The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime

by Michael Sims

  “‘Cotterill, Cloak-room, Victoria Station, Brighton Railway!’ Where are my clothes? That’s where the man is who cut off my hair.”

  They stared at me. I believe that for a moment they thought that what I had endured had turned my brain, and that I was mad. But I soon made it perfectly clear that I was nothing of the kind. I told them my story as fast as I could speak; I fancy I brought it home to their understanding. Then I told them of the words which I had seen spoken in such a solemn whisper, and how sure I was that they were pregnant with weighty meaning.

  “‘Cotterill, Cloak-room, Victoria Station, Brighton Railway’—that’s where the man is who cut my hair off—that’s where I’m going to catch him.”

  The detective was pleased to admit that there might be something in my theory, and that it would be worth while to go up to Victoria Station to see what the words might mean. Nothing would satisfy me but that we should go at once. I was quite convinced that every moment was of importance, and that if we were not quick we should be too late. I won Mr. Colegate over—of course, he was almost as anxious to get his collection back as I was to be quits with the miscreant who had shorn me of my locks. So we went up to town by the first train we could catch—Mr. Colegate, the detective, and an excited and practically hairless child.

  When we got to Victoria Station we marched straight up to the cloak-room, and the detective said to one of the persons on the other side of the counter:

  “Is there a parcel here for the name of Cotterill?”

  The person to whom he had spoken did not reply, but another man who was standing by his side.

  “Cotterill? A parcel for the name of Cotterill has just been taken out—a hand-bag, scarcely more than half a minute ago. You must have seen him walking off with it as you came up. He can hardly be out of sight now.” Leaning over the counter, he looked along the platform.

  “There he is—some one is just going to speak to him.”

  I saw the person to whom he referred—a shortish man in a light grey suit, carrying a brown leather hand-bag. I also saw the person who was going to speak to him; and thereupon I ceased to have eyes for the man with the bag. I broke into exclamation.

  “There’s the man who cut my hair!” I cried. I went rushing along the platform as hard as I could go. Whether the man heard me or not I cannot say; I dare say I had spoken loudly enough; but he gave one glance in my direction, and when he saw me I had no doubt that he remembered. He whispered to the man with the bag. I was near enough to see, though not to hear, what he said. In spite of the rapidity with which his lips were moving, I saw quite distinctly.

  “Bantock, 13 Harwood Street, Oxford Street.” That was what he said, and no sooner had he said it than he turned and fled—from me; I knew he was flying from me, and it gave me huge satisfaction to know that the mere sight of me had made him run. I was conscious that Mr. Colegate and the detective were coming at a pretty smart pace behind me.

  The man with the bag, seeing his companion dart off without the slightest warning, glanced round to see what had caused his hasty flight. I suppose he saw me and the detective and Mr. Colegate, and he drew his own conclusions. He dropped that hand-bag as if it had been red-hot, and off he ran. He ran to such purpose that we never caught him—neither him nor the man who had cut my hair. The station was full of people—a train had just come in. The crowd streaming out covered the platform with a swarm of moving figures. They acted as cover to those two eager gentlemen—they got clean off. But we got the bag; and, one of the station officials coming on the scene, we were shown to an apartment where, after explanations had been made, the bag and its contents were examined.

  Of course, we had realized from the very first moment that Mr. Colegate’s collection could not possibly be in that bag, because it was not nearly large enough. When it was seen what was in it, something like a sensation was created. It was crammed with small articles of feminine clothing. In nearly every garment jewels were wrapped, which fell out of them as they were withdrawn from the bag. Such jewels! You should have seen the display they made when they were spread out upon the leather-covered table—and our faces as we stared at them.

  “This does not look like my collection of old silver,” observed Mr. Colegate.

  “No,” remarked a big, broad-shouldered man, who I afterwards learned was a well-known London detective, who had been induced by our detective to join our party.

  “This does not look like your collection of old silver, sir; it looks, if you’ll excuse my saying so, like something very much more worth finding. Unless I am mistaken, these are the Duchess of Datchet’s jewels, some of which she wore at the last Drawing Room, and which were taken from Her Grace’s bedroom after her return. The police all over Europe have been looking for them for more than a month.”

  “That bag has been with us nearly a month. The party who took it out paid four-and-sixpence for cloak-room charges—twopence a day for twenty-seven days.”

  The person from the cloak-room had come with us to that apartment; it was he who said this. The London detective replied:

  “Paid four-and-sixpence, did he? Well, it was worth it—to us. Now, if I could lay my hand on the party who put the bag in the cloak-room, I might have a word of a kind to say to him.”

  I had been staring, wide-eyed, as piece by piece the contents of the bag had been disclosed; I had been listening, open-eared, to what the detective said; when he made that remark about laying his hands on the party who had deposited that bag in the cloak-room, there came into my mind the words which I had seen the man who had cut my hair whisper as he fled to the man with the bag. The cryptic sentence which I had seen him whisper as I sat tied to the chair had indeed proved to be full of meaning; the words which, even in the moment of flight, he had felt bound to utter might be just as full. I ventured on an observation, the first which I had made, speaking with a good deal of diffidence.

  “I think I know where he might be found—I am not sure, but I think.”

  All eyes were turned to me. The detective exclaimed:

  “You think you know? As we haven’t got so far as thinking, if you were to tell us, little lady, what you think, it might be as well, mightn’t it?”

  I considered—I wanted to get the words exactly right.

  “Suppose you were to try”—I paused so as to make quite sure—“Bantock, 13 Harwood Street, Oxford Street.”

  “And who is Bantock?” the detective asked. “And what do you know about him anyhow?”

  “I don’t know anything at all about him, but I saw the man who cut my hair whisper to the other man just before he ran away, ‘Bantock, 13 Harwood Street, Oxford Street’—I saw him quite distinctly.”

  “You saw him whisper? What does the girl mean by saying she saw him whisper? Why, young lady, you must have been quite fifty feet away. How, at that distance, and with all the noise of the traffic, could you hear a whisper?”

  “I didn’t say I heard him; I said I saw him. I don’t need to hear to know what a person is saying. I just saw you whisper to the other man, ‘The young lady seems to be by way of being a curiosity.’”

  The London detective stared at our detective. He seemed to be bewildered.

  “But I—I don’t know how you heard that; I scarcely breathed the words.”

  Mr. Colegate explained. When they heard they all seemed to be bewildered, and they looked at me, as people do look at the present day, as if I were some strange and amazing thing. The London detective said: “I never heard the like to that. It seems to me very much like what old-fashioned people called ‘black magic.’”

  Although he was a detective, he could not have been a very intelligent person after all, or he would not have talked such nonsense. Then he added, with an accent on the “saw”:

  “What was it you said you saw him whisper?”

  I bargained before I told him.

  “I will tell you if you let me come with you.”

  “Let you come with me?” He stared still mor
e. “What does the girl mean?”

  “Her presence,” struck in Mr. Colegate, “may be useful for purposes of recognition. She won’t be in the way; you can do no harm by letting her come.”

  “If you don’t promise to let me come I shan’t tell you.”

  The big man laughed. He seemed to find me amusing; I do not know why. If he had only understood my feeling on the subject of my hair, and how I yearned to be even with the man who had wrought me what seemed to me such an irreparable injury, I dare say it sounds as if I were very revengeful. I do not think it was a question of vengeance only; I wanted justice. The detective took out a fat notebook.

  “Very well; it’s a bargain. Tell me what you saw him whisper, and you shall come.” So I told him again, and he wrote it down. “‘Bantock, 13 Harwood Street, Oxford Street.’ I know Harwood Street, though I don’t know Mr. Bantock, But he seems to be residing at what is generally understood to be an unlucky number. Let me get a message through to the Yard—we may want assistance. Then we’ll pay a visit to Mr. Bantock—if there is such a person. It sounds like a very tall story to me.”

  I believe that even then he doubted if I had seen what I said I saw. When we did start I was feeling pretty nervous, because I realized that if we were going on a fool’s errand, and there did turn out to be no Bantock, that London detective would doubt me more than ever. And, of course, I could not be sure that there was such a person, though it was some comfort to know that there was a Harwood Street. We went four in a cab—the two detectives, Mr. Colegate and I. We had gone some distance before the cab stopped. The London detective said:

  “This is Harwood Street; I told the driver to stop at the corner—we will walk the rest of the way. A cab might arouse suspicion; you never know.”

  It was a street full of shops. No. 13 proved to be a sort of curiosity shop and jeweller’s combined; quite a respectable-looking place, and sure enough over the top of the window was the name “Bantock.”

  “That looks as if, at any rate, there were a Bantock,” the big man said; it was quite a weight off my own mind when I saw the name.

  Just as we reached the shop a cab drew up and five men got out, whom the London detective seemed to recognize with mingled feelings.

  “That’s queered the show,” he exclaimed. I did not know what he meant. “They rouse suspicion, if they do nothing else—so in we go.”

  And in we went—the detective first, and I close on his heels. There were two young men standing close together behind the counter. The instant we appeared I saw one whisper to the other:

  “Give them the office—ring the alarm-bell—they’re ’tecs!”

  I did not quite know what he meant either, but I guessed enough to make me cry out:

  “Don’t let him move—he’s going to ring the alarm-bell and give them the office.”

  Those young men were so startled—they must have been quite sure that I could not have heard—that they both stood still and stared; before they had got over their surprise a detective—they were detectives who had come in the second cab—had each by the shoulder.

  There was a door at the end of the shop, which the London detective opened.

  “There’s a staircase here; we’d better go up and see who’s above. You chaps keep yourselves handy, you may be wanted—when I call you come.”

  He mounted the stairs—as before, I was as close to him as I could very well get. On the top of the staircase was a landing, on to which two doors opened. We paused to listen: I could distinctly hear voices coming through one of them.

  “I think this is ours,” the London detective said.

  He opened the one through which the voices were coming. He marched in—I was still as close to him as I could get. In it were several men, I did not know how many, and I did not care; I had eyes for only one. I walked right past the detective up to the table round which some of them were sitting, some standing, and stretching out an accusatory arm I pointed at one.

  “That’s the man who cut off my hair!”

  It was, and well he knew it. His conscience must have smitten him; I should not have thought that a grown man could be so frightened at the sight of a child. He caught hold, with both hands, of the side of the table; he glared at me as if I were some dreadful apparition—and no doubt to him I was. It was only with an effort that he seemed able to use his voice.

  “Good night!” he exclaimed, “it’s that infernal kid!”

  On the table, right in front of me, I saw something with which I was only too familiar. I snatched it up.

  “And this is the knife,” I cried, “with which he did it!”

  It was; the historical blade, which had once belonged to the sanguinary and, I sincerely trust, more or less apocryphal MacGregor. I held it out towards the gaping man.

  “You know that this is the knife with which you cut off my hair,” I said, “You know it is.”

  I dare say I looked a nice young termagant with my short hair, rage in my eyes, and that frightful weapon in my hand. Apparently I did not impress him quite as I had intended—at least, his demeanour did not suggest it.

  “By the living Jingo!” he shouted, “I wish I had cut her throat with it as well!”

  It was fortunate for him that he did not. Probably, in the long run, he would have suffered for it more than he did—though he suffered pretty badly as it was. It was his cutting my hair that did it. Had he not done that I have little doubt that I should have been too conscious of the pains caused me by my bonds—the marks caused by the cord were on my skin for weeks after—to pay such close attention to their proceedings as I did under the spur of anger. Quite possibly that tell-tale whisper would have gone unnoticed. Absorbed by my own suffering, I should have paid very little heed to the cryptic sentence which really proved to be their undoing. It was the outrage to my locks which caused me to strain every faculty of observation I had. He had much better have left them alone.

  That was the greatest capture the police had made for years. In one haul they captured practically every member of a gang of cosmopolitan thieves who were wanted by the police all over the world. The robbery of Mr. Colegate’s collection of old silver shrank into insignificance before the rest of their misdeeds. And not only were the thieves taken themselves, but the proceeds of no end of robberies.

  It seemed that they had met there for a sort of annual division of the common spoil. There was an immense quantity of valuable property before them on the table, and lots more about the house. Those jewels which were in the bag which had been deposited at the cloak-room at Victoria Station were to have been added to the common fund—to say nothing of Mr. Colegate’s collection of old silver.

  The man who called himself Bantock, and who owned the premises at 13 Harwood Street, proved to be a well-known dealer in precious stones and jewellery and bric-a-brac and all sorts of valuables. He was immensely rich; it was shown that a great deal of his money had been made by buying and selling valuable stolen property of every sort and kind. Before the police had done with him it was made abundantly clear that, under various aliases, in half the countries of the world, he had been a wholesale dealer in stolen goods. He was sentenced to a long term of penal servitude. I am not quite sure, but I believe that he died in jail.

  All the men who were in that room were sent to prison for different terms, including the man who cut my hair—to say nothing of his companion. So far as the proceedings at the court were concerned, I never appeared at all. Compared to some of the crimes of which they had been guilty, the robbery of Mr. Colegate’s silver was held to be a mere nothing. They were not charged with it at all, so my evidence was not required. But every time I looked at my scanty locks, which took years to grow to anything like a decent length—they had reached to my knees, but they never did that again—each time I stood before a looking-glass and saw what a curious spectacle I presented with my closely clipped poll, something of that old rage came back to me which had been during that first moment in my heart, and I felt—wha
t I felt when I was tied to that chair in Myrtle Cottage. I endeavoured to console myself, in the spirit of the Old World rather than the New, that, owing to the gift which was mine, I had been able to cry something like quits with the man who, in a moment of mere wanton savagery, had deprived me of what ought to be the glory of a woman.

  HUGH C. WEIR

  (1884-1934)

  In 1914, when the Boston-based Page Company published Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective, it bore a curious dedication:

  To Mary Holland,

  This is your book. It is you, woman detective of real life, who

  suggested Madelyn. It was the stories told me from your own

  note-book of men’s knavery that suggested these exploits of Miss

  Mack. None should know better than you that the riddles of fic-

  tion fall ever short of the riddles of truth. What plot of the novel-

  ist could equal the grotesqueness of your affair of the mystic

  circle, or the subtleness of your Chicago University exploit of the

  Egyptian bar? I pray you, however, in the fulness of your gener-

  osity to give Madelyn welcome—not as a rival but as a student.

  —H. C. W.

  Hugh Weir may have been imitating a predecessor in the field. Eight years earlier, Reginald Wright Kauffman had published Miss Frances Baird, Detective: A Passage from Her Memoirs, about her tenure at the Watkins Private Detective Agency in New York. Kauffman lends authority to his novel with a similar dedication:

  To Frances Baird

  My dear Frances:—You tell me that, as a detective, your professional ethics forbid me to call you by your real name in any printed record which I may make of your achievements....