The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime

by Michael Sims

  Then Mrs. Green, talking like machinery to the very threshold, went, and I guess put on her new bonnet instanter, for she wore it before she went out, and when she brought in my chop and potatoes.

  Meanwhile I was ruminating the news of the box, if I may be allowed the figure, and piecing it together.

  It was pretty clear to me that a box had been taken to the hall, for the evidence of the girl Dinah and that which Mrs. Green brought together coincided in supporting a supposition to that effect.

  The girl said a big box (which must have been large, seeing it took two men to carry it) had been brought to the hall in a large cart on the day previous to the finding of the body.

  It was on that day the draper, presumably, had seen a large cart turn out of the main road towards Petleighcote.

  Did that cart contain the box the girl Dinah referred to?

  If so, had it anything to do with the death?

  If so, where was it?

  If hidden, who had hidden it?

  These were the questions which flooded my mind, and which the reader will see were sufficiently important and equally embarrassing.

  The first question to be decided was this,——

  Had the big box anything to do with the matter?

  I first wrote my letter to headquarters putting things in train to plant one of our people as serving woman at Petleighcote, and then I sallied out to visit Mr. White, the draper.

  He was what men would call a “jolly” man, one who took a good deal of gin-and-water, and the world as it came. He was a man to be hail met with the world, but to find it rather a thirsty sphere, and diligently to spirit-and-water that portion of it contained within his own suit of clothes.

  He was a man to be rushed at and tilted over with confidence.

  “Mr. White,” said I, “I want an umbrella, and also a few words with you.”

  “Both, mum,” said he; and I would have bet, for though a woman I am fond of a little wager now and then,—yes, I would have bet that before his fourth sentence he would drop the “mum.”

  “Here are what we have in umberellers, mum.”

  “Thank you. Do you remember meeting a strange cart on the day, a Monday, before Mr. Petleigh—Petleigh—what was his name?—was found dead outside the hall? I mention that horrid circumstance to recall the day to your mind.”

  “Well, yes, I do, mum. I’ve been hearing of this from Mary Green.”

  “What kind of cart was it?”

  “Well, mum, it was a wholesale fancy article manufacturer’s van.”

  “Ah, such as travel from drapers to drapers with samples, and sometimes things for sale.”

  “Yes; that were it.”

  [He dropped the mum at the fourth sentence.]

  “A very large van, in which a man could almost stand upright?”

  “A man, my dear!” He was just the kind of man to “my dear” a customer, though by so doing he should offend her for life. “Half-a-dozen of ’em, and filled with boxes of samples, in each of which you might stow away a long—what’s the matter, eh? What do you want to find out about the van for, eh?”

  “Oh, pray don’t ask me, White,” said I, knowing the way to such a man’s confidence is the road of familiarity. “Don’t, don’t inquire what. But tell me, how many men were there on the van?”

  “Two, my dear.”

  “What were they like?”

  “Well, I didn’t notice.”

  “Did you know them, or either of them?”

  “Ha! I see,” said White; and I am afraid I allowed him to infer that he had surprised a personal secret. “No; I knew neither of’em, if I know it. Strangers to me. Of course I thought they were coming with samples to my shop; for I am the only one in the village. But they DIDN’T.”

  “No; they went to the hall, I believe?”

  “Yes. I thought they had turned wrong, and I hollered after them, but it was no use. I wish I could describe them for you, my dear, but I can’t. However, I believe they looked like gentlemen. Do you think that description will answer?”

  “Did they afterwards come into the town, Mr. White?”

  “Well, my dear, they did, and baited at the White Horse, and then it was I was so surprised they did not call. And then—in fact, my dear, if you would like to know all——”

  “Oh, don’t keep anything from me, White.”

  “Well, then, my dear, I went over as they were making ready to go, and I asked them if they were looking for a party of the name of White? And then——”

  “Oh, pray, pray continue.”

  “Well, then, one of them told me to go to a place, to repeat which before you, my dear, I would not; from which it seemed to me that they did not want a person of the name of White.”

  “And, Mr. White, did they quit Tram by the same road as that by which they entered it?”

  “No, they did not; they drove out at the other end of the town.”

  “Is it possible? And tell me, Mr. White, if they wanted to get back to the hall, could they have done so by any other means than by returning through the village?”

  “No, not without—let me see, me dear—not without going thirty miles round by the heath, which,” added Mr. White, “and no offence, my dear, I am bound to submit they were not men who seemed likely to take any unnecessary trouble; or why—why in fact did they tell me to go to where in fact they told me to go to?”

  “True; but they may have returned, and you not know anything about it, Mr. White.”

  “There you have it, my dear. You go to the gateman, and as it’s only three weeks since, you take his word, for Tom remembers every vehicle that passes his ’pike—there are not many of them, for business is woundily slack. Tom remembers ’em all for a good quarter.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. White. I think I’ll take the green umbrella. How much is it?”

  “Now look here, my dear,” the draper continued, leaning over the counter, and dropping his voice; “I know the umbereller is the excuse, and though business is bad, I’m sure I don’t want you to take it; unless, indeed, you want it,” he added, the commercial spirit struggling with the spirit proper of the man.

  “Thank you,” said I. “I’ll take the green—you will kindly let me call upon you again?”

  “With pleasure, my dear; as often as you like; the more the better. And look here, you need not buy any more umberellers or things. You just drop in in a friendly way, you know. I see it all.”

  “Thank you,” I said; and making an escape I was rather desirous of obtaining, I left the shop, which, I regret to say, I was ungrateful enough not to revisit. But, on the other hand, I met White several and at most inconvenient times.

  Tom the ’pikeman’s memory for vehicles was, I found, a proverb in the place; and when I went to him, he remembered the vehicle almost before I could explain its appearance to him.

  As for the question—“Did the van return?”—he treated the “Are you sure of it?” with which I met his shake of the head—he treated my doubt with such violent decision that I became confident he was right.

  Unless he was bribed to secrecy?

  But the doubt was ridiculous; for could all the town be bribed to secrecy?

  I determined that doubt at once. And indeed it is the great gain and drawback to our profession that we have to doubt so imperiously. To believe every man to be honest till he is found out to be a thief, is a motto most self-respecting men cling to; but we detectives on the contrary would not gain salt to our bread, much less the bread itself, if we adopted such a belief. We have to believe every man a rogue till, after turning all sorts of evidence inside out, we can only discover that he is an honest man. And even then I am much afraid we are not quite sure of him.

  I am aware this is a very dismal way of looking upon society, but the more thinking amongst my profession console themselves with the knowledge that our system is a necessary one (under the present condition of society), and that therefore in conforming to the melancholy rules of this sy
stem, however repulsive we may feel them, we are really doing good to our brother men.

  Returning home after I left the ’pikeman—from whom I ascertained that the van had passed his gate at half-past eight in the evening, I turned over all my new information in my mind.

  The girl Dinah must have seen the box in the hall as she went to bed. Say this was half-past nine; at half-past five, at the time the alarm was given, the box was gone.

  This made eight hours.

  Now, the van had left Tram at half-past eight, and to get round to the hall it had to go thirty miles by night over a heath. (By a reference to my almanack I found there was no moon that night.) Now, take it that a heavy van travelling by night-time could not go more than five miles an hour, and allowing the horse an hour’s rest when half the journey was accomplished, we find that seven hours would be required to accomplish that distance.

  This would bring the earliest time at which the van could arrive at the hall at half-past three, assuming no impediments to arise.

  There would be then just two hours before the body was discovered, and actually as the dawn was breaking.

  Such a venture was preposterous even in the contemplation. In the first place, why should the box be left if it were to be

  called for again?

  In the second, why should it be called for so early in the morning as half-past three?

  And yet at half-past five it had vanished, and Mrs. Quinion had said to the girl (I assumed the girl’s evidence to be true) that the box had been taken away again.

  From my investigation of these facts I inferred—firstly:

  That the van which brought the box had not taken it away.

  Secondly: That Mrs. Quinion, for some as yet unexplained purpose, had wished the girl to suppose the box had been removed.

  Thirdly: That the box was still in the house.

  Fourthly: That as Mrs. Quinion had stated the box was gone, while it was still on the premises, she had some purpose (surely important) in stating that it had been taken away.

  It was late, but I wanted to complete my day’s work as far as it lay in my power.

  I had two things to do.

  Firstly, to send the “fluff” which I had gathered from the clothes to a microscopic chemist; and secondly, to make some inquiry at the inn where the van-attendants had baited, and ascertain what they were.

  Therefore I put the “fluff” in a tin box, and directed it to the gentleman who is good enough to control these kind of investigations for me, and going out I posted my communication. Then I made for the tavern, with the name of which Mrs. Green had readily furnished me, and asked for the landlady.

  The interest she exhibited showed me in a moment that Mrs. Green’s little remarks and Mr. White’s frank observations had got round to that quarter.

  And here let me break off for a moment to show how nicely people will gull themselves. I had plainly made no admission which personally identified me with the van, and yet people had already got up a very sentimental feeling in my favour in reference to that vehicle.

  For this arrangement I was unfeignedly glad. It furnished a motive for my remaining in Tram, which was just what I wanted.

  And furthermore, the tale I told Mrs. Quinion about my remaining in Tram because I had found a friend of my own friend, would, if it spread (which it did not, from which I inferred that Mrs. Quinion had no confidences with the Tram maiden at that hour with her, and that this latter did not habitually listen) do me no harm, as I might ostensibly be supposed to invent a fib which might cover my supposed tribulation. Here is a condensation of the conversation I had with the landlady.

  “Ah! I know; I’m glad to see you. Pray sit down. Take that chair—it’s the easiest. And how are you, my poor dear?”

  “Not strong,” I had to say.

  “Ah! and well you may not be.”

  “I came to ask, did two persons, driving a van—a large black van, picked out with pale blue (this description I had got from the’pikeman)—stop here on the day before Mr.——I’ve forgotten his name—the young squire’s death?”

  “Yes, my poor dear, an’ a tall gentleman with auburn whiskers, and the other shorter, without whiskers.”

  “Dear me; did you notice anything peculiar in the tall gentleman?”

  “Well, my poor dear, I noticed that every now and then his upper lip flitched a bit, like a dog’s asleep will sometimes go.”

  Here I sighed.

  “And the other?” I continued.

  “Oh! all that seemed odd in him was that he broke out into bits of song, something like birds more nor English Christian singing; which the words, if words there were, I could not understand.”

  “Italian scraps,” I thought; and immediately I associated this evidence of the man with the foreign mask.

  If they were commercial travellers, one of them was certainly an unusual one, operatic accomplishments not being usually one of the tendencies of commercial men.

  “Were they nice people?”

  “Oh!” says the landlady, concessively and hurriedly; “they were every inch gentlemen; and I said to mine, said I—‘they aint like most o’ the commercial travellers that stop here’; and mine answers me back, ‘No,’ says he, ‘for commercials prefers beers to sherries, and whiskies after dinner to both!’”

  “Oh! did they only drink wine?”

  “Nothing but sherry, my dear; and says they to mine—‘Very good wine,’—those were their very words—‘whatever you do, bring it dry’; and said mine—I saying his very words—‘Gents, I will.’ ”

  Some more conversation ensued, with which I need not trouble the reader, though I elicited several points which were of minor importance.

  I was not permitted to leave the hotel without “partaking,”—I use the landlady’s own verb—without partaking of a warmer and stronger comfort than is to be found in mere words.

  And the last inference I drew, before satisfactorily I went to bed that night, was to the effect that the apparent commercial travellers were not commercial travellers, but men leading the lives of gentlemen.

  And now as I have set out a dozen inferences which rest upon very good evidence, before I go to the history of the work of the following days, I must recapitulate these inferences—if I may use so pompous a word.

  They are as follow:

  1. That the key found on the body opened a receptacle containing treasure.

  2. That the mask found on the body was of foreign manufacture.

  3. That the handkerchief found on the body had very recently belonged to a young lady named Frederica, and to whom the deceased was probably deeply attached.

  4. That the circumstances surrounding the deceased showed that he had been engaged in no poaching expedition, nor in any house-breaking attempt, notwithstanding the presence of the mask, because no house-breaking implements were found upon him.

  5. [Omitted by the author. E.F.B.]

  6. That the young lady was innocent of participation in whatever evil work the deceased may have been engaged upon. [This inference, however, was solely based upon the discovery of the embroidery braid round the button of the deceased’s coat. This inference is the least supported by evidence of the whole dozen.]

  7. That a big box had been taken to the hall on the day previous to that on which the deceased was found dead outside the hall.

  8. That the box was not removed again in the van in which it had been brought to the house.

  9. That whatever the box contained that something was heavy, as it took the two men to carry it into the house.

  10. That Mrs. Quinion, for some so far unexplainable reason, had endeavoured to make the witness Dinah Yarton believe that the box had been removed; while, in fact, the box was still in the house.

  11. That as Mrs. Quinion had stated the box was gone while it was still on the premises, she had some important motive for saying it had been taken away.

  12. That the van-attendants, who were apparent commercial travellers, w
ere not commercial travellers, and were in the habit of living the lives of gentlemen.

  And what was the condensed inference of all these inferences?

  Why—THAT THE FIRST PROBABLE MEANS BY WHICH THE SOLUTION OF THE MYSTERY WAS TO BE ARRIVED AT WAS THE FINDING OF THE BOX.

  To hunt for this box it was necessary that I should obtain free admission to Petleighcote, and by the most extraordinary chance Mrs. Quinion had herself thrown the opportunity in my way by asking me to recommend her a town servant.

  Of course, beyond any question, she had made this request with the idea of obtaining a servant who, being a stranger to the district, would have little or not any of that interest in the catastrophe of the young squire’s death which all felt who, by belonging to the neighbourhood, had more or less known him.

  I had now to wait two days before I could move in the matter—those two days being consumed in the arrival of the woman police officer who was to play the part of servant up at the hall, and in her being accepted and installed at that place.

  On the morning of that second day the report came from my microscopic chemist.

  He stated that the fluff forwarded him for inspection consisted of two different substances; one, fragments of feathers, the other, atoms of nap from some linen material, made of black and white stuff, and which, from its connexion with the atoms of feather, he should take to be the fluff of a bed-tick.

  For a time this report convinced me that the clothes had been covered with this substance, in consequence of the deceased having lain down in his clothes to sleep at a very recent time before he was found dead.

  And now came the time to consider the question—“What was my own impression regarding the conduct of the deceased immediately preceding the death?”

  My impression was this—that he was about to commit some illegal action, but that he had met with his death before he could put his intention into execution.

  This impression arose from the fact that the mask showed a secret intention, while the sound state of the clothes suggested that no struggle had preceded the bloody death—struggle, however brief, generally resulting in clothes more or less damaged, as any soldier who has been in action will tell you (and perhaps tell you wonderingly), to the effect that though he himself may have come out of the fight without a scratch, his clothes were one vast rip.