The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime

by Michael Sims

  The next day but one, a card, with the name “Sir Gregory Grant,” was handed to Dora Myrl as she sat hard at work in the little drawing-room which she called her study. A portly, middle-aged, benevolent gentleman followed the card into the room.

  “Miss Myrl?” he said, extending his hand, “I have heard of you from my friend, Lord Millicent. I have come to entreat your assistance. I am the senior partner of the banking firm of Gower and Grant. You have heard of the railway robbery, I suppose?”

  “I have heard all the paper had to tell me.”

  “There is little more to tell. I have called on you personally, Miss Myrl, because, personally, I am deeply interested in the case. It is not so much the money—though the amount is, of course, serious. But the honour of the bank is at stake. We have always prided ourselves on treating our clerks well, and heretofore we have reaped the reward. For nearly a century there has not been a single case of fraud or dishonesty amongst them. It is a proud record for our bank, and we should like to keep it unbroken if possible. Suspicion is heavy on young James Pollock. I want him punished, of course, if he is guilty, but I want him cleared if he is innocent. That’s why I came to you.”

  “The police think?”

  “Oh, they think there can be no doubt about his guilt. They have their theory pat. No one was in the carriage—no one could leave it. Pollock threw out the bag to an accomplice along the line. They even pretend to find the mark in the ground where the heavy bag fell—a few hundred yards nearer to Eddiscombe than where the wires were pulled down.”

  “What has been done?”

  “They have arrested the lad and sent out the ‘Hue and Cry’ for a man with a very heavy calfskin bag—that’s all. They are quite sure they have caught the principal thief anyway.”

  “And you?”

  “I will be frank with you, Miss Myrl. I have my doubts. The case seems conclusive. It is impossible that anybody could have got out of the train at full speed. But I have seen the lad, and I have my doubts.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “I would be very glad if you did.”

  After five minutes’ conversation with Jim Pollock, Dora drew Sir Gregory aside.

  “I think I see my way,” she said, “I will undertake the case on one condition.”

  “Any fee that ...”

  “It’s not the fee. I never talk of the fee till the case is over. I will undertake the case if you give me Mr. Pollock to help me. Your instinct was right, Sir Gregory: the boy is innocent.”

  There was much grumbling amongst the police when a nolle prosequi was entered on behalf of the bank, and James Pollock was discharged from custody, and it was plainly hinted the Crown would interpose.

  Meanwhile Pollock was off by a morning train with Miss Dora Myrl, from London to Eddiscombe. He was brimming over with gratitude and devotion. Of course they talked of the robbery on the way down.

  “The bag was very heavy, Mr. Pollock?” Dora asked.

  “I’d sooner carry it one mile than ten, Miss Myrl.”

  “Yet you are pretty strong, I should think.”

  She touched his protruding biceps professionally with her finger tips, and he coloured to the roots of his hair.

  “Would you know the man that robbed you if you saw him again?” Dora asked.

  “Not from Adam. He had his hands on my throat, the chloroform crammed into my mouth before I knew where I was. It was about nine or ten miles outside Eddiscombe. You believe there was a man—don’t you, Miss Myrl? You are about the only person that does. I don’t blame them, for how did the chap get out of the train going at the rate of sixty miles an hour—that’s what fetches me, ’pon my word,” he concluded incoherently; “if I was any other chap I’d believe myself guilty on the evidence. Can you tell me how the trick was done, Miss Myrl?”

  “That’s my secret for the present, Mr. Pollock, but I may tell you this much, when we get to the pretty little town of Eddiscombe I will look out for a stranger with a crooked stick instead of a black bag.”

  There were three hotels in Eddiscombe, but Mr. Mark Brown and his sister were hard to please. They tried the three in succession, keeping their eyes about them for a stranger with a crooked stick, and spending their leisure time in exploring the town and country on a pair of capital bicycles, which they hired by the week.

  As Miss Brown (alias Dora Myrl) was going down the stairs of the third hotel one sunshiny afternoon a week after their arrival, she met midway, face to face, a tall middle-aged man limping a little, a very little, and leaning on a stout oak stick, with a dark shiny varnish, and a crooked handle. She passed him without a second glance. But that evening she gossiped with the chambermaid, and learned that the stranger was a commercial traveller—Mr. McCrowder—who had been staying some weeks at the hotel, with an occasional run up to London in the train, and run round the country on his bicycle, “a nice, easily-pleased, pleasant-spoken gentleman,” the chambermaid added on her own account.

  Next day Dora Myrl met the stranger again in the same place on the stairs. Was it her awkwardness or his? As she moved aside to let him pass, her little foot caught in the stick, jerked it from his hand, and sent it clattering down the stairs into the hall.

  She ran swiftly down the stairs in pursuit, and carried it back with a pretty apology to the owner. But not before she had seen on the inside of the crook a deep notch, cutting through the varnish into the wood.

  At dinner that day their table adjoined Mr. McCrowder’s. Half way through the meal she asked Jim to tell her what the hour was, as her watch had stopped. It was a curious request, for she sat facing the clock, and he had to turn round to see it. But Jim turned obediently, and came face to face with Mr. McCrowder, who started and stared at the sight of him as though he had seen a ghost. Jim stared back stolidly without a trace of recognition in his face, and Mr. McCrowder, after a moment, resumed his dinner. Then Dora set, or seemed to set and wind, her watch, and so the curious little incident closed.

  That evening Dora played a musical little jingle on the piano in their private sitting-room, touching the notes abstractedly and apparently deep in thought. Suddenly she closed the piano with a bang.

  “Mr. Pollock?”

  “Well, Miss Myrl,” said Jim, who had been watching her with the patient, honest, stupid admiration of a big Newfoundland dog.

  “We will take a ride together on our bicycles to-morrow. I cannot say what hour, but have them ready when I call for them.”

  “Yes, Miss Myrl.”

  “And bring a ball of stout twine in your pocket.”

  “Yes, Miss Myrl.”

  “By the way, have you a revolver?”

  “Never had such a thing in my life.”

  “Could you use it if you got it?”

  “I hardly know the butt from the muzzle, but”—modestly—“I can fight a little bit with my fists if that’s any use.”

  “Not the least in this case. An ounce of lead can stop a fourteen-stone champion. Besides one six-shooter is enough and I’m not too bad a shot.”

  “You don’t mean to say, Miss Myrl, that you ...”

  “I don’t mean to say one word more at present, Mr. Pollock, only have the bicycles ready when I want them and the twine.”

  Next morning, after an exceptionally early breakfast, Dora took her place with a book in her hand coiled up on a sofa in a bow-window of the empty drawing-room that looked out on the street. She kept one eye on her book and the other on the window from which the steps of the hotel were visible.

  About half-past nine o’clock she saw Mr. McCrowder go down the steps, not limping at all, but carrying his bicycle with a big canvas bicycle-bag strapped to the handle bar.

  In a moment she was down in the hall where the bicycles stood ready; in another she and Pollock were in the saddle sailing swiftly and smoothly along the street just as the tall figure of Mr. McCrowder was vanishing round a distant corner.

  “We have got to keep him in sight,” Dora whispered to her com
panion as they sped along, “or rather I have got to keep him and you to keep me in sight. Now let me go to the front; hold as far back as you can without losing me, and the moment I wave a white handkerchief—scorch!”

  Pollock nodded and fell back, and in this order—each about half a mile apart—the three riders swept out of the town into the open country.

  The man in front was doing a strong steady twelve miles an hour, but the roads were good and Dora kept her distance without an effort, while Pollock held himself back. For a full hour this game of follow-my-leader was played without a change. Mr. McCrowder had left the town at the opposite direction to the railway, but now he began to wheel round towards the line. Once he glanced behind and saw only a single girl cycling in the distance on the deserted road. The next time he saw no one, for Dora rode close to the inner curve.

  They were now a mile or so from the place where the telegraph wires had been broken down, and Dora, who knew the lie of the land, felt sure their little bicycle trip was drawing to a close.

  The road climbed a long easy winding slope thickly wooded on either side. The man in front put on a spurt; Dora answered it with another, and Pollock behind sprinted fiercely, lessening his distance from Dora. The leader crossed the top bend of the slope, turned a sharp curve, and went swiftly down a smooth decline, shaded by the interlacing branches of great trees.

  Half a mile down at the bottom of the slope, he leaped suddenly from his bicycle with one quick glance back the way he had come. There was no one in view, for Dora held back at the turn. He ran his bicycle close into the wall on the left hand side where a deep trench hid it from the casual passers by; unstrapped the bag from the handle bar, and clambered over the wall with an agility that was surprising in one of his (apparent) age.

  Dora was just round the corner in time to see him leap from the top of the wall into the thick wood. At once she drew out and waved her white handkerchief, then settled herself in the saddle and made her bicycle fly through the rush of a sudden wind, down the slope.

  Pollock saw the signal; bent down over his handle bar and pedalled uphill like the piston rods of a steam engine.

  The man’s bicycle by the roadside was a finger post for Dora. She, in her turn, over-perched the wall as lightly as a bird. Gathering her tailor-made skirt tightly around her, she peered and listened intently. She could see nothing, but a little way in front a slight rustling of the branches caught her quick ears. Moving in the underwood, stealthily and silently as a rabbit, she caught a glimpse through the leaves of a dark grey tweed suit fifteen or twenty yards off. A few steps more and she had a clear view. The man was on his knees; he had drawn a black leather bag from a thick tangle of ferns at the foot of a great old beech tree, and was busy cramming a number of small canvas sacks into his bicycle bag.

  Dora moved cautiously forward till she stood in a little opening, clear of the undergrowth, free to use her right arm.

  “Good morning, Mr. McCrowder!” she cried sharply.

  The man started, and turned and saw a girl half a dozen yards off standing clear in the sunlight, with a mocking smile on her face.

  His lips growled out a curse; his right hand left the bags and stole to his side pocket.

  “Stop that!” The command came clear and sharp. “Throw up your hands!”

  He looked again. The sunlight glinted on the barrel of a revolver, pointed straight at his head, with a steady hand.

  “Up with your hands, or I fire!” and his hands went up over his head. The next instant Jim Pollock came crashing through the underwood, like an elephant through the jungle.

  He stopped short with a cry of amazement.

  “Steady!” came Dora’s quiet voice; “don’t get in my line of fire. Round there to the left—that’s the way. Take away his revolver. It is in his right-hand coat pocket. Now tie his hands!”

  Jim Pollock did his work stolidly as directed. But while he wound the strong cord round the wrists and arms of Mr. McCrowder, he remembered the railway carriage and the strangling grip at his throat, and the chloroform, and the disgrace that followed, and if he strained the knots extra tight it’s hard to blame him.

  “Now,” said Dora, “finish his packing,” and Jim crammed the remainder of the canvas sacks into the big bicycle bag.

  “You don’t mind the weight?”

  He gave a delighted grin for answer, as he swung both bags in his hands.

  “Get up!” said Dora to the thief, and he stumbled to his feet sulkily. “Walk in front. I mean to take you back to Eddiscombe with me.”

  When they got on the road-side Pollock strapped the bicycle bag to his own handle-bar.

  “May I trouble you, Mr. Pollock, to unscrew one of the pedals of this gentleman’s bicycle?” said Dora.

  It was done in a twinkling. “Now give him a lift up,” she said to Jim, “he is going to ride back with one pedal.”

  The abject thief held up his bound wrists imploringly.

  “Oh, that’s all right. I noticed you held the middle of your handle-bar from choice coming out. You’ll do it from necessity going back. We’ll look after you. Don’t whine; you’ve played a bold game and lost the odd trick, and you’ve got to pay up, that’s all.”

  There was a wild sensation in Eddiscombe when, in broad noon, the bank thief was brought in riding on a one-pedalled machine to the police barrack and handed into custody. Dora rode on through the cheering crowd to the hotel.

  A wire brought Sir Gregory Grant down by the afternoon train, and the three dined together that night at his cost; the best dinner and wine the hotel could supply. Sir Gregory was brimming over with delight, like the bubbling champagne in his wine glass.

  “Your health, Mr. Pollock,” said the banker to the junior clerk. “We will make up in the bank to you for the annoyance you have had. You shall fix your own fee, Miss Myrl—or, rather, I’ll fix it for you if you allow me. Shall we say half the salvage? But I’m dying with curiosity to know how you managed to find the money and thief.”

  “It was easy enough when you come to think of it, Sir Gregory. The man would have been a fool to tramp across the country with a black bag full of gold while the ‘Hue and Cry’ was hot on him. His game was to hide it and lie low, and he did so. The sight of Mr. Pollock at the hotel hurried him up as I hoped it would; that’s the whole story.”

  “Oh, that’s not all. How did you find the man? How did the man get out of the train going at the rate of sixty miles an hour? But I suppose I’d best ask that question of Mr. Pollock, who was there?”

  “Don’t ask me any questions, sir,” said Jim, with a look of profound admiration in Dora’s direction. “She played the game off her own bat. All I know is that the chap cut his stick after he had done for me. I cannot in the least tell how.”

  “Will you have pity on my curiosity, Miss Myrl.”

  “With pleasure, Sir Gregory. You must have noticed, as I did, that where the telegraph was broken down the line was embanked and the wires ran quite close to the railway carriage. It is easy for an active man to slip a crooked stick like this” (she held up Mr. McCrowder’s stick as she spoke) “over the two or three of the wires and so swing himself into the air clear of the train. The acquired motion would carry him along the wires to the post and give him a chance of breaking down the insulators.”

  “By Jove! you’re right, Miss Myrl. It’s quite simple when one comes to think of it. But, still, I don’t understand how ...”

  “The friction of the wire,” Dora went on in the even tone of a lecturer, “with a man’s weight on it, would bite deep into the wood of the stick, like that!” Again she held out the crook of a dark thick oak stick for Sir Gregory to examine, and he peered at it through his gold spectacles.

  “The moment I saw that notch,” Dora added quietly, “I knew how Mr. McCrowder had ‘Cut his stick.’”

  RICHARD MARSH

  (1857-1915)

  Richard Bernard Heldmann began writing stories for boys when he was only twelve, and publishe
d several adventure stories under his middle and last name. But he is remembered mostly for the fiction he published after he adopted the pen name Richard Marsh in 1893. He produced about seventy books during his lifetime and was prolific enough that several of them appeared after his sudden death in 1915 at age fifty-seven. His many novels and story collections range from The Mahatma’s Pupil to The Romance of a Maid to The Confessions of a Young Lady: Her Doings and Misdoings.

  But he is best known for The Beetle, an atmosphere-drenched supernatural novel published by Skeffington in 1897. In its fear of the ancient and mysterious (and, apparently, irresistible) “East,” Marsh’s saga is reminiscent of Sax Rohmer’s evil Fu Manchu and later incarnations of the Yellow Peril paranoia, including Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials. Published within a few weeks of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Beetle was hugely popular and overshadowed its contemporary for decades, before fading into relative obscurity as movies promoted the evil count to a household name. Other Marsh books include the collection Curios: Some Strange Adventures of Two Bachelors, seven stories mixing the horrific and humorous in tales of rival antique collectors. Marsh devoted as much time as possible to sports and was known to quickly dictate his works to a secretary, often without revising a word. Perhaps this devil-may-care approach to his writing explains its wildly varying quality.

  The following story, while situated in exotic psychological territory, is firmly set in the English countryside. In 1911 Marsh published the first story in a curious series about a female detective. “The Man Who Cut off My Hair” first appeared in the August issue of The Strand and was reprinted as the first story in Judith Lee, Some Pages from Her Life, which C. Arthur Pearson published the next year.

  When we meet the narrator, Judith Lee is an adult, looking back at her experiences in life. In this first story, built around a traumatic experience when she is twelve years old, we witness the origin of her unusual abilities as a detective. She learned lipreading from her deaf mother and her father, who teaches deaf-mutes. As predictably as the older James Bond movies supply 007 with an occasion on which to desperately need precisely the gadget that Q has most recently designed, so Lee finds herself in situations tailored to her unique abilities. Young Judith is intelligent and courageous, as well as a lively and observant narrator, but at times her detective abilities are overshadowed by her talent for making clues simply fall into her lap. Her story contains plenty of Marsh’s signature grotesquerie, including the disturbing sexual symbolism of the cut hair.