The Big Book of Female Detectives

by The Big Book of Female Detectives (retail) (epub)

  “The barrister dropped into his chair and rubbed his hands together nervously.

  “ ‘Indeed—and she said nothing to me. You are probably aware that you have been investigating a mare’s nest—my wife’s jewellery is not missing.’

  “ ‘No, it is not missing now, because when you returned from the country you put a similar set in its place.’

  “ ‘Good heavens, madame!’ exclaimed Mr. Charrington, leaping to his feet, ‘what do you mean?’

  “ ‘Pray be calm, sir. I assure you that I have come here not to make a scandal, but to avoid one. After you gave your wife the jewellery, you for some reason secretly abstracted it. The jewellery you abstracted passed into the possession of Mrs. Rinaldi, whose husband pawned two of the articles at Attenborough’s. As your wife is quite aware that for many days her jewellery was missing, I am bound to make an explanation of some kind to her. I have come to you to know what I shall say. You cannot wish her to believe that your son took the jewellery?’

  “ ‘Of course Claude must be cleared—but what makes you believe that I put the jewellery back?’

  “ ‘On the night you did so you pricked your finger with the pin of the lizard. You left a small bloodstain on the linen that was in the drawer, and when you turned down the sheet to get back into bed again your finger was still bleeding, and left its mark as evidence against you. Come Mr. Charrington, explain the circumstances under which you committed this rob——well, let us say, made this exchange, and I will do my best to find a means of explaining matters to your wife.’

  “Mr. Charrington hesitated a moment, and then, having probably made up his mind that it was better to have me on his side than against him, told me his story.

  “At the time that he kept up an irregular establishment he made the lady who is now Mrs. Rinaldi many valuable presents of jewellery. Among them were the articles which had resulted in my becoming temporarily a parlour-maid under his roof. When the lady married Rinaldi, he provided for her. But the man turned out a rascal, squandered and gambled away his wife’s money, and forced her to pawn her jewellery for him. He then by threats compelled her to forward the tickets to her former protector, and implore him to redeem them for her as she was without ready money to do so herself. The dodge succeeded two or three times, but Mr. Charrington grew tired, and on the last occasion redeemed the jewellery and put it in a drawer in his desk, and replied that he could not return it, as it would only be pawned again. He would keep it until the Rinaldis sent the money to redeem it, and then they could have it.

  “Then came his wife’s birthday, and he wished to make her a present of some jewellery. He selected a bracelet and a pendant in diamonds and sapphires and a true-lovers’-knot brooch in diamonds, and ordered them to be sent to his chambers.

  “He was busy when they came, and put them away for safety in a drawer immediately below the one in which he had some weeks previously placed the jewellery belonging to Mrs. Rinaldi. Mrs. Rinaldi’s jewellery, each article in its case, he had wrapped up in brown paper and marked outside ‘jewellery,’ to distinguish it from other packets which he kept there, and which contained various articles belonging to his late wife.

  “On the eve of his wife’s birthday he found he would have to leave town for the day without going to his office. He had to appear in a case at Kingston-on-Thames, which had come on much sooner than he had expected. Knowing he would not be back till late at night, he sent a note and his keys to his clerk, telling him to open his desk, take out the jewellery which had recently been forwarded from Streeter’s, and send it up to him at his house. He wished his wife many happy returns of the day, apologized for not having his present ready, but said it would be sent up, and she should have it that evening.

  “The clerk went to the desk and opened the wrong drawer first. Seeing a neatly tied-up parcel labelled ‘jewellery,’ he jumped to the conclusion that it was the jewellery wanted. Not caring to trust it to a messenger, he went straight up to the house with it, and handed it to Mrs. Charrington herself, who concluded it was her husband’s present. When she opened the parcel she noticed that the cases were not new, and supposed that her husband had bought the things privately. She was delighted with the jewellery—a bracelet and pendant in diamonds and rubies and a diamond lizard.

  “When her husband returned to dinner he was horrified to find his wife wearing his former mistress’s jewellery. But before he could say a word she kissed him and told him that these things were just what she wanted.

  “He hesitated after that to say a mistake had been made, and thought that silence was best. The next day Mrs. Charrington received news of her brother’s death, and had to go into deep mourning. The new jewellery was put away, as she would not be able to wear it for many months.

  “That afternoon at Mr. Charrington’s chambers Rinaldi called upon him. Desperately hard up, he had determined to try and bully Mr. Charrington out of the jewellery. He shouted and swore, and talked of an action at law and exposure, and was delighted to find that his victim was nervous. Mr. Charrington declared that he could not give him the jewellery back. Whereupon Mr. Rinaldi informed him that if by twelve o’clock the next day it was not in his possession he should summon him for detaining it.

  “Mr. Charrington rushed off to his jewellers. How long would it take them to find the exact counterpart of certain jewellery if he brought them the things they had to match? And how long would they want the originals? The jewellers said if they had them for an hour and made a coloured drawing of them they could make up or find a set within ten days.

  “That night Charrington abstracted the birthday present he had given his wife from her jewel-box. The next morning at ten o’clock it was in the hands of the jewellers, and at mid-day when Rinaldi called to make his final demand the jewellery was handed over to him.

  “Then Mr. Charrington went out of town. On his return the new jewellery was ready and was delivered to him. In the dead of the night, while his wife was asleep, he put it back in the empty cases. And that,” said Dorcas, “is—as Dr. Lynn, at the Egyptian Hall, used to say—‘how it was done.’ ”

  “And the wife?” asked Paul, turning his blind eyes towards Dorcas; “you did not make her unhappy by telling her the truth?”

  “No, dear,” said Dorcas. “I arranged the story with Mr. Charrington. He went home and asked his wife for her birthday present. She brought the jewels out nervously, wondering if he had heard or suspected anything. He took the bracelet and the pendant from the cases.

  “ ‘Very pretty, indeed, my dear,’ he said. ‘And so you’ve never noticed the difference?”

  “ ‘Difference?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why—why—what do you mean?’

  “ ‘Why, that I made a dreadful mistake when I bought them and only found it out afterwards. The first that I gave you, my dear, were imitation. I wouldn’t confess to you that I had been done, so I took them without your knowing and had real ones made. The real ones I put back the other night while you were fast asleep.’

  “ ‘Oh, Claude, Claude,’ she cried, ‘I am so glad. I did miss them, dear, and I was afraid there was a thief in the house, and I dared not tell you I’d lost them. And now—oh, how happy you’ve made me!’ ”

  * * *

  —

  Two months later Dorcas told me that young Claude Charrington was engaged to Miss Dolamore with his father’s consent, but he had insisted that she should leave Fitzroy Street at once, and acting on private information which Dorcas had given him, he assured Claude that diamond lizards were unlucky, and as he had seen Miss Dolamore with one on he begged to offer her as his first present to his son’s intended a very beautiful diamond true-lovers’-knot in its place. At the same time he induced his wife to let him have her diamond lizard for a much more valuable diamond poodle with ruby eyes.

  So those two lizards never met under Mrs. Charri
ngton’s roof, and perhaps, all things considered, it was just as well.

  DETECTIVE: NORA VAN SNOOP

  THE STIR OUTSIDE THE CAFÉ ROYAL

  Clarence Rook

  AN ELUSIVE, ENIGMATIC FIGURE, Clarence Rook (1862 or 1863–1915) was born in Faversham, Kent, the son of a bookseller and the town’s postmaster. He graduated from Oxford University and became a fairly prolific and successful journalist, writing for the Globe, the Chronicle, The Illustrated London News, The Idler, The Ludgate Monthly, The Art Journal, and various American publications. He was a popular figure in London’s literary circle and was strongly praised by George Bernard Shaw.

  His best-known work is Hooligan Nights (1899), which Rook insisted was a true portrait of life in London’s underworld as confided to him by an informant. Doubt has been cast on the verisimilitude of his claim that his book was pure journalism, partially owing to the fact that the same “real-life” character also appears in “The Stakes,” an undisguised work of fiction that appeared in 1900 in Pall Mall Magazine.

  Nora Van Snoop is a determined young woman who knows exactly what to do to bring her quarry to justice. Even though she appears in only this single story, her name has become part of the English language. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the verb “to snoop” is a bastardization of the Dutch word “snoepen,” which means “to enjoy stealthily.”

  “The Stir Outside the Café Royal” was originally published in the September 1898 issue of The Harmsworth Magazine.

  The Stir Outside the Café Royal

  CLARENCE ROOK

  COLONEL MATHURIN was one of the aristocrats of crime; at least Mathurin was the name under which he had accomplished a daring bank robbery in Detroit which had involved the violent death of the manager, though it was generally believed by the police that the Rossiter who was at the bottom of some long firm frauds in Melbourne was none other than Mathurin under another name, and that the designer and chief gainer in a sensational murder case in the Midlands was the same mysterious and ubiquitous personage.

  But Mathurin had for some years successfully eluded pursuit; indeed, it was generally known that he was the most desperate among criminals, and was determined never to be taken alive. Moreover, as he invariably worked through subordinates who knew nothing of his whereabouts and were scarcely acquainted with his appearance, the police had but a slender clue to his identity.

  As a matter of fact, only two people beyond his immediate associates in crime could have sworn to Mathurin if they had met him face to face. One of them was the Detroit bank manager whom he had shot with his own hand before the eyes of his fiancée. It was through the other that Mathurin was arrested, extradited to the States, and finally made to atone for his life of crime. It all happened in a distressingly common-place way, so far as the average spectator was concerned. But the story, which I have pieced together from the details supplied—firstly, by a certain detective sergeant whom I met in a tavern hard by Westminster; and secondly, by a certain young woman named Miss Van Snoop—has an element of romance, if you look below the surface.

  It was about half-past one o’clock, on a bright and pleasant day, that a young lady was driving down Regent Street in a hansom which she had picked up outside her boarding-house near Portland Road Station. She had told the cabman to drive slowly, as she was nervous behind a horse; and so she had leisure to scan, with the curiosity of a stranger, the strolling crowd that at nearly all hours of the day throngs Regent Street. It was a sunny morning, and everybody looked cheerful. Ladies were shopping, or looking in at the shop windows. Men about town were collecting an appetite for lunch; flower girls were selling “nice vi’lets, sweet vi’lets, penny a bunch”; and the girl in the cab leaned one arm on the apron and regarded the scene with alert attention. She was not exactly pretty, for the symmetry of her features was discounted by a certain hardness in the set of the mouth. But her hair, so dark as to be almost black, and her eyes of greyish blue set her beyond comparison with the commonplace.

  Just outside the Café Royal there was a slight stir, and a temporary block in the foot traffic. A brougham was setting down, behind it was a victoria, and behind that a hansom; and as the girl glanced round the heads of the pair in the brougham, she saw several men standing on the steps. Leaning back suddenly, she opened the trapdoor in the roof.

  “Stop here,” she said, “I’ve changed my mind.”

  The driver drew up by the kerb, and the girl skipped out.

  “You shan’t lose by the change,” she said, handing him half-a-crown.

  There was a tinge of American accent in the voice; and the cabman, pocketing the half-crown with thanks, smiled.

  “They may talk about that McKinley tariff,” he soliloquised as he crawled along the kerb towards Piccadilly Circus, “but it’s better ’n free trade—lumps!”

  Meanwhile the girl walked slowly back towards the Café Royal, and, with a quick glance at the men who were standing there, entered. One or two of the men raised their eyebrows; but the girl was quite unconscious, and went on her way to the luncheon-room.

  “American, you bet,” said one of the loungers. “They’ll go anywhere and do anything.”

  Just in front of her as she entered was a tall, clean-shaven man, faultlessly dressed in glossy silk hat and frock coat, with a flower in his button-hole. He looked around for a moment in search of a convenient table. As he hesitated, the girl hesitated; but when the waiter waved him to a small table laid for two, the girl immediately sat down behind him at the next table.

  “Excuse me, madam,” said the waiter, “this table is set for four; would you mind——”

  “I guess,” said the girl, “I’ll stay where I am.” And the look in her eyes, as well as a certain sensation in the waiter’s palm, ensured her against further disturbance.

  The restaurant was full of people lunching, singly or in twos, in threes, and even larger parties; and many curious glances were directed to the girl who sat at a table alone and pursued her way calmly through the menu. But the girl appeared to notice no one. When her eyes were off her plate they were fixed straight ahead—on the back of the man who had entered in front of her. The man, who had drunk a half-bottle of champagne with his lunch, ordered a liqueur to accompany his coffee. The girl, who had drunk an aerated water, leaned back in her chair and wrinkled her brows. They were very straight brows, that seemed to meet over her nose when she wrinkled them in perplexity. Then she called a waiter.

  “Bring me a sheet of notepaper, please,” she said, “and my bill.”

  The waiter laid the sheet of paper before her, and the girl proceeded, after a few moments thought, to write a few lines in pencil upon it. When this was done, she folded the sheet carefully, and laid it in her purse. Then, having paid her bill, she returned her purse to her dress pocket, and waited patiently.

  In a few minutes the clean-shaven man at the next table settled his bill and made preparations for departure. The girl at the same time drew on her gloves, keeping her eyes immovably upon her neighbour’s back. As the man rose to depart, and passed the table at which the girl had been sitting, the girl was looking into the mirror upon the wall, and patting her hair. Then she turned and followed the man out of the restaurant, while a pair at an adjacent table remarked to one another that it was a rather curious coincidence for a man and woman to enter and leave at the same moment when they had no apparent connection.

  But what happened outside was even more curious.

  The man halted for a moment upon the steps at the entrance. The porter, who was in conversation with a policeman, turned, whistle in hand.

  “Hansom, sir?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said the clean-shaven man.

  The porter was raising his whistle to his lips when he noticed the girl behind.

  “Do you wish for a cab, madam?” he asked, and blew upon his whistle.

  As he turned again
for an answer, he plainly saw the girl, who was standing close behind the clean-shaven man, slip her hand under his coat, and snatch from his hip pocket something which she quickly transferred to her own.

  “Well, I’m——” began the clean-shaven man, swinging round and feeling in his pocket.

  “Have you missed anything, sir?” said the porter, standing full in front of the girl to bar her exit.

  “My cigarette-case is gone,” said the man, looking from one side to another.

  “What’s this?” said the policeman, stepping forward.

  “I saw the woman’s hand in the gentleman’s pocket, plain as a pikestaff,” said the porter.

  “Oh, that’s it, is it?” said the policeman, coming close to the girl. “I thought as much.”

  “Come now,” said the clean-shaven man, “I don’t want to make a fuss. Just hand back that cigarette-case, and we’ll say no more about it.”

  “I haven’t got it,” said the girl. “How dare you? I never touched your pocket.”

  The man’s face darkened.

  “Oh, come now!” said the porter.

  “Look here, that won’t do,” said the policeman, “you’ll have to come along of me. Better take a four-wheeler, eh, sir?”

  For a knot of loafers, seeing something interesting in the wind, had collected round the entrance.

  A four-wheeler was called, and the girl entered, closely followed by the policeman and the clean-shaven man.

  “I was never so insulted in my life,” said the girl.

  Nevertheless, she sat back quite calmly in the cab, as though she was perfectly ready to face this or any other situation, while the policeman watched her closely to make sure that she did not dispose in any surreptitious way of the stolen article.