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  McLevy: The Edinburgh Detective

  Such as met ‘Jamie’ for the first time might have taken him for a well-to-do farmer from the Emerald Isle on a visit to Scotland intent on a ‘deal’. He was of medium height, square-faced, and clean-shaven, and always wore a tall silk hat, from beneath the broad brim of which a pair of quick black eyes scrutinised the crowd as he sauntered along the streets accompanied by his faithful companion Mulholland.

  Edinburgh Evening News, 1922

  Praise for McLevy: The Edinburgh Detective:

  ‘This is a gem ... A fantastic weaving of period Edinburgh culture with intricate, captivating detective work ... Go out and buy one, now.’—

  Manda Scott, The Herald

  ❖

  ‘A fascinating insight into the Victorian underclass ... a powerful writer.’

  Daily Mail

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  ‘This excellent book… is a cracking good read.’

  Sherlock Holmes Society

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  ‘Very inspiring ... part of our history and part of our culture.’

  Alanna Knight, Sunday Times

  This eBook edition published in 2012 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  First published in 2001 by Mercat Press Ltd

  This edition published 2008 by Birlinn Limited

  Stories first published in 1861 in Curiosities of Crime in Edinburgh and The Sliding Scale of Life

  Foreword © Quintin Jardine, 2001

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-215-3

  ISBN 13: 978-1-84158-741-7

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Contents

  ❖

  Foreword by Quintin Jardine

  Memoir of Mr James M’Levy

  The Blue-Bells of Scotland

  The Broker’s Secret

  The Dead Child’s Leg

  A Want Spoils Perfection

  The Breathing

  The Child-Strippers

  The White Coffin

  The Cobbler’s Knife

  The Cock and Trumpet

  The Widow’s Last Shilling

  The Happy Land

  The Wrong Shop

  The Letter

  The Monkey-Jacket

  The Coal-Bunker

  The Mustard-Blister

  The Pleasure Party

  The Tobacco-Glutton

  The Whiskers

  The Club Newspaper

  The Laugh

  Foreword by Quintin Jardine

  ❖

  It would be nice to say that James McLevy, for all that he was a man of flesh and blood, and that his stories are based on his own career, is the progenitor of all of the fictional Edinburgh detective policemen who have followed in his wake, up to and including today’s anti-heroic figures, Ian Rankin’s celebrated John Rebus, and my own dark character, Bob Skinner.

  It would be nice to say that, but in my case, at least, it wouldn’t be true. The fact is, I had never heard of McLevy until I was asked by Seán Costello if I would read some of his stories, and then consider writing a foreword to this republished edition of his work. I undertook to do the first part at least, then at once withdrew for a while into my own fictional world, leaving the pile of photocopies from Mercat Press gathering a fine layer of dust on my desk.

  When finally I had sent Head Shot on down the road to London, ultimately into the hands of one of those people called copy editors—whose mission in life seems to be to boldly pick nits where no person has picked nits before—I blew it away and picked them up, expecting to find some pretty dusty prose inside. Wrong. Within five minutes I knew I was going to write the foreword; now that I’m doing it I regard it as an honour to have been asked.

  McLevy writes of another time, another historical era. His characters and contemporaries are not people we know; they didn’t even live in the tales we were told by our grandparents. Yet paradoxically, it is our world of which he writes. He walked many of the same streets we walk, and the crimes which he records in his stories are not far different from those of which we may read daily in the Evening News, or even in the Scotsman, another living link to McLevy’s days.

  Of course, narrative styles have moved on since he sat down to write these stories in the middle of the century before last; his is very much of that period and God alone knows what my copy editors would make of him. But the quality of the printed word is not eroded by time, and McLevy’s tales more than pass the first and most important test, in that they remain an outstandingly good read, as well as being a very important contribution to the social history of that time.

  They indicate too that political correctness was something of an alien concept in McLevy’s day. He was an Irishman, come to seek work in Scotland, and his dislike of the English is nowhere hidden or understated. He cast a critical eye over the press of the day too, and the combination of his twin dislikes is beautifully expressed in the opening page of “The Pleasure Party”, in which his natural talent as a writer is seen at its sharpest.

  Yet most of all these stories are true crime classics, imbued with all the pathos, darkness and occasional humour that you will find in the best crime fiction. Take “The Cobbler’s Knife” as an example; McLevy’s account of the killing of one friend by another, and the bizarre circumstance that led up to it has an undertone of horror worthy of Poe. On the other hand, “The Pleasure Party”, his tale of the apprehension of a quartet of hapless pick-pockets from England, up for the gullible and supposedly easy marks along Princes Street, is a comic gem, rounded off by the priceless sentencing speech of Sheriff Hallard, which seems to my layman’s eye to contain grounds for appeal in every line.

  There are timeless moments too. In “The Breathing”, McLevy, in thoughtful pursuit of two robbers—muggers, in modern-speak—says to a constable, “Then stand you there, as steady as a post, but not as deaf. Keep your feet steady and your ears open.” If I gave that line to Bob Skinner, the order would be exactly the same, if a little more terse, and perhaps with the odd adjective.

  The seeds of the fictional anti-hero lie within the real-life character of McLevy. There is a clear impression of kinship in spirit between him and the people he pursues, and invariably apprehends; indeed, he knows most of them by name. This is not to say that he was a thief sent to catch another; far from it, the man is a moral paragon from the soles of his boots upwards. But he is of their stock, of their community, and he understands them and has more sympathy for them than is likely to be found towards their clients in most of today’s inner city police forces—always acknowledging that their working environment is vastly different from the days of McLevy’s perambulations around the Old and New Towns. (Clearly this is true in physical as well as social terms. For example, the two failed robbers mentioned earlier were spotted heading for “the valley between the Pleasance and Arthur Seat”, a popular hideout of that time.)

  The man was no soft touch; a reputation for heavy-handedness comes through on occasion. Yet he pursues his quarry, in most of his stories, more in sorrow than in anger. His sympathy for the unfortunate William Wright in “The Cobbler’s Knife”, as well as for his victim, is real and clear, and when, unexpectedly, the jury chooses to convict him of culpable homicide rather than send him to the gallows, the relief of the matter-of-fact McLevy is palpable. Yes, he knew wickedness when he saw it, but clearly in his life this was far from a common occurrence.

 
; So how does James McLevy relate to my generation of fiction writers? How would Bob Skinner handle him if he were transported through 150 years or so? Very carefully, I should imagine; McLevy was clearly a one-off, a character who would have trouble fitting into a modern police force, yet whose perception and knowledge of his streets and his subjects would have made him too valuable to be excluded from it.

  But the fact is, when I try to consider his work in the context of crime fiction as it has developed since his day, leading as it did to the emergence of Conan Doyle, I find myself thinking not of Edinburgh at all, but of somewhere long ago and far away. When I look through my limited encyclopaedia of fictional detectives and try to find a match for McLevy’s street savvy and direct action, there are two who stand comparison best of all. Chester Himes, in the earlier books in the Harlem cycle, comes right at the top of my all-time-greats list. His characters, the jovially ferocious Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones have the same feel about them, for me, as the real-life James McLevy. And in his prose, in the humanity and humour with which he tells his stories, in his way of chronicling a unique era in the history of a unique city, the Victorian detective stands alongside their creator.

  Memoir of Mr James M’Levy

  From Curiosities of Crime in Edinburgh, 1861

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  Mr M’Levy was born in the parish of Ballymacnab, county Armagh, in Ireland, his father holding the position of a small farmer. Having received a suitable education, at the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to the trade of fine-linen weaving, at which he continued till he was seventeen, when he came over to Scotland. Having remained for two years at the Gatehouse of Fleet, he came to Edinburgh, where he was first employed by Mr Wallace, a considerable builder at that time, and subsequently by Mr Walker, a son-in-law of Mr Wallace’s. Latterly, he went into the service of Robert Paterson, builder and tax-surveyor. During all this time he conducted himself with honesty and propriety, occasionally displaying freaks of humour, and instances of that ingenuity which so signally marked his subsequent career.

  In particular, Mr M’Levy had so recommended himself by his uniform steadiness to Mr Paterson, that that gentleman, who probably saw other qualities in him capable of being turned to better account than in the daily toil of a hod-man, advised him to enter the police, and promised to get Captain Stewart to accept his services. He immediately agreed to this proposal, and Mr Paterson having succeeded in his application, he entered the force in August 1830, as a night-watchman. In this capacity he acted till 1833, when, having taken fever, he was removed to the Infirmary. Though at one time dangerously ill, it was not long till, through the means of a strong constitution, he began to show symptoms of amendment; and at this stage there occurred an incident worth recording, as showing his turn for “finding people out.” It seems the doctor who attended his ward, having noticed with satisfaction the returning convalescence of his patient, in whom he felt perhaps more than the usual interest, ordered nourishing food and wine for him. On the first day after this order, the nurse brought the supply. There was no objection to the food, but the patient thought the quantity of wine not only below what he wished and required, but so limited as to do him no good. He at once suspected the nurse of defrauding him of what he so much required. Accordingly, when the doctor came round next day and asked his patient how the wine agreed with him,—”Why, sir,” said he, “it could not disagree with me, for I scarcely knew it was in my inside, it was so small.” “Well, you shall have more,” replied he; “I will give directions to the nurse.” Next day the nurse appeared again, this time with a good quantity in a bottle. As she entered, M’Levy turned his eye, saw the bottle, and then throwing the clothes over his head, with room only for the play of one eye, began to snore loudly. Up comes the nurse, and being satisfied that her patient was sleeping, she put the bottle to her head, and took off nearly the half. “So, so,” said the patient quietly, getting his head out, “this is the way my wine goes. Madam, this will be the dearest gulp you ever had in your life.” Then the woman began to preach and pray, and appeal to his feelings,—that she would be turned away if he informed on her, and would, in short, be a ruined woman. But M’Levy would not say he would not inform—he kept his intention to himself, and the consequence resulted very happily for him, and not unhappily for the woman, who, from that day, gave him even more wine, not only raw, but in the form of negus, than he could swallow—all which tended to his convalescence.

  After recovering from this illness, he was told by the doctor that he must renounce his night-work, and he accordingly went to Captain Stewart with the view of resigning. That gentleman, who had a quick eye to intelligence, and knew where to look for it, offered M’Levy promotion to the staff of detectives. He was accordingly appointed, in 1833, to that situation he has filled since with so much honour to himself and advantage to the public. His name soon came to be known everywhere, and for a thief or robber to be ferreted out or pursued by M’Levy, was held equal to his being caught. We have only to look to the number of his cases, 2220, to form some idea of the vast amount of property he has been the means of restoring to its owners, of the number of offenders he has brought to justice, and of the impression of his influence in the observed diminution of crime. Other causes, have, happily, tended to this last result; but it cannot be denied that, in so far as regards Edinburgh, much of that effect has been due to his exertions.

  The Blue-Bells of Scotland

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  There are apparently two reasons that influence some of our Edinburgh gentry in locking up their houses and ticketing a window with directions about keys when they go to the country. The first is, that they save the wages of a woman to take charge of the house; and the second, that they may tell their less lucky neighbours that they are able to go to the country and enjoy themselves. No doubt they trust to the watchfulness of a policeman, forgetting that the man has no more than two eyes and two legs, with too often a small portion of brains, which he uses in silent meditation—a kind of “night thoughts”, not always about housebreakers and thieves. I have heard of some of the latter making fun out of these inviting locked-up mansions. “Bill, there’s a ticket in the window about keys, but it’s too far off to be read, and besides, you know, we can’t read.” “No, and so we’ll use a key of our own; we can’t help them things.”

  I don’t suppose that Mr Jackson, of Coates Crescent, entertained any such notions when, in June 1843, he locked up his house on the occasion of a short absence of some five or six days; but certain it is, that when he returned he found all outside precisely as he had left it—blinds down, shutters close, doors locked. All right, he thought, as he applied the key and opened the door; but this confidence lasted no longer than a few minutes, when he discovered that his top-coats which hung in the lobby were gone. Now alarmed, he hurried through the house, and wherever he went he found almost every lock of press, cabinet, and drawer, either picked by skeleton keys or wrenched off, wood and all—the splinters of the torn mahogany lying on the carpets. All right! yes, outside. If he had been cool enough he might have thought of the good man’s cheese of three stones, laid upon the shelf for the christening, and when taken down (all right outside) weighed only the avoirdupois of the skin, the inside having been enjoyed by artists scarcely more velvet-footed; and yet the parallel would not have been true, for the thieves here had been most fastidious gentry—even refined, for, in place of carrying off most valuable articles of furniture, they had been contented with only the fine bits of jewellery, gold, and precious stones, such as they could easily carry away, and easily dispose of.

  Finding his elegant lockfast pieces of furniture thus torn up, Mr Jackson had no patience to make inquiry into the extent of the depredations before coming to the Office and reporting the state in which he had found his house. When I saw him he was wroth, not so much at what might turn out to have been stolen as at the reckless destruction; but the truth was, as I told him, that there was no unnecessary breakage. The thieves behoved t
o steal, and they behoved to get at what they wanted to steal. Few people understand the regular housebreaker. In almost all cases the clay is moulded, in infancy, moistened with the sap of stolen candy or fruit, and the glare of angry eyes only tends to harden it. We always forget that the thief-shape is the natural one, for can it be denied that we are all born thieves? I know at least that I was, and I suspect you were no better. If you are not a thief now, it’s because you were by good monitors twisted and torn out of that devil’s form; and how much pains were taken to get you into another, so that it is only at best a second nature with you to be honest. In short, the thief is a more natural being than you are, although you think him a monster. Nor is it any wonder he’s perfect, for your laws and habits have only wrought as a direct help of the character he got from the mother of us all, and probably his own mother in particular. Any obstruction he meets with is, therefore, something that ought to give way, simply because it shouldn’t be there; for how can you prove to him that an act of parliament has greater authority than the instinct with which he was born. No doubt he won’t argue with you. If you say you have a right to lock up, he won’t say that he has a right to unlock down, but he’ll do it, and not only without compunction, but with the same feeling of right that the tiger has when he seizes on an intruder upon the landmarks of his jungle and tears him to pieces.

  On proceeding to Coates Crescent, I ascertained that the thieves had obtained entrance by opening the outer main door with keys or pick-locks, and all the rest was easy. The scene inside was just what Mr Jackson had described it—there wasn’t a lock to an escritoire or drawer that was not punched off. Every secret place intended for holding valuables had been searched; and it soon appeared that these artistes had been very assiduous, if not a long time at the work. It would not be easy for me to enumerate the booty—valuable gold rings, earrings with precious stones, brooches of fine material and workmanship, silver ornaments of price, pieces of plate, and articles of foreign bijouterie. They had wound up with things they stood in need of for personal wear—top coats, boots, and stockings; and, to crown all, as many bottles of fine wine as would suffice to make a jolly bout when they reached their home. I have not mentioned a small musical box, because by bringing it in as I now do at the end, I want to lay some stress upon it, to the effect of getting it to play a tune.