The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime

by Michael Sims

  In a curtain-shadowed hook of the side veranda Muriel Jansen was awaiting us, pillowed back against a bronze-draped chair, whose colors almost startlingly matched the gold of her hair. Her resemblance to a tired child was even more pronounced than when I had last seen her.

  I found myself glancing furtively for signs of Homer Truxton, but he had disappeared.

  Miss Jansen took the initiative in our interview with a nervous abruptness, contrasting oddly with her hesitancy at our last meeting.

  “I understand, Miss Mack, that you received a letter from my uncle asking your presence here. May I see it?”

  The eagerness of her tones could not be mistaken.

  From her wrist-bag Madelyn extended the square envelope of the morning post, with its remarkable message. Twice Muriel Jansen’s eyes swept slowly through its contents. Madelyn watched her with a little frown. A sudden tenseness had crept into the air, as though we were all keying ourselves for an unexpected climax. And then, like a thunderclap, it came.

  “A curious communication,” Madelyn suggested. “I had hoped you might be able to add to it?”

  The tired face in the bronze-draped chair stared across the lawn.

  “I can. The most curious fact of your communication Miss Mack, is that Wendell Marsh did not write it!”

  Never have I admired more keenly Madelyn’s remarkable poise. Save for an almost imperceptible indrawing of her breath, she gave no hint of the shock which must have stunned her as it did me. I was staring with mouth agape. But, then, I presume you have discovered by this time that I was not designed for a detective!

  Strangely enough, Muriel Jansen gave no trace of wonder in her announcement. Her attitude suggested a sense of detachment from the subject as though suddenly it had lost its interest. And yet, less than an hour ago it had prostrated her in a swoon.

  “You mean the letter is a forgery?” asked Madelyn quietly.

  “Quite obviously.”

  “And the attempts on Mr. Marsh’s life to which it refers?”

  “There have been none. I have been with my uncle continuously for six months. I can speak definitely.”

  Miss Jansen fumbled in a white crocheted bag.

  “Here are several specimens of Mr. Marsh’s writing. I think they should be sufficient to convince you of what I say. If you desire others—”

  I was gulping like a truant schoolgirl as Madelyn spread on her lap the three notes extended to her. Casual business and personal references they were, none of more than half a dozen lines. Quite enough, however, to complete the sudden chasm at our feet—quite enough to emphasize a bold, aggressive penmanship, almost perpendicular, without the slightest resemblance to the cramped shadowy writing of the morning’s astonishing communication.

  Madelyn rose from her chair, smoothing her skirts thoughtfully. For a moment she stood at the railing, gazing down upon a trellis of yellow roses, her face turned from us. For the first time in our curious friendship, I was actually conscious of a feeling of pity for her! The blank wall which she faced seemed so abrupt—so final!

  Muriel Jansen shifted her position slightly.

  “Are you satisfied, Miss Mack?”

  “Quite.” Madelyn turned, and handed back the three notes. “I presume this means that you do not care for me to continue the case?”

  I whirled in dismay. I had never thought of this possibility.

  “On the contrary, Miss Mack, it seems to me an additional reason why you should continue!”

  I breathed freely again. At least we were not to be dismissed with the abruptness that Miss Jansen’s maid had shown! Madelyn bowed rather absently.

  “Then if you will give me another interview, perhaps this afternoon—”

  Miss Jansen fumbled with the lock of her bag. For the first time her voice lost something of its directness.

  “Have—have you any explanation of this astonishing—forgery?”

  Madelyn was staring out toward the increasing crowd at the gate. A sudden ripple had swept through it.

  “Have you ever heard of a man by the name of Orlando Julio, Miss Jansen?”

  My own eyes, following the direction of Madelyn’s gaze, were brought back sharply to the veranda. For the second time, Muriel Jansen had crumpled back in a faint.

  As I darted toward the servants’ bell Madelyn checked me. Striding up the walk were two men with the unmistakable air of physicians. At Madelyn’s motioning hand they turned toward us.

  The foremost of the two quickened his pace as he caught sight of the figure in the chair. Instinctively I knew that he was Dr. Dench—and it needed no profound analysis to place his companion as the local coroner.

  With a deft hand on Miss Jansen’s heartbeats, Dr. Dench raised a ruddy, brown-whiskered face inquiringly toward us.

  “Shock!” Madelyn explained. “Is it serious?”

  The hand on the wavering breast darted toward a medicine case and selected a vial of brownish liquid. The gaze above it continued its scrutiny of Madelyn’s slender figure.

  Dr. Dench was of the rugged, German type, steel-eyed, confidently sure of movement, with the physique of a splendidly muscled animal. If the servant’s tattle was to be credited, Muriel Jansen could not have attracted more opposite extremes in her suitors.

  The coroner—a rusty-suited man of middle age, in quite obvious professional awe of his companion—extended a glass of water. Miss Jansen wearily opened her eyes before it reached her lips.

  Dr. Dench restrained her sudden effort to rise.

  “Drink this, please!” There was nothing but professional command in his voice. If he loved the gray-pallored girl in the chair, his emotions were under superb control.

  Madelyn stepped to the background, motioning me quietly.

  “I fancy I can leave now safely. I am going back to town.”

  “Town?” I echoed.

  “I should be back the latter part of the afternoon. Would it inconvenience you to wait here?”

  “But, why on earth—” I began.

  “Will you tell the butler to send around the car? Thanks!”

  When Madelyn doesn’t choose to answer questions she ignores them. I subsided as gracefully as possible. As her machine whirled under the porte cochere, however, my curiosity again overflowed my restraint.

  “At least, who is Orlando Julio?” I demanded.

  Madelyn carefully adjusted her veil.

  “The man who provided the means for the death of Wendell Marsh!” And she was gone.

  I swept another glance at the trio on the side veranda, and with what I tried to convince myself was a philosophical shrug, although I knew perfectly well it was merely a pettish fling, sought a retired corner of the rear drawing room, with my pad and pencil.

  After all, I was a newspaper woman, and it needed no elastic imagination to picture the scene in the city room of the Bugle, if I failed to send a proper accounting of myself.

  A few minutes later a tread of feet, advancing to the stairs, told me that the coroner and Dr. Dench were ascending for the belated examination of Wendell Marsh’s body. Miss Jansen had evidently recovered, or been assigned to the ministrations of her maid. Once Peters, the wooden-faced butler, entered ghostily to inform me that luncheon would be served at one, but effaced himself almost before my glance returned to my writing.

  I partook of the meal in the distinguished company of Sheriff Peddicord. Apparently Dr. Dench was still busied in his gruesome task upstairs, and it was not surprising that Miss Jansen preferred her own apartments.

  However much the sheriff’s professional poise might have been jarred by the events of the morning, his appetite had not been affected. His attention was too absorbed in the effort to do justice to the Marsh hospitality to waste time in table talk.

  He finished his last spoonful of strawberry ice cream with a heavy sigh of contentment, removed the napkin, which he had tucked under his collar, and, as though mindful of the family’s laundry bills, folded it carefully and wiped his lips with h
is red handkerchief. It was not until then that our silence was interrupted.

  Glancing cautiously about the room, and observing that the butler had been called kitchenward, to my amazement he essayed a confidential wink.

  “I say,” he ventured enticingly, leaning his elbow on the table, “what I would like to know is what became of that there other man!”

  “Are you familiar with the Fourth Dimension, Sheriff?” I returned solemnly. I rose from my chair, and stepped toward him confidentially in my turn. “I believe that a thorough study of that subject would answer your question.”

  It was three o’clock when I stretched myself in my corner of the drawing-room, and stuffed the last sheets of my copy paper into a special-delivery-stamped envelope.

  My story was done. And Madelyn was not there to blue-pencil the Park Row adjectives! I smiled rather gleefully as I patted my hair and leisurely addressed the envelope. The city editor would be satisfied, if Madelyn wasn’t!

  As I stepped into the hall, Dr. Dench, the coroner, and Sheriff Peddicord were descending the stairs. Evidently the medical examination had been completed. Under other circumstances the three expressions before me would have afforded an interesting study in contrasts—Dr. Dench trimming his nails with professional stoicism, the coroner endeavoring desperately to copy the other’s sang-froid, and the sheriff buried in an owllike solemnity.

  Dr. Dench restored his knife to his pocket.

  “You are Miss Mack’s assistant, I understand?”

  I bowed.

  “Miss Mack has been called away. She should be back, however, shortly.”

  I could feel the doctor’s appraising glance dissecting me with much the deliberateness of a surgical operation. I raised my eyes suddenly, and returned his stare. It was a virile, masterful face—and, I had to admit, coldly handsome!

  Dr. Dench snapped open his watch.

  “Very well then, Miss, Miss—”

  “Noraker!” I supplied crisply.

  The blond beard inclined the fraction of an inch.

  “We will wait.”

  “The autopsy?” I ventured. “Has it—”

  “The result of the autopsy I will explain to—Miss Mack!”

  I bit my lip, felt my face flush as I saw that Sheriff Peddicord was trying to smother a grin, and turned with a rather unsuccessful shrug.

  Now, if I had been of a vindictive nature, I would have opened my envelope and inserted a retaliating paragraph that would have returned the snub of Dr. Dench with interest. I flatter myself that I consigned the envelope to the Three Forks post office, in the rear of the Elite Dry Goods Emporium, with its contents unchanged.

  As a part recompense, I paused at a corner drugstore and permitted a young man with a gorgeous pink shirt to make me a chocolate ice-cream soda. I was bent over an asthmatic straw when, through the window, I saw Madelyn’s car skirt the curb.

  I rushed out to the sidewalk, while the young man stared dazedly after me. The chauffeur swerved the machine as I tossed a dime to the Adonis of the fountain.

  Madelyn shifted to the end of the seat as I clambered to her side. One glance was quite enough to show that her town mission, whatever it was, had ended in failure. Perhaps it was the consciousness of this fact that brought my eyes next to her blue turquoise locket. It was open. I glared accusingly.

  “So you have fallen back on the cola stimulant again, Miss Mack?”

  She nodded glumly, and perversely slipped into her mouth another of the dark brown berries, on which I have known her to keep up for forty-eight hours without sleep and almost without food.

  For a moment I forgot even my curiosity as to her errand.

  “I wish the duty would be raised so high you couldn’t get those things into the country!”

  She closed her locket, without deigning a response. The more volcanic my outburst, the more glacial Madelyn’s coldness—particularly on the cola topic. I shrugged in resignation. I might as well have done so in the first place!

  I straightened my hat, drew my handkerchief over my flushed face, and coughed questioningly. Continued silence. I turned in desperation.

  “Well?” I surrendered.

  “Don’t you know enough, Nora Noraker, to hold your tongue?”

  My pent-up emotions snapped.

  “Look here, Miss Mack, I have been snubbed by Dr. Dench and the coroner, grinned at by Sheriff Peddicord, and I am not going to be crushed by you! What is your report—good, bad, or indifferent?”

  Madelyn turned from her stare into the dust-yellow road.

  “I have been a fool, Nora—a blind, bigoted, self-important fool!”

  I drew a deep breath.

  “Which means—”

  From her bag Madelyn drew the envelope of dead tobacco ashes from the Marsh library, and tossed it over the side of the car. I sank back against the cushions.

  “Then the tobacco after all—”

  “Is nothing but tobacco—harmless tobacco!”

  “But the pipe—I thought the pipe—”

  “That’s just it! The pipe, my dear girl, killed Wendell Marsh! But I don’t know how! I don’t know how!”

  “Madelyn,” I said severely, “you are a woman, even if you are making your living at a man’s profession! What you need is a good cry!”

  Dr. Dench, pacing back and forth across the veranda, knocked the ashes from an amber-stemmed meerschaum and advanced to meet us as we alighted. The coroner and Sheriff Peddicord were craning their necks from wicker chairs in the background. It was easy enough to surmise that Dr. Dench had parted from them abruptly in the desire for a quiet smoke to marshal his thoughts.

  “Fill your pipe again if you wish,” said Madelyn. “I don’t mind.”

  Dr. Dench inclined his head, and dug the mouth of his meerschaum into a fat leather pouch. A spiral of blue smoke soon curled around his face. He was one of that type of men to whom a pipe lends a distinction of studious thoughtfulness.

  With a slight gesture he beckoned in the direction of the coroner.

  “It is proper, perhaps, that Dr. Williams in his official capacity should be heard first.”

  Through the smoke of his meerschaum, his eyes were searching Madelyn’s face. It struck me that he was rather puzzled as to just how seriously to take her.

  The coroner shuffled nervously. At his elbow, Sheriff Peddicord fumbled for his red handkerchief.

  “We have made a thorough examination of Mr. Marsh’s body, Miss Mack, a most thorough examination—”

  “Of course he was not shot, nor stabbed, nor strangled, nor sandbagged?” interrupted Madelyn crisply.

  The coroner glanced at Dr. Dench uncertainly. The latter was smoking with inscrutable face.

  “Nor poisoned!” finished the coroner with a quick breath.

  A blue smoke curl from Dr. Dench’s meerschaum vanished against the sun. The coroner jingled a handful of coins in his pocket. The sound jarred on my nerves oddly. Not poisoned! Then Madelyn’s theory of the pipe—

  My glance swerved in her direction. Another blank wall—the blankest in this riddle of blank walls!

  But the bewilderment I had expected in her face I did not find. The black dejection I had noticed in the car had dropped like a whisked-off cloak. The tired lines had been erased as by a sponge. Her eyes shone with that tense glint which I knew came only when she saw a befogged way swept clear before her.

  “You mean that you found no trace of poison?” she corrected.

  The coroner drew himself up.

  “Under the supervision of Dr. Dench, we have made a most complete probe of the various organs—lungs, stomach, heart—”

  “And brain, I presume?”

  “Brain? Certainly not!”

  “And you?” Madelyn turned toward Dr. Dench. “You subscribe to Dr. Williams’ opinion?”

  Dr. Dench removed his meerschaum.

  “From our examination of Mr. Marsh’s body, I am prepared to state emphatically that there is no trace of toxic condition of any
kind!”

  “Am I to infer then that you will return a verdict of—natural death?”

  Dr. Dench stirred his pipe-ashes.

  “I was always under the impression, Miss Mack, that the verdict in a case of this kind must come from the coroner’s jury.”

  Madelyn pinned back her veil, and removed her gloves.

  “There is no objection to my seeing the body again?”

  The coroner stared.

  “Why, er—the undertaker has it now. I don’t see why he should object, if you wish—”

  Madelyn stepped to the door. Behind her, Sheriff Peddicord stirred suddenly.

  “I say, what I would like to know, gents, is what became of that there other man!”

  It was not until six o’clock that I saw Madelyn again, and then I found her in Wendell Marsh’s red library. She was seated at its late tenant’s huge desk. Before her were a vial of whitish-grey powder, a small rubber inked roller, a half a dozen sheets of paper, covered with what looked like smudges of black ink, and Raleigh’s pipe. I stopped short, staring.

  She rose with a shrug.

  “Fingerprints,” she explained laconically. “This sheet belongs to Miss Jansen; the next to her maid; the third to the butler, Peters; the fourth to Dr. Dench; the fifth to Wendell Marsh, himself. It was my first experiment in taking the ‘prints’ of a dead man. It was—interesting.”

  “But what has that to do with a case of this kind?” I demanded.

  Madelyn picked up the sixth sheet of smudged paper.

  “We have here the fingerprints of Wendell Marsh’s murderer!”

  I did not even cry my amazement. I suppose the kaleidoscope of the day had dulled my normal emotions. I remember that I readjusted a loose pin in my waist before I spoke.

  “The murderer of Wendell Marsh!” I repeated mechanically. “Then he was poisoned?”

  Madelyn’s eyes opened and closed without answer.

  I reached over to the desk, and picked up Mr. Marsh’s letter of the morning post at Madelyn’s elbow.

  “You have found the man who forged this?”

  “It was not forged!”

  In my daze I dropped the letter to the floor.

  “You have discovered then the other man in the death-struggle that wrecked the library?”