man remark as I left them. In twentyfive minutes, by my watch, the bull-headed man came and told me it was done. " Not that we've been all this time about it, though, guvnor, for Toney he prized it open in five minutes easy as an oyster, but we've been sittin' and doin' a quiet pipe together." They certainly had opened it - not by picking the lock, as I anticipated, but by wrenching off the back, so that the safe was completely destroyed.. .They had drilled two holes in the back- plate, to allow of inserting two steel crowbars in such a position that the leverage of the bars would tell one against the other, and wrench out the intermediate piece. From the appearance of the holes and the smell in the out-house, I judged the men had previously lowered the temper of the steel back with a blow-pipe in the places where they intended to drill. I felt disposed to be angry at the destruction of the safe, aridwas going to say so, when, Toney pointed out a dirty roll of papers lying inside. I took them out, unrolled them, and forgot my wrathimmediately. A prize indeed I Fifty share certificates, each for twenty pounds, in the " Undeniable Security and Unlimited Dis count Banking Corporation (Limited);" Offices, Lud street, City. I paid off my two burglars with a light heart, and returned to the house. I believe I danced a war-dance of triumph round Mrs T., exhibiting a thousand pounds worth of property, which had cost me but three. " There," said I, « that's the good of going to sales I " " Well, but, John, these shares are not yours." " But they are, I retorted. I bought them, and they are *to Bearer,' and no name on them to indicate whose they are." " But had you not better «cc the auctioneer, and tell him what you have found ? " " Why, no. I bought the lot, faults and errors of description, and all; and it is as much mine as if I had paid a thousand pounds for it." "Yes; but some poor man may be ruined by the loss of these shares." " Well," said I, " what I will do will be to go up to London to the company's offices, and ascertain whether these certificates are claimed on behalf of any one else, ■and, if not, to claim them for myself." I found the offices of the "Undeniable Security and Unlimited Discount Banking Corporation (Limited)," a most imposing edifice of Italian architecture, with immense plate-glass windows, and Purbeck marble columns, and the name of the company, in mediaeval gold letters, running the whole length of the building. Evidently a prosperous concern. On entering, there was not that' amount of business doing which I should have liked to see; in fact, beyond two clerks — one of whom was paring his nails with the office penknife, while the -• other, and more elderly, was reading the newspaper— the place was empty. I stood quite five minutes at -the massive Spanish mahogany counter apparently without either of the clerks becoming officially aware of my presence, so intent were they on their duties. I therefore rapped on the floor with my umbrella, which made a great noise in the empty office, which was church-like for size and echoes. The elder olerk looked up impatiently from his paper, but resumed its perusal immediately. The younger got off his stool, and went to a looking-glass, where he commenced arranging his hair with a pocket-comb. " I have called," I remarked in a somewhat loud tone, " about some shares in this company, the certificates of which I hold." "Eh ? " said the old clerk,' at last detecting my intrusion. I repeated my business. " Certificates Nos. 2.034 to 2.083 — they are in my possession ; in fact, I bought them." "Well, what do you want ? Do you wish thera registered in your name ? Simpson (to the young clerk), get down the transfer book." "That is the difficulty," said I; "in the event, for instance, of any one else claiming the shares, for they came into my possession in a rather singular manner." "No difficulty at all. You SRy you've got the certificates, aud you've bought them. It doesn't matter to us if you're stolen them. Just produce the scrip, and write me an authority to register

the shares in your name." He looked over the certificates, and counted them, while I wrote the required authority. " But," I said, when I had done, with a view to satisfy my conscience in the appropriation of the property, " I assure you the circumstances under which I acquired the certificates are so singular, that " " You needn't trouble about that," he interrupted; "our office takes no cognisance of the way you became possessed of them. You are the holder and the registered proprietor of the shares, and you may be quite sure no one else will ever claim them." This sounded satisfactory in one way; but the man's manner of saying it did not, I confess, leave a favourable impression on my mind. I went home rather uncomfortable, and feeling so oppressed with the notion of having property which my conscience would not concede was mine in strict justice, that it would have been a relief to have had an accomplice with whom to share the proceeds and the responsibility. It may seem singular that when in town I had taken no steps to ascertain the value of my property ; but, in the first place, I know very little of the ways of the money market, and the share list is as great a puzzle to me as Bradshaw ; and in the next, to tell the truth, I felt timid at asking questions which might lead me to betray how I became the owner of the shares. A month after this, I had been out for the day to a pic-nic with tny wife. We had both enjoyed ourselves hugely, and come home flushed with the summer heat and braced up with the fresh air. I had got over all my qualms about the possession of the property, and began to look upon it as promising a very acceptable addition to my income. I am not sure I had not been regarding the scenery of trees and sky and rippling water, with something bf unusual complacncy, for feeling that the acquisition of a thousand pounds removed me so much the farther from anxiety as to enable me to enjoy it in the greater peace. A great oblong official blue letter awaited my return. It contained a blow — most letters dated from Basinghall street do : — " Re the Undeniable Security and Unlimited Discount Banking Corporation (Limited). *'"' Sir,— l beg to inform you an order has this day been made by the registrar, calliug upon you as a contributory in respect of your fifty (50) shares held in the above company (now under a winding-up order), numbered •respectively from 2034 to 2083 inc'usive. The amount of the call is five pounds ten shillings (£5 10s) per share, making a total of two hundred and seventy-five pounds (£275) ; which sum must be paid at my office between eleven arid four on Thursday next, the 26th inst. "(Signed) " Official Assignee in the Bankruptcy." O fool I I began to vaguely see now why the clerk told me I might be quite sure no one else would claim the shares. They were not only of no value, but their possession was subject to heavy liability. And I to be idiot enough to go and claim them when the company was actually bankrupt and worse ! Night as it was, I determined to go at once and see my wife's brother-in-law, Mr Blode. He .was a barrister — had been one for ten years — but had never had a brief. " Oh, I shouldn't take any notice of that," he said; " I don't think they can fix you with liability. I'll write to the assiguee and manage it for you. Let me know if you hear any more of it. You are an innocent party; you didn't buy the shares, but the iron safe. But how on earth did they know you held the certificates?" I told him I had given an authority to have them registered in my name. He drew in his breath, and produced a long whistle like a sigh. " Then you've endorsed their possession. You should have consulted me. However, I wouldn't trouble about it. Leave it to me." It would take too long to describe tbe harrassing anxieties which each week brought me, while my case as a contributory waß dragging along first through one court and then another; but the different lights which various luminaries of the law shed on my unfortunate two guineas' worth deserve to be particularised. It was argued that, in buying the safe, I could not have bought the contents — that the safe was described in the catalogue as a safe, and nothing more; and that consequently, as I had only bought a safe, whatever Avas found in it was no more mine than any other distinct article in the catalogue, and I could not therefore be responsible for liabilities attaching thereto. It was retorted by the opposing counsel that should his ludship acquiesce in the view of the case propounded, certainly to his astonishment, by his learued friend, and decide that the certificates were not purchased by me, and not therefore mine, he would agree to a verdict, and immediately indict me for felony, for appropriating the shares to my own use, and authorising their registration in my name. He submitted that if I had bought the shares, I was liable as a contributory: and if not, as a felon. The learned judge said he could not entertain the issue of felony, as that was a question for a distinct tribunal, but he was inclined to rule that I had bought the shares. The conditions of sale were sufficiently explicit to hia mind on that pomt — " The lots to be cleared with all faults and errors of description." Indeed, tho very term employed by auction custom appeared decisive. The item in question was described as Lot "Lot 217— an iron safe." It was the " lot " which was put up to competition, aud to use a common expression, Mr Trumway had bought " the lot I '— that was, "all the lot." The question then arose, could I be held liable as a coutri- ; butory, when in fact I had purchased the i shares on the very day of the company's bankruptcy, and the registry in my name , was not completed until some weeks later ? In other words, that seeing the company had contracted no liabilities during the time I held the shares (having, in fact, ceased . business), could I be nvide a contributory ? * Against this it was urged that shares repre- • • sented past responsibilities, and that as I

* should have been entitled to share in a dividend on the past year (had one been de- , clared), so it was just that I should bear my ] proportion of the burdens. And again ; it was clear that somebody must be liable as a contributory in respect of these fifty shares for twelve months prior to the bankruptcy, and the burden of proof as to the person so liable, if not myself, must be supposed to rest with their present possessor. The judge thought not, as it was not to be contended I could have had either interest or liability in the company before the date of the sale. The case, however, was complicated still further by the opposing counsel bringing evidence as to the previous owner of the iron safe, and endeavouring to prove that his liability in respect of the shares actually terminated twelve months previous to my purchase, so as to fix me with responsibility for the interim. It appeared that the safe and its contents, some eighteen mouths back, had belonged to a Mr Wen die, a shareholder in the company; that, in addition to the certificates, it had contained his caßhbox and a quantity of gold and notes, and that the safe had been stolen from his office, the notes and gold and cash-box removed by the robbers, who had obtained a wax impression of his key, and the valueless safe, containing the Bhare3, sold to an ironmonger, who put it into the sale. This Mr Wendle had applied for duplicates of the share certificates, which were refused by the company until he could prove the destruction of the old ones. Unsuccessful in this, and distrusting the reckless business of the " Undeniable and Unlimited," heat last applied to have the shares standing in his name cancelled, which had been done. It would therefore follow, it was contended, that my liability embraced the whole twelvemonth, from the time Mr Wendle's name had been erased to the stoppage of the company, I being the next registered proprietor. Against this it was argued that whatever Mr Wendle might have written to the company, the certificates, when found, were his property; and that after they were stolen they none the less ceased to behisproperty.And if so, my counsel proceeded, there would be a very remarkcble point for the decision of his ludship. For he went on to elicit that Mr Wendle, after losing nearly the whole of his money, had committed suicide under such determined circumstances, that even the charity of a coroner's jury had been constrained to pronounce itfelo de se, and he had been buried without funeral rites. Wherefore, as the certificates of which he had been robbed were still his property in the eye of the law, it would follow, from its being a /elo de se, that they became the property of the Crown, consequent on his act. But if they were the property of the Crown, the Crown was liable for that twelve months; and, again, the safe could not be legally sold without authority from the Crown; aud hia client could not be the legal buyer, nor, consequently, have any right, title, interest, or liability in the shares aforesaid. In addition to all this . But, no; I will spare the reader the further particulars of this involved case; suffice it to say that it was decided in my favour. But it was carried to a higher Court, where I was required to show cause why tho verdict should not beset aside, and entered for the plaintiff, on the ground of the decision being contrary to evidence. There it was all gone over again, with the addition that tbe original thieves were produced, one of them no other than my burglar's friend Toney (and I was threatened with an action by the maker of the safe for stating that Toney broke open the " Unimpeachable" in five minutes in my out-house). Here the decision went against me. Finally, the case came before the bench of judges, where a majority of one reversed the ruling of the lower court. I was therefore at last so far successful in the issue as to find myself in the bankruptcy court, on account of the legal expenses my precious trial had accumulated. The one satisfaction attending this result was, that I must inevitably have gone there had Host. The very sight of a sale-catalogue isnow sufficient to produce from Mrs T. a sniff of about the capacity of a three-volume novel.