Sisters in Crime

by Mike Ashley

  They have taken Phoebe Dole away – I only know that. I cannot bear to talk any more about it when I think there must be a trial, and I must go!

  Henry has been over this evening. I suppose we shall be happy after all when I have had a little time to get over this. He says I have nothing more to worry about. Mr Dix has gone home. I hope Henry and I may be able to repay his kindness some day.

  A month later. I have just heard that Phoebe Dole has died in prison. This is my last entry. May God help all other innocent women in hard straits as He has helped me!

  A HAND-TO-HAND STRUGGLE

  from ‘The Redhill Sisterhood’ by C.L. Pirkis

  C.L. Pirkis

  THE REDHILL SISTERHOOD

  The real lasting legacy of Catherine Louisa Pirkis (1839–1910) was not her writing but her work with animals. Along with her husband, Frederick, who had been an officer in the Royal Navy, she was active in the anti-vivisection movement and in 1891 the two set up the National Canine Defence League, which still exists today under the name Dogs Trust. Catherine and Frederick married in 1872, and he retired from the Navy in 1873 so that the two of them could work closely together on various humanitarian and animal projects. When Catherine died, at the end of September 1910, Frederick survived her by barely a week and the two were buried together at Kensal Green Cemetery in London.

  Catherine was the daughter of Lewis Lyne the Comptroller-General of the Inland Revenue, and she had a comfortable upbringing. She turned to writing after her marriage and produced fourteen books, most of which look back to a bucolic past. But her first and last are of special interest. Her first, Disappeared from Her Home (1877), published as by Mrs Fred E. Pirkis, was a mystery novel about the sudden disappearance of a young girl from a country home and the revelations that the search for her uncover. Her last, and also her best known, was The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective (1894), a collection of stories – including ‘The Redhill Sisterhood’, reprinted here – which had run in The Ludgate magazine the previous year. This was the first such series to feature a female detective to arise in the wake of the popularity of the Sherlock Homes stories, but Pirkis made Loveday Brooke very much her own woman and one not easily to be deceived.

  The Redhill Sisterhood

  ‘THEY WANT YOU at Redhill, now,’ said Mr Dyer, taking a packet of papers from one of his pigeon-holes. ‘The idea seems to be gaining ground in manly quarters that in cases of mere suspicion, women detectives are more satisfactory than men, for they are less likely to attract attention. And this Redhill affair, so far as I can make out, is one of suspicion only.’

  It was a dreary November morning. Every gas jet in the Lynch Court office was alight, and a yellow curtain of outside fog draped its narrow windows.

  ‘Nevertheless, I suppose one can’t afford to leave it uninvestigated at this season of the year with country-house robberies beginning in so many quarters,’ said Miss Brooke.

  ‘No, and the circumstances in this case certainly seem to point in the direction of the country-house burglar. Two days ago a somewhat curious application was made privately by a man giving the name of John Murray to Inspector Gunning of the Reigate police – Redhill, I must tell you, is in the Reigate police district. Murray stated that he had been a greengrocer somewhere in South London, had sold his business there and had, with the proceeds of the sale, bought two small houses in Redhill, intending to let the one and live in the other. These houses are situated in a blind alley known as Paved Court, a narrow turning leading off the London and Brighton coach road. Paved Court has been known to the sanitary authorities for the past ten years as a regular fever nest, and as the houses which Murray bought – numbers 7 and 8 – stand at the very end of the blind alley, with no chance of thorough ventilation, I dare say the man got them for next to nothing. He told the inspector that he had had great difficulty in procuring a tenant for the house he wished to let, number 8, and that consequently when, about three weeks back, a lady dressed as a nun made him an offer for it, he immediately closed with her. The lady gave her name simply as “Sister Monica”, and stated that she was a member of an undenominational sisterhood that had recently been founded by a wealthy lady, who wished her name kept a secret. Sister Monica gave no references but instead paid a quarter’s rent in advance, saying that she wished to take possession of the house immediately and open it as a home for crippled orphans.’

  ‘Gave no references … home for cripples,’ murmured Loveday, scribbling hard and fast in her notebook.

  ‘Murray made no objection to this,’ continued Mr Dyer, ‘and, accordingly, the next day Sister Monica, accompanied by three other sisters and some sickly children, took possession of the house, which they furnished with the barest possible necessities from cheap shops in the neighbourhood. For a time, Murray said, he thought he had secured most desirable tenants, but during the last ten days suspicions as to their real character have entered his mind, and these suspicions he thought it his duty to communicate to the police. Among their possessions, it seems, these sisters number an old donkey and a tiny cart, and this they start daily on a sort of begging tour through the adjoining villages, bringing back every evening a perfect hoard of broken victuals and bundles of old garments. Now comes the extraordinary fact on which Murray bases his suspicions. He says, and Gunning verifies his statement, that, in whatever direction those sisters turn the wheels of their donkey cart, burglaries or attempts at burglaries are sure to follow. A week ago they went along towards Horley where, at an outlying house, they received much kindness from a wealthy gentleman. That very night an attempt was made to break into that gentleman’s house – an attempt, however, that was happily frustrated by the barking of the house dog. And so on in other instances that I need not go into. Murray suggests that it might be as well to have the daily movements of these sisters closely watched and that extra vigilance should be exercised by the police in the districts that have had the honour of a morning call from them. Gunning coincides with this idea and so has sent to me to secure your services.’

  Loveday closed her notebook. ‘I suppose Gunning will meet me somewhere and tell me where I’m to take up my quarters?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, he will get into your carriage at Merstham – the station before Redhill – if you will put your hand out of the window with the morning paper in it. By the way, he takes it for granted that you will save the eleven-five train from Victoria. Murray, it seems, has been good enough to place his little house at the disposal of the police, but Gunning does not think espionage could be so well carried on there as from other quarters. The presence of a stranger in an alley of that sort is bound to attract attention, so he has hired a room for you in a draper’s shop that immediately faces the head of the court. There is a private door to this shop of which you will have the key and can let yourself in and out as you please. You are supposed to be a nursery governess on the look-out for a situation, and Gunning will keep you supplied with letters to give colour to the idea. He suggests that you need only occupy the room during the day; at night you will find far more comfortable quarters at Laker’s Hotel just outside the town.’

  This was about the sum total of the instructions that Mr Dyer had to give.

  The eleven-five train from Victoria that carried Loveday to her work among the Surrey Hills did not get clear of the London fog until well away on the other side of Purley. When the train halted at Merstham, in response to her signal a tall, soldier-like individual made for her carriage and, jumping in, took the seat facing her. He introduced himself to her as Inspector Gunning, recalled to her memory a former occasion on which they had met and then, naturally enough, turned the talk upon the present suspicious circumstances they were bent upon investigating.

  ‘It won’t do for you and me to be seen together,’ he said. ‘Of course, I am known for miles around, and anyone seen in my company will be at once set down as my coadjutor and spied upon accordingly. I walked from Redhill to Merstham on purpose to avoid recognition on
the platform at Redhill and halfway here, to my great annoyance, found that I was being followed by a man in a workman’s dress and carrying a basket of tools. I doubled, however, and gave him the slip, taking a short cut down a lane which, if he had been living in the place, he would have known as well as I did. By Jove!’ – this was added with a sudden start – ‘There is the fellow, I declare. He has weathered me after all and has no doubt taken good stock of us both with the train going at this snail’s pace. It was unfortunate that your face should have been turned towards that window, Miss Brooke.’

  ‘My veil is something of a disguise, and I will put on another cloak before he has a chance of seeing me again,’ said Loveday.

  All she had seen in the brief glimpse that the train had allowed was a tall, powerfully built man walking along a siding of the line. His cap was drawn low over his eyes, and in his hand he carried a workman’s basket.

  Gunning seemed much annoyed at the circumstance. ‘Instead of landing at Redhill,’ he said, ‘we’ll go on to Three Bridges and wait there for a Brighton train to bring us back. That will enable you to get to your room somewhere between the lights. I don’t want to have you spotted before you’ve so much as started your work.’

  Then they went back to their discussion of the Redhill sisterhood.

  ‘They call themselves “undenominational”, whatever that means,’ said Gunning. ‘They say they are connected with no religious sect whatever; they attend sometimes one place of worship, sometimes another, sometimes none at all. They refuse to give up the name of the founder of their order, and really no one has any right to demand it of them, for, as no doubt you see, up to the present moment the case is one of mere suspicion, and it may be a pure coincidence that attempts at burglary have followed their footsteps in this neighbourhood. By the way, I have heard of a man’s face being enough to hang him, but until I saw Sister Monica’s I never saw a woman’s face that could perform the same kind office for her. Of all the lowest criminal types of faces I have ever seen I think hers is about the lowest and most repulsive.’

  After the sisters, they passed in review the chief families resident in the neighbourhood.

  ‘This,’ said Gunning, unfolding a paper, ‘is a map I have specially drawn up for you – it takes in the district for ten miles around Redhill, and every country house of any importance is marked in red ink. Here, in addition, is an index to those houses with special notes of my own to every one.’

  Loveday studied the map for a minute or so then turned her attention to the index.

  ‘Those four houses you’ve marked, I see, are those that have been already attempted. I don’t think I’ll run them through, but I’ll mark them “doubtful”; you see, the gang – for, of course, it is a gang – might follow our reasoning on the matter and look upon those houses as our weak point. Here’s one I’ll run through, “house empty during winter months” – that means plate and jewellery sent to the bankers. Oh! and this one may as well be crossed off, “father and four sons all athletes and sportsmen” – that means firearms always handy. I don’t think burglars will be likely to trouble them. Ah! now we come to something! Here’s a house to be marked “tempting” in a burglar’s list. “Wootton Hall, lately changed hands and rebuilt with complicated passages and corridors. Splendid family plate in daily use and left entirely to the care of the butler.” I wonder, does the master of that house trust to his “complicated passages” to preserve his plate for him? A dismissed dishonest servant would supply a dozen maps of the place for half a sovereign. What do these initials “EL” against the next house in the list, North Cape, stand for?’

  ‘Electric lighted. I think you might almost cross that house off also. I consider electric lighting one of the greatest safeguards against burglars that a man can give his house.’

  ‘Yes, if he doesn’t rely exclusively upon it. It might be a nasty trap under certain circumstances. I see this gentleman also has magnificent presentation and other plate.’

  ‘Yes. Mr Jameson is a wealthy man and very popular in the neighbourhood. His cups and epergnes are worth looking at.’

  ‘Is it the only house in the district that is lighted with electricity?’

  ‘Yes, and, begging your pardon, Miss Brooke, I only wish it were not so. If electric lighting were generally in vogue it would save the police a lot of trouble on these dark winter nights.’

  ‘The burglars would find some way of meeting such a condition of things, depend upon it. They have reached a very high development in these days. They no longer stalk about as they did fifty years ago with blunderbuss and bludgeon. They plot, plan, contrive and bring imagination and artistic resource to their aid. By the way, it often occurs to me that the popular detective stories – for which there seems to be a large demand at the present day – must be, at times, uncommonly useful to the criminal classes.’

  At Three Bridges they had to wait so long for a return train that it was nearly dark when Loveday got back to Redhill. Mr Gunning did not accompany her thither, having alighted at a previous station. Loveday had arranged for her portmanteau to be sent direct to Laker’s Hotel where she had engaged a room by telegram from Victoria Station. So, unburthened by luggage, she slipped quietly out of the Redhill Station and made her way straight for the draper’s shop in the London Road. She had no difficulty in finding it, thanks to the minute directions given her by the inspector.

  Street lamps were being lighted in the sleepy little town as she went along, and as she turned into the London Road shopkeepers were lighting up their windows on both sides of the way. A few yards down this road a dark patch between the lighted shops showed her where Paved Court led off from the thoroughfare. A side door of one of the shops that stood at the corner of the court seemed to offer a post of observation whence she could see without being seen, and here Loveday, shrinking into the shadows, ensconced herself in order to take stock of the little alley and its inhabitants. She found it much as it had been described to her – a collection of four-roomed houses of which more than half were unlet. Numbers 7 and 8 at the head of the court presented a slightly less neglected appearance than the other tenements. Number 7 stood in total darkness, but in the upper window of number 8 there showed what seemed to be a night-light burning, so Loveday conjectured that this possibly was the room set apart as a dormitory for the little cripples.

  While she stood thus surveying the home of the suspected sisterhood, the sisters themselves – two, at least, of them – came into view with their donkey cart and their cripples on the main road. It was an odd little cortège. One sister, habited in a nun’s dress of dark-blue serge, led the donkey by the bridle; another sister, similarly attired, walked alongside the low cart in which were seated two sickly looking children. They were evidently returning from one of their long country circuits, and, unless they had lost their way and been belated, it certainly seemed a late hour for the sickly little cripples to be abroad.

  As they passed under the gas lamp at the corner of the court Loveday caught a glimpse of the faces of the sisters. It was easy, with Inspector Gunning’s description before her mind, to identify the older and taller woman as Sister Monica, and a more coarse-featured and generally repellent face Loveday admitted to herself she had never before seen. In striking contrast to this forbidding countenance was that of the younger sister. Loveday could only catch a brief passing view of it, but that one brief view was enough to impress it on her memory as of unusual sadness and beauty. As the donkey stopped at the corner of the court Loveday heard this sad-looking young woman addressed as ‘Sister Anna’ by one of the cripples, who asked plaintively when they were going to have something to eat.

  ‘Now, at once,’ said Sister Anna, lifting the little one, as it seemed to Loveday, tenderly out of the cart and carrying him on her shoulder down the court to the door of number 8, which opened to them at their approach. The other sister did the same with the other child, then both sisters returned, unloaded the cart of sundry bundles and baskets and, thi
s done, led off the old donkey and trap down the road, possibly to a neighbouring costermonger’s stables.

  A man coming along on a bicycle exchanged a word of greeting with the sisters as they passed then swung himself off his machine at the corner of the court and walked it along the paved way to the door of number 7. This he opened with a key and then, pushing the machine before him, entered the house.

  Loveday took it for granted that this man must be the John Murray of whom she had heard. She had closely scrutinized him as he had passed her and had seen that he was a dark, well-featured man of about fifty years of age.

  She congratulated herself on her good fortune in having seen so much in such a brief space of time, and coming forth from her sheltered corner turned her steps in the direction of the draper’s shop on the other side of the road.

  It was easy to find it. ‘Golightly’ was the singular name that figured above the shop front in which were displayed a variety of goods calculated to meet the wants of servants and the poorer classes generally. A tall, powerfully built man appeared to be looking in at this window. Loveday’s foot was on the doorstep of the draper’s private entrance, her hand on the door knocker, when this individual, suddenly turning, convinced her of his identity with the journeyman workman who had so disturbed Mr Gunning’s equanimity. It was true he wore a bowler instead of a journeyman’s cap, and he no longer carried a basket of tools, but there was no possibility for anyone with so good an eye for an outline as Loveday possessed not to recognize the carriage of the head and shoulders as that of the man she had seen walking along the railway siding. He gave her no time to make minute observation of his appearance but turned quickly away and disappeared down a by-street.