Standing, supreme irony, in the same dock in Court No. 3, at the High Court of Justiciary, as that in which Oscar Slater had stood, John Thomson Trench, decked out in smart, spit-and-polished military uniform, heard the reading of the indictment charging him - David Cook, standing, dressed spick and span lawyerly, beside him, and John McArthur, conspicuously in absentia - with the criminal offence of reset.

The date was Tuesday, 17 August 1915.

Let us see if, pursuing the matter through the sheaves of official documents, we can discover how this sorry state of affairs came about.

As with Trench’s ignominious dismissal from the force, so has the reset case been portrayed down the years as the end-product of a vindictive police establishment bent on extracting the last possible morsel of vengeance from a noble and upright officer who had dared to speak out. But this is to show only one side of the story – a romanticised and superficial simplification of what upon closer examination, viewing in the round, seems to have been in reality a very much more complex and controversial affair.

On the morning of Wednesday, 14 January 1914, staff arriving at nine o’clock to open up the shop of Charles L Reis & Co, jewellers, at 209 Argyle Street, Glasgow, discovered that thieves had opened up the place before them, and departed with a £900 price-tag haul.

The police were hastily summoned, and it was promptly decided that this case called for the shrewd know-how and local knowledge of that champion thief-taker, Detective Lieutenant Trench. Sagely, Messrs Reis had provided themselves with cover for such unwelcome depredations of their stock with the Guardian Assurance Company, whose representative, John Buchanan, lost no time in proposing the offer of a £150 reward for the recovery of both the thieves and the property.

Just over nine months before the Reis job, another Argyle Street jeweller’s, David Dow & Son, of No. 68, had been robbed of £3,000 worth of merchandise, and it was thanks to information supplied by a dubious character named McArthur that practically all of the jewellery was restored to its lawful owners. Trench, who had been involved in the arrest of the two thieves responsible, was well aware of the helpful ‘singing’ of McArthur.

This John McArthur, presenting himself as a Glasgow pawnbroker, was known to be a reset man (fence) in a large way of underworld business. Over the years, Trench had, in the course of his official duties, come to know him extremely well, and it was actually in consequence of this auld acquaintance that, on Sunday afternoon, 18 January 1914, Mr Buchanan, 42-year-old holder of the longiloquent title of Assistant Residential Secretary (Burglary Department),Messrs The Guardian Assurance Company, received a visit at his flat, at 25 Belmont Street, in the Hillhead district of Glasgow.

The lieutenant came bearing a cheering proposal: in consideration of a single payment in the sum of £400, the return of Reis’ stolen property, ‘absolutely intact’. Trench emphasised that he had been approached by a man – he named no names – who was simply a go-between, so that it would be pointless to arrest him, and, anyway, to do so would mean that the goods would be gone for ever.

By arrangement, Buchanan presented himself at ten o’clock the following Monday morning at the Central Police Office, where Trench, after introducing him to his superior, Superintendent Lindsay, conducted him in to an interview with Chief Constable Stevenson. The matter of the restoration of the jewels was discussed at length, and the Chief said frankly that he wished that ‘the man’ – no whisper of McArthur’s name had passed Trench’s lips – had gone direct to Buchanan with his proposition and had not involved the police. He did not, however, strike Buchanan as in any way opposing the suggested recovery, merely remarking rather drily that what was being proposed would, in England, be held to be compounding a felony!

According to Trench, his claim backed by John Buchanan in his precognition, it was he who at that meeting brought up the possibility of using an intermediary, a ‘buffer’ he called it, between Buchanan and the dubitable negotiant, one who could neutrally represent both their interests. It was he, too, who had suggested for that rôle his old friend, the law agent, David Cook. That the idea was mooted in the presence of the Chief Constable, who, incidentally, denied that this was so, is not borne out by the evidence. It was not, in fact, until Cook wrote a letter to the Procurator-fiscal in April 1915 that his part in the transactions became known to the authorities.

Immediately after leaving the Chief’s room, Trench trotted off to see Cook and set up the deal. Later, Buchanan, weighted down with the requisite £400 in gold, proceeded in company with Trench to Cook’s office at 59 Bath Street.

There was another meeting, at 3pm, at the King’s Arms, a public-house on the corner of Bath and Elmbank streets, opposite the King’s Theatre. It was attended by Buchanan, Trench, Cook and McArthur. An agreement was hammered out. The gold and ‘the stuff’ would be exchanged at Cook’s home, in Annfield Place, Dennistoun, at seven o’clock that evening.

And that was how it came to pass that, exactly one week after the Reis heist, the missing jewellery was returned.

But there were those in Glasgow who were not so well satisfied as Mr John Buchanan and his masters. Long memories were reaching back.

The dust had settled on the Reis robbery and its resolution. Glasgow’s criminal practitioners were moving on to other people’s pastures new, but a fat cloud of suspicion, growing plumper daily, sat suspended over Lieutenant Trench’s oblivious head. Daily, too, whispers were waxing ever louder in the tiled corridors of police power. Now, and in the course of many months to come, it would be not just whispers, but plain statements from present and former brother officers, who had worked for years beside Trench, proclaiming aloud, written down in black and white precognitions, strange allegations about him and his funny little ways.

In a precognition given on 16 February 1915, Chief Detective Inspector Keith told of a conversation which he had had with McArthur about the Reis job. He had remarked to McArthur that he had heard on the grape-vine that one of those involved had not been pleased with his share. ‘Is that the insurance man?’ McArthur had asked. And on being told that it wasn’t, McArthur said: ‘Oh, is it the other bugger? It doesn’t matter, he’s never pleased with what he gets for his share anyhow.’

McArthur did not mention any name. Neither did Keith. But the Inspector said in his precognition that ‘The dissatisfied person I was referring to was Trench. My reason was that I knew from previous experience that Trench would be involved.’

Detective Sergeant McKellar, precognosced on the same day, said that it had been known almost at once that five hard men, members of the notorious Caulfield gang – Robert Caulfield himself, Richard Craig, Alexander McDonald, James Chapman, and a man named Bell – had committed the crime: ‘Chapman has since admitted this to me personally, and he stated that the thieves got £25 each, the balance going to McArthur and the detectives. I took this to refer to Trench and Chief Detective Inspector Murray.’

McKellar was absolutely convinced that Trench, who was in charge of the Reis investigation, must, like everyone else, have known who the culprits were, but ‘his attitude was quite unusual. I have all along known that any information the police had was at once communicated to the thieves interested, and any prospective move on the part of the police was conveyed to this particular gang at once’.

Detective Sergeant Montgomery testified that a day or two before the break-in at the Reis shop, he had received private information that a robbery was to be committed there. ‘I told Inspector Murray. Nothing, however, was done. Trench was in charge of the case, but no apprehensions were made. Since he was dismissed I have not known of any information to get out of the police office.’

And yet another detective sergeant, Charles Melvin, of the Northern District Office, went on record saying: ‘I do suspect Chief Detective Inspectors Trench and Murray as having given information to thieves … those two inspectors were always on the most friendly terms with each other.’ Melvin said that he knew, a fortnight or three weeks before it took place, that Reis’ was going to be turned over by Caulfield, Craig, McDonald and Bell.

I did not personally report this to Inspectors Murray or Trench, but it was well known among the detective staff. No special watch was put on, and in my opinion that should have been done, and notwithstanding the police having the information stated, no apprehensions were made.

All this seemed to me to lend a credence, which I had at first withheld, to Ratcliffe’s account to me of the alleged scam carried out by Trench. He had told me:

John McArthur was Trench’s prime contact in the illicit business of levying money from insurance companies. Matters proceeded thus: either McArthur, or Trench himself, through McArthur, would suggest a place where a thief might carry out a robbery. The thief would proceed to do so. Trench would then approach an insurance agent and tell him that he thought he could contact a man (i.e. McArthur) who knew a man who had the stolen property in his possession, and that, for the reward money, it could be recovered. And that would duly happen, possibly with the involvement of a crooked solicitor who was a friend of Trench’s, David Cook. The thief, McArthur, Trench and, if his services had been used, Cook, would then divide up the reward money.

There is little doubt that this illicit procedure was followed on a number of occasions, but I am by no means convinced of Trench and Cook’s involvement – except in the Reis case. McArthur was unquestionably a leading player in every case, but in other instances Trench’s rôle in the profitable charade was taken over by other allegedly ‘bent’ officers, for example Chief Detective Inspectors George Murray and Allan Campbell.

Now, forearmed with all this extra and recondite information, primed with this hitherto secret knowledge – stowed away safely available at the backs of our minds – let us give unprejudiced ear to the remaining police and Fiscal department witnesses as they throw their various and varied lights upon John Thomson Trench and the Brownian movement of bright criminal specks dancing a whirligig about him.

Trench’s immediate superior, Superintendent Andrew Gow Lindsay, who had replaced Superintendent Ord, gave a precognition on 20 May 1915.

On the forenoon of 19 January 1914, Trench and Buchanan called on me. One of the first things Trench said was that he had an idea where the [Reis] stuff was. My reply was: ‘If I knew in whose possession it was I would not be long in bringing them here.’ He explained this by saying that it might be possible to get it back by payment of a certain sum. Trench made no reference whatever to McArthur’s name. He was very reticent and not disposed to say much. As it is not usual to make a detective officer divulge the source of his information, I did not press him unduly for particulars. I may say that I was strongly adverse to having any dealings regarding this stolen property, and that was also the Chief Constable’s view. Trench was a well trusted officer and I made no attempt to pry into his information.

Lindsay reported what Trench had told him to the Chief Constable. He also instructed Trench to submit a full written report of the whole of the facts to Mr Hart, the Procurator-fiscal. A day or two later he met Trench and asked him if he had done so. He said that he had. ‘If Trench states that he informed me of all that had been done regarding the recovery of the jewellery and the part he took in it, that statement,’ said Lindsay, ‘is untrue.’

Chief Detective Inspector George Murray, of Central, the uprightness of whose character was called into question by so many of his brother officers, uttered a precognition on 13 August 1915. He was at pains to explain his close-seeming relationship with ex-Detective Trench.

Trench served in the Black Watch, and at a later period I also served in that regiment. This tended to a certain friendship, which subsisted till about four years ago. At that time Mr Orr, Depute Chief, informed me I should not be unduly friendly with any particular officer in view of possible promotion. I have followed his advice. Trench was dismissed for giving private police information to an unauthorised person. Apart from that, I had no reason to suspect he was giving away police information, and I certainly did not do [so].

Then, flat denial:

I do not know McArthur and have had no dealings of any kind with him. I know of no association between Cook and Trench, and personally I have always kept Cook at arm’s length.

So far as Fiscal Hart – as well as the Crown Agent and Crown Counsel – was concerned, things had been a’brewing for some considerable time in the matter of John McArthur. When, as far back as 8 December 1914, Hart had been instructed by Crown Counsel to have the bold McArthur arrested, the Fiscal’s forces – that is, the Glasgow police – had been outpaced and outwitted by that worthy. Missing from his home – 445 Crown Street, Gorbals – he was eventually run to ground in Kilmarnock, and escorted back to Glasgow, by the ubiquitous Inspector Weir, on 27 January 1915.

As well as being charged with reset in the case of the Reis robbery, he was similarly charged as regards the break-in at the premises of David Dow & Son, jewellers, 113 Sauchiehall Street, in May 1914, and at those of Messrs James Smith, jewellers, at 99 Hope Street, in July 1914. To Detective Constable Arthur McIntosh, who had been detailed to fingerprint him, McArthur confidentially observed:

This is a bad business. The case seems to be pretty black against me. I’m charged with resetting over £2,000 worth of jewellery. I hope to goodness they never prove it.

He continued:

It’ll be a blue look out for some of you fellows. I’ve heard that Allan Campbell has got a summons. Poor chap, I’m sorry for him after all these years’ service. He’s not the only one. Oh, but what’s the good of me saying anything. There are others – Murray and Trench – and you’ll have heard the whole story.

By the end of March things were proceeding apace. On 1 April 1915, Advocate Depute William Mitchell, indulging in a spot of prophecy, drafted a long memo to the Lord Advocate, Robert Munro. In it, he forecasts that the defence that McArthur will put forward in answer to the charges of reset will be that, in dealing with the stolen property and handing it over to the insurance companies, he was really acting on behalf of the police, and that he might allege that the police were themselves engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice and obtain personal profit. Bearing this in mind, Mitchell underlined the very serious character of the charges made against the police and advised that, prior to bringing the charges of reset against McArthur, careful consideration by the Lord Advocate and, probably, by the Secretary for Scotland as well, of the position of the police would, in his view, be required.

The members of the detective force implicated in the charges were Trench, Campbell and Murray. Mitchell spelt it out:

It is alleged against these three persons, particularly against Trench and Murray, that while acting as officers in the detective service … they deliberately connived at the acts of very clever burglars, and shared in the proceeds of the burglaries.

While observing that ‘It is significant that a number of members of the Glasgow Detective Force have no doubt in their own minds but that Trench and Murray are implicated in these scandals,’ as Mitchell, quite rightly, pointed out regarding the accusations, ‘very much of it is hearsay, much the statement of actual criminals’. Even so, ‘further investigation either by the Lord Advocate’s department or by the Secretary for Scotland seems imperative. It may be, too, that Cook, the writer, and Buchanan, the agent for the Guardian Assurance Company, and even Trench and Murray, may be considered participes in the reset.’

On 13 April 1915, David Cook made a very grievous mistake. He addressed what turned out to be so vitally important a letter to Procurator-fiscal Hart that it must be quoted at some length.

McArthur’s answer to the charges is (1) that what he did was at the express request of the police in the Reis and Dow cases; (2) and that in the Smith case he received a letter from the Guardian Assurance Company; that in response to that letter he saw Mr Buchanan who instructed him to recover the jewels. McArthur further contends that even in the Smith case he understood that the matter had the approval of the police. Certainly their conduct after the recovery was intimated to them would appear to support the contention of the accused. In none of the three cases does McArthur admit that he made the approach.

In the Reis case Trench represented to me [Cook] that the police would be glad of my assistance in helping Buchanan to recover the jewels. I asked Trench if he was doing the business off his own bat. I had views as to the advisability of Trench as a police official from a disciplinary point of view connecting himself with the matter. He replied: ‘Oh, it is all right, the Chief knows all about it. I have seen him along with Buchanan and told him the whole story,’ and added, ‘I told him that McArthur was the man who helped the police to recover the stuff and arrest the men in the Argyle Street job.’1

Buchanan corroborated Trench as to what had passed at the meeting with the Chief Constable and added that the Chief had asked him to report formally if he was successful in recovering the goods.

I [Cook] said: ‘Well, if I can help you, gentlemen, good and well. It is no offence so far as I know to recover stolen property in order that it may be returned to its lawful owner. I have no hesitation in touching this matter seeing that the Chief knows all about it.’

In presence of Trench, McArthur said he believed he could get the stuff. I said to McArthur: ‘If you get the stuff, will you come to my office with it. I will have Buchanan there to receive it.’ He said: ‘No. Suppose I were caught with the stuff in my possession, would Trench or any of them clear me?’ I said in reply: ‘But the Chief knows all about it.’ But on no account would McArthur entertain the idea of carrying the jewels in a central part of the city. Ultimately the jewels were handed over to Buchanan in my house, and the money paid.

That night, and within an hour of the recovery of the jewels, I reported all that had taken place to Trench, who said he would call for Buchanan and see if he had got the stuff, and would report to the Chief Constable in the morning.

Trench in his precognition says he went to Buchanan’s house, saw the jewellery and reported to the Chief next day. The Chief in his precognition admits the meeting with Buchanan and Trench, admits that Trench reported the recovery, and that he told Trench to report to you. You say you do not remember, although Mr Giles, your Depute, says Trench told him of the recovery in the corridor, and that he told Trench to go in and tell you.

The Chief admits that he received a letter on the day following the recovery intimating that the jewels had been recovered, apparently intact, and requesting his permission to reward Trench for whose services the letter acknowledged thanks.

It must be apparent that had there been any intention to deal with McArthur as an accused person, the jewels ought to have been taken possession of by the police.

A handwritten note with the blue embossed seal of the Lord Advocate’s Chambers, Dover House, Whitehall, London, bearing the date 15 April 1915, and initialled by the Lord Advocate, Robert Munro, conveyed his decision in the following terms:

In this case McArthur will be tried in the High Court on a charge of reset. The gravity of the charge and the serious circumstances seem to me to abundantly justify this mode of trial. The trial will be in Edinburgh. I think it highly undesirable to have a case of this type, involving charges against the Glasgow police force, held in Glasgow. It does not appear to me that in hoc statu the evidence warrants a criminal charge against anyone other than McArthur. I refrain from dealing with the very serious and shocking charges made against the police. But I think that at this stage the papers with this minute should be submitted to the Secretary for Scotland, in order that he may take such action as he thinks fit.

Meanwhile – on 19 April – Fiscal Hart wrote off to the Crown Agent, enclosing Cook’s letter of the 13th for onward passing to Crown Counsel. He had this to say:

Mr. Cook’s letter, if it does anything, appears to strongly support the suggestion of the Crown precognition that a conspiracy existed to obtain money from the insurance companies. In this, so far as the Reis case is concerned, the main movers seem to have been Trench and McArthur, who were assisted in the matter by Mr Cook, as he himself acknowledges. Mr Cook throughout refers to what Trench did and said as having the authority of ‘the Police’. Indeed, he regards the terms as synonymous. He is quite wrong on the assumption he makes that all the stolen property was recovered in the Reis case. There was a very considerable shortage in this and the other two cases. The fact of Mr Cook reporting to Trench all that had taken place at the handing over of the stolen property seems absurd looking to their relationship.

There seems little doubt that Trench was endeavouring throughout to work with the semblance of the Chief Constable’s authority to safeguard himself, but according to the Chief Constable he only made such representations to him as he found necessary to achieve that end. In my view, the Chief Constable was never made aware of the full facts of the case.

The same thing is true of Trench’s dealings with my office. No written report was made to me. Trench merely mentioned such facts as he found convenient in a casual way to my Depute, Mr Giles, whom he met in a corridor. I have no recollection of Trench ever having seen me on the subject, and I am quite certain that he never reported to me any of the material facts. Mr Cook terms this ‘reporting to me.’

When, at length, Cook’s letter reached the desk of the Lord Advocate, sparks flew; it wrought havoc, produced a totally unintended and unexpected effect. Witness the following handwritten card:

Saturday, 8 May 1915.
It appears to me that Cook’s letter materially alters
the situation. I think that his guilt and that of Trench
are indistinguishable from the guilt of McArthur.
Accordingly the indictment will run against McArthur,
Trench and Cook.
Robert Munro.

On the reverse side of the card an Advocate Depute, George Morton, wrote: ‘12th inst. Procurator-fiscal will apply for a warrant to arrest Trench and Cook on the same charges of reset as McArthur.’

The die was cast.

The warrants were put into execution by – who else? – Chief Detective Inspector Duncan Weir. He formally arrested, cautioned and charged Trench on 13 May.

Trench’s reply was:

This is a cruel charge. It will kill my poor wife. I might as well be killed stone-dead. This will ruin me. I cannot come back to the Regiment among the men after this. As regards the second and third charges, I had nothing to do with them; and so far as the first is concerned, all I did was done with the knowledge of the Chief Constable and the Sheriff’s Procurator-fiscal.

Weir stated:

About 11am the following day, 14 May, I apprehended Cook in the County Buildings … He then said: ‘As sure as I have my God to meet, I know nothing of the second and third charges. I never heard of them. It is a wicked, shameful charge.’

Both the accused emitted declarations. Cook’s was practically a repetition of his 13 April letter to Hart. He ended it: ‘I am degraded and placed in the dock. If I am guilty, then my co-accused ought to be J.V. Stevenson, Chief Constable of Glasgow.’

Trench insisted that he knew nothing whatever about the Dow and Smith robberies. As regards the Reis break-in, he simply told again his many times told tale, but this time, wittingly or unwittingly, admitting that it was he who sought McArthur out and not, as he had always previously and adamantly maintained, McArthur who had sought him out. He claimed that he had anyway ‘explained the whole thing’ to Superintendent Lindsay, that he had ‘explained the whole thing’ to the Chief Constable, and had also ‘explained the whole thing’ to Mr Giles and to Mr Hart. The only trouble was that one and all issued their declarations that he had done no such thing.

The two accused were admitted to bail, in Cook’s case of £500, in Trench’s £250.

Towards the end of June – the 26th, actually – Advocate Depute George Morton wrote to tell the Lord Advocate that he did not intend to make any charge against Trench or Cook of resetting the proceeds of the Dow and Smith burglaries. And on 30 July , a little over two weeks before the date fixed for the opening of the trial, Hart informed the Crown Agent:

So far as I can gather the defence in this case is that the facts disclosed do not amount to reset, there being no intention to feloniously acquire or retain the property and to deprive the true owner of its use. On the contrary, it is contended, what was done was done wholly with a view to restoring the property to the owner, and this too with the concurrence of the police or in the bona fide belief that the Chief Constable concurred.

It will be contended that, however ill-advised and indiscreet were accuseds’ actions, criminal intent was altogether absent from what they did. That contention of course leaves out of sight entirely the imposition of the very substantial money payment as a condition precedent to the return of the property. This appears to me to seriously prejudice the argument of the defence, as holding up stolen property to ransom against the true owner is in itself criminal.

Perhaps Crown Counsel will consider the observations of Lord Justice-Clerk in the case H.M. Advocate v. Browne, Burns & Williams, 22nd Octr. 1903, S.L.R. p.136.

It has become the custom in books about the Slater case to claim a triumphant vindication of Trench and Cook as the outcome of the ‘put up job’ that landed them in the dock in the so-called reset case. It has been said, and I quote – page 185 of Peter Hunt’s Oscar Slater: The Great Suspect – that the Lord Justice-Clerk, Charles Scott Dickson, ‘In his judicial manner … laughed the case out of court.’

I don’t think so. Let us see precisely what he did say about a charge which he agreed was serious – no laughing matter. His Lordship began his charge to the jury by pointing out that, according to the indictment, the panels had received the jewellery which had been dishonestly appropriated by theft.

That means that they are charged with having received goods, knowing them to be stolen, and for the purpose of keeping them from their owner… I don’t think it is the law at all that you should find the prisoners guilty of a serious crime unless you are satisfied that there is really criminal intent. You cannot make a man a criminal on a charge of reset by merely fine-spun theories of legal propositions; you have got to be satisfied that these two men were criminals to the extent of knowingly receiving and retaining goods that were stolen.

It falls to me now to direct you in law … I confess, on these facts, to my mind, it would be exceedingly difficult to find that these two panels are criminals … I would think it would be out of the question, either as law or as common sense, to say that every man who received stolen goods, whatever purpose he received them for, was a resetter.

If a man received stolen goods for the purpose of handing them back to the owner, accepted a fee, and carried it out for that purpose, you could not call that man a resetter. Accordingly, to my mind, there is in this case absent one of the main elements necessary to constitute the crime of reset. I think nothing has been put that would justify you in bringing in a conviction against these two accused persons.

In England, I understand, they have a common law offence of compounding a felony. That means to say if you go to a thief and say, ‘I will give you £5 if you return me my watch which is stolen, and I won’t prosecute you’, it is a crime in the law of England.

But then we are different in Scotland, because if your watch is stolen, you cannot prosecute the thief; the only person is the Lord Advocate or his representatives, and accordingly you might make all the bargains in the world with the thief and say you would not prosecute him, that would not interfere in the least with the prosecution by the Procurator-fiscal or the law officers of the Crown.

Accordingly, there is not the same need for such an offence in Scotland … even if there were, it would import that you would need not only to pay money to get back your stolen property, but you must make a bargain with the thief that he won’t be prosecuted. There is no suggestion of that kind here. On the contrary, the insurance company were with the police from the very beginning, doing their best to see if they could catch the thief and get him prosecuted, and therefore that kind of suggestion does not come into this case at all.

But that is not the crime that is charged – nothing like it. The crime you are asked to convict the panels on is ‘Did you receive these various articles of jewellery knowing them to be stolen? Did you receive them for the purpose of keeping them back from their owner?’

They did not receive them for any such purpose; they got them for the purpose of restoring them to the owner as far as they could, and therefore on the law I direct you that there is no justification at all which would enable you to return a verdict of guilty against the two panels.

I say nothing about the man McArthur, who has disappeared … but even as against him, I don’t think there is evidence to show that he was a resetter in the sense of the law. But that does not concern us here just now.

Have the two panels, John Thomson Trench and David Cook, been proved guilty of the reset of theft? I think on the facts they have not, but I direct you on the law that you cannot, and ought not to return a verdict of guilty on them, but on the contrary, that you should acquit both prisoners of the charge laid against them.

What the Lord Justice-Clerk seems to have been saying was not that Trench and Cook were innocent of a crime, but that that crime was not the crime of reset, with which they had been charged. Had the case been brought in England, and the charge been criminal conspiracy or, less seriously, compounding a felony, the outcome might have been different. It is instructive to see, as we shall later, what happened to McArthur when he was eventually brought before the Court.

The jury announced a unanimous not guilty. The accused were dismissed from the bar.

Assoilzied,2 Trench was at liberty to pick up his rifle. Returning to his regiment, he was made up to quartermaster-sergeant and saw service in Egypt from January 1916 to the December of the same year, when he was invalided home.

Conan Doyle, in a letter which appeared in the Weekly News of 28 August wrote that he had always thought that the Oscar Slater conviction was a scandal, since the conduct of the police, which was the very point at issue, was excluded from the investigation. ‘Finally, I think this prosecution, or rather, persecution, of Mr Cook and Mr Trench upon a pretext so flimsy that it was instantly set aside by the judge, is the crowning scandal of the series. I am glad there is talk of a public inquiry.’ But the Great War was in progress. People’s minds were absorbed, and the inquiry never materialised.

There is a distinct probability that, for all David Cook’s protestations to the contrary, John McArthur’s flight into outlawry was engineered – and paid for – by him. It all depends upon whether or not you believe McArthur’s wife, Maggie. She suddenly appeared at the Central Police Office on the Tuesday afternoon of 7 September 1915, with a tale to tell. She said that when the reset case first came up, her husband had gone round to see Cook, who was at the time ill at home and confined to bed. Cook had told McArthur: ‘This is a bad case and will involve us all’, to which her husband had retorted: ‘Well, you know I have a wife and nine children of a family.’ Whereupon Cook, saying that he was sorry for McArthur’s children and his wife, added that if McArthur did as he wanted him to do, ‘your children will never want, and twelve hours after the case is quashed I will pay £400 in your wife’s hands’.

McArthur’s part in the bargain was to disappear, leave the country, fail to show up at the trial. The point was that Cook had worked it out that if he, Trench and McArthur were all tried together certain detrimental evidence and productions would have been brought which could not be brought in the absence of McArthur.

Continuing her story, Mrs McArthur said that later, still lying in bed, Cook had told her that he had not long to live, and the anxiety of the trial to come was shortening his days. He handed her a cheque for £200.

Hoping to receive the balance of the promised £400, Maggie McArthur paid another visit to Cook. He was by then back at work at his office. When the question of paying a further £200, the remainder of the sum agreed, was broached, Cook had, she said, turned furiously on her, shouting, ‘Damn John McArthur. If he thinks he is going to blackmail me he is damned far mistaken.’ She said it was not her husband who had sent her. She had come of her own accord – and only for the sake of her children. But Cook angrily told her he was not giving her one penny-piece more until the day after the trial. She duly presented herself on 18 August only to be told that Cook was away. When she returned two days later he was back.

I congratulated him on getting out of the case, and he said, ‘Damn you and your congratulations. Do you know what you are? You are nothing but a little bitch of a blackmailer.’ I said, ‘I don’t understand what you mean, Mr Cook. I am here for you to fulfil what you promised to John.’ He then said, ‘Damn the little bugger, he is nothing but a coward at the best, and if I had the little bugger here I would put a stiletto through his back.’

Mrs. McArthur further said that Cook had received £50 from McArthur for his part in the transaction of the Reis restoral at his house, and Trench received £24 out of the £400. McArthur provided corroboration – of a sort – in a letter which he sent to Chief Constable Stevenson on 27 October 1915, verifying the statements made by his wife.

He wrote:

I would like them to be made public, as the public would know what kind of a scoundrel Mr David Cook and his cats paw Ex L. Trench is, and for Trench’s part, what I know of him he ought to go and bury his face in shame, in place of writing to the Weekly News, that is saying the least of it, but Trench is not much worse of than some of the officers under your charge but they have done me no harm and why should I try to do them harm but by the way I mearly pointed out that to you, but Mr David Cook as they call him a dirtyer wretch never dawned shoes …

If I turned up at the trial and told the right way of the story, that he got £50 and also helped his self to the jewellery and even kept the bag that was taken out of the place, for his own personal use it would not do him any good at the trial and it would also spoil his Slater case that him and his confederate – Ex L. Trench is making a rich harvest of, which he admitted to me, and Trench was also getting well paid through him, the said Mr D. Cook and if he managed to prove the Slater case he would do his best for you to get your discharge from the Chief Constableship as he called you all the Irish names, your Honour, which a common Street boy would not come out with. Yet he is looked upon as an upright gentleman by all who does not know him …

I consider I am no more a resetter than Cook and Trench and the rest in this particular case.

John McArthur surfaced again in Glasgow in December 1916. He had, it seemed, been hiding himself away in Canada. He was promptly arrested by the long-thwarted Chief Detective Inspector Weir. He was put up at the High Court in Glasgow in February 1917, before Lord Hunter and a jury, charged with reset in connection with three burglaries – Reis, Dow, and Smith – in Glasgow in 1914.

Cook, cited as a witness for the defence, addressed, on 20 February 1917, a letter to the new incumbent in the office of Procurator-fiscal, Mr P Fraser MacKenna. In it, he wrote:

In my opinion it is not unreasonable to ask in the event of the defence calling me as a witness that Crown Counsel should have the following points in view, viz:- (1) McArthur says that I promised to pay him £400. If his story be true, he stood to lose £100, and also have a decree of outlawry passed against him. The bail (his own money) was £500; (2) Before a warrant was issued for McArthur’s apprehension, and in consequence of information conveyed to him by Mr John Buchanan, auctioneer, he fled.3

At this time there was no suggestion of proceedings against me. I regret to say McArthur persistently attempted to blackmail me while I was in a very low condition of health … Reflection can only lead one to believe that McArthur fled because of his connection with the Dow and Smith cases, the Crown authorities know that I had nothing to do with either.

Trench, called as a witness, told the Court that he regarded McArthur as a go-between in the Reis affair. When he learned that the jewellery had been recovered, he had informed Mr Hart, who was then Procurator-fiscal. Mr Hart had told him that he must not take possession of jewellery unless there was to be a case against some person. There was no suggestion at the time of any proceedings being instituted against McArthur. Cross-examined, Trench admitted that he had been told by the Chief Constable not to touch the thing further. Everything he did to assist Mr Buchanan was unofficial.

The Glasgow Herald, of 24 February 1917, provided a hitherto neglected perspective on the matter.

Lord Hunter, in summing up, said he could not help expressing surprise at the policy of the insurance company in paying for the recovery of the jewellery. He could not imagine that the head office knew of the circuitous methods that were to be adopted, or they would not have sanctioned the procedure. On the assumption that nothing was done contrary to the law of Scotland, it could not but be obvious to most people that such a policy as that adopted of encouraging ‘go-betweens’ would in the long run have led to the insurance company having to meet bigger claims, and amounted also to a direct encouragement of crime.

The jury returned a verdict of Guilty. McArthur was borne off to serve three years’ penal servitude.

From April 1918 until his discharge in October 1918, Quartermaster-Sergeant Trench was on active service in France. About March 1919, he was taken seriously ill and removed for treatment to a home in Moffat. His condition worsening, he was transferred in May to the Shakespeare Red Cross Military Hospital, Maryhill, Glasgow. And there, on 13 May 1919 – four years to the day since his arrest – he died. Cause of death: pernicious anaemia, debility and cardiac condition, two months. He left a wife, who survived him for 60 years, dying in her one-hundred-and-first year, six children and an estate of £549 5s. 10d.

David Cook lasted a couple of years longer. He died on 21 October 1921, at his home, 4 Princes Gardens, Dowanhill, Partick, Glasgow. Cause of death: acute bronchitis and cardiac failure. At age 49, he was a year younger than Trench. He left a wife, two sons and an estate of £10,732 14s. 1d.

In Peterhead, Oscar Slater was reported to be in excellent health.

1 This was the robbery carried out in April 1913, at the premises of David Dow & Son, 68 Argyle Street.

2 Scots law: assoilzie – to absolve or decide finally in favour of a defendant; to free of a charge.

3 There were, by awkward coincidence, two John Buchanans. There was John Buchanan who worked for the Guardian Assurance Company, and there was John Buchanan who was a partner in the firm of Messrs Robert McTear & Co, auctioneers and valuators. He assessed the loss in the Dow case on behalf of Lloyds and in the James Smith case on behalf of the Guardian Life Assurance Company.