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

by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

  But alas! His was the peremptoriness of pride rather than love. John Poindexter has no more heart for his daughter than he had for his wife or that long-forgotten child from whose grave this tragedy has sprung. Had Felix triumphed he would never have wrung the heart of this man. As he once said, when a man cares for nothing and nobody, not even for himself, it is useless to curse him.

  As for Felix himself, judge him not, when you realize, as you now must, that his last conscious act was to reach for and put in his mouth the paper which connected Eva with his death. At the moment of death his thought was to save, not to avenge. And this after her hand had struck him.

  CHAPTER VI

  ANSWERED

  A silence more or less surcharged with emotion followed this final appeal. Then, while the various auditors of this remarkable history whispered together and Thomas Adams turned in love and anxiety toward his wife, the inspector handed back to Mr. Gryce the memorandum he had received from him.

  It presented the following appearance:

  1. Why a woman who was calm enough to stop and arrange her hair during the beginning of an interview should be wrought up to such a pitch of frenzy and exasperation before it was over as to kill with her own hand a man she had evidently had no previous grudge against. (Remember the comb found on the floor of Mr. Adams’s bedroom.)

  Answered

  2. What was the meaning of the following words, written just previous to this interview by the man thus killed: “I return you your daughter. Neither you nor she will ever see me again. Remember Evelyn!”

  Answered

  3. Why was the pronoun “I” used in this communication? What position did Mr. Felix Adams hold toward this young girl qualifying him to make use of such language after her marriage to his brother?

  Answered

  4. And having used it, why did he, upon being attacked by her, attempt to swallow the paper upon which he had written these words, actually dying with it clinched between his teeth?

  Answered

  5. If he was killed in anger and died as monsters do (her own word), why did his face show sorrow rather than hate, and a determination as far as possible removed from the rush of over-whelming emotions likely to follow the reception of a mortal blow from the hand of an unexpected antagonist?

  Answered

  6. Why, if he had strength to seize the above-mentioned paper and convey it to his lips, did he not use that strength in turning on a light calculated to bring him assistance, instead of leaving blazing the crimson glow which, according to the code of signals as now understood by us, means: “Nothing more required just now. Keep away?”

  Answered

  7. What was the meaning of the huge steel plate found between the casings of the doorway, and why did it remain at rest within its socket at this, the culminating, moment of his life?

  Answered

  8. An explanation of how old Poindexter came to appear on the scene so soon after the event. His words as overheard were: “It is Amos’ son, not Amos!” Did he not know whom he was to meet in this house? Was the condition of the man lying before him with a cross on his bosom and a dagger in his heart less of a surprise to him than the personality of the victim?

  Not Answered

  9. Remember the conclusions we have drawn from Bartow’s pantomime. Mr. Adams was killed by a left-handed thrust. Watch for an acknowledgment that the young woman is left-handed, and do not forget that an explanation is due why for so long a time she held her other arm stretched out behind her.

  Answered

  10. Why did the bird whose chief cry is “Remember Evelyn!” sometimes vary it with “Poor Eva! Lovely Eva! Who would strike Eva?” The story of this tragedy, to be true, must show that Mr. Adams knew his brother’s bride both long and well.

  Answered

  11. If Bartow is, as we think, innocent of all connection with this crime save as witness, why does he show such joy at its result? This may not reasonably be expected to fall within the scope of Thomas Adams’s confession, but it should not be ignored by us. This deaf-and-dumb servitor was driven mad by the fact which caused him joy. Why?[1]

  Answered

  12. Notice the following schedule. It has been drawn up after repeated experiments with Bartow and the various slides of the strange lamp which cause so many different lights to shine out in Mr. Adams’s study:

  White light—Water wanted.

  Green light—Overcoat and hat to be brought.

  Blue light—Put back books on shelves.

  Violet light—Arrange study for the night.

  Yellow light—Watch for next light.

  Red light—Nothing wanted; stay away.

  Answered

  The last was on at the final scene. Note if this fact can be explained by Mr. Adams’s account of the same.

  * * * *

  Two paragraphs alone lacked complete explanation. The first, No. 9, was important. The description of the stroke dealt by Mr. Adams’s wife did not account for this peculiar feature in Bartow’s pantomime. Consulting with the inspector, Mr. Gryce finally approached Mr. Adams and inquired if he had strength to enact before them the blow as he had seen it dealt by his wife.

  The startled young man looked the question he dared not ask. In common with others, he knew that Bartow had made some characteristic gestures in endeavoring to describe this crime, but he did not know what they were, as this especial bit of information had been carefully held back by the police. He, therefore, did not respond hastily to the suggestion made him, but thought intently for a moment before he thrust out his left hand and caught up some article or other from the inspector’s table and made a lunge with it across his body into an imaginary victim at his right. Then he consulted the faces about him with inexpressible anxiety. He found little encouragement in their aspect.

  “You would make your wife out left-handed,” suggested Mr. Gryce. “Now I have been watching her ever since she came into this place, and I have seen no evidence of this.”

  “She is not left-handed, but she thrust with her left hand, because her right was fast held in mine. I had seized her instinctively as she bounded forward for the weapon, and the convulsive clutch of our two hands was not loosed till the horror of her act made her faint, and she fell away from me to the floor crying: ‘Tear down the cross and lay it on your brother’s breast. I would at least see him die the death of a Christian.’”

  Mr. Gryce glanced at the inspector with an air of great relief. The mystery of the constrained attitude of the right hand which made Bartow’s pantomime so remarkable was now naturally explained, and taking up the blue pencil which the inspector had laid down, he wrote, with a smile, a very decided “answered” across paragraph No. 9.

  CHAPTER VII

  LAST WORDS

  A few minutes later Mr. Gryce was to be seen in the outer room, gazing curiously at the various persons there collected. He was seeking an answer to a question that was still disturbing his mind, and hoped to find it there. He was not disappointed. For in a quiet corner he encountered the amiable form of Miss Butterworth, calmly awaiting the result of an interference which she in all probability had been an active agent in bringing about.

  He approached and smilingly accused her of this. But she disclaimed the fact with some heat.

  “I was simply there,” she explained. “When the crisis came, when this young creature learned that her husband had left suddenly for New York in the company of two men, then—why then, it became apparent to every one that a woman should be at her side who understood her case and the extremity in which she found herself. And I was that woman.”

  “You are always that woman,” he gallantly replied, “if by the phrase you mean being in the right place at the right time. So you are already acquainted with Mrs. Adams’s story?”

  “Yes;
the ravings of a moment told me she was the one who had handled the dagger that slew Mr. Adams. Afterward, she was able to explain the cause of what has seemed to us such a horrible crime. When I heard her story, Mr. Gryce, I no longer hesitated either as to her duty or mine. Do you think she will be called upon to answer for this blow? Will she be tried, convicted?”

  “Madam, there are not twelve men in the city so devoid of intelligence as to apply the name of crime to an act which was so evidently one of self-defence. No true bill will be found against young Mrs. Adams. Rest easy.”

  The look of gloom disappeared from Miss Butterworth’s eyes.

  “Then I may return home in peace,” she cried. “It has been a desperate five hours for me, and I feel well shaken up. Will you escort me to my carriage?”

  Miss Butterworth did not look shaken up. Indeed, in Mr. Gryce’s judgment, she had never appeared more serene or more comfortable. But she was certainly the best judge of her own condition; and after satisfying herself that the object of her care was reviving under the solicitous ministrations of her husband, she took the arm which Mr. Gryce held out to her and proceeded to her carriage.

  As he assisted her in, he asked a few questions about Mr. Poindexter.

  “Why is not Mrs. Adams’s father here? Did he allow his daughter to leave him on such an errand as this without offering to accompany her?”

  The answer was curtness itself:

  “Mr. Poindexter is a man without heart. He came with us to New York, but refused to follow us to Police Headquarters. Sir, you will find that the united passions of three burning souls, and a revenge the most deeply cherished of any I ever knew or heard of, have been thrown away on a man who is positively unable to suffer. Do not mention old John Poindexter to me. And now, if you will be so good, tell the coachman to drive me to my home in Gramercy Park. I have put my finger in the police pie for the last time, Mr. Gryce—positively for the last time.” And she sank back on the carriage cushions with an inexorable look, which, nevertheless, did not quite conceal a quiet complacency which argued that she was not altogether dissatisfied with herself or the result of her interference in matters usually considered at variance with a refined woman’s natural instincts.

  Mr. Gryce, in repressing a smile, bowed lower even than his wont, and, under the shadow of this bow, the carriage drove off. As he walked slowly back, he sighed. Was he wondering if a case of similar interest would ever bring them together again in consultation?

  [1] It must be remembered that the scraps of writing in Felix’s hand had not yet been found by the police. The allusions in them to Bartow show him to have been possessed by a jealousy which probably turned to delight when he saw his master smitten down by the object of that master’s love and his own hatred. How he came to recognize in the bride of another man the owner of the name he so often saw hovering on the lips of his master, is a question to be answered by more astute students of the laws of perception than myself. Probably he spent much of his time at the loophole on the stairway, studying his master till he understood his every gesture and expression.

  MISS CAYLEY’S ADVENTURES, by Grant Allan

  1. THE ADVENTURE OF THE CANTANKEROUS OLD LADY

  On the day when I found myself with twopence in my pocket, I naturally made up my mind to go round the world.

  It was my stepfather’s death that drove me to it. I had never seen my stepfather. Indeed, I never even thought of him as anything more than Colonel Watts-Morgan. I owed him nothing, except my poverty. He married my dear mother when I was a girl at school in Switzerland; and he proceeded to spend her little fortune, left at her sole disposal by my father’s will, in paying his gambling debts. After that, he carried my dear mother off to Burma; and when he and the climate between them had succeeded in killing her, he made up for his appropriations at the cheapest rate by allowing me just enough to send me to Girton. So, when the Colonel died, in the year I was leaving college, I did not think it necessary to go into mourning for him. Especially as he chose the precise moment when my allowance was due, and bequeathed me nothing but his consolidated liabilities.

  ‘Of course you will teach,’ said Elsie Petheridge, when I explained my affairs to her. ‘There is a good demand just now for high-school teachers.’

  I looked at her, aghast. ‘Teach! Elsie,’ I cried. (I had come up to town to settle her in at her unfurnished lodgings.) ‘Did you say teach? That’s just like you dear good schoolmistresses! You go to Cambridge, and get examined till the heart and life have been examined out of you; then you say to yourselves at the end of it all, “Let me see; what am I good for now? I’m just about fit to go away and examine other people!” That’s what our Principal would call “a vicious circle”—if one could ever admit there was anything vicious at all about you, dear. No, Elsie, I do not propose to teach. Nature did not cut me out for a high-school teacher. I couldn’t swallow a poker if I tried for weeks. Pokers don’t agree with me. Between ourselves, I am a bit of a rebel.’

  ‘You are, Brownie,’ she answered, pausing in her papering, with her sleeves rolled up—they called me ‘Brownie,’ partly because of my dark complexion, but partly because they could never understand me. ‘We all knew that long ago.’

  I laid down the paste-brush and mused.

  ‘Do you remember, Elsie,’ I said, staring hard at the paper-board,’ when I first went to Girton, how all you girls wore your hair quite straight, in neat smooth coils, plaited up at the back about the size of a pancake; and how of a sudden I burst in upon you, like a tropical hurricane, and demoralised you; and how, after three days of me, some of the dear innocents began with awe to cut themselves artless fringes, while others went out in fear and trembling and surreptitiously purchased a pair of curling-tongs? I was a bomb-shell in your midst in those days; why, you yourself were almost afraid at first to speak to me.’

  ‘You see, you had a bicycle,’ Elsie put in, smoothing the half-papered wall; ‘and in those days, of course, ladies didn’t bicycle. You must admit, Brownie, dear, it was a startling innovation. You terrified us so. And yet, after all, there isn’t much harm in you.’

  ‘I hope not,’ I said devoutly. ‘I was before my time, that was all; at present, even a curate’s wife may blamelessly bicycle.’

  ‘But if you don’t teach,’ Elsie went on, gazing at me with those wondering big blue eyes of hers, ‘whatever will you do, Brownie?’ Her horizon was bounded by the scholastic circle.

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ I answered, continuing to paste. ‘Only, as I can’t trespass upon your elegant hospitality for life, whatever I mean to do, I must begin doing this morning, when we’ve finished the papering. I couldn’t teach’ (teaching, like mauve, is the refuge of the incompetent); ‘and I don’t, if possible, want to sell bonnets.’

  ‘As a milliner’s girl?’ Elsie asked, with a face of red horror.

  ‘As a milliner’s girl; why not? ‘Tis an honest calling. Earls’ daughters do it now. But you needn’t look so shocked. I tell you, just at present, I am not contemplating it.’

  ‘Then what do you contemplate?’

  I paused and reflected. ‘I am here in London,’ I answered, gazing rapt at the ceiling; ‘London, whose streets are paved with gold—though it looks at first sight like muddy flagstones; London, the greatest and richest city in the world, where an adventurous soul ought surely to find some loophole for an adventure. (That piece is hung crooked, dear; we shall have to take it down again.) I devise a Plan, therefore. I submit myself to fate; or, if you prefer it, I leave my future in the hands of Providence. I shall stroll out this morning, as soon as I’ve “cleaned myself,” and embrace the first stray enterprise that offers. Our Bagdad teems with enchanted carpets. Let one but float my way, and, hi, presto, I seize it. I go where glory or a modest competence waits me. I snatch at the first offer, the first hint of an opening.’

  Elsie st
ared at me, more aghast and more puzzled than ever. ‘But, how?’ she asked. ‘Where? When? You are so strange! What will you do to find one?’

  ‘Put on my hat and walk out,’ I answered. ‘Nothing could be simpler. This city bursts with enterprises and surprises. Strangers from east and west hurry through it in all directions. Omnibuses traverse it from end to end—even, I am told, to Islington and Putney; within, folk sit face to face who never saw one another before in their lives, and who may never see one another again, or, on the contrary, may pass the rest of their days together.’

  I had a lovely harangue all pat in my head, in much the same strain, on the infinite possibilities of entertaining angels unawares, in cabs, on the Underground, in the aërated bread shops; but Elsie’s widening eyes of horror pulled me up short like a hansom in Piccadilly when the inexorable upturned hand of the policeman checks it. ‘Oh, Brownie,’ she cried, drawing back, ‘you don’t mean to tell me you’re going to ask the first young man you meet in an omnibus to marry you?’

  I shrieked with laughter, ‘Elsie,’ I cried, kissing her dear yellow little head, ‘you are impayable. You never will learn what I mean. You don’t understand the language. No, no; I am going out, simply in search of adventure. What adventure may come, I have not at this moment the faintest conception. The fun lies in the search, the uncertainty, the toss-up of it. What is the good of being penniless—with the trifling exception of twopence—unless you are prepared to accept your position in the spirit of a masked ball at Covent Garden?’

  ‘I have never been to one,’ Elsie put in.

  ‘Gracious heavens, neither have I! What on earth do you take me for? But I mean to see where fate will lead me.’

  ‘I may go with you?’ Elsie pleaded.

  ‘Certainly not, my child,’ I answered—she was three years older than I, so I had the right to patronise her. ‘That would spoil all. Your dear little face would be quite enough to scare away a timid adventure.’ She knew what I meant. It was gentle and pensive, but it lacked initiative.