The Big Book of Female Detectives

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

  “Miss Granard, there is no time to be more explicit, but I give you my word, the word of a very wretched, heart-broken woman, that my very life depends upon my catching a glimpse of the contents of the parcel that you now have in your hand.”

  “But—” I murmured, hopelessly bewildered.

  “There is no ‘but,’ ” she replied. “It is a matter of life and death. Here are £200, Miss Granard, if you will let me handle that packet,” and with trembling hands she drew a bundle of bank-notes from her reticule.

  I hesitated, not because I had any notion of acceding to Mrs. Frewin’s request, but because I did not quite know how I ought to act at this strange juncture, when a pleasant, mellow voice broke in suddenly:

  “You may take the money, Mary, if you wish. You have my permission to hand the packet over to this lady,” and Lady Molly, charming, graceful, and elegant in her beautiful directoire gown, stood smiling, with Hankin just visible in the gloom of the corridor.

  She advanced towards us, took the small packet from my hands, and held it out towards Mrs. Frewin.

  “Will you open it?” she said, “or shall I?”

  Mrs. Frewin did not move. She stood as if turned to stone. Then with dexterous fingers my lady broke the seals of the packet and drew from it a few sheets of plain white cardboard and a thin piece of match-boarding.

  “There!” said Lady Molly, fingering the bits of cardboard while she kept her fine, large eyes fixed on Mrs. Frewin. “£200 is a big price to pay for a sight of these worthless things.”

  “Then this was a vulgar trick,” said Mrs. Frewin, drawing herself up with an air which did not affect Lady Molly in the least.

  “A trick, certainly,” she replied with her winning smile. “Vulgar, if you will call it so—pleasant to us all, Mrs. Frewin, since you so readily fell into it.”

  “Well, and what are you going to do next?”

  “Report the matter to my chief,” said Lady Molly, quietly. “We have all been very severely blamed for not discovering sooner the truth about the disappearance of the Frewin miniatures.”

  “You don’t know the truth now,” retorted Mrs. Frewin.

  “Oh, yes I do,” replied Lady Molly, still smiling. “I know that two years ago your son, Mr. Lionel Frewin, was in terrible monetary difficulties. There was something unavowable, which he dared not tell his father. You had to set to work to find money somehow. You had no capital at your own disposal, and you wished to save your son from the terrible consequences of his own folly. It was soon after Monsieur de Colinville’s visit. Your husband had had his first apoplectic seizure; his mind and eyesight were somewhat impaired. You are a clever artist yourself, and you schemed out a plan whereby you carefully copied the priceless miniatures and then entrusted them to your son for sale to the Art Museum at Budapest, where there was but little likelihood of their being seen by anyone who knew they had belonged to your husband. English people do not stay more than one night there, at the Hotel Hungaria. Your copies were works of art in themselves, and you had no difficulty in deceiving your husband in the state of mind he then was, but when he lay dying you realised that his will would inevitably be proved, wherein he bequeathed the miniatures to Mr. James Hyam, and that these would have to be valued for probate. Frightened now that the substitution would be discovered, you devised the clever comedy of the burglary at Blatchley, which, in the circumstances, could never be brought home to you or your son. I don’t know where you subsequently concealed the spurious Engleheart miniatures which you calmly took out of the library and hid away during the night of your husband’s death, but no doubt our men will find that out,” she added, quietly, “now that they are on the track.”

  With a frightened shriek Mrs. Frewin turned as if she would fly, but Lady Molly was too quick for her and barred the way. Then, with that wonderful charm of manner and that innate kindliness which always characterized her, she took hold of the unfortunate woman’s wrist.

  “Let me give you a word of advice,” she said, gently. “We at the Yard will be quite content with a confession from you, which will clear us of negligence and satisfy us that the crime has been brought home to its perpetrator. After that, try and enter into an arrangement with your husband’s legatee, Mr. James Hyam. Make a clean breast of the whole thing to him and offer him full monetary compensation. For the sake of the family he won’t refuse. He would have nothing to gain by bruiting the whole thing abroad, and for his own sake and that of his late uncle, who was so good to him, I don’t think you would find him hard to deal with.”

  Mrs. Frewin paused awhile, undecided and still defiant. Then her attitude softened; she turned and looked full at the beautiful, kind eyes turned eagerly up to hers and, pressing Lady Molly’s tiny hand in both her own, she whispered:

  “I will take your advice. God bless you.”

  She was gone, and Lady Molly called Hankin to her side.

  “Until we have that confession, Hankin,” she said, with the quiet manner she always adopted where matters connected with her work were concerned, “Mum’s the word.”

  “Ay, and after that, too, my lady,” replied Hankin, earnestly.

  You see, she could do anything she liked with the men and I, of course, was her slave.

  Now we have got the confession, Mrs. Frewin is on the best of terms with Mr. James Hyam, who has behaved very well about the whole thing, and the public has forgotten all about the mystery of the Frewin miniatures.

  DETECTIVE: JUDITH LEE

  CONSCIENCE

  Richard Marsh

  RICHARD BERNARD HELDMANN (1857–1915) wrote prolifically under the pseudonym Richard Marsh. When he produced The Beetle in 1897, it competed with another supernatural thriller, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, receiving better reviews and greater sales, and it remains an exciting read to the present day. Heldmann, as Marsh, wrote about eighty volumes of mystery, horror, romance, and humor, beginning his career by writing stories under his own name for boys’ magazines. He was caught forging checks, served eighteen months in prison, and, upon his release, began to use the Marsh pseudonym. He wrote relentlessly (eight books were published in a single year), and his publisher had such a backlog that many more were published after his death from a heart attack—possibly due to overwork.

  Although his horror fiction provided much of his reputation, he wrote numerous crime and mystery novels and short stories, perhaps most memorably about Judith Lee, whose adventures appeared in twenty-two stories, mostly published in The Strand Magazine, the first twelve collected in Judith Lee: Some Pages from Her Life (1912), with nine more collected in The Adventures of Judith Lee (1916). The last story about her, “The Barnes Mystery,” has never been collected.

  Judith Lee has the remarkable ability to read lips with ease, and in multiple languages, which makes it possible for her to thwart criminals of all kinds, though she is often reluctant to believe what she “hears.” She is highly intelligent, skilled at disguise, and well-versed in martial arts. She is unconnected to the police, encountering a surprisingly large number of forgers, spies, con men, and murderers, turning them over to the authorities as soon as she has sufficient evidence.

  “Conscience” was originally published in the October 1911 issue of The Strand Magazine under the title “Judith Lee: Some Pages from Her Life: Conscience”; it was first collected in Judith Lee: Some Pages from Her Life (London, Methuen, 1912).

  Conscience

  RICHARD MARSH

  I HAD BEEN SPENDING a few days at Brighton, and was sitting one morning on the balcony of the West Pier pavilion, listening to the fine band of the Gordon Highlanders. The weather was beautiful—the kind one sometimes does get at Brighton—blue skies, a warm sun, and just that touch in the soft breeze which serves as a pick-me-up. There were crowds of people. I sat on one end of a bench. In a corner, within a few feet of me, a man was standing, leaning with his back against the railing—
an odd-looking man, tall, slender, with something almost Mongolian in his clean-shaven, round face. I had noticed him on that particular spot each time I had been on the pier. He was well tailored, and that morning, for the first time, he wore a flower in his buttonhole. As one sometimes does when one sees an unusual-looking stranger, I wondered hazily what kind of person he might be. I did not like the look of him.

  Presently another man came along the balcony and paused close to him. They took no notice of each other; the new-comer looked attentively at the crowd promenading on the deck below, almost ostentatiously disregarding the other’s neighbourhood. All the same, the man in the corner whispered something which probably reached his ears alone—and my perception—something which seemed to be a few disconnected words:—

  “Mauve dress, big black velvet hat, ostrich plume; four-thirty train.”

  That was all he said. I do not suppose that anyone there, except the man who had paused and the lazy-looking girl whose eyes had chanced for a moment to wander towards his lips had any notion that he had spoken at all. The new-comer remained for a few moments idly watching the promenaders; then, turning, without vouchsafing the other the slightest sign of recognition, strolled carelessly on.

  It struck me as rather an odd little scene. I was constantly being made an unintentional confidante of what were meant to be secrets; but about that brief sentence which the one had whispered to the other there was a piquant something which struck me as amusing—the more especially as I believed I had seen the lady to whom the words referred. As I came on the pier I had been struck by her gorgeous appearance, as being a person who probably had more money than taste.

  Some minutes passed. The Mongolian-looking man remained perfectly quiescent in his corner. Then another man came strolling along—big and burly, in a reddish-brown suit, a green felt hat worn slightly on one side of his head. He paused on the same spot on which the first man had brought his stroll to a close, and he paid no attention to the gentleman in the corner, who looked right away from him, even while I could see his lips framing precisely the same sentence:—

  “Mauve dress, big black velvet hat, ostrich plume; four-thirty train.”

  The big man showed by no sign that he had heard a sound. He continued to do as his predecessor had done—stared at the promenaders, then strolled carelessly on.

  This second episode struck me as being rather odder than the first. Why were such commonplace words uttered in so mysterious a manner? Would a third man come along? I waited to see—and waited in vain. The band played “God Save the King,” the people rose, but no third man had appeared. I left the Mongolian-looking gentleman still in his corner and went to the other side of the balcony to watch the people going down the pier. I saw the gorgeous lady in the mauve dress and big black picture hat with a fine ostrich plume, and I wondered what interest she might have for the round-faced man in the corner, and what she had to do with the four-thirty train. She was with two or three equally gorgeous ladies and one or two wonderfully-attired men; they seemed to be quite a party.

  The next day I left Brighton by an early train. In the compartment I was reading the Sussex Daily News, when a paragraph caught my eye. “Tragic Occurrence on the Brighton Line.” Late the night before the body of a woman had been found lying on the ballast, as if she might have fallen out of a passing train. It described her costume—she was attired in a pale mauve dress and a big black picture hat in which was an ostrich-feather plume. There were other details—plenty of them—but that was enough for me.

  When I read that and thought of the man leaning against the railing I rather caught my breath. Two young men who were facing each other at the other end of the compartment began to talk about the paragraph in tones which were audible to all.

  “Do you see that about the lady in the mauve dress who was found on the line? Do you know, I shouldn’t wonder a bit if it was Mrs. Farningham—that’s her rig-out to a T. And I know she was going up to town yesterday afternoon.”

  “She did go,” replied the other; “and I’m told that when she started she’d had about enough cold tea.”

  The other grinned—a grin of comprehension.

  “If that’s so I shouldn’t wonder if the poor dear opened the carriage door, thinking it was some other door, and stepped out on to the line. From all I hear, it seems that she was quite capable of doing that sort of thing when she was like that.”

  “Oh, quite; not a doubt of it. And she was capable of some pretty queer things when she wasn’t like that.”

  I wondered; these young gentlemen might be right; still, the more I thought the more I wondered.

  I was very much occupied just then. It was because I had nearly broken down in my work that I had gone for those few days to Brighton. I doubt if I even glanced at a newspaper for some considerable time after that. I cannot say that the episode wholly faded from my memory, but I never heard what was the sequel of the lady who was found on the line, or, indeed, anything more about her.

  I accepted an engagement with a deaf and dumb girl who was about to travel with her parents on a long voyage, pretty nearly round the world. I was to meet them in Paris, and then go on with them to Marseilles, where the real journey commenced. The night before I started some friends gave me a sort of send-off dinner at the Embankment Hotel. We were about half-way through the meal when a man came in and sat by himself at a small round table, nearly facing me. I could not think where I had seen him before. I was puzzling my brain when a second man came across the room and strolled slowly by his table. He did not pause, nor did either allow a sign to escape him to show that they were acquaintances, yet I distinctly saw the lips of the man who was seated at the table frame about a dozen words:—

  “White dress, star in her hair, pink roses over left breast. Tonight.”

  The stroller went carelessly on, and for a moment my heart seemed to stand still. It all came back to me—the pier, the band of the Gordon Highlanders, the man with his back against the railings, the words whispered to the two men who had paused beside him. The diner in front of me was the Mongolian-looking man; I should have recognized him at once had not evening dress wrought such a change in him. That whispered sentence made assurance doubly sure. The party with whom I was dining had themselves been struck by the appearance of the lady in the white frock, with the diamond star in her hair and the pink roses arranged so daintily in the corsage of her dress. There had been a laughing discussion about who was the nicest-looking person in the room; more than one opinion had supported the claim of the lady with the diamond star.

  In the middle of that dinner I found myself all at once in a quandary, owing to that very inconvenient gift of mine. I recalled the whisper about the lady in the mauve dress, and how the very next day the body of a lady so attired had been found on the Brighton line. Was the whispered allusion to the lady in the white dress to have a similar unpleasant sequel? If there was fear of anything of the kind, what was I to do?

  My friends, noticing my abstraction, rallied me on my inattention.

  “May I point out to you,” observed my neighbour, “that the waiter is offering you asparagus, and has been doing so for about five minutes?”

  Looking round, I found that the waiter was standing patiently at my side. I allowed him to help me. I was about to eat what he had given me when I saw someone advancing across the room whom I knew at once, in spite of the alteration which evening dress made in him—it was the big, burly man in the red-brown suit.

  The comedy—if it were a comedy—was repeated. The big man, not, apparently, acknowledging the existence of the solitary diner, passed his table, seemingly by the merest chance, in the course of his passage towards another on the other side of the room. With a morsel of food on his fork poised midway between the plate and his mouth, the diner moved his lips to repeat his former words:—

  “White dress, star in her hair, pink roses over left breast. To
night.”

  The big man had passed, the morsel of food had entered the diner’s mouth; nothing seemed to have happened, yet I was on the point of springing to my feet and electrifying the gaily-dressed crowd by crying, “Murder!”

  More than once afterwards I wished I had done so. I do not know what would have happened if I had; I have sometimes asked myself if I could say what would not have happened. As a matter of fact, I did nothing at all. I do not say it to excuse myself, nor to blame anyone, but it seemed to me, at the moment, that to do anything was impossible, because those with whom I was dining made it so. I was their guest; they took care to make me understand that I owed them something as my hosts. They were in the merriest mood themselves; they seemed to regard it as of the first importance that I should be merry too. To the best of my ability I was outwardly as gay as the rest of them. The lady in the white dress, with her party, left early. I should have liked to give her some hint, some warning—I did neither; I just let her go. As she went across the room one or two members of our party toasted her under their breath. The solitary diner took no heed of her whatever. I had been furtively watching him the whole time, and he never once glanced in her direction. So far as I saw, he was so absorbed in his meal that he scarcely raised his eyes from the table. I knew, unfortunately, that I could not have mistaken the words which I had seen his lips forming. I tried to comfort myself with the reflection that they could not have referred to the vision of feminine loveliness which had just passed from the room.

  The following morning I travelled by the early boat-train to Dover. When the train had left the station I looked at my Telegraph. I read a good deal of it; then, at the top of a column on one of the inside pages, I came upon a paragraph headed: “Mysterious Affair at the Embankment Hotel.” Not very long after midnight—in time, it seemed, to reach the paper before it went to press—the body of a young woman had been found in the courtyard of the hotel. She was in her night attire. She was recognized as one of the guests who had been staying in the hotel; she had either fallen or been thrown out of her bedroom window.