In the Shadow of Agatha Christie

by Leslie S. Klinger

  Was she to be believed? There was the half-crown in Mrs. Todhetley’s hand, and there was the honest wrinkled old face looking up at us openly. But, on the other side, there was the assertion of the Islip people; and there was the earring.

  “What was the matter with your daughter, and in what part of Worcester does she live?” queried the mater.

  “She’s second servant to a family in Melcheapen Street, ma’am, minds the children and does the beds, and answers the door, and that. When I got there—and sick enough my heart felt all the way, thinking what the matter could be—I found that she had fell from the parlour window that she’d got outside to clean, and broke her arm and scarred her face, and frighted and shook herself finely. But thankful enough I was that ’twas no worse. Her father, ma’am, died of an accident, and I can never abear to hear tell of one.”

  “I—I lost an earring out of my ear that afternoon,” said Mrs. Todhetley, plunging into the matter, but not without hesitation. “I think I must have lost it just about the time I was talking to you. Did you pick it up?”

  “No, ma’am, I didn’t. I should have gave it to you if I had.”

  “You did not carry it off with you, I suppose!” interrupted wrathful Molly; who had come in to get some eggs, under pretence that the batter-pudding was waiting for them.

  And whether it was Molly’s sharp and significant tone, or our silence and looks, I don’t know; but the woman saw it all then, and what she was suspected of.

  “Oh, ma’am, were you thinking that ill of me?”—and the hands shook as they were raised, and the white border seemed to lift itself from the horror-stricken face. “Did you think I could do so ill a turn, and after all the kindness showed me? The good Lord above knows I’m not a thief. Dear heart! I never set eyes, lady, on the thing you’ve lost.”

  “No, I am sure you didn’t,” I cried; “I said so all along. It might have dropped anywhere in the road.”

  “I never see it, nor touched it, sir,” she reiterated, the tears raining down her cheeks. “Oh, ma’am, do believe me!”

  Molly tossed her head as she went out with the eggs in her apron; but I would sooner have believed myself guilty than that poor woman. Mrs. Todhetley thought with me. She offered her some warm ale and a crust; but the old woman shook her head in refusal, and went off in a fit of crying.

  “She knows no more of the earring than I know of it, mother.”

  “I feel sure she does not, Johnny.”

  “That Molly’s getting unbearable. I wonder you don’t send her away.”

  “She has her good points, dear,” sighed Mrs. Todhetley. “Only think of her cooking! and of what a thrifty, careful manager she is!”

  The Squire and Tod got home for lunch. Nothing could come up to their ridicule when they heard what had occurred, saying that the mother and I were two muffs, fit to go about the world in a caravan as specimens of credulity. Like Molly, they thought we ought to have secured the woman.

  “But you see she was honest in the matter of the half-crown,” debated Mrs. Todhetley, in her mild way. “She brought that back. It does not stand to reason that she would have dared to come within miles of the place, if she had taken the earring.”

  “Why, it’s just the thing she would do,” retorted the Squire, pacing about in a commotion. “Once she had got rid of the earring, she’d show up here to throw suspicion off herself. And she couldn’t come without returning the half-crown: it must have gone nicely against the grain to return that.”

  And Mrs. Todhetley, the most easily swayed spirit in the world, began to veer round again like a weathercock, and fear we had been foolish.

  “You should see her jagged-out old red shawl,” cried Molly, triumphantly. “All the red a’most washed out of it, and the edges in tatters. I know a tramp when I sees one: and the worst of all tramps is them that do the tricks with clean hands and snow-white cap-borders.”

  The theme lasted us all the afternoon. I held my tongue, for it was of no use contending against the stream. It was getting dusk when Cole called in, on his way from the Coneys. The Squire laid the grievance before him, demanding whether he had ever heard of two people so simple as I and the mother.

  “What did she say her name was?” asked Cole. “Nutten?—of Islip? Are you sure she did not say Norton?”

  “She said Nutt’n. We interpreted it into Nutten.”

  “Yes, Johnny, that’s how she would say it. I’ll lay a guinea it’s old Granny Norton.”

  “Granny Norton!” echoed the Squire. “She is respectable.”

  “Respectable, honest, upright as the day,” replied Cole. “I have a great respect for old Mrs. Norton. She’s very poor now; but she was not always so.”

  “She told us this morning that she lived in the cottage by the dung-heap, I put in.”

  “Exactly: she does so. And a nice dung-heap it is; the disgrace of Islip,” added Cole.

  “And you mean to say, Cole, that you know this woman—that she’s not a tramp, but Mrs. Norton?” spoke the pater.

  “I know Mrs. Norton of Islip,” he answered. “I saw her pass my window this morning: she seemed to be coming from the railway-station. It was no tramp, Squire.”

  “How was she dressed?” asked Mrs. Todhetley.

  “Dressed? Well, her shawl was red, and her bonnet black. I’ve never seen her dressed otherwise, when abroad, these ten years past.”

  “And—has she a daughter in service at Worcester?”

  “Yes, I think so. Yes, I am sure so. It’s Susan. Oh, it is the same person: you need not doubt it.”

  “Then what the deuce did Luke Macintosh mean by bringing word back from Islip that she was not known there?” fiercely demanded the Squire, turning to me.

  “But Luke said he asked for her by the name of Nutt—Mrs. Nutt. I questioned him about it this afternoon, sir, and he said he understood Nutt to have been the name we gave him.”

  This was very unsatisfactory as far as the earring went. (And we ascertained later that poor Mrs. Norton was Mrs. Norton, and had been suspected wrongly.) For, failing the tramp view of the case, who could have sold the earring to the professional gentleman in Worcester?

  “Cripp knows what he is about; never fear,” observed the Squire. “Now that he has the case well in hand, he is sure to pull it successfully through.”

  “Yes, you may trust Cripp,” said the doctor. “And I hope, Mrs. Todhetley, you will soon be gladdened by the sight of your earring again.” And Cole went out, telling us we were going to have a thaw. Which we could have told him, for it had already set in, and the snow was melting rapidly.

  “To think that I should have done so stupid a thing. But I have been so flustered this morning by that parson and his nonsense that I hardly know what I’m about.”

  The speaker was Miss Timmens. She had come up in a passion, after twelve o’clock school. Not with us, or with her errand—which was to bring one of the new shirts to show, made after Tod’s fancy—but with the young parson. Upon arriving and unfolding the said shirt, Miss Timmens found that she had brought the wrong shirt—one of those previously finished. The thaw had gone on so briskly in the night that this morning the roads were all mud and slop, and Miss Timmens had walked up in her pattens.

  “He is enough to make a saint swear, with his absurdities and his rubbish,” went on Miss Timmens, turning from the table where lay the unfolded shirt, and speaking of the new parson; between whom and herself hot war waged. “You’d never believe, ma’am, what he did this morning”—facing Mrs. Todhetley. “I had got the spelling-class up, and the rest of the girls were at their slates and copies, and that, when in he walked amidst the roomful. ‘Miss Timmens,’ says he to me, in the hearing of them all, ‘I think these children should learn a little music. And perhaps a little drawing might not come amiss to those who have talent for it.’ ‘Oh yes, of course,’ says I, hardly able to keep my temper, ‘and a little dancing as well, and let ’em go out on the green daily and step their figures to a fife and
tambourine!’ ‘There’s nothing like education,’ he goes on, staring hard at me, as if he hardly knew whether to take my words for jest or earnest; ‘and it is well to unite, as far as we can, the ornamental with the useful, it makes life pleasanter. It is quite right to teach girls to hem dusters and darn stockings, but I think some fancy-work should be added to it: embroidery and the like.’ ‘Oh, you great baby!’ I thought to myself, and did but just stop my tongue from saying it. ‘Will embroidery and music and drawing help these girls to scour floors, and cook dinners, and wash petticoats?’ I asked him. ‘If I had a set of young ladies here, it would be right for them to learn accomplishments; but these girls are to be servants. And all I can say, sir, is, that if ever those new-fangled notions are introduced, you’ll have to find another mistress, for I’ll not stop to help in it. It would just lead many a girl to her ruin, sir; that’s what it would do, whoever lives to see it.’ Well, he went away with that, ma’am, but he had put my temper up—talking such dangerous nonsense before the girls, their ears all agape to listen!—and when twelve o’clock struck, I was not half through the spelling-class! Altogether, it’s no wonder I brought away the wrong shirt.”

  Miss Timmens, her errand a failure, began folding up the shirt in a bustle, her thin face quite fiery with anger. Mrs. Todhetley shook her head; she did not approve of nonsensical notions for these poor peasant girls any more than did the rest of us.

  “I’ll bring up the right shirt this evening when school’s over; and if it suits we’ll get on with the rest,” concluded Miss Timmens, making her exit with the parcel.

  “What the world will come to later, Mr. Johnny, if these wild ideas get much ground, puzzles me to think of,” resumed Miss Timmens, as I went with her, talking, along the garden-path. “We shall have no servants, sir; none. It does not stand to reason that a girl will work for her bread at menial offices when she has had fine notions instilled into her. Grammar, and geography, and history, and botany, and music, and singing, and fancy-work!—what good will they be of to her in making beds and cleaning saucepans? The upshot will be that they won’t make beds and they won’t clean saucepans; they’ll be above it. The Lord protect ’em!—for I don’t see what else will; or what will become of them. Or of the world, either, when it can get no servants. My goodness, Master Johnny! what’s that? Surely it’s the lost earring?”

  Close to the roots of a small fir-tree it lay: the earring that had caused so much vexation and hunting. I picked it up: its pink topaz and diamonds shone brightly as ever in the sun, and were quite uninjured. Mrs. Todhetley remembered then, though it had slipped her memory before, that in coming indoors after the interview with the woman at the gate, she had stopped to shake this fir-tree, bowed down almost to breaking with its weight of snow. The earring must have fallen from her ear then into the snow, and been hidden by it.

  Without giving himself time for a mouthful of lunch, the Squire tore away to the station through the mud, as fast as his legs would carry him, and thence to Worcester by train. What an unfortunate mistake it would be should that professional gentleman have been accused, who had bought something from the travelling pedlar!

  “Well, Cripp, here’s a fine discovery!” panted the Squire, as he went bursting into the police-station and to the presence of Sergeant Cripp. “The lost earring has turned up.”

  “I’m sure I am very glad to hear it,” said the sergeant, facing round from a letter he was writing. “How has it been found?”

  And the Squire told him how.

  “It was not stolen at all, then?”

  “Not at all, Cripp. And the poor creature we suspected of taking it proves to be a very respectable old body indeed, nothing of the tramp about her. You—you have not gone any lengths yet with that professional gentleman, I hope!” added the Squire, dropping his voice to a confidential tone.

  Cripp paused for a minute, as if not understanding.

  “We have not employed any professional man at all in the matter,” said he; “have not thought of doing so.”

  “I don’t mean that, Cripp. You know. The gentleman you suspected of having bought the earring.”

  Cripp stared. “I have not suspected any one.”

  “Goodness me! you need not be so cautious, Cripp,” returned the Squire, somewhat nettled. “Eccles made a confidant of me. He told me all about it—except the name.”

  “What Eccles?” asked Cripp. “I really do not know what you are talking of, sir.”

  “What Eccles—why, your Eccles. Him you sent over to me on Sunday afternoon: a well-dressed, gentlemanly man, with a black moustache. Detective Eccles.”

  “I do not know any Detective Eccles.”

  “Dear me, my good man, you must be losing your memory!” retorted the Squire, in wrath. “He came straight to me from you on Sunday; you sent him off in haste without his dinner.”

  “Quite a mistake, sir,” said the sergeant. “It was not I who sent him.”

  “Why, bless my heart and mind, Cripp, you’ll be for telling me next the sun never shone! Where’s your recollection gone to?”

  “I hope my recollection is where it always has been, Squire. We must be at cross-purposes. I do not know any one of the name of Eccles, and I have not sent any one to you. As a proof that I could not have done it, I may tell you, sir, that I was summoned to Gloucester on business last Friday directly after I saw you, and did not get back here until this morning.”

  The Squire rubbed his face, whilst he revolved probabilities, and thought Cripp must be dreaming.

  “He came direct from you—from yourself, Cripp; and he disclosed to me your reasons for hoping you had found the earring, and your doubts of the honesty of the man who had bought it—the lawyer, you remember. And he brought back the other earring to you that you might compare them.”

  “Eh—what?” cried Cripp, briskly. “Brought away the other earring, do you say, sir?”

  “To be sure he did. What else did you send him for?”

  “And he has not returned it to you?”

  “Returned it! of course not. You hold it, don’t you?”

  “Then, Squire Todhetley, you have been cleverly robbed of this second earring,” cried Cripp, quietly. “Dodged out of it, sir. The man who went over to you must have been a member of the swell-mob. Well-dressed, and a black moustache!”

  “He was a college man, had been at Oxford,” debated the unfortunate pater, sitting on a chair in awful doubt. “He told me so.”

  “You did not see him there, sir,” said the sergeant, with a suppressed laugh. “I might tell you I had a duke for a grandmother; but it would be none nearer the fact.”

  “Mercy upon us all!” groaned the Squire. “What a mortification it will be if that other earring’s gone! Don’t you think some one in your station here may have sent him, if you were out yourself?”

  “I will inquire, for your satisfaction, Squire Todhetley,” said the sergeant, opening the door; “but I can answer for it beforehand that it will be useless.”

  It was as Cripp thought. Eccles was not known at the station, and no one had been sent to us.

  “It all comes of that advertisement you put in, Squire,” finished up Cripp, by way of consolation. “The swell-mob would not have known there was a valuable jewel missing but for that, or the address of those who had missed it.”

  The pater came home more crestfallen than a whipped schoolboy, after leaving stringent orders with Cripp and his men to track out the swindler. It was a blow to all of us.

  “I said he looked as much like a detective as I’m like a Dutchman,” quoth Tod.

  “Well, it’s frightfully mortifying,” said the Squire.

  “And the way he polished off that beef, and drank down the ale! I wonder he did not contrive to walk off with the silver tankard!”

  “Be quiet, Joe! You are laughing, sir! Do you think it is a laughing matter?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said bold Tod. “It was cleverly done.”

  Up rose the pa
ter in a passion. Vowing vengeance against the swindlers who went about the world, got up in good clothes and a moustache; and heartily promising the absent and unconscious Cripp to be down upon him if he did not speedily run the man to earth.

  And that’s how Mrs. Todhetley lost the other earring.

  Mrs. George (Elizabeth) Corbett was an English writer of mysteries and feminist literature, at one point as highly regarded as Conan Doyle. In 1890, Corbett published a collection of fifteen short stories titled Secrets of a Private Inquiry Office, in which a female detective named Dora plays a small part. She also apparently wrote a collection of stories titled Adventures of a Lady Detective, though no information is available about this work except that it is referred to in some advertisements for Corbett’s other books. In 1891, Corbett published a series of ten stories in the Leicester Chronicle titled Behind the Veil, or Revelations by a Lady Detective, which is subtitled Being Further Secrets of a Private Inquiry Office.* In this collection of stories, the “lady detective” is again Dora White, though she is not the narrator nor does she appear in every tale. What may be a different, later collection, ten stories from which appeared in the Leeds Mercury in 1892, appears to be called Experiences of a Lady Detective.† These stories are narrated by Dora Bell, an agent of Bell & White Agency (suggesting that these were in fact written after Revelations), and an example follows. In 1894, a series of twelve stories appeared in the Adelaide Observer as The Adventures of Dora Bell, Detective,‡ and these stories are narrated by Dora.§ The advertisements for these latter stories mention both Adventures and Revelations but not Experiences—could Revelations be merely a reprint of Adventures of a Lady Detective? To add to the confusion, the advertisements for neither Revelations nor Experiences mention any of the other collection titles. Corbett wrote more than two dozen stories about including her lady detective—perhaps more!

  * The ten stories were “Fair Deceiver,” “Miss Kelmersley’s Party and What Became of It,” “Breach of Promise,” “Birds of a Feather,” “Fool and His Money,” “The Begging Letter,” “Point of Honour,” “How We Stimulated Sim Kernahau’s Memory,” “Who Was the Heir?,” and “Between Two Stools.” The first appeared in the Saturday, October 31, 1891, issue, and the balance appeared on succeeding Saturdays.