The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

by Otto Penzler

  “Well, the old girl thought I been picking her pocket,” said Smiler, grinning, and the other scoundrel’s eyes glittered with satisfaction.

  “Why, that’s great. Oh, you’re sure enough gun; you got a gun’s hand, all right. Say, shake. I knew you was a crook first glimp, and when I see your hands I wondered whether it was forgin’ or picking pockets. Well now, that’s settled. Now, I got a little place just off the Strand, here. You send this cab on with your books, and come to this office of mine, and we’ll have a talk.”

  Smiler was willing; he was fascinated with his new acquaintance, and within five minutes the pair were closeted in the phrenologist’s den in a back street off the Strand.

  It took the “palm-reader” precisely ten minutes to outline the idea of a coup which he and Smiler could work together as partners.

  “Now, brother,” he began, “what you got to understand is that you ain’t going to last with that bunch of vote-sharps longer than about a fortnight—if that. They got a lot of brains among ’em, and the old girl, she’s got the brightest. But she’s just happened to get hung up on your forrid, and her own idea of her physiognomy skill. But by the time you’ve read one or two of them books she’ll have lost her interest. You’ll give yourself away, sure, and then it’ll be the street for yours, and the salary’ll fold its tent and silently steal away—see? You see that, don’t you?”

  Smiler nodded. He had known that all along.

  “Well, so what you get, you got to get quick. And now, listen to me——”

  The palm-reader’s voice dropped to a dry and rapid whisper.

  “Now, my name’s Mesmer La Touche, and my title’s Perfessor, and I’m a man you can trust,” he began, and straightway unfolded his scheme.

  —

  Precisely a week later the Suffragette cohort, under command of Mrs. Carroway, gave a greatly-boomed demonstration at King James’s Hall. This demonstration had been enormously advertised. Entrance was free to all people of reasonably respectable appearance, and promised to be successful, if only because of the fact that the proceedings were not to consist of speeches but chiefly of a series of limelight illuminated tableaux. The idea of the tableaux was to re-enact on the platform various scenes which had marked the progress of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and with which scenes the Suffragettes were associated in the mind’s eyes of the public.

  For instance, Tableau No. 1 on the programme was to consist of about thirty Suffragettes clothed in prison raiment with feeding-bottles being held to their mouths by savage-looking men, their arms being held by brutal wardresses. The curtain would go up, revealing the “atrocity” in full swing against a back curtain painted to resemble masonry and prison bars. Tableau No. 2 again depicted the devoted thirty, chained and padlocked to a row of iron railings, staring defiantly at a back curtain painted like a Cabinet Minister’s house, while, rapidly approaching, the heavy sound of the feet of a large body of reckless police could be heard—thanks to the energy of a shirt-sleeved scene-shifter in the wings, who was to manipulate various wood and drum contrivances built for the purpose of imitating the march of many men. And so on, through a series of about twenty similar tableaux. The first item on the programme was to be the singing of the famous Suffragette song:

  “Women of England, arise in your might,

  For the tyrant has nigh burnt his boats;

  Man has done wrong too long, let him now do aright

  And give women votes”

  by the thirty Suffragettes, who would, in this scene, wear their choicest evening toilets and all their jewels, in order to let the public see that, despite their desperate deeds, they were women of consequence, wealth, and position.

  It was a well-conceived plan of entertainment, and advertisement, and the deadheads of London—and London is practically populated by deadheads—flocked to this free evening with a unanimity beyond either praise or blame. The doors opened at seven o’clock, and at 7:15 there was not even standing-room left. The curtain was due to go up at 7:30.

  Behind the scenes there was a rushing sound of many silk skirts, wafts of expensive perfumes, the odour of flowers, excited whisperings of feminine tongues, the flash and flicker of diamonds, giggles and squirks and bubblings of mirth. The place was alive with women. Here and there a scene-shifter slouched in and out of dark angles and nooks, concerned with ropes and canvas frames. In a big dressing-room at the back was an uncomfortable-looking man in evening dress—Mr. Smiler Bunn. He seemed to be the only man in the place.

  It may be explained that The Brain had not been fruitful of results during the previous week of study, and the development of his intellect appeared to be less than the improvement in his manners and speech. His ideas about Women’s Suffrage were about where they were before he became the Brain; if anything, they were rather more confused on the subject than otherwise. He had disappointed Mrs. Carroway a little, but, thanks to a few points praising her book, which had been taught him by the phrenologist, she continued to expect big things from him.

  But Smiler knew perfectly well that it was only a question of a week or two before his association with the Suffragettes would cease. He was a good pickpocket, but he was no political organiser, and he knew it. “Professor” La Touche had explained that to him too frequently for him to forget it. But Smiler did not care; he and the phrenologist had made their arrangements, and long before the tableaux were ended that night they would be carried out.

  Mr. Bunn’s duty that evening was to act as a sort of stage attendant to the thirty Suffragettes. He was to chain them to the railings, for instance, to help arrange the prison feeding scene, and so on. Mrs. Carroway had drilled him well, and she had no doubt he would do the thing thoroughly.

  Now, there are about four back entrances to King James’s Hall, three of which are in different streets, and as half-past seven drew near there rolled unobtrusively up to one of these entrances a neat one-horse brougham. Nobody got out of the brougham, nor did the coachman descend. He just pulled up and waited. A policeman strolled up and remarked that it was a “perishin’ cold night.” The coachman, in a voice curiously resembling that of Mesmer La Touche, palm reader and phrenologist, agreed with him, and volunteered the information that presently he had to take away a big dress-basket of costumes belonging to a titled Suffragette who was inside the hall. The intelligent constable gathered that if anybody happened to be about to lend a hand when the basket came down there would probably be a “dollar” floating about (Mesmer believed in boldness). The policeman decided to remain and lend a hand. This was one of the reasons why neither that efficient officer nor Mesmer La Touche saw a laundry-van—driven by a small and curiously unimportant-looking man—pull up at one of the back entrances farther round the building, and wait there in very much the same way as the brougham was waiting.

  Inside the hall the opening song had been sung, and the Suffragettes were now posing in the prison scene, much to the appreciation of a sympathetic audience. Smiler Bunn, with an armful of short chains, was waiting in the wings with a group of scene-shifters bearing sections of strong iron railings. The curtain went down on the first tableau, and the women came pouring off the stage, hurrying to their dressing-rooms to change for the great “Chains” scene. In three minutes the railings were fixed, and Smiler Bunn was chaining the Suffragettes to the bars. And it was noticeable that while all the evening he had been wearing a distinctly worried look, now, as one by one the padlocks clicked, that worried look was replaced by a gradually widening smile. Mrs. Carroway noticed it, and wondered why The Brain was smiling.

  The last Suffragette chained up, Mr. Bunn made a bolt for the back. He had about three minutes to work in, and a lot to do in that three minutes. He ran in and out of the dressing-rooms, exactly like a weasel working a rabbit warren. Each time he came out of a room he brought an armful of furs. In a minute and a half he had run through all the dressing-rooms, and was literally staggering under his bundle of furs. He dropped them all into a big dress-baske
t at the end of the corridor, jammed down the lid, and whistled softly. Instantly a man—the driver of the laundry-van—appeared, running silently to him, took one end of the basket, and Smiler taking the other end, the pair of them vanished. In twenty seconds the basket was in the laundry-van.

  “Hurry up, for pity’s sake!” sobbed Mr. Bunn, as he scrambled up beside his confederate. “Nearly half of ’em had left their diamonds on their dressing-tables”—his voice cracked with excitement—“and by Gawd! I’ve got ’em all!”

  The van rolled down the back street and round a corner—corners, it has been explained, were a specialty of Mr. Smiler Bunn. He peered back as the van swung round, and caught a fleeting glimpse of a one-horse brougham waiting patiently outside another back door. And he grinned.

  “Poor old Mesmer!” he chuckled. “He’s a clever man, is Mesmer, but if he don’t get off out of it, ’im and his brougham, he’ll stand a darn good chance of getting copped. He’s a good man at ideas, Mesmer is, but he’s no good at carryin’ of ’em out. Ah, well—round the corner, mate. The sooner we get this lot to Israelstein’s the better I shall be pleased. I wonder what Lilian will say? It’ll take ’em a good twenty minutes to file them chains!”

  There was a sudden sound of galloping hoofs. Smiler turned, looking back just in time to see the brougham tear down the street they had just left, and a few yards behind it half a dozen policemen running like hares.

  “There goes Mesmer—poor chap! The town certainly owes him a living, same as he said, but I don’t reckon he’ll be collecting any of it tonight—not tonight, I don’t reckon,” muttered The Brain.

  And the laundry-van rumbled comfortably on towards the business-place of that genial receiver of stolen goods, Mr. Israelstein.

  Rogue: Romney Pringle

  The Kailyard Novel

  CLIFFORD ASHDOWN

  ONE OF THE MOST HIGHLY regarded practitioners of the pure detective story is Richard Austin Freeman (1862–1943), a giant of the Golden Age, though his early works preceded the era between the two World Wars, which loosely bracket that age; his first mystery was The Red Thumb Mark (1907), in which he introduced one of the most popular detective characters of all time, Dr. John Thorndyke. Freeman also invented the inverted detective story with the publication of The Singing Bone (1912), a short story collection in which the reader knows who the murderers are at an early stage of the tale. The suspense derives not from the chase, as in the traditional mystery, but from discovering how the detective will unravel the clues and capture the criminal.

  Before his illustrious detective came on the scene, however, Freeman wrote under the pseudonym Clifford Ashdown, in collaboration with John James Pitcairn (1860–1936), an obscure prison medical officer, a series of connected stories about a gentleman crook named Romney Pringle.

  Pringle is ostensibly a literary agent with an office in London, but that job is merely a front for his criminal activities. As a student of human nature and blessed with finely tuned observational powers, Pringle lives by his wits, never resorting to force or violence. When he notices curious behavior, he will pursue the individual to determine whether he will have the opportunity for self-enrichment. “The Kailyard Novel” presents Pringle with his greatest challenge: what to do when an actual manuscript shows up at his office.

  “The Kailyard Novel” was originally published in the November 1902 issue of Cassell’s; it was first collected in The Adventures of Romney Pringle (London, Ward, Lock, 1902).

  THE KAILYARD NOVEL

  Clifford Ashdown

  THE POSTMAN with resounding knock insinuated half-a-dozen packages into the slit in the outer door. He breathed hard, for it was a climb to the second floor, and then with heavy foot clattered down the stone stairs into Furnival’s Inn. As the cataract descended between the two doors Mr. Pringle dropped his newspaper and stretched to his full length with a yawn; then, rolling out of his chair, he opened the inner door and gathered up the harvest of the mail. It was mostly composed of circulars; these he carelessly flung upon the table, and turned to the single letter among them. It was addressed with clerkly precision, Romney Pringle, Esq., Literary Agent, 33 Furnival’s Inn, London, E.C.

  Such a mode of address was quite a novelty in Pringle’s experience. Was his inexistent literary agency about to be vivified? and wondering, he opened the envelope.

  “Chapel Street, Wurzleford,

  “August 25th.

  “Dear Sir,

  “Having recent occasion to visit a solicitor in the same block in connection with the affairs of a deceased friend, I made a note of your address, and shortly propose to avail myself of your kind offices in publishing a novel on the temperance question. I intend to call it Drouthy Neebors, as I have adopted the Scotch dialect which appears to be so very popular and, I apprehend, remunerative. Having no practical acquaintance with the same, I think of making a study of it on the spot during my approaching month’s holiday—most likely in the Island of Skye, where I presume the language may be a fair guide to that so much in favour. I shall start as soon as I can find a substitute and, if not unduly troubling you, should be greatly obliged by your inserting the enclosed advertisement for me in the Undenominational Banner. Your kindly doing so may lead to an earlier insertion than I could obtain for it through the local agent and so save me a week’s delay. Thanking you in anticipation, believe me to be your very grateful and obliged

  “Adolphus Honeyby (Pastor).”

  Although “Literary Agent” stared conspicuously from his door, Pringle’s title had never hitherto induced an author, of however aspiring a type, to disturb the privacy of his chambers, and it was with an amused sense of the perfection of his disguise that he lighted a cigarette and sat down to think over Mr. Honeyby’s proposal.

  Wurzleford—Wurzleford? There seemed to be a familiar sound about the name. Surely he had read of it somewhere. He turned to the Society journal that he had been reading when the postman knocked.

  Since leaving Sandringham the Maharajah of Satpura has been paying a round of farewell visits prior to his return to India in October. His Highness is well known as the owner of the famous Harabadi diamond, which is said to flash red and violet with every movement of its wearer, and his jewels were the sensation of the various state functions which he attended in native costume last season.

  I understand that the Maharajah is expected about the end of next week at Eastlingbury, the magnificent Sussex seat of Lord Wurzleford, and, as a man of wide and liberal culture, his Highness will doubtless be much interested in this ancestral home of one of our oldest noble families.

  Mr. Honeyby ought to have no difficulty in getting a locum tenens, thought Pringle, as he laid down the paper. He wondered how it would be to——? It was risky, but worth trying! Why let a good thing go a-begging? He had a good mind to take the berth himself! Wurzleford seemed an attractive little place. Well, its attractiveness would certainly not be lessened for him when the Maharajah arrived! At the very least it might prove an agreeable holiday, and in any case would lead to a new and probably amusing experience of human nature. Smiling at the ludicrous audacity of the idea, Pringle strolled up to the mantelpiece and interrogated himself in the Venetian mirror. Minus the delible port-wine mark, a pair of pince-nez, blackened hair, and a small strip of easily applied whisker would be sufficient disguise. He thoughtfully lighted another cigarette.

  But the necessity of testimonials occurred to him. Why not say he had sent the originals with an application he was making for a permanent appointment, and merely show Honeyby the type-written copies? He seemed an innocent old ass, and Pringle would trust to audacity to carry him through. He could write to Wurzleford from any Bloomsbury address, and follow the letter before Honeyby had time to reply. He had little doubt that he could clinch matters when it came to a personal interview; especially as Honeyby seemed very anxious to be off. There remained the knotty point of doctrine. Well, the Farringdon Street barrows, the grave of theological literature, could furnis
h any number of volumes of sermons, and it would be strange if they could not supply in addition a very efficient battery of controversial shot and shell. In the meantime he could get up the foundation of his “Undenominational” opinions from the Encyclopædia. And taking a volume of the Britannica, he was soon absorbed in its perusal.

  Mr. Honeyby’s advertisement duly appeared in the Banner, and was answered by a telegram announcing the application of the “Rev. Charles Courtley,” who followed close on the heels of his message. Although surprised at the wonderfully rapid effect of the advertisement, the pastor was disinclined to quarrel with his good luck, and was too eager to be released to waste much time over preliminary inquiries. Indeed, he could think of little but the collection of material for his novel, and fretted to commence it. “Mr. Courtley’s” manner and appearance, to say nothing of his very flattering testimonials, were all that could be desired; his acquaintance with controversial doctrine was profound, and the pastor, innocently wondering how such brilliance had failed to attain a more eminent place in the denomination, had eagerly ratified his engagement.