The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

by Otto Penzler

  “Of course it wasn’t loaded,” he remarked. “Of course I had seen to that earlier in the day. I am not such a bungler——”

  “Then I didn’t save your life?”

  “You force me to say that you did not, and to remind you that you gave me your word not to emerge from behind the screen. However, seeing the motive, I can only thank you for that lapse. The pity is that it hopelessly compromises you.”

  “Me?” exclaimed Miss Fincastle.

  “You. Can’t you see that you are in it, in this robbery, to give the thing a label. You were alone with the robber. You succoured the robber at a critical moment…‘Accomplice,’ Mr. Bowring himself said. My dear journalist, the episode of the revolver, empty though the revolver was, seals your lips.”

  Miss Fincastle laughed rather hysterically, leaning over the table with her hands on it.

  “My dear millionaire,” she said rapidly, “you don’t know the new journalism to which I have the honour to belong. You would know it better had you lived more in New York. All I have to announce is that, compromised or not, a full account of this affair will appear in my paper tomorrow morning. No, I shall not inform the police. I am a journalist simply, but a journalist I am.”

  “And your promise, which you gave me before going behind the screen, your solemn promise that you would reveal nothing? I was loth to mention it.”

  “Some promises, Mr. Thorold, it is a duty to break, and it is my duty to break this one. I should never have given it had I had the slightest idea of the nature of your recreations.”

  Thorold still smiled, though faintly.

  “Really, you know,” he murmured, “this is getting just a little serious.”

  “It is very serious,” she stammered.

  And then Thorold noticed that the new journalist was softly weeping.

  V.

  The door opened.

  “Miss Kitty Sartorius,” said the erstwhile liftman, who was now in plain clothes and had mysteriously ceased to squint.

  A beautiful girl, a girl who had remarkable loveliness and was aware of it (one of the prettiest women of the Devonshire), ran impulsively into the room and caught Miss Fincastle by the hand.

  “My dearest Eve, you’re crying. What’s the matter?”

  “Lecky,” said Thorold aside to the servant. “I told you to admit no one.”

  The beautiful blonde turned sharply to Thorold.

  “I told him I wished to enter,” she said imperiously, half closing her eyes.

  “Yes, sir,” said Lecky. “That was it. The lady wished to enter.”

  Thorold bowed.

  “It was sufficient,” he said. “That will do, Lecky.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But I say, Lecky, when next you address me publicly, try to remember that I am not in the peerage.”

  The servant squinted.

  “Certainly, sir.” And he retired.

  “Now we are alone,” said Miss Sartorius. “Introduce us, Eve, and explain.”

  Miss Fincastle, having regained self-control, introduced her dear friend the radiant star of the Regency Theatre, and her acquaintance the millionaire.

  “Eve didn’t feel quite sure of you,” the actress stated; “and so we arranged that if she wasn’t up at my flat by nine o’clock, I was to come down and reconnoitre. What have you been doing to make Eve cry?”

  “Unintentional, I assure you——” Thorold began.

  “There’s something between you two,” said Kitty Sartorius sagaciously, in significant accents. “What is it?”

  She sat down, touched her picture hat, smoothed her white gown, and tapped her foot. “What is it, now? Mr. Thorold, I think you had better tell me.”

  Thorold raised his eyebrows and obediently commenced the narration, standing with his back to the fire.

  “How perfectly splendid!” Kitty exclaimed. “I’m so glad you cornered Mr. Bowring. I met him one night and I thought he was horrid. And these are the notes? Well, of all the——!”

  Thorold proceeded with his story.

  “Oh, but you can’t do that, Eve!” said Kitty, suddenly serious. “You can’t go and split! It would mean all sorts of bother; your wretched newspaper would be sure to keep you hanging about in London, and we shouldn’t be able to start on our holiday tomorrow. Eve and I are starting on quite a long tour tomorrow, Mr. Thorold; we begin with Ostend.”

  “Indeed!” said Thorold. “I, too, am going in that direction soon. Perhaps we may meet.”

  “I hope so,” Kitty smiled, and then she looked at Eve Fincastle. “You really mustn’t do that, Eve,” she said.

  “I must, I must!” Miss Fincastle insisted, clenching her hands.

  “And she will,” said Kitty tragically, after considering her friend’s face. “She will, and our holiday’s ruined. I see it—I see it plainly. She’s in one of her stupid conscientious moods. She’s fearfully advanced and careless and unconventional in theory, Eve is; but when it comes to practice——! Mr. Thorold, you have just got everything into a dreadful knot. Why did you want those notes so very particularly?”

  “I don’t want them so very particularly.”

  “Well, anyhow, it’s a most peculiar predicament. Mr. Bowring doesn’t count, and this Consolidated thingummy isn’t any the worse off. Nobody suffers who oughtn’t to suffer. It’s your unlawful gain that’s wrong. Why not pitch the wretched notes in the fire?” Kitty laughed at her own playful humour.

  “Certainly,” said Thorold. And with a quick movement he put the fifty trifles in the grate, where they made a bluish yellow flame.

  Both the women screamed and sprang up.

  “Mr. Thorold!”

  “Mr. Thorold!” (“He’s adorable!” Kitty breathed.)

  “The incident, I venture to hope, is now closed,” said Thorold calmly, but with his dark eyes sparkling. “I must thank you both for a very enjoyable evening. Some day, perhaps, I may have an opportunity of further explaining my philosophy to you.”

  Villain: Madame Sara

  Madame Sara

  L. T. MEADE & ROBERT EUSTACE

  THE EARLY YEARS of the mystery short story featured quite a few female criminals, most of whom shared the traits of youth, beauty, charm, and a devoted male friend or gang. They tended also to be clever rogues who enjoyed the excitement and great good fun of stealing jewels, money, or a precious antique or painting.

  Madame Sara, the creation of the prolific Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith (1844–1914), using the pseudonym L. T. Meade, and Dr. Robert Eustace Barton (1863–1948), using the pseudonym Robert Eustace, is a remarkably different sort of woman, carrying about her an air of mystery. Although she appears to be a beautiful young woman of no more than twenty-five years, the story notes that she attended a wedding thirty years earlier and looked exactly the same.

  Madame Sara is also a ruthless murderer, counting both male and female victims among her triumphs. The six stories about her were collected in The Sorceress of the Strand (1903), one of more than sixty volumes of mystery, crime, and detection written by Meade; in all, she produced more than three hundred novels and short story collections in various genres.

  Born in Ireland, Meade later moved to London, where she married, wrote prolifically, and became an active feminist and member of the Pioneer Club, a progressive women’s club founded in 1892; members were identified by number, rather than name, to emphasize the unimportance of social position. In her spare time, she worked as the editor of Atalanta, a popular girls’ magazine.

  Robert Eustace collaborated with several authors, including Edgar Jepson, Gertrude Warden, and Dorothy L. Sayers, but most commonly with Meade. Although he worked with her on such significant books as Stories from the Diary of a Doctor (1894; second series, 1896), A Master of Mysteries (1898), The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings (1899), The Gold Star Line (1899), and The Sanctuary Club (1900), his name seldom appeared on the covers of the books, only on the title pages, so one wonders if it was due to the author’s diff
idence or the publisher’s lack of respect.

  “Madame Sara” was originally published in the October 1902 issue of The Strand Magazine; it was first collected in The Sorceress of the Strand (London, Ward, Lock, 1903).

  MADAME SARA

  L. T. Meade & Robert Eustace

  EVERYONE IN TRADE and a good many who are not have heard of Werner’s Agency, the Solvency Inquiry Agency for all British trade. Its business is to know the financial condition of all wholesale and retail firms, from Rothschild’s to the smallest sweetstuff shop in Whitechapel. I do not say that every firm figures on its books, but by methods of secret inquiry it can discover the status of any firm or individual. It is the great safeguard to British trade and prevents much fraudulent dealing.

  Of this agency I, Dixon Druce, was appointed manager in 1890. Since then I have met queer people and seen strange sights, for men do curious things for money in this world.

  It so happened that in June, 1899, my business took me to Madeira on an inquiry of some importance. I left the island on the 14th of the month by the Norham Castle for Southampton. I embarked after dinner. It was a lovely night, and the strains of the band in the public gardens of Funchal came floating across the star-powdered bay through the warm, balmy air. Then the engine bells rang to “Full speed ahead,” and, flinging a farewell to the fairest island on earth, I turned to the smoking-room in order to light my cheroot.

  “Do you want a match, sir?”

  The voice came from a slender, young-looking man who stood near the taffrail. Before I could reply he had struck one and held it out to me.

  “Excuse me,” he said, as he tossed it overboard, “but surely I am addressing Mr. Dixon Druce?”

  “You are, sir,” I said, glancing keenly back at him, “but you have the advantage of me.”

  “Don’t you know me?” he responded, “Jack Selby, Hayward’s House, Harrow, 1879.”

  “By Jove! so it is,” I cried.

  Our hands met in a warm clasp, and a moment later I found myself sitting close to my old friend, who had fagged for me in the bygone days, and whom I had not seen from the moment when I said goodbye to the “Hill” in the grey mist of a December morning twenty years ago. He was a boy of fourteen then, but nevertheless I recognised him. His face was bronzed and good-looking, his features refined. As a boy Selby had been noted for his grace, his well-shaped head, his clean-cut features; these characteristics still were his, and although he was now slightly past his first youth he was decidedly handsome. He gave me a quick sketch of his history.

  “My father left me plenty of money,” he said, “and The Meadows, our old family place, is now mine. I have a taste for natural history; that taste took me two years ago to South America. I have had my share of strange adventures, and have collected valuable specimens and trophies. I am now on my way home from Para, on the Amazon, having come by a Booth boat to Madeira and changed there to the Castle Line. But why all this talk about myself?” he added, bringing his deck chair a little nearer to mine. “What about your history, old chap? Are you settled down with a wife and kiddies of your own, or is that dream of your school days fulfilled, and are you the owner of the best private laboratory in London?”

  “As to the laboratory,” I said, with a smile, “you must come and see it. For the rest I am unmarried. Are you?”

  “I was married the day before I left Para, and my wife is on board with me.”

  “Capital,” I answered. “Let me hear all about it.”

  “You shall. Her maiden name was Dallas; Beatrice Dallas. She is just twenty now. Her father was an Englishman and her mother a Spaniard; neither parent is living. She has an elder sister, Edith, nearly thirty years of age, unmarried, who is on board with us. There is also a step-brother, considerably older than either Edith or Beatrice. I met my wife last year in Para, and at once fell in love. I am the happiest man on earth. It goes without saying that I think her beautiful, and she is also very well off. The story of her wealth is a curious one. Her uncle on the mother’s side was an extremely wealthy Spaniard, who made an enormous fortune in Brazil out of diamonds and minerals; he owned several mines. But it is supposed that his wealth turned his brain. At any rate, it seems to have done so as far as the disposal of his money went. He divided the yearly profits and interest between his nephew and his two nieces, but declared that the property itself should never be split up. He has left the whole of it to that one of the three who should survive the others. A perfectly insane arrangement, but not, I believe, unprecedented in Brazil.”

  “Very insane,” I echoed. “What was he worth?”

  “Over two million sterling.”

  “By Jove!” I cried, “what a sum! But what about the step-brother?”

  “He must be over forty years of age, and is evidently a bad lot. I have never seen him. His sisters won’t speak to him or have anything to do with him. I understand that he is a great gambler; I am further told that he is at present in England, and, as there are certain technicalities to be gone through before the girls can fully enjoy their incomes, one of the first things I must do when I get home is to find him out. He has to sign certain papers, for we shan’t be able to put things straight until we get his whereabouts. Some time ago my wife and Edith heard that he was ill, but dead or alive we must know all about him, and as quickly as possible.”

  I made no answer, and he continued:

  “I’ll introduce you to my wife and sister-in-law tomorrow. Beatrice is quite a child compared to Edith, who acts towards her almost like a mother. Bee is a little beauty, so fresh and round and young-looking. But Edith is handsome, too, although I sometimes think she is as vain as a peacock. By the way, Druce, this brings me to another part of my story. The sisters have an acquaintance on board, one of the most remarkable women I have ever met. She goes by the name of Madame Sara, and knows London well. In fact, she confesses to having a shop in the Strand. What she has been doing in Brazil I do not know, for she keeps all her affairs strictly private. But you will be amazed when I tell you what her calling is.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “A professional beautifier. She claims the privilege of restoring youth to those who consult her. She also declares that she can make quite ugly people handsome. There is no doubt that she is very clever. She knows a little bit of everything, and has wonderful recipes with regard to medicines, surgery, and dentistry. She is a most lovely woman herself, very fair, with blue eyes, an innocent, childlike manner, and quantities of rippling gold hair. She openly confesses that she is very much older than she appears. She looks about five-and-twenty. She seems to have travelled all over the world, and says that by birth she is a mixture of Indian and Italian, her father having been Italian and her mother Indian. Accompanying her is an Arab, a handsome, picturesque sort of fellow, who gives her the most absolute devotion, and she is also bringing back to England two Brazilians from Para. This woman deals in all sorts of curious secrets, but principally in cosmetics. Her shop in the Strand could, I fancy, tell many a strange history. Her clients go to her there, and she does what is necessary for them. It is a fact that she occasionally performs small surgical operations, and there is not a dentist in London who can vie with her. She confesses quite naively that she holds some secrets for making false teeth cling to the palate that no one knows of. Edith Dallas is devoted to her—in fact, her adoration amounts to idolatry.”

  “You give a very brilliant account of this woman,” I said. “You must introduce me tomorrow.”

  “I will,” answered Jack, with a smile. “I should like your opinion of her. I am right glad I have met you, Druce, it is like old times. When we get to London I mean to put up at my town house in Eaton Square for the remainder of the season. The Meadows shall be re-furnished, and Bee and I will take up our quarters some time in August; then you must come and see us. But I am afraid before I give myself up to mere pleasure I must find that precious brother-in-law, Henry Joachim Silva.”

  “If you have any difficulty ap
ply to me,” I said. “I can put at your disposal, in an unofficial way, of course, agents who would find almost any man in England, dead or alive.” I then proceeded to give Selby a short account of my own business.

  “Thanks,” he said presently, “that is capital. You are the very man we want.”

  The next morning after breakfast Jack introduced me to his wife and sister-in-law. They were both foreign-looking, but very handsome, and the wife in particular had a graceful and uncommon appearance. We had been chatting about five minutes when I saw coming down the deck a slight, rather small woman, wearing a big sun hat.

  “Ah, Madame,” cried Selby, “here you are. I had the luck to meet an old friend on board—Mr. Dixon Druce—and I have been telling him all about you. I should like you to know each other. Druce, this lady is Madame Sara, of whom I have spoken to you. Mr. Dixon Druce—Madame Sara.”

  She bowed gracefully and then looked at me earnestly. I had seldom seen a more lovely woman. By her side both Mrs. Selby and her sister seemed to fade into insignificance. Her complexion was almost dazzlingly fair, her face refined in expression, her eyes penetrating, clever, and yet with the innocent, frank gaze of a child. Her dress was very simple; she looked altogether like a young, fresh, and natural girl.

  As we sat chatting lightly and about commonplace topics, I instinctively felt that she took an interest in me even greater than might be expected upon an ordinary introduction. By slow degrees she so turned the conversation as to leave Selby and his wife and sister out, and then as they moved away she came a little nearer, and said in a low voice:

  “I am very glad we have met, and yet how odd this meeting is! Was it really accidental?”

  “I do not understand you,” I answered.

  “I know who you are,” she said, lightly. “You are the manager of Werner’s Agency; its business is to know the private affairs of those people who would rather keep their own secrets. Now, Mr. Druce, I am going to be absolutely frank with you. I own a small shop in the Strand—a perfumery shop—and behind those innocent-looking doors I conduct the business which brings me in gold of the realm. Have you, Mr. Druce, any objection to my continuing to make a livelihood in perfectly innocent ways?”