“A young woman wants to see you, madam. I tried to send her away, but she was very insistent—it is Dora Greene, who works at the Rectory.”
“She is spoilt. Her mother was a fool to let her go to that place in London….”
“I think she is a good girl, madam.” But the women exchanged a glance of eternal feminine suspicion.
“I really haven’t time to see her now….” Miss Milly checked herself; the door had been timidly pushed open and Dora Greene nervously edged herself into the stately, stuffy room. “You should have waited,” said the great lady sternly. “I’m afraid you’ve lost all your manners, Dora.”
“I had to see you, madam,” said the girl, flushing furiously; with a side look at the bleak disapproval of Jenkins, she added feebly: “It is about a new place for my brother, madam.” This was so obvious a lie that Miss Milly sent away the parlour-maid, sat down beside her desk with the basket and questioned the girl, who stood drooping, a charming figure in a small black and white check shawl and a bonnet trimmed with grey ribbons; Dora had bright golden eyes, a pure white skin and hair flushed through with brightness; she had been prettier, but she looked heavy, flushed, and her almost perfect mouth was ragged.
“It’s about Harry, madam.”
Miss Milly stiffened, she turned an ugly colour, but not with dismay; she had handled these situations before; while the girl stammered out an agonised tale, dull to others—to her a tragedy, Miss Milly was making plans. Money, Dora sent away, Harry not even to be bothered, the Drews, who were straightlaced, never to know; before the girl had finished she asked sharply with contempt:
“Why did you come to me? No one is responsible, you know, for your disgraceful behaviour.”
“Everyone says—Miss Milly knows what to do—I think…I was in such trouble….”
“You don’t deserve any pity. But I’ll give you another chance. I’ll send you to a home I know of and—when it is all over, I’ll find you another place….”
She half rose, thinking the matter settled, but Dora was suddenly quite changed; she lost her timid, half-imbecile manner and said clearly:
“But Mr. Harry promised to marry me. I’ve got the letters. I’m not going into the workhouse—I’m to have this. That’s why I came to you. You’d understand—justice, madam. I remembered all you taught us in the Sunday School.”
Miss Milly felt old and beaten; rage and terror drained her forces, she sank into the chair again and the parrot fluttered as if about to fly away from her shaking head: “Letters,” she repeated, “letters.”
“Yes, madam, all his promises, calling me his wife again and again. I could bring a case for breach, but I don’t want to—it’s ugly and I can’t believe he’s really left me, but I’ve not heard for a month, he won’t answer letters and they are saying in the village that he’ll marry Miss Drew—so I came to you.”
Dora sat down at the end of this hurried speech, and this liberty sent the outraged blood pounding in Miss Milly’s cheeks; she kept her control, and glancing at the two staring photographs, she said:
“Not such a fool, eh, Dora?”
“I don’t know, Miss Milly, I’m sure. But you see that Mr. Harry couldn’t marry anyone but me, don’t you?” She spoke with a mingled innocence and cunning absolutely maddening to Miss Milly, who forced a frightful smile and asked:
“Does anyone know of this?”
Dora swore that she had been faithful to the beautiful secret; she wouldn’t even have told Miss Milly now—but for his silence and the trouble. Miss Milly sighed:
“I’m very sorry, Dora.” She spoke softly, soothingly. “Of course you are right. Harry must marry you—we learnt all about right and wrong in the Bible classes, didn’t we? Of course he loves you. I dare say he can explain why he is silent. Now will you let me manage this for you?”
Dora sparkled into happiness; she felt as much at ease as if an angel from heaven had taken charge of her affairs.
“Of course, Miss Milly! Oh, I thought you’d do so, anyway! But true love counts, don’t it?” the girl cried with relief into the corner of her shawl.
“Have you got the letters, dear?”
“Here—I brought them to prove to you…” A thin packet was handed over—as easily as that! The creature was, after all, half-imbecile.
“I will keep them,” said Miss Milly, “they are safer with me.” As faint terror and distrust glittered in the golden eyes, she added in a tone of immense authority: “I have a Bible here, Dora, I will swear on it to respect your confidence”—she put her hand on the book among the jam-pots—“to help you all I can. You were right to trust me, I do know what to do. Mr. Harry is coming home tonight or tomorrow. I expect he will want to see you—where do you generally meet?”
“By the waterfall, beyond Merton Wood—but I’d like to come here openly,” again the flash of obstinate courage showed in the simple face.
“Of course, so you shall. But if he asks you to go there once more, go. He will want to explain so much quietly. I shall have had a talk with him. He can bring you here afterwards and I will return your letters; now—go.”
Mechanically responsive to authority, the girl left the room, murmuring gratitude; Jenkins came fidgeting in, angry about this unprecedented interruption in routine—was the gig still to wait?
“No, it is too late. Mr. Harry may be home tonight. I’ll go tomorrow. Dora Greene did come about her brother, Jenkins, he is clever with horses and she wants to get him into Lord King’s stables.”
Miss Milly read the letters that were dull, foolish and utterly damaging to the honour of the writer—it was simple to burn them, and she knew that some women would have left it at that, brazening out her word against that of a village servant; but she was afraid of Harry’s weakness, he might so easily break down, of the girl’s flashes of strength, of the dreadful scandal, the story even without the letters would be…She stopped her thoughts and made her preparations.
Harry came home and Miss Milly spent a happy evening talking over the arrangements for the wedding; neither mentioned Dora Greene. The next day was busy, and no one would have guessed from Miss Milly’s energy that she had not slept at all the night before; at five o’clock Jenkins brought up the basket for Mrs. Webster, and the Bible was again placed in the clean napkin; the old woman had her own Holy Book, but the print was too small. The gig was ready, Mottle was in good fettle and Miss Milly, a good woman on a good errand, bowled along the lonely lane round the golden wood; a small bridge spanned the curdling stream into which finally fell the water from Merton falls, and there Miss Milly descended from the gig and tied the reins to a larch-tree and proceeded to climb up through the yellow woods, over the newly fallen leaves; she wore a plaid jacket, a black skirt and the hat with the parrot; the wood was dark, dank and quiet, toadstools green on rotting, fallen branches, brambles, with fox red stems and purple fruit trailed above the beech mast.
“Supposing,” thought Miss Milly, “it goes wrong?”
She climbed up until she reached the summit of the wooded hill and then walked through the trees until the rocky ground broke away and the water poured into the gorge below. Dora Greene was standing there in spangled light and shade; Miss Milly drew a deep breath—it had not gone wrong—“But I shall need a good rest.”
The girl drew back, puzzled, startled—
“You, madam!”
“You didn’t expect me?”
“Oh no, Mr. Harry wrote—asking me to come, I had the letter by the post this morning late.” Dora peered, uneasily, and showed a piece of cheap paper on which a few lines were written in an awkward hand. “He says not to mind the pencil scrawl, he’s hurt his finger.”
“I came instead.” Miss Milly sat on a stone and took off her gloves. “We must have a talk, this is a good place. Does anyone know you’re here?”
“No.”
�
�No one knows I’m here, either, so it will be just you and me.”
“What do you mean, madam? You look so funny. I trusted you.”
“Quite rightly. I do know what to do. Aren’t you ever frightened meeting Mr. Harry here, above the falls? It is a dizzy height, a nasty drop….”
“I never thought of it,” the gleam of obstinate strength showed in the pretty, fevered face. “You’re not making game of me, are you, Miss Milly?”
“Oh dear no! What a queer note for Harry to have written! And he could not have come, for he’s gone to the station to meet the Drews.” The old woman tore the note, screwed the bits together and threw them down the waterfall; Dora instinctively peered after it, and Miss Milly snatched her check shawl off her shoulders.
“What did you do that for, madam?”
Miss Milly had rested now; she exerted her full strength, she put her firm red hands on Dora’s neck and bore her backwards over the rocky edge, instantly balancing herself by the larch-tree that overhung the first water-break; the girl’s cry was lost in the roar of the falling stream that foamed, curled, and splashed from rock to rock; she fell, but not to the bottom pool; she struck a ledge and clung there pleading desperately for mercy; her bonnet had come off, her skirt was torn, blood, like a lock of red hair, lay on her forehead, her white stocks and high tight black boots showed like the legs of a doll as she struggled frantically for a foothold.
The water poured down with boom and splash, the sun struck level through the trees, birds hopped from bough to bough; Miss Milly went on her knees, carefully, and stared down the abyss.
“Fool, imbecile, insolent hussy! Do you remember the Sunday school and what you learnt of right and wrong? You’re paying now for doing wrong.”
She found a large smooth stone and aimed it carefully; it struck the girl’s hands; she shrieked and the words “I trusted you” were born above the clatter of the water.
“Precisely,” grinned Miss Milly, and cast another stone.
Dora’s strength was exhausted; she was slipping fast, cold, deafened, dizzy with fright; her legs twisted grotesquely in an effort to gain a foothold, her round mouth seemed to fill all her face. Her fingers unclutched—she was gone, down to the curdling foam of the seething pool; the waters seethed and sucked round her and flowed on towards the stream.
Miss Milly rose to her feet, panting, it was a good deal of exertion for a woman of her age; the most tiresome thing she had ever done, even for Harry, but she could not rest, she must not miss that visit to Mrs. Webster, no one must know she had been near the waterfall. The spot was lonely, no one would ever connect her with the suicide of a village hussy who had got into trouble.
She returned to the gig, skirting the pool; she could see Dora, eddied into a clump of weeds and elder at the side, her silly feet in the cheap, black boots sticking up, her head down, the rushing water missing her but covering her with bubbles of foam.
With luck it would be days before she was discovered—how relieved Harry would be! He must have been secretly worried.
The sun sank, a cold wind blew suddenly out of the wood and a dark cloud shaped like a wing spread across the fading sky; Miss Milly took off her shaken hat and straightened the stuffed parrot.
BAD GIRL: CONSTANCE DUNLAP
THE FORGERS
Arthur B. Reeve
WHEN THE ADVENTURES of Sherlock Holmes became a monumental success, authors and publishers alike strove to find their ways into what was evidently about to become a huge market. In the United States, Arthur Benjamin Reeve (1880–1936) became the bestselling mystery writer in the country when he created Craig Kennedy, identified as “the scientific detective.” The success of the stories and novels was enhanced by a series of silent film serials about a young heroine named Elaine who constantly finds herself in the clutches of villains, only to be rescued at the last moment by Kennedy.
Reeve is not much read today because the pseudoscientific methods and devices that were of great interest then are utterly outmoded today and most never had a solid technical basis in the first place. Still, he did apply Freudian technology to detection two decades before psychoanalysis gained substantial public acceptance. During World War I he was asked to help establish a spy and crime detection laboratory in Washington, DC.
Only four of Reeve’s books did not involve Kennedy, one of which was Constance Dunlap, Woman Detective (1916), a collection of stories in which the highly intelligent and gritty protagonist becomes involved in a wide range of adventures. In “The Forgers,” the first story in the book, she and her husband engage in a complex criminal plan that has unintended consequences.
“The Forgers” was first published in Constance Dunlap, Woman Detective (New York, Hearst’s International Library Co., 1916).
The Forgers
ARTHUR B. REEVE
THERE WAS SOMETHING of the look of the hunted animal brought to bay at last in Carlton Dunlap’s face as he let himself into his apartment late one night toward the close of the year.
On his breath was the lingering odor of whisky, yet in his eye and hand none of the effects. He entered quietly, although there was no apparent reason for such excessive caution. Then he locked the door with the utmost care, although there was no apparent reason for caution about that, either.
Even when he had thus barricaded himself, he paused to listen with all the elemental fear of the cave man who dreaded the footsteps of his pursuers. In the dim light of the studio apartment he looked anxiously for the figure of his wife. Constance was not there, as she had been on other nights, uneasily awaiting his return. What was the matter? His hand shook a trifle now as he turned the knob of the bedroom door and pushed it softly open.
She was asleep. He leaned over, not realizing that her every faculty was keenly alive to his presence, that she was acting a part.
“Throw something around yourself, Constance,” he whispered hoarsely into her ear, as she moved with a little well-feigned start at being suddenly wakened, “and come into the studio. There is something I must tell you tonight, my dear.”
“My dear!” she exclaimed bitterly, now seeming to rouse herself with an effort and pretending to put back a stray wisp of her dark hair in order to hide from him the tears that still lingered on her flushed cheeks. “You can say that, Carlton, when it has been every night the same old threadbare excuse of working at the office until midnight?”
She set her face in hard lines, but could not catch his eye.
“Carlton Dunlap,” she added in a tone that rasped his very soul, “I am nobody’s fool. I may not know much about bookkeeping and accounting, but I can add—and two and two, when the same man but different women compose each two, do not make four, according to my arithmetic, but three, from which,”—she finished almost hysterically the little speech she had prepared, but it seemed to fall flat before the man’s curiously altered manner—“from which I shall subtract one.”
She burst into tears.
“Listen,” he urged, taking her arm gently to lead her to an easy-chair.
“No, no, no!” she cried, now thoroughly aroused, with eyes that again snapped accusation and defiance at him, “don’t touch me. Talk to me, if you want to, but don’t, don’t come near me.” She was now facing him, standing in the high-ceilinged “studio,” as they called the room where she had kept up in a desultory manner for her own amusement the art studies which had interested her before her marriage. “What is it that you want to say? The other nights you said nothing at all. Have you at last thought up an excuse? I hope it is at least a clever one.”
“Constance,” he remonstrated, looking fearfully about. Instinctively she felt that her accusation was unjust. Not even that had dulled the hunted look in his face. “Perhaps—perhaps if it were that of which you suspect me, we could patch it up. I don’t know. But, Constance, I—I must leave for the west on the first train in the morning.”
He did not pause to notice her startled look, but raced on. “I have worked every night this week trying to straighten out those accounts of mine by the first of the year and—and I can’t do it. An expert begins on them in a couple of days. You must call up the office tomorrow and tell them that I am ill, tell them anything. I must get at least a day or two start before they—”
“Carlton,” she interrupted, “what is the matter? What have you—”
She checked herself in surprise. He had been fumbling in his pocket and now laid down a pile of green and yellow banknotes on the table.
“I have scraped together every last cent I can spare,” he continued, talking jerkily to suppress his emotion. “They cannot take those away from you, Constance. And—when I am settled—in a new life,” he swallowed hard and averted his eyes further from her startled gaze, “under a new name, somewhere, if you have just a little spot in your heart that still responds to me, I—I—no, it is too much even to hope. Constance, the accounts will not come out right because I am—I am an embezzler.”
He bit off the word viciously and then sank his head into his hands and bowed it to a depth that alone could express his shame.
Why did she not say something, do something? Some women would have fainted. Some would have denounced him. But she stood there and he dared not look up to read what was written in her face. He felt alone, all alone, with every man’s hand against him, he who had never in all his life felt so or had done anything to make him feel so before. He groaned as the sweat of his mental and physical agony poured coldly out on his forehead. All that he knew was that she was standing there, silent, looking him through and through, as cold as a statue. Was she the personification of justice? Was this but a foretaste of the ostracism of the world?
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 197
