The Big Book of Female Detectives

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

  “We’ll go,” said Tom, and called the waiter.

  They took a taxi to Kings Croft Mansions and found that they were a big block of very small flats obviously occupied by professional people. No. 123 was on the fifth floor, but happily there was a lift. There were, in fact, two lifts, as the lift-man explained when they asked if Miss Drew was in.

  “I don’t know, sir,” he replied. “Sometimes she comes up this way and sometimes through the other entrance, and it’s very difficult to know whether she is in or out. She hasn’t been up this way for a long time.”

  They rang the bell at 123 and there was no response. Tom knocked, but there was no reply. Accidently he pushed the flap of the letter-box and uttered an exclamation.

  “Why, the box is full of letters!” he said. “She has either a big correspondence or else she hasn’t been here for days.”

  The mat beneath his feet felt uneven and he pulled it up. There were several newspapers all the same, but of different dates, and he took them out.

  “Five days’ newspapers,” he said thoughtfully; “that’s queer.”

  He went along the passage to the other lift.

  “No, sir,” said the liftman, “I haven’t seen Miss Drew for several days. She hasn’t been home, and sometimes she’s away for weeks at a time. In fact, sir,” he said, “Miss Drew very seldom stays here.”

  Then, realizing that he was betraying the confidence of one of the tenants of the house, he added hastily: “She’s got a little cottage down in Kent, sir, and I suppose she spends her time there in the pleasant weather.”

  Tom parted from the girl and went home that night more puzzled than ever.

  The night for him was a sleepless one. He was up at five in the morning working in his study, and at seven o’clock was in the street. The mystery of Miss Drew was almost as great as the mystery of the Ranee of Butilata. The solution baffled him, and he had thought of a dozen without finding one which was convincing. His feet strayed in the direction of Southampton Street, and he was within sight of the building when a mud-stained motor-car passed him like a flash and pulled up before the flats. The door opened and a girl jumped out. There was no need to ask who she was. It was Grace Drew. She wore a long black travelling cloak and her face was veiled, but he knew her.

  She turned to the driver of the car and said something. Without another word the car moved on.

  “Excuse me.”

  Grace Drew was in the hall when Camberley’s hand fell on her arm. She turned with a little cry.

  “Mr. Camberley,” she stammered.

  “I’m sorry to bother you at this hour of the morning,” said Tom good-humouredly, “but I called to see you last night.”

  “I wasn’t in, of course,” she said hurriedly. “I’ve got a little cottage down in Kent. One of my friends there was sending this car up to town and suggested that I should use it.”

  “You’re a lucky girl to have such friends,” said Tom.

  He could see through the veil that the girl’s face was white.

  “Perhaps I’d better postpone my enquiries,” he said, “until later in the day.”

  “Thank you,” she replied.

  He was turning away, lifting his hat, when she came after him.

  “Mr. Camberley,” she said, “I’ve no doubt you think it is very extraordinary that I should drive to this place in a motor-car.”

  She spoke quickly, and he could sense her agitation.

  “I suppose you think also that this dress”—she threw aside the beautiful cloak she was wearing and revealed a costume which even to his inexperienced eyes must have cost more than a month’s salary—“and all that sort of thing. But perhaps you know…I wanted to keep it a secret…Mr. Covent and I are going to be married.”

  “I’m awfully glad,” said Tom awkwardly, and felt a fool. Though he had stumbled upon an affaire of his partner and the mystery, so far as Miss Drew was concerned, was a mystery no more.

  “You won’t say a word, will you—not for a day or two,” she said.

  “I will not say a word even in a year or two,” smiled Tom and held out his hand. “I congratulate you, or shall I say I congratulate Covent.”

  He heard her laugh—a queer little laugh, he thought.

  “Wait and see,” she said mockingly, and ran up the stairs toward the lift.

  V

  Martin Goes Away

  He had promised secrecy, but there was one person that he had to tell, and that for an excellent reason. If he had felt embarrassed at the interview in the morning, he felt more embarrassed that afternoon as he strolled with Dora Mead through Green Park. It was a glorious sunny Saturday and the park was filled with people, but for all he knew or saw there was only one other but himself, and that was the flushed girl who walked by his side.

  “You see,” he was saying, “we have an excellent precedent. I am going to start another business. Covent has been very prompt and sent me his cheque today and I have finished with the firm—and I want somebody with me, to work with me, somebody who will put my interests first.”

  He felt he was growing incoherent, and the girl, who was surprisingly cool for all the fluttering at her heart, nodded gravely.

  “So you see, dear,” said Tom more awkwardly than ever, “the least you can do is to marry me right away.”

  “Isn’t this,” she faltered, “a little quick?”

  “Sudden is the word you wanted,” he murmured, and they both laughed.

  If the next few days were dream days for the two people who had lately been members of the firm of Covent Brothers, they were hectic days for Martin Covent. Something had happened to the market. A rumour of trouble in Persia had changed the government in Rumania, shares had wobbled and collapsed, and even gilded securities had lost some of their auriferous splendour.

  One morning Martin Covent went the round of his banks and methodically and carefully collected large sums of money, and these had been changed in an American bank in Lombard Street into even more realizable security. In the afternoon he called Miss Drew into his private office and locked the door.

  “Grace, my dear,” he said flippantly, though his voice shook, “you may pack your bag and get ready for a quick move to Italy.”

  “What has happened?” she asked.

  “I am catching the Italian mail from Genoa to Valparaiso. All the passports are in order——”

  “So it has come to that, has it?” she asked, biting her lips thoughtfully.

  “It has come to that,” he repeated.

  “And we are to be married—when?” she asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “My dear girl, we shall have to postpone the marriage for a little while, there is no time now.”

  “You expect me to go with you—unmarried?” she asked.

  He took her by the shoulders and smiled down into her face.

  “Can’t you trust me?” he asked.

  “Oh yes, I can trust you,” she replied, and there was no tremor in her voice. “What train do we catch?”

  “The train leaving Waterloo and connecting with the Havre boat,” said he. “Will you meet me on the platform at nine?”

  She nodded.

  “What of your clients?” she said.

  He laughed.

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to take liberties with their accounts. The unfortunate Ranee of Butilata is going to suffer another injustice at the hands of the firm,” he chuckled.

  “But suppose it is found out that you have bolted?” said the girl.

  “How can it be? It is Friday today. I am never at the office on Saturday. By Sunday I shall be on the boat, and it will be difficult for even the most skilful firm of accountants to discover that the firm has gone bust, for a week. No, my dear, I’ve though
t it out very carefully. You will meet me tonight at nine o’clock?”

  She nodded and went back to her work, as though the firm of Covent Brothers still stood high in the stable traditions of the City.

  It was all so very simple. The plans went so smoothly that it was a very high-spirited Martin Covent who stepped into the boat-train as it was moving and sat down by the girl’s side. They were the only occupants of the compartment.

  “Well, darling,” he said exuberantly, “we’re off at last. You’re looking pale.”

  “Am I?” she said indifferently. “If I am, is it extraordinary?”

  He laughed and took out of his inside pocket a bulky black leather portfolio.

  “Feel the weight of that,” he said, putting it into her hand. “There’s happiness and comfort for all the days of our lives, Grace.”

  She took the portfolio and put it down between them.

  “And a great deal of unhappiness for other people,” she said. “What about the Ranee of Butilata. She will be ruined.”

  “That doesn’t worry me a great deal,” smiled the man. “People of that kind can always get money.”

  She took a little silver cigarette-case from her bag, opened it, and chose a cigarette.

  “Give me one,” he asked, and she obeyed. She struck a match and held it for him, then lit her own, and slipping away from the arm which sought to hold her, she took a place facing him on the opposite seat.

  “Now you’re to be good for a little while,” she said. “You’ve got to keep your head clear.”

  He puffed away at the cigarette and she watched him.

  “After all,” he said, “the firm is fairly solvent. We have a lot of outstanding debts, and I suppose they’ll call in Tom Camberley to straighten out the mess. I’m only taking my own money.”

  “That’s a comforting way of looking at it,” said the girl. “It seems to me that you’ve taken some of your customers’ money too.”

  “And that doesn’t worry me, either. Now, my dear, the object of life is to find as much happiness as one can and——”

  He took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it.

  “What weird stuff you smoke, Grace,” he said.

  “Get up!” Her voice was sharp and peremptory, and in his surprise he attempted to obey her, but his legs would not support him and it seemed that no muscle of his body was under control.

  “What the devil is this?” he asked stupidly.

  “Dracena,” she said coolly. “You have never heard of Dracena. That is because you have never been to India.”

  “Dracena?” he repeated.

  “It is a very simple drug. It paralyses the muscles and renders its victim helpless. In a quarter of an hour you will sink into a condition of insensibility.” She spoke in such a matter-of-fact tone that he could hardly grasp the import of her words.

  “This train will stop at a little wayside station,” she went on. “You would not think it was possible to stop a boat express, but I have fixed it. One of my servants, the one who used to masquerade as the Ranee of Butilata, has arranged to board the train at that station and I have arranged to get out. My car will be waiting, and I hope to be back at Newbury in the early hours of the morning.”

  “At Newbury?” he gasped. “Then you—you——”

  “I am the Ranee of Butilata,” said the girl. “I am the woman your father sold into captivity, into a life which by every standard and by every test was hell! I was sold to a drunkard and a brute, and an Indian at that, to save the firm of Covent Brothers, and when my husband died I had to steal the money to bring me to England.

  “I did not waste my time as the wife of Butilata,” she went on quietly, but with a hardness in her voice which brought a twinge of terror to the paralysed man. “I learnt book-keeping because I thought one day I would come back to the firm of Covent Brothers and worm my way into its confidences. Butilata made no secret of the part your people played.”

  “You are the Ranee of Butilata! You lived a double life!” he said slowly, as though in order that he should hear and understand.

  “I lived a double life,” she said. “By day I was your clerk. In the evening I was the Ranee of Butilata, who gave parties to the countryside. My car was always waiting round the corner for me and brought me back the next morning. Once I was nearly betrayed. Dora Mead came to Newbury unexpectedly and would have recognized me, but I switched out the lights and had her removed from the house.

  “By day I slaved for you for three pounds a week, using my position to rob your firm systematically and consistently. Yes, I robbed you,” she went on. “All the thousands standing to the credit of my account were transferred from the profits of the firm. I came into your business to ruin you,” she said, “and to ruin Tom Camberley too, but he was a decent man. And because he expressed his pity for the poor girl who had been sent out to Butilata, I persuaded you to buy him out and save his money from the wreck.”

  “You—you——!” hissed Covent. He made an attempt to lurch forward, but fell backward, and the girl, rising to her feet, lowered him to the seat. She covered him with a travelling rug, and presently the train began to slow down.

  It was a dark and rainy night, and when the train came to a stop at the little platform she slipped out, closing the door behind her and disappeared into the gloom.

  They found Martin Covent at Southampton and brought him back to town to face his outraged clients and the inexorable vengeance of the law. But the stout black wallet that carried the proceeds of his robbery was never recovered, and the Ranee of Butilata vanished as though the earth had opened and swallowed her.

  BAD GIRL: MISS MILLY

  SHE KNEW WHAT TO DO

  Joseph Shearing

  MOST OF THE BOOKS WRITTEN under Gabrielle Margaret Vere Long’s (1885–1952) Joseph Shearing pseudonym are historical novels, usually based on real-life criminal cases. While the other nom de plumes of the prolific author have faded into obscurity, the Marjorie Bowen and Shearing names endure.

  Among Long’s best-known Shearing crime novels are Moss Rose (1934), the basis for the 1947 film of the same name; Blanche Fury, released in 1948; and the psychological thriller So Evil My Love (1947), the basis for the 1948 film of the same name starring Ann Todd, Ray Milland, and Geraldine Fitzgerald.

  “She Knew What to Do” was originally published in Orange Blossoms (London, Heinemann, 1938).

  She Knew What to Do

  JOSEPH SHEARING

  MISS MILLY folded up the letter with a happy smile on her broad, red face that was slightly comic even when she was serious. Harry was getting married at last, and to the right girl; since he had been in petticoats, Miss Milly had been working for that match, Lily Drew had everything, besides, in the old phrase, “the estates marched”; Mereholme, that Miss Milly had ruled and cherished since Harry, a squealing orphan baby, was put into her charge, would be joined to Cluttersmere, and her beloved nephew would own what he might term “half the county.”

  The stout woman looked at the two ugly, stiff photographs that hung above her desk, an elder Harry, her brother, and Mary, his wife, he killed in the hunting-field, she dead of shock a few days later: “My dears,” said Miss Milly, her round, hard eyes moist for once. “I’ve done it—it’s not been so easy, but I’ve done it—he’s safe.”

  She put the letter in her key basket; he was coming home tonight or tomorrow after what he termed “a champagne party” at Sir Edward Dreen’s town house, where the engagement had been announced; yes, the wilful, weak young man, who was so charming and so unstable, was safe now, Lily, silver fair and tiny, had the makings of a possessive shrew as Miss Milly, who could read her own sex perfectly, had marked with deep satisfaction.

  Perhaps Harry had noticed it, too, and that was why he had avoided all the efforts of Miss Milly and the Drews to entice
him into this suitable match, fooling about with this girl and that, getting into scrapes from which his aunt had to extricate him with tact and good round sums of money.

  “Still, I did it.” She looked at herself in the old mirror that had reflected so many of her ancestors, the Pentelows of Mereholme, and smiled grimly at her weather-beaten face with the snub nose, cheeks flecked with red veins and taut lips faintly tinged with a smooth purple glaze; she wore a grey poplin bodice, fastened tightly with round buttons over her massive bosom, a crimped white frill close under her flat jowl; she picked up a black straw hat with an artificial parrot pinned on a bunch of dry grass; her hats were her one vanity.

  She lived by routine and she would not allow this good news to excite her; she was due to visit Mrs. Webster, who lived beyond the woods, the waterfall, a pleasant autumn drive; Miss Milly went to see this pampered invalid once a fortnight with dainties and to read the Bible; one of her special prides was that never, since she had taken on the responsibility of the large estate, had she failed in the smallest duty; the universal admiration and respect that surrounded her always, found expression in a crisis in the murmured—“Miss Milly will know what to do.”

  She was getting old, sixty years made her a little slower and a little stiffer, but she was still more vigorous than most women and almost indecently healthy; it often made Harry, whose constitution had hardly been able to stand the strain he had put upon it, in what Miss Milly called “the pursuit of pleasure,” peevish to see the steady strength, the cool nerves his aunt showed on every kind of occasion.

  She touched the bell and drew on her big leather gloves, she drove the gig herself and got the most out of the spanking grey cob; with perfect smoothness the routine was followed, one of the parlour-maids, Jenkins, of the sandy hair and steel-rimmed glasses, brought in the basket of jams, jellies and soups; Miss Milly placed the Bible in the corner, covered it with a napkin, inspected the fare, and said it might be taken to the gig; she supposed the reason for her high good humour, Harry’s engagement, must be announced formally to the whole gathered household; she was ready to start, when Jenkins said, hesitant, as one who breaks a rule: