The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime

by Michael Sims

  When we got there, she told me to go and interview the porter and try and find out if a man of the description of our suspect had left on the night of the “accident.”

  I found the man who had told Mr. Peters that he had seen such a person arrive, and had noticed the peculiar expression of his eyes. This man assured me that no such person had left from that station. He had told his mates about him, and some of them would be sure to have seen him. The stranger brought no luggage, and gave up a single ticket from Waterloo.

  Dorcas was waiting for me outside, and I gave her my information.

  “No luggage,” she said; “then he wasn’t going to an hotel or to stay at a private house.”

  “But he might be living somewhere about.”

  “No; the porter would have recognized him if he had been in the habit of coming here.”

  “But he must have gone away after flinging Miss Hargreaves into the water. He might have got out of the grounds again and walked to another station, and caught a train back to London.”

  “Yes, he might,” said Dorcas, “but I don’t think he did. Come, we’ll take the fly back to Orley Park.”

  Just before we reached the park Dorcas stopped the driver, and we got out and dismissed the man.

  “Whereabouts are those dogs—near the private wooden door in the wall used by the family, aren’t they?” she said to me.

  “Yes, Peters pointed the spot out to me this afternoon.”

  “Very well, I’m going in. Meet me by the lake to-morrow morning about nine. But watch me now as far as the gates. I’ll wait outside five minutes before ringing. When you see I’m there, go to that portion of the wall near the private door. Clamber up and peer over. When the dogs begin to bark, and come at you, notice if you could possibly drop over and escape them without some one they knew called them off. Then jump down again and go back to the inn.”

  I obeyed Dorcas’s instructions; and when I had succeeded in climbing to the top of the wall, the dogs flew out of their kennel, and commenced to bark furiously. Had I dropped I must have fallen straight into their grip. Suddenly I heard a shout, and I recognized the voice—it was the lodge-keeper. I dropped back into the road and crept along in the shadow of the wall. In the distance I could hear Peters talking to some one, and I knew what had happened. In the act of letting Dorcas in, he had heard the dogs, and had hurried off to see what was the matter. Dorcas had followed him.

  At nine o’clock next morning I found Dorcas waiting for me.

  “You did your work admirably last night,” she said. “Peters was in a terrible state of alarm. He was very glad for me to come with him. He quieted the dogs, and we searched about everywhere in the shrubbery to see if any one was in hiding. That man wasn’t let in at the door that night by Miss Hargreaves; he dropped over. I found the impression of two deep footprints close together, exactly as they would be made by a drop or jump down from a height.”

  “Did he go back that way—were there return footsteps?”

  I thought I had made a clever suggestion, but Dorcas smiled, and shook her head. “I didn’t look. How could he return past the dogs when Miss Hargreaves was lying in the lake? They’d have torn him to pieces.”

  “And you still think this man with the wild eyes is guilty! Who can he have been?”

  “His name was Victor.”

  “You have discovered that!” I exclaimed. “Has Miss Hargreaves been talking to you?”

  “Last night I tried a little experiment. When she was asleep, and evidently dreaming, I went quietly in the dark and stood just behind the bed, and in the gruffest voice I could assume, I said, bending down to her ear, ‘Maud!’

  “She started up, and cried out, ‘Victor!’

  “In a moment I was by her side, and found her trembling violently. ‘What’s the matter, dear?’ I said, ‘have you been dreaming?’

  “ ‘Yes—yes,’ she said. ‘I—I was dreaming.’

  “I soothed her, and talked to her a little while, and finally she lay down again and fell asleep.”

  “That’s something,” I said, “to have got the man’s Christian name.”

  “Yes, it’s a little, but I think we shall have the surname to-day. You must go up to town and do a little commission for me presently. In the meantime, pull that boat in and row me across to the fowl island. I want to search it.”

  “You don’t imagine the man’s hiding there,” I said. “It’s too small.”

  “Pull me over,” said Dorcas, getting into the boat.

  I obeyed, and presently we were on the little island.

  Dorcas carefully surveyed the lake in every direction. Then she walked round and examined the foliage and the reeds that were at the edge and drooping into the water.

  Suddenly pushing a mass of close over-hanging growth aside, she thrust her hand deep down under it into the water and drew out a black, saturated, soft felt hat.

  “I thought if anything drifted that night, this is where it would get caught and entangled,” said Dorcas.

  “If it is that man’s hat, he must have gone away bareheaded.”

  “Quite so,” replied Dorcas, “but first let us ascertain if it is his. Row ashore at once.”

  She wrung the water from the hat, squeezed it together and wrapped it up in her pocket-handkerchief and put it under her cloak.

  When we were ashore, I went to the lodge and got Mrs. Peters on to the subject of the man with the wild eyes. Then I asked what sort of a hat he had on, and Mrs. Peters said it was a soft felt hat with a dent in the middle, and I knew that our find was a good one.

  When I told Dorcas she gave a little smile of satisfaction.

  “We’ve got his Christian name and his hat,” she said; “now we want the rest of him. You can catch the 11.20 easily.”

  “Yes.”

  She drew an envelope from her pocket and took a small photograph from it.

  “That’s the portrait of a handsome young fellow,” she said. “By the style and size I should think it was taken four or five years ago. The photographers are the London Stereoscopic Company—the number of the negative is 111,492. If you go to them, they will search their books and give you the name and address of the original. Get it, and come back here.”

  “Is that the man?” I said.

  “I think so.”

  “How on earth did you get it?”

  “I amused myself while Miss Hargreaves was asleep by looking over the album in her boudoir. It was an old album, and filled with portraits of relatives and friends. I should say there were over fifty, some of them being probably her schoolfellows. I thought I might find something, you know. People have portraits given them, put them in an album, and almost forget they are there. I fancied Miss Hargreaves might have forgotten.

  “But how did you select this from fifty? There were other male portraits, I suppose?”

  “Oh, yes, but I took out every portrait and examined the back and the margin.”

  I took the photo from Dorcas and looked at it. I noticed that a portion of the back had been rubbed away and was rough.

  “That’s been done with an ink eraser,” said Dorcas. “That made me concentrate on this particular photo. There has been a name written there or some word the recipient didn’t want other eyes to see.”

  “That is only surmise.”

  “Quite so—but there’s a certainty in the photo itself. Look closely at that little diamond scarf-pin in the necktie. What shape is it?”

  “It looks like a small V.”

  “Exactly. It was fashionable a few years ago for gentlemen to wear a small initial pin. V stands for Victor—take that and the erasure together, and I think it’s worth a return fare to town to find out what name and address are opposite the negative number in the books of the London Stereoscopic Company.”

  Before two o’clock I was interviewing the manager of the Stereoscopic Company, and he readily referred to the books. The photograph had been taken six years previously, and the name and address of th
e sitter were “Mr. Victor Dubois, Anerley Road, Norwood.”

  Following Dorcas Dene’s instructions, I proceeded at once to the address given, and made inquiries for a Mr. Victor Dubois. No one of that name resided there. The present tenants had been in possession for three years.

  As I was walking back along the road I met an old postman. I thought I would ask him if he knew the name anywhere in the neighbourhood. He thought a minute, then said, “Yes—now I come to think of it, there was a Dubois here at No.—, but that was five years ago or more. He was an oldish, white-haired gentleman.”

  “An old gentleman—Victor Dubois!”

  “Ah, no—the old gentleman’s name was Mounseer Dubois, but there was a Victor. I suppose that must have been his son as lived with him. I know the name. There used to be letters addressed there for Mr. Victor most every day—sometimes twice a day—always in the same hand-writing, a lady’s—that’s what made me notice it.”

  “And you don’t know where M. Dubois and his son went to?”

  “No, I did hear as the old gentleman went off his head, and was put in a lunatic asylum; but they went out o’ my round.”

  “You don’t know what he was, I suppose?”

  “Oh, it said on the brass plate, ‘Professor of Languages.’ ”

  I went back to town and took the first train to Godalming, and hastened to Orley Court to report the result of my inquiries to Dorcas.

  She was evidently pleased, for she complimented me. Then she rang the bell—we were in the dining-room—and the servant entered.

  “Will you let the Colonel know that I should like to see him?” said Dorcas, and the servant went to deliver the message.

  “Are you going to tell him everything?” I said.

  “I am going to tell him nothing yet,” replied Dorcas. “I want him to tell me something.”

  The Colonel entered. His face was worn, and he was evidently worrying himself a great deal.

  “Have you anything to tell me?” he said eagerly. “Have you found out what my poor girl is hiding from me?”

  “I’m afraid I cannot tell you yet. But I want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I have given you all the information I can already,” replied the Colonel a little bitterly.

  “All you recollect, but now try and think. Your daughter, before you came back from India, was with her aunt at Norwood. Where was she educated from the time she left India?”

  “She went to school at Brighton at first, but from the time she was sixteen she had private instruction at home.”

  “She had professors, I suppose, for music, French, etc.?”

  “Yes, I believe so. I paid bills for that sort of thing. My sister sent them out to me in India.”

  “Can you remember the name of Dubois?”

  The Colonel thought a little while.

  “Dubois? Dubois? Dubois?” he said. “I have an idea there was such a name among the accounts my sister sent to me, but whether it was a dressmaker or a French master I really can’t say.”

  “Then I think we will take it that your daughter had lessons at Norwood from a French professor named Dubois. Now, in any letters that your late sister wrote you to India, did she ever mention anything that had caused her uneasiness on Maud’s account?”

  “Only once,” replied the Colonel, “and everything was satisfactorily explained afterwards. She left home one day at nine o’clock in the morning, and did not return until four in the afternoon. Her aunt was exceedingly angry, and Maud explained that she had met some friends at the Crystal Palace—she attended the drawing class there—had gone to see one of her fellow students off at the station, and sitting in the carriage, the train had started before she could get out and she had to go on to London. I expect my sister told me that to show me how thoroughly I might reply upon her as my daughter’s guardian.”

  “Went on to London?” said Dorcas to me under her voice, “and she could have got out in three minutes at the next station to Norwood!” Then turning to the Colonel, she said, “Now, Colonel, when your wife died, what did you do with her wedding ring?”

  “Good heavens, madam!” exclaimed the Colonel, rising and pacing the room. “What can my poor wife’s wedding ring have to do with my daughter’s being flung into the lake yonder?”

  “I am sorry if my question appears absurd,” replied Dorcas quietly, “but will you kindly answer it?”

  “My wife’s wedding ring is on my dead wife’s finger in her coffin in the graveyard at Simla,” exclaimed the Colonel, “and now perhaps you’ll tell me what all this means!”

  “Tomorrow,” said Dorcas. “Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll take a walk with Mr. Saxon. Miss Hargreaves’ maid is with her, and she will be all right until I return.”

  “Very well, very well!” exclaimed the Colonel, “but I beg—I pray of you to tell me what you know as soon as you can. I am setting spies upon my own child, and to me it is monstrous—and yet—and yet—what can I do? She won’t tell me, and for her sake I must know—I must know.”

  The old Colonel grasped the proffered hand of Dorcas Dene.

  “Thank you,” he said, his lips quivering.

  Directly we were in the grounds Dorcas Dene turned eagerly to me.

  “I’m treating you very badly,” she said, “but our task is nearly over. You must go back to town tonight. The first thing tomorrow morning go to Somerset House. You will find an old fellow named Daddy Green, a searcher in the inquiry room. Tell him you come from me, and give him this paper. When he has searched, telegraph the result to me, and come back by the next train.”

  I looked at the paper, and found written on it in Dorcas’s hand:

  “Search wanted.

  Marriage—Victor Dubois and Maud Eleanor Hargreaves—probably between the years 1905 and 1908—London.”

  I looked up from the paper at Dorcas Dene.

  “Whatever makes you think she is a married woman?” I said.

  “This,” exclaimed Dorcas, drawing an unworn wedding-ring from her purse. “I found it among a lot of trinkets at the bottom of a box her maid told me was her jewel-case. I took the liberty of trying all her keys till I opened it. A jewel-box tells many secrets to those who know how to read them.”

  “And you concluded from that——?”

  “That she wouldn’t keep a wedding-ring without it had belonged to some one dear to her or had been placed on her own finger. It is quite unworn, you see, so it was taken off immediately after the ceremony. It was only to make doubly sure that I asked the Colonel where his wife’s was.”

  I duly repaired to Somerset House, and soon after midday the searcher brought a paper and handed it to me. It was a copy of the certificate of the marriage of Victor Dubois, bachelor, aged twenty-six, and Maud Eleanor Hargreaves, aged twenty-one, in London, in the year 1906. I telegraphed the news, wording the message simply “Yes,” and the date, and I followed my wire by the first train.

  When I arrived at Orley Park I rang several times before any one came. Presently Mrs. Peters, looking very white and excited, came from the grounds and apologized for keeping me waiting.

  “Oh, sir—such a dreadful thing!” she said—“a body in the lake!”

  “A body!”

  “Yes, sir—a man. The nurse as came with you here that day, she was rowing herself on the lake, and she must have stirred it pushing with her oar, for it come up all tangled with weeds. It’s a man sir, and I do believe it’s the man I saw at the gate that night.”

  “The man with the wild eyes!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, sir! Oh, it is dreadful—Miss Maud first, and then this. Oh, what can it mean!”

  I found Dorcas standing at the edge of the lake, and Peters and two of the gardeners lifting the drowned body of a man into the boat which was alongside.

  Dorcas was giving instructions. “Lay it in the boat, and cover it with a tarpaulin,” she said. “Mind, nothing is to be touched till the police come. I will go and find the Colonel.”

 
As she turned away I met her.

  “What a terrible thing! Is it Dubois?”

  “Yes,” replied Dorcas. “I suspected he was there yesterday, but I wanted to find him myself instead of having the lake dragged.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I didn’t want any one else to search the pockets. There might have been papers or letters, you know, which would have been read at the inquest, and might have compromised Miss Hargreaves. But there was nothing——”

  “What—you searched!”

  “Yes, after I’d brought the poor fellow to the surface with the oars.”

  “But how do you think he got in?”

  “Suicide—insanity. The father was taken to a lunatic asylum—you learned that at Norwood yesterday. Son doubtless inherited tendency. Looks like a case of homicidal mania—he attacked Miss Hargreaves, whom he had probably tracked after years of separation, and after he had as he thought killed her, he drowned himself. At any rate, Miss Hargreaves is a free woman. She was evidently terrified of her husband when he was alive, and so——”

  I guessed what Dorcas was thinking as we went together to the house. At the door she held out her hand. “You had better go to the inn and return to town to-night,” she said. “You can do no more good, and had better keep out of it. I shall be home tomorrow. Come to Elm Tree Road in the evening.”

  The next evening Dorcas told me all that had happened after I left. Paul had already heard it, and when I arrived was profuse in his thanks for the assistance I had rendered his wife. Mrs. Lester, however, felt compelled to remark that she never thought a daughter of hers would go gadding about the country fishing up corpses for a living.

  Dorcas had gone to the Colonel and told him everything. The Colonel was in a terrible state, but Dorcas told him that the only way in which to ascertain the truth was for them to go to the unhappy girl together, and attempt, with the facts in their possession, to persuade her to divulge the rest.

  When the Colonel told his daughter that the man she had married had flung her into the lake that night, she was dumbfounded, and became hysterical, but when she learned that Dubois had been found in the lake she became alarmed and instantly told all she knew.