The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime

by Michael Sims

  The question that chiefly referred to the body was, who placed it where it was found between three o’clock (the time when the rain ceased, before which hour the body could not have been deposited, since the clothes, where they did not touch the ground, were dry) and half-past five?

  Had it been brought from a distance?

  Had it been brought from a vicinity?

  The argument against distance was this one, which bears in all cases of the removal of dead bodies—that if it is dangerous to move them a yard, it is a hundred times more dangerous to move them a hundred yards.

  Granted the removal of young Petleigh’s body, in a state which would at once excite suspicion, and it is clear that a great risk was run by those who carried that burden.

  But was there any apparent advantage to compensate that risk?

  No, there was not.

  The only rational way of accounting for the deposition of the body where it was found, lay in the supposition that those who were mixed up with his death were just enough to carry the body to a spot where it would at once be recognised and cared for.

  But against this argument it might be held, the risk was so great that the ordinary instinct of self-preservation natural to man would prevent such a risk being encountered. And this impression becomes all the deeper when it is remembered that the identification of the body could have been secured by the slipping of a piece of paper in the pocket bearing his address.

  Then, when it is remembered that it must have been quite dawn at the time of the assumed conveyance, the improbability becomes the greater that the body was brought any great distance.

  Then this probability became the greater, that the young man had died in the vicinity of the spot where he was found.

  Then followed the question, how close?

  And in considering this point, it must not be forgotten that if it were dangerous to bring the body to the hall, it would be equally dangerous to remove the body from the hall; supposing the murder (if murder it were) had been committed within the hall.

  Could this be the case?

  Beyond all question, the only people known to be at the hall on the night of the death were Mrs. Quinion and Dinah.

  Now we have closed in the space within which the murder (as we will call it) had been done, as narrowly circumscribing the hall. Now was the place any other than the hall, and yet near it?

  The only buildings near the hall, within a quarter of a mile, were the gardener’s cottage, and the cottage of the keeper.

  The keeper was ill at the time, and it was the gardener who had discovered the body. To consider the keeper as implicated in the affair, was quite out of the question; while as to the gardener, an old man, and older servant of the family (for he had entered the service of the family as a boy), it must be remembered that he was the discoverer of the dead body.

  Now is it likely that if he was implicated in the affair that he would have identified himself with the discovery? Such a supposition is hardly holdable.

  Very well; then, as the doctor at six A.M. declared death had taken place from six to eight hours; and as the body, from the dry state of the clothes, had not been exposed during the night’s rain, which ceased at three, it was clear either that the murder had been committed within doors, or that the body had been sheltered for some hours after death beneath a roof of some kind.

  Where was that roof?

  Apart from the gardener’s cottage and the keeper’s, there was no building nearer than a quarter of a mile; and if therefore the body had been carried after three to where it was found, it was evident that those cognizant of the affair had carried it a furlong at or after dawn.

  To suppose such an amount of moral courage in evil-doers was to suppose an improbability, against which a detective, man or woman, cannot too thoroughly be on his or her guard.

  But what of the supposition that the body had been removed from the hall, and placed where it was found?

  So far, all the external evidences of the case leant in favour of this theory.

  But the theory was at total variance with the ordinary experience of life.

  In the first place, what apparent motive could Mrs. Quinion have for taking the young heir’s life? Not any apparently.

  What motive had the girl?

  She had not sufficient strength of mind to hold a fierce motive. I doubt if the poor creature could ever have imagined active evil.

  I may here add I depended very much upon what that girl said, because it was consistent, was told under great distress of mind, and was in many particulars borne out by other evidence.

  I left Dinah Yarton quite out of my list of suspects.

  But in accepting her evidence I committed myself to the belief that no one had been at Petleighcote on the night of the catastrophe beyond the girl and the housekeeper.

  Then how could I support the supposition that the young man had passed the night and met his death at the hall?

  Very easily.

  Because a weak-headed woman like Dinah did not know of the presence of the heir at Petleighcote, it did not follow he could not be there—his presence being known only to the housekeeper.

  But was there any need for such secrecy?

  Yes.

  I found out that fact before the town servant arrived.

  Mrs. Quinion’s express orders were not to allow the heir to remain at the hall while the family were in town.

  Then here was a good reason why the housekeeper should maintain his presence a secret from a stupid blurting servant maid.

  But I have said motive for murder on the part of the housekeeper could scarcely be present.

  Then suppose the death was accidental (though certainly no circumstance of the catastrophe justified such a supposition), and suppose Mrs. Quinion the perpetratress, what was the object in exposing the body outside the house?

  Such an action was most unwomanly, especially where an accident had happened.

  I confess that at this point of the case (and up to the time when my confederate arrived) I was completely foiled. All the material evidence was in favour of the murder or manslaughter having been committed under the roof of Petleighcote Hall, while the mass of the evidence of probability opposed any such belief.

  Up to this time I had in no way identified the death with the “big box,” although I identified that box with the clearing up of the mystery. This identification was the result of an ordinary detective law.

  The law in question is as follows:

  In all cases which are being followed up by the profession, a lie is a suspicious act, whether it has relation or no relation, apparent or beyond question, with the matter in hand. As a lie it must be followed to its source, its meaning cleared up, and its value or want of value decided upon. The probability stands good always that a lie is part of a plot.

  So as Mrs. Quinion had in all probability lied in reference to the removal of the box, it became necessary to find out all about it, and hence my first directions to Martha—as she was always called (she is now in Australia and doing well) at our office, and I doubt if her surname was known to any of us—hence my first instruction to Martha was to look about for a big box.

  “What kind of box?”

  “That I don’t know,” said I.

  “Well there will be plenty of boxes in a big house—is it a new box?”

  “I can’t tell; but keep an eye upon boxes, and tell me if you find one that is more like a new one than the rest.”

  Martha nodded.

  But by the date of our first interview after her induction at Petleighcote, and when Quinion sent her down upon a message to a tradesman, I had learnt from the polished Mr. White that boxes such as drapers’ travellers travelled with were invariably painted black.

  This information I gave her. Martha had not any for me in return—that is of any importance. I heard, what I had already inferred, that Quinion was a very calm, self-possessed woman, “whom it would take,” said Martha, “one or two good collisions t
o drive off the rails.”

  “You mark my words,” said Matty, “she’d face a judge as cool as she faces herself in a looking-glass, and that I can tell you she does face cool, for I’ve seen her do it twice.”

  Martha’s opinion was, that the housekeeper was all right, and I am bound to say that I was unable to suppose that she was all wrong, for the suspicion against her was of the faintest character.

  She visited me the day after Martha’s arrival, thanked me coolly enough for what I had done, said she believed the young person would do, and respectfully asked me up to the hall.

  Three days passed, and in that time I had heard nothing of value from my aide-de-camp, who used to put her written reports twice a day in a hollow tree upon which we had decided.

  It was on the fourth day that I got a fresh clue to feel my way by.

  Mrs. Lamb, the publican’s wife, who had shown such a tender interest in my welfare on the night when I had inquired as to the appearance of the two persons who baited the van-horses at their stables on the night of the death—Mrs. Lamb in reluctantly letting me leave her (she was a most sentimental woman, who I much fear increased her tendencies by a too ready patronage of her own liquors) intreated me to return, “like a poor dear as I was”—for I had said I should remain at Tram—“and come and take a nice cup of tea” with her.

  In all probability I never should have taken that nice cup of tea, had I not learnt from my Mrs. Green that young Petleigh had been in the habit of smoking and drinking at Lamb’s house.

  That information decided me.

  I “dropped in” at Mrs. Lamb’s that same afternoon, and I am bound to say it was a nice cup of tea.

  During that refreshment I brought the conversation round to young Petleigh, and thus I heard much of him told to his credit from a publican’s point of view, but which did not say much for him from a social standing-place.

  “And this, my poor dear, is the very book he would sit in this very parlour and read from for an hour together, and—coming!”

  For here there was a tap-tap on the metal counter with a couple of halfpence.

  Not thinking much of the book, for it was a volume of a very ordinary publication, which has been in vogue for many years amongst cheap literature devotees, I let it fall open, rather than opened it, and I have no doubt that I did not once cast my eyes upon the page during the spirting of the beer-engine and the return of Mrs. Lamb.

  “Bless me!” said she, in a moved voice, for she was one of the most sentimental persons ever I encountered. “Now that’s very odd!—poor dear.”

  “What’s odd, Mrs. Lamb?” I asked.

  “Why if you haven’t got the book open at his fav’rite tale!”

  “Whose, Mrs. Lamb?”

  “Why that poor dear young Graham Petleigh.”

  I need not say I became interested directly.

  “Oh! did he read this tale?”

  “Often; and very odd it is, my own dear, as you should be about to read it too; though true it is that that there book do always open at that same place, which I take to be his reading it so often the place is worn and—coming!”

  Here Mrs. Lamb shot away once more, while I, it need not be said, looked upon the pages before me.

  And if I say that, before Mrs. Lamb had done smacking at the beer-engine, and ending her long gossip with the customer, I had got the case by the throat—I suppose I should astonish most of my readers.

  And yet there is nothing extraordinary in the matter.

  Examine most of the great detected cases on record, and you will find a little accident has generally been the clue to success.

  So with great discoveries. One of the greatest improvements in the grinding of flour, and by which the patentee has made many thousands of pounds, was discovered by seeing a miller blow some flour out of a nook; and all the world knows that the cause which led the great Newton to discover the great laws of the universe was the fall of an apple.

  So it frequently happens in these days of numberless newspapers that a chance view of a man will identify him with the description of a murderer.

  Chance!

  In the history of crime and its detection chance plays the chief character.

  Why, as I am writing a newspaper is near me, in which there is the report of a trial for attempt to murder, where the woman who was shot at was only saved by the intervention of a piece of a ploughshare, which was under her shawl, and which she had stolen only a few minutes before the bullet struck the iron!

  Why, compared with that instance of chance, what was mine when, by reading a tale which had been pointed out to me as one frequently read by the dead young man, I discovered the mystery which was puzzling me?

  The tale told of how, in the north of England, a pedlar had left a pack at a house, and how a boy saw the top of it rise up and down; how they supposed a man must be in it who intended to rob the house; and how the boy shot at the pack, and killed a man.1

  I say, before Mrs. Lamb returned to her “poor dear” I had the mystery by heart.

  The young man had been attracted by the tale, remembered it, and put it in form for some purpose. What?

  In a moment I recalled the mania of the squire for plate, and, remembering how niggardly he was to the boy, it flashed upon me that the youth had in all probability formed a plan for robbing his father of a portion of his plate.

  It stood true that it was understood the plate went up to town with the family. But was this so?

  Now see how well the probabilities of the case would tell in with such a theory.

  The youth was venturesome and daring, as his poaching affrays proved.

  He was kept poor.

  He knew his father to possess plate.

  He was not allowed to be at Petleighcote when the father was away.

  He had read a tale which coincided with my theory.

  A large box had been left by strangers at the hall.

  The young squire’s body had been found under such circumstances, that the most probable way of accounting for its presence where it was found was by supposing that it had been removed there from the hall itself.

  Such a plot explained the presence of the mask.

  Finally, there was the key, a key opening, beyond all question, an important receptacle—a supposition very clear, seeing the character of the key.

  Indeed, by this key might be traced the belief of treasure in the house.

  Could this treasure really exist?

  Before Mrs. Lamb had said “Good night, dear,” to a female customer who had come for a pint of small beer and a gallon of more strongly brewed scandal, I had come to the conclusion that plate might be in the house.

  For miserly men are notoriously suspicious and greedy. What if there were some of the family plate which was not required at the town house then at Petleighcote, and which the squire, relying for its security upon the habitual report of his taking all his plate to town, had not lodged at the county bank, because of that natural suspiciousness which might lead him to believe more in his own strong room than a banker’s?

  Accept this supposition, and the youth’s motive was evident. Accept young Petleigh’s presence in the house under these circumstances, and then we have to account for the death.

  Here, of course, I was still at fault.

  If Mrs. Quinion and the girl only were in the house, and the girl was innocent, then the housekeeper alone was guilty.

  Guilty—what of? Murder or manslaughter?

  Had the tale young Petleigh used to read been carried out to the end?

  Had he been killed without any knowledge of who he was?

  That I should have discovered the real state of the case without Mrs. Lamb’s aid I have little doubt, for even that very evening, after leaving Mrs. Lamb, and promising to bear in mind the entreaty to “come again, you dear dear,” my confederate brought me a piece of information which must have put me on the track.

  It appeared that morning Mrs. Quinion had received a lette
r which much discomposed her. She went out directly after breakfast, came down to the village, and returned in about an hour. My confederate had picked the pocket (for, alas! we police officers have sometimes to turn thieves—for the good of society of course) of the housekeeper while she slept that afternoon, and while the new maid was supposed to be putting Mrs. Quinion’s stockings in wearable order, and she had made a mental copy of that communication. It was from a Joseph Spencer, and ran as follows:

  “MY DEAR MARGARET,—For God’s sake look all over the place for key 13. There’s such a lot of ’em I never missed it; and if the governor finds it out I’m as good as ruined. It must be somewhere about. I can’t tell how it ever come orf the ring. So no more at present. It’s post time. With dear love, from your own

  “JOSEPH SPENCER”

  Key 13!

  Why, it was the same number as that on the key found on the dead man.

  A letter was despatched that night to town, directing the police to find out who Joseph Spencer was, and giving the address heading the letter—a printed one.

  Mrs. Green then came into operation.

  No, she could not tell who lived at the address I mentioned. Thank the blessed stars she knowed nought o’ Lunnon. What! Where had Mrs. Quinion been that morning? Why, to Joe Higgins’s. What for? Why, to look at the young squire’s clothes and things. What did she want with them? Why, she “actially” wanted to take “’em arl oop” to the Hall. No, Joe Higgins wouldn’t.

  Of course I now surmised that Joseph Spencer was the butler.

  And my information from town showed I was right.

  Now, certain as to my preliminaries, I knew that my work lay within the walls of the Hall.

  But how was I to reach that place?

  Alas! the tricks of detective police officers are infinite. I am afraid many a kindly-disposed advertisement hides the hoof of detection. At all events I know mine did.

  It appeared in the second column of the Times, and here is an exact copy of it. By the way, I had received the Times daily, as do most detectives, during the time I had been in Tram: