The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime

by Michael Sims

  Whoever Kauffman may have based Baird upon, Mary Holland was not only real but well respected in her field. She and her husband, Phil, ran the Holland Detective Agency and published The Detective, a periodical offering to law enforcement officers all sorts of criminological supplies, including a prisoner boot designed by Mrs. Holland herself, as well as running photographs of wanted criminals. Mary Holland was also the first female fingerprint expert and first fingerprint instructor in the United States. She learned directly from Sergeant John Ferrier, the fingerprint authority who came from New Scotland Yard to help protect Queen Victoria’s “Diamond Jubilee” jewels when they were displayed at the St. Louis World’s Fair (officially named the Louisiana Purchase Exposition) in 1904.

  A newspaper reporter and editor who started out at the Spring-field Sun in Ohio, Hugh Cosgo Weir went on to write literally hundreds of articles and stories, and is credited with more than three hundred Hollywood screenplays. His silent film credits included The Wolf of Debt and The Circus Girl’s Romance. When Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective was published, it included photographs of popular silent film star Alice Joyce in her role as Mack for a series produced by the Kalem Moving Picture Company. Weir’s entrepreneurial versatility shows up in all sorts of historical footnotes. He ghostwrote, for example, the popular newspaper series “Great Love Stories of the Bible” for evangelist Billy Sunday, and in 1918 sued Sunday for $100,000 for contract violation.

  Madelyn Mack is not much like her real-world inspiration, but she is an interesting and lively character. She claims to be an ordinary working detective, but clearly the public, the police, and her adoring Watson regard her as a genius. The series is narrated by reporter Nora Noraker, who like Mack suffers from alliteration and exclamation points. Like Sherlock Holmes, Mack turns coy about clues half glimpsed by Noraker. When bored she even consumes cola berries, as Holmes injected himself with his famous seven-percent solution of cocaine.

  THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES

  Now that I seek a point of beginning in the curious comradeship between Madelyn Mack and myself, the weird problems of men’s knavery that we have confronted together come back to me with almost a shock.

  Perhaps the events which crowd into my memory followed each other too swiftly for thoughtful digest at the time of their occurrence. Perhaps only a sober retrospect can supply a properly appreciative angle of view.

  Madelyn Mack! What newspaper reader does not know the name? Who, even among the most casual followers of public events, does not recall the young woman who found the missing heiress, Virginia Denton, after a three months’ disappearance; who convicted “Archie” Irwin, chief of the “firebug trust”; who located the absconder, Wolcott, after a pursuit from Chicago to Khartoum; who solved the riddle of the double Peterson murder; who—

  But why continue the enumeration of Miss Mack’s achievements? They are of almost household knowledge, at least that portion which, from one cause or another, have found their way into the newspaper columns. Doubtless those admirers of Miss Mack, whose opinions have been formed through the press chronicles of her exploits, would be startled to know that not one in ten of her cases has ever been recorded outside of her own file cases. And many of them—the most sensational from a newspaper viewpoint—will never be!

  It is the woman, herself, however, who has seemed to me always a greater mystery than any of the problems to whose unraveling she has brought her wonderful genius. In spite of the deluge of printer’s ink that she has inspired, I question if it has been given to more than a dozen persons to know the true Madelyn Mack.

  I do not refer, of course, to her professional career. The salient points of that portion of her life, I presume, are more or less generally known—the college girl confronted suddenly with the necessity of earning her own living; the epidemic of mysterious “shoplifting” cases chronicled in the newspaper she was studying for employment advertisements; her application to the New York department stores, that had been victimized, for a place on their detective staffs, and their curt refusal; her sudden determination to undertake the case as a free-lance, and her remarkable success, which resulted in the conviction of the notorious Madame Bousard, and which secured for Miss Mack her first position as assistant house detective with the famous Niegel dry-goods firm. I sometimes think that this first case, and the realization which it brought her of her peculiar talent, is Madelyn’s favorite—that its place in her memory is not even shared by the recovery of Mrs. Niegel’s fifty-thousand-dollar pearl necklace, stolen a few months after the employment of the college girl detective at the store, and the reward for which, incidentally, enabled the ambitious Miss Mack to open her own office.

  Next followed the Bergner kidnapping case, which gave Madelyn her first big advertising broadside, and which brought the beginning of the steady stream of business that resulted, after three years, in her Fifth Avenue suite in the Maddox Building, where I found her on that—to me—memorable afternoon when a sapient Sunday editor dispatched me for an interview with the woman who had made so conspicuous a success in a man’s profession.

  I can see Madelyn now, as I saw her then—my first close-range view of her. She had just returned from Omaha that morning, and was planning to leave for Boston on the midnight express. A suitcase and a fat portfolio of papers lay on a chair in a corner. A young woman stenographer was taking a number of letters at an almost incredible rate of dictation. Miss Mack finished the last paragraph as she rose from a flat-top desk to greet me.

  I had vaguely imagined a masculine-appearing woman, curt of voice, sharp of feature, perhaps dressed in a severe, tailor-made gown. I saw a young woman of maybe twenty-five, with red and white cheeks, crowned by a softly waved mass of dull gold hair, and a pair of vivacious, grey-blue eyes that at once made one forget every other detail of her appearance. There was a quality in the eyes which for a long time I could not define. Gradually I came to know that it was the spirit of optimism, of joy in herself, and in her life, and in her work, the exhilaration of doing things. And there was something contagious in it. Almost unconsciously you found yourself believing in her and in her sincerity.

  Nor was there a suggestion foreign to her sex in my appraisal. She was dressed in a simply embroidered white shirtwaist and white broadcloth skirt. One of Madelyn’s few peculiarities is that she always dresses either in complete white or complete black. On her desk was a jar of white chrysanthemums.

  “How do I do it?” she repeated, in answer to my question, in a tone that was almost a laugh. “Why—just by hard work, I suppose. Oh, there isn’t anything wonderful about it! You can do almost anything, you know, if you make yourself really think you can! I am not at all unusual or abnormal. I work out my problems just as I would work out a problem in mathematics, only instead of figures I deal with human motives. A detective is always given certain known factors, and I keep building them up, or subtracting them, as the case may be, until I know that the answer must be correct.

  “There are only two real rules for a successful detective, hard work and common sense—not uncommon sense such as we associate with our old friend Sherlock Holmes, but common, business sense. And, of course, imagination! That may be one reason why I have made what you call a success. A woman, I think, always has a more acute imagination than a man!”

  “Do you then prefer women operatives on your staff?” I asked.

  She glanced up with something like a twinkle from the jade paper-knife in her hands.

  “Shall I let you into a secret? All of my staff, with the exception of my stenographer, are men. But I do most of my work in person. The factor of imagination can’t very well be used second, or third, or fourth handed. And then, if I fail, I can only blame Madelyn Mack! Someday”—the gleam in her grey-blue eyes deepened—“someday I hope to reach a point where I can afford to do only consulting work or personal investigation. The business details of an office staff, I am afraid, are a bit too much of routine for me!”

  The telephone jingled. She spoke a few c
risp sentences into the receiver, and turned. The interview was over.

  When I next saw her, three months later, we met across the body of Morris Anthony, the murdered bibliophile. It was a chance discovery of mine which Madelyn was good enough to say suggested to her the solution of the affair, and which brought us together in the final melodramatic climax in the grim mansion on Washington Square, when I presume my hysterical warning saved her from the fangs of Dr. Lester Randolph’s hidden cobra. In any event, our acquaintanceship crystallized gradually into a comradeship, which revolutionized two angles of my life.

  Not only did it bring to me the stimulus of Madelyn Mack’s personality, but it gave me exclusive access to a fund of newspaper “copy” that took me from scant-paid Sunday “features” to a “space” arrangement in the city room, with an income double that which I had been earning. I have always maintained that in our relationship Madelyn gave all, and I contributed nothing. Although she invariably made instant disclaimer, and generally ended by carrying me up to the “Rosary,” her chalet on the Hudson, as a cure for what she termed my attack of the “blues,” she was never able to convince me that my protest was not justified!

  It was at the “Rosary” where Miss Mack found haven from the stress of business. She had copied its design from an ivy-tangled Swiss chalet that had attracted her fancy during a summer vacation ramble through the Alps, and had built it on a jagged bluff of the river at a point near enough to the city to permit of fairly convenient motoring, although, during the first years of our friendship, when she was held close to the commercial grindstone, weeks often passed without her being able to snatch a day there. In the end, it was the gratitude of Chalmers Walker for her remarkable work which cleared his chorus-girl wife from the seemingly unbreakable coil of circumstantial evidence in the murder of Dempster, the theatrical broker, that enabled Madelyn to realize her long-cherished dream of setting up as a consulting expert. Although she still maintained an office in town, it was confined to one room and a small reception hall, and she limited her attendance there to two days of the week. During the remainder of the time, when not engaged directly on a case, she seldom appeared in the city at all. Her flowers and her music—she was passionately devoted to both—appeared to content her effectually.

  I charged her with growing old, to which she replied with a shrug. I upbraided her as a cynic, and she smiled inscrutably. But the manner of her life was not changed. In a way I envied her. It was almost like looking down on the world and watching tolerantly its mad scramble for the rainbow’s end. The days I snatched at the “Rosary,” particularly in the summer, when Madelyn’s garden looked like nothing so much as a Turner picture, left me with almost a repulsion for the grind of Park Row. But a workaday newspaper woman cannot indulge the dreams of a genius whom fortune has blessed. Perhaps this was why Madelyn’s invitations came with a frequency and a subtleness that could not be resisted. Somehow they always reached me when I was in just the right receptive mood.

  It was late on a Thursday afternoon of June, the climax of a racking five days for me under the blistering Broadway sun, that Madelyn’s motor caught me at the Bugle office, and Madelyn insisted on bundling me into the tonneau without even a suitcase.

  “We’ll reach the Rosary in time for a fried chicken supper,” she promised. “What you need is four or five days’ rest where you can’t smell the asphalt.”

  “You fairy godmother!” I breathed as I snuggled down on the cushions.

  Neither of us knew that already the crimson trail of crime was twisting toward us—that within twelve hours we were to be pitch-forked from a quiet weekend’s rest into the vortex of tragedy.

  We had breakfasted late and leisurely. When at length we had finished, Madelyn had insisted on having her phonograph brought to the rose garden, and we were listening to Sturveysant’s matchless rendering of “The Jewel Song”—one of the three records for which Miss Mack had sent the harpist her check for two hundred dollars the day before. I had taken the occasion to read her a lazy lesson on extravagance. The beggar had probably done the work in less than two hours!

  As the plaintive notes quivered to a pause, Susan, Madelyn’s housekeeper, crossed the garden, and laid a little stack of letters and the morning papers on a rustic table by our bench. Madelyn turned to her correspondence with a shrug.

  “From the divine to the prosaic!”

  Susan sniffed with the freedom of seven years of service.

  “I heard one of them Eyetalian fiddling chaps at Hammerstein’s last week who could beat that music with his eyes closed!”

  Madelyn stared at her sorrowfully.

  “At your age—Hammerstein’s!”

  Susan tossed her prim rows of curls, glanced contemptuously at the phonograph by way of retaliation, and made a dignified retreat. In the doorway she turned.

  “Oh, Miss Madelyn, I am baking one of your old-fashioned strawberry shortcakes for lunch!”

  “Really?” Madelyn raised a pair of sparkling eyes. “Susan, you’re a dear!”

  A contented smile wreathed Susan’s face even to the tips of her precise curls. Madelyn’s gaze crossed to me.

  “What are you chuckling over, Nora?”

  “From a psychological standpoint, the pair of you have given me two interesting studies,” I laughed. “A single sentence compensates Susan for a week of your glumness!”

  Madelyn extended a hand toward her mail.

  “And what is the other feature that appeals to your dissecting mind?”

  “Fancy a world-known detective rising to the point of enthusiasm at the mention of strawberry shortcake!”

  “Why not? Even a detective has to be human once in a while!” Her eyes twinkled. “Another point for my memoirs, Miss Noraker!”

  As her gaze fell to the half-opened letter in her hand, my eyes traveled across the garden to the outlines of the chalet, and I breathed a sigh of utter content. Broadway and Park Row seemed very, very far away. In a momentary swerving of my gaze, I saw that a line as clear-cut as a pencil stroke had traced itself across Miss Mack’s forehead.

  The suggestion of lounging indifference in her attitude had vanished like a wind-blown veil. Her glance met mine suddenly. The twinkle I had last glimpsed in her eyes had disappeared. Silently she pushed a square sheet of close, cramped writing across the table to me.

  MY DEAR MADAM:

  When you read this, it is quite possible that it will be a letter from a dead man.

  I have been told by no less an authority than my friend, Cosmo Hamilton, that you are a remarkable woman. While I will say at the outset that I have little faith in the analytical powers of the feminine brain, I am prepared to accept Hamilton’s judgment.

  I cannot, of course, discuss the details of my problem in correspondence.

  As a spur to quick action, I may say, however, that, during the past five months, my life has been attempted no fewer than eight different times, and I am convinced that the ninth attempt, if made, will be successful. The curious part of it lies in the fact that I am absolutely unable to guess the reason for the persistent vendetta. So far as I know, there is no person in the world who should desire my removal. And yet I have been shot at from ambush on four occasions, thugs have rushed me once, a speeding automobile has grazed me twice, and this evening I found a cunning little dose of cyanide of potassium in my favorite cherry pie!

  All of this, too, in the shadow of a New Jersey skunk farm! It is high time, I fancy, that I secure expert advice. Should the progress of the mysterious vendetta, by any chance, render me unable to receive you personally, my niece, Miss Muriel Jansen, I am sure, will endeavor to act as a substitute.

  Respectfully Yours,

  WENDELL MARSH

  THREE FORKS JUNCTION, N. J.

  JUNE 16

  At the bottom of the page a lead pencil had scrawled the single line in the same cramped writing:

  “For God’s sake, hurry!”

  Madelyn retained her curled-up position on the ben
ch, staring across at a bush of deep crimson roses.

  “Wendell Marsh?” She shifted her glance to me musingly. “Haven’t I seen that name somewhere lately?” (Madelyn pays me the compliment of saying that I have a card-index brain for newspaper history!)

  “If you have read the Sunday supplements,” I returned drily, with a vivid remembrance of Wendell Marsh as I had last seen him, six months before, when he crossed the gangplank of his steamer, fresh from England, his face browned from the Atlantic winds. It was a face to draw a second glance—almost gaunt, self-willed, with more than a hint of cynicism. (Particularly when his eyes met the waiting press group!) Someone had once likened him to the pictures of Oliver Cromwell.

  “Wendell Marsh is one of the greatest newspaper copy-makers that ever dodged an interviewer,” I explained. “He hates reporters like an upstate farmer hates an automobile, and yet has a flock of them on his trail constantly. His latest exploit to catch the spotlight was the purchase of the Bainford relics in London. Just before that he published a three-volume history on ‘The World’s Great Cynics.’ Paid for the publication himself.”

  Then came a silence between us, prolonging itself. I was trying, rather unsuccessfully, to associate Wendell Marsh’s half-hysterical letter with my mental picture of the austere millionaire ...

  “For God’s sake, hurry!”

  What wrenching terror had reduced the ultra-reserved Mr. Marsh to an appeal like this? As I look back now I know that my wildest fancy could not have pictured the ghastliness of the truth!

  Madelyn straightened abruptly.

  “Susan, will you kindly tell Andrew to bring around the car at once? If you will find the New Jersey automobile map, Nora, we’ll locate Three Forks Junction.”

  “You are going down?” I asked mechanically.

  She slipped from the bench.