The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK ™: 20 Modern and Classic Tales of Female Detectives

by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

  “What is it?” asked Mr. Gryce, with a quick movement in his direction.

  For answer the officer pointed to the staircase visible through the antechamber door.

  “Go up!” was indicated by his gesture.

  Mr. Gryce demurred, casting a glance around the room, which at that moment interested him so deeply. At this the man showed some excitement, and, breaking silence, said:

  “Come! I have lighted on the guilty party. He is in a room upstairs.”

  “He?” Mr. Gryce was evidently surprised at the pronoun.

  “Yes; there can be no doubt about it. When you see him—but what is that? Is he coming down? I’m sure there’s nobody else in the house. Don’t you hear footsteps, sir?”

  Mr. Gryce nodded. Some one was certainly descending the stairs.

  “Let us retreat,” suggested Styles. “Not because the man is dangerous, but because it is very necessary you should see him before he sees you. He’s a very strange-acting man, sir; and if he comes in here, will be sure to do something to incriminate himself. Where can we hide?”

  Mr. Gryce remembered the little room he had just left, and drew the officer toward it. Once installed inside, he let the curtain drop till only a small loophole remained. The steps, which had been gradually growing louder, kept advancing; and presently they could hear the intruder’s breathing, which was both quick and labored.

  “Does he know that any one has entered the house? Did he see you when you came upon him upstairs?” whispered Mr. Gryce into the ear of the man beside him.

  Styles shook his head, and pointed eagerly toward the opposite door. The man for whose appearance they waited had just lifted the portière and in another moment stood in full view just inside the threshold.

  Mr. Gryce and his attendant colleague both stared. Was this the murderer? This pale, lean servitor, with a tray in his hand on which rested a single glass of water?

  Mr. Gryce was so astonished that he looked at Styles for explanation. But that officer, hiding his own surprise, for he had not expected this peaceful figure, urged him in a whisper to have patience, and both, turning toward the man again, beheld him advance, stop, cast one look at the figure lying on the floor and then let slip the glass with a low cry that at once changed to something like a howl.

  “Look at him! Look at him!” urged Styles, in a hurried whisper. “Watch what he will do now. You will see a murderer at work.”

  And sure enough, in another instant this strange being, losing all semblance to his former self, entered upon a series of pantomimic actions which to the two men who watched him seemed both to explain and illustrate the crime which had just been enacted there.

  With every appearance of passion, he stood contemplating the empty air before him, and then, with one hand held stretched out behind him in a peculiarly cramped position, he plunged with the other toward a table from which he made a feint of snatching something which he no sooner closed his hand upon than he gave a quick side-thrust, still at the empty air, which seemed to quiver in return, so vigorous was his action and so evident his intent.

  The reaction following this thrust; the slow unclosing of his hand from an imaginary dagger; the tottering of his body backward; then the moment when with wide open eyes he seemed to contemplate in horror the result of his own deed—these needed no explanation beyond what was given by his writhing features and trembling body. Gradually succumbing to the remorse or terror of his own crime, he sank lower and lower, until, though with that one arm still stretched out, he lay in an inert heap on the floor.

  “It is what I saw him do upstairs,” murmured Styles into the ear of the amazed detective. “He has evidently been driven insane by his own act.”

  Mr. Gryce made no answer. Here was a problem for the solution of which he found no precedent in all his past experience.

  CHAPTER III

  THE MUTE SERVITOR

  Meanwhile the man who, to all appearance, had just re-enacted before them the tragedy which had so lately taken place in this room, rose to his feet, and, with a dazed air as unlike his former violent expression as possible, stooped for the glass he had let fall, and was carrying it out when Mr. Gryce called to him:

  “Wait, man! You needn’t take that glass away. We first want to hear how your master comes to be lying here dead.”

  It was a demand calculated to startle any man. But this one showed himself totally unmoved by it, and was passing on when Styles laid a detaining hand on his shoulder.

  “Stop!” said he. “What do you mean by sliding off like this? Don’t you hear the gentleman speaking to you?”

  This time the appeal told. The glass fell again from the man’s hand, mingling its clink (for it struck the floor this time and broke) with the cry he gave—which was not exactly a cry either, but an odd sound between a moan and a shriek. He had caught sight of the men who were seeking to detain him, and his haggard look and cringing form showed that he realized at last the terrors of his position. Next minute he sought to escape, but Styles, gripping him more firmly, dragged him back to where Mr. Gryce stood beside the bearskin rug on which lay the form of his dead master.

  Instantly, at the sight of this recumbent figure, another change took place in the entrapped butler. Joy—that most hellish of passions in the presence of violence and death—illumined his wandering eye and distorted his mouth; and, seeking no disguise for the satisfaction he felt, he uttered a low but thrilling laugh, which rang in unholy echo through the room.

  Mr. Gryce, moved in spite of himself by an abhorrence which the irresponsible condition of this man seemed only to emphasize, waited till the last faint sounds of this diabolical mirth had died away in the high recesses of the space above. Then, fixing the glittering eye of this strange creature with his own, which, as we know, so seldom dwelt upon that of his fellow-beings, he sternly said:

  “There now! Speak! Who killed this man? You were in the house with him, and should know.”

  The butler’s lips opened and a string of strange gutturals poured forth, while with his one disengaged hand (for the other was held to his side by Styles) he touched his ears and his lips, and violently shook his head.

  There was but one interpretation to be given to this. The man was deaf and dumb.

  The shock of this discovery was too much for Styles. His hand fell from the other’s arms, and the man, finding himself free, withdrew to his former place in the room, where he proceeded to enact again and with increased vivacity first the killing of and then the mourning for his master, which but a few moments before had made so suggestive an impression upon them. This done, he stood waiting, but this time with that gleam of infernal joy in the depths of his quick, restless eyes which made his very presence in this room of death seem a sacrilege and horror.

  Styles could not stand it. “Can’t you speak?” he shouted. “Can’t you hear?”

  The man only smiled, an evil and gloating smile, which Mr. Gryce thought it his duty to cut short.

  “Take him away!” he cried. “Examine him carefully for blood marks. I am going up to the room where you saw him first. He is too nearly linked to this crime not to carry some trace of it away with him.”

  But for once even this time-tried detective found himself at fault. No marks were found on the old servant, nor could they discover in the rooms above any signs by which this one remaining occupant of the house could be directly associated with the crime which had taken place within it. Thereupon Mr. Gryce grew very thoughtful and entered upon another examination of the two rooms which to his mind held all the clews that would ever be given to this strange crime.

  The result was meagre, and he was just losing himself again in contemplation of the upturned face, whose fixed mouth and haunting expression told such a story of suffering and determination, when there came from the dim recesses above his head a cry, which,
forming itself into two words, rang down with startling clearness in this most unexpected of appeals:

  “Remember Evelyn!”

  Remember Evelyn! Who was Evelyn? And to whom did this voice belong, in a house which had already been ransacked in vain for other occupants? It seemed to come from the roof, and, sure enough, when Mr. Gryce looked up he saw, swinging in a cage strung up nearly to the top of one of the windows I have mentioned, an English starling, which, in seeming recognition of the attention it had drawn upon itself, craned its neck as Mr. Gryce looked up, and shrieked again, with fiercer insistence than before:

  “Remember Evelyn!”

  It was the last uncanny touch in a series of uncanny experiences. With an odd sense of nightmare upon him, Mr. Gryce leaned forward on the study table in his effort to obtain a better view of this bird, when, without warning, the white light, which since his last contact with the electrical apparatus had spread itself through the room, changed again to green, and he realized that he had unintentionally pressed a button and thus brought into action another slide in the curious lamp over his head.

  Annoyed, for these changing hues offered a problem he was as yet too absorbed in other matters to make any attempt to solve, he left the vicinity of the table, and was about to leave the room when he heard Styles’s voice rise from the adjoining antechamber, where Styles was keeping guard over the old butler:

  “Shall I let him go, Mr. Gryce? He seems very uneasy; not dangerous, you know, but anxious; as if he had forgotten something or recalled some unfulfilled duty.”

  “Yes, let him go,” was the detective’s quick reply. “Only watch and follow him. Every movement he makes is of interest. Unconsciously he may be giving us invaluable clews.” And he approached the door to note for himself what the man might do.

  “Remember Evelyn!” rang out the startling cry from above, as the detective passed between the curtains. Irresistibly he looked back and up. To whom was this appeal from a bird’s throat so imperatively addressed? To him or to the man on the floor beneath, whose ears were forever closed? It might be a matter of little consequence, and it might be one involving the very secret of this tragedy. But whether important or not, he could pay no heed to it at this juncture, for the old butler, coming from the front hall whither he had hurried on being released by Styles, was at that moment approaching him, carrying in one hand his master’s hat and in the other his master’s umbrella.

  Not knowing what this new movement might mean, Mr. Gryce paused where he was and waited for the man to advance. Seeing this, the mute, to whose face and bearing had returned the respectful immobility of the trained servant, handed over the articles he had brought, and then noiselessly, and with the air of one who had performed an expected service, retreated to his old place in the antechamber, where he sat down again and fell almost immediately into his former dazed condition.

  “Humph! mind quite lost, memory uncertain, testimony valueless,” were the dissatisfied reflections of the disappointed detective as he replaced Mr. Adams’s hat and umbrella on the hall rack. “Has he been brought to this state by the tragedy which has just taken place here, or is his present insane condition its precursor and cause?” Mr. Gryce might have found some answer to this question in his own mind if, at that moment, the fitful clanging of the front door bell, which had hitherto testified to the impatience of the curious crowd outside, had not been broken into by an authoritative knock which at once put an end to all self-communing.

  The coroner, or some equally important person, was at hand, and the detective’s golden hour was over.

  CHAPTER IV

  A NEW EXPERIENCE FOR MR. GRYCE

  Mr. Gryce felt himself at a greater disadvantage in his attempt to solve the mystery of this affair than in any other which he had entered upon in years. First, the victim had been a solitary man, with no household save his man-of-all-work, the mute. Secondly, he had lived in a portion of the city where no neighbors were possible; and he had even lacked, as it now seemed, any very active friends. Though some hours had elapsed since his death had been noised abroad, no one had appeared at the door with inquiries or information. This seemed odd, considering that he had been for some months a marked figure in this quarter of the town. But, then, everything about this man was odd, nor would it have been in keeping with his surroundings and peculiar manner of living for him to have had the ordinary associations of men of his class.

  This absence of the usual means of eliciting knowledge from the surrounding people, added to, rather than detracted from, the interest which Mr. Gryce was bound to feel in the case, and it was with a feeling of relief that a little before midnight he saw the army of reporters, medical men, officials, and such others as had followed in the coroner’s wake, file out of the front door and leave him again, for a few hours at least, master of the situation.

  For there were yet two points which he desired to settle before he took his own much-needed rest. The first occupied his immediate attention. Passing before a chair in the hall on which a small boy sat dozing, he roused him with the remark:

  “Come, Jake, it’s time to look lively. I want you to go with me to the exact place where that lady ran across you today.”

  The boy, half dead with sleep, looked around him for his hat.

  “I’d like to see my mother first,” he pleaded. “She must be done up about me. I never stayed away so long before.”

  “Your mother knows where you are. I sent a message to her hours ago. She gave a very good report of you, Jake; says you’re an obedient lad and that you never have told her a falsehood.”

  “She’s a good mother,” the boy warmly declared. “I’d be as bad—as bad as my father was, if I did not treat her well.” Here his hand fell on his cap, which he put on his head.

  “I’m ready,” said he.

  Mr. Gryce at once led the way into the street.

  The hour was late, and only certain portions of the city showed any real activity. Into one of these thoroughfares they presently came, and before the darkened window of one of the lesser shops paused, while Jake pointed out the two stuffed frogs engaged with miniature swords in mortal combat at which he had been looking when the lady came up and spoke to him.

  Mr. Gryce eyed the boy rather than the frogs, though probably the former would have sworn that his attention had never left that miniature conflict.

  “Was she a pretty lady?” he asked.

  The boy scratched his head in some perplexity.

  “She made me a good deal afraid of her,” he said. “She had very splendid clothes; oh, gorgeous!” he cried, as if on this question there could be no doubt.

  “And she was young, and carried a bunch of flowers, and seemed troubled? What! not young, and carried no flowers—and wasn’t even anxious and trembling?”

  The boy, who had been shaking his head, looked nonplussed.

  “I think as she was what you might call troubled. But she wasn’t crying, and when she spoke to me, she put more feeling into her grip than into her voice. She just dragged me to the drug-store, sir. If she hadn’t given me money first, I should have wriggled away in spite of her. But I likes money, sir; I don’t get too much of it.”

  Mr. Gryce by this time was moving on. “Not young,” he repeated to himself. “Some old flame, then, of Mr. Adams; they’re apt to be dangerous, very dangerous, more dangerous than the young ones.”

  In front of the drug-store he paused. “Show me where she stood while you went in.”

  The boy pointed out the identical spot. He seemed as eager as the detective.

  “And was she standing there when you came out?”

  “Oh, no, sir; she went away while I was inside.”

  “Did you see her go? Can you tell me whether she went up street or down?”

  “I had one eye on her, sir; I was afraid she was coming into the sho
p after me, and my arm was too sore for me to want her to clinch hold on it again. So when she started to go, I took a step nearer, and saw her move toward the curbstone and hold up her hand. But it wasn’t a car she was after, for none came by for several minutes.”

  The fold between Mr. Gryce’s eyes perceptibly smoothed out.

  “Then it was some cabman or hack-driver she hailed. Were there any empty coaches about that you saw?”

  The boy had not noticed. He had reached the limit of his observations, and no amount of further questioning could elicit anything more from him. This Mr. Gryce soon saw, and giving him into the charge of one of his assistants who was on duty at this place, he proceeded back to the ill-omened house where the tragedy itself had occurred.

  “Any one waiting for me?” he inquired of Styles, who came to the door.

  “Yes, sir; a young man; name, Hines. Says he’s an electrician.”

  “That’s the man I want. Where is he?”

  “In the parlor, sir.”

  “Good! I’ll see him. But don’t let any one else in. Anybody upstairs?”

  “No, sir, all gone. Shall I go up or stay here?”

  “You’d better go up. I’ll look after the door.”

  Styles nodded, and went toward the stairs, up which he presently disappeared. Mr. Gryce proceeded to the parlor.

  A dapper young man with an intelligent eye rose to meet him. “You sent for me,” said he.

  The detective nodded, asked a few questions, and seeming satisfied with the replies he received, led the way into Mr. Adams’s study, from which the body had been removed to an upper room. As they entered, a mild light greeted them from a candle which, by Mr. Gryce’s orders, had been placed on a small side table near the door. But once in, Mr. Gryce approached the larger table in the centre of the room, and placing his hand on one of the buttons before him, asked his companion to be kind enough to blow out the candle. This he did, leaving the room for a moment in total darkness. Then with a sudden burst of illumination, a marvellous glow of a deep violet color shot over the whole room, and the two men turned and faced each other both with inquiry in their looks, so unexpected was this theatrical effect to the one, and so inexplicable its cause and purpose to the other.