Page:The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago.djvu/141

Rh the bank note had been put into the Liverpool Post Office, and had not reached its destination.

It happened, however, that one of the Tellers of the Commercial Bank of Edinburgh, being one night in the pit of the theatre, had his attention particularly attracted, by some accidental circumstance, to a person sitting immediately in front of him. The very next day a person, whom the Teller at once recognised to be the same individual, although completely altered in dress, being now muffled up in a cloak, and wearing green spectacles, and having a fur cap drawn much over his face, called at the Commercial Bank, and presented to the next Teller a £50 Bank of England note, to be exchanged in Commercial Bank notes, who, according to custom, requested the person to write his name and address on the back. The person then wrote on the back of the note the words, "Jo. Wilford, College Post Office," and the money was paid him. When he had gone, the brother Teller, who had been in the theatre, asked, from mere curiosity, who that was, and was shown the signature upon the note. The note was then transmitted in the usual course to the Bank of England, and was there discovered to be the note stolen from Mr. Duncan's letter. It was then returned to the Commercial Bank for inquiry, and from the accidental circumstance already mentioned, the Teller who had been in the theatre at once recollected the appearance of the person who had presented it. A clue being thus got, it was thought proper first to ascertain whether that person could be found amongst the officers of the Post Office at Edinburgh. The Teller was therefore placed in a room into which every officer of the Post Office, as he arrives in the morning, comes to enter his name in a book, and amongst them the Teller there saw the person who had presented the stolen note. This person was James Wedderburn Nicol, who was of course apprehended, and in his lodgings, which were immediately searched, was found the fur cap, the spectacles, and a considerable portion of the Commercial Bank notes, or at least the same description of notes, for they could not be expressly identified. It was also ascertained that Nicol had borrowed the cloak in which he had appeared at the