The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

by Otto Penzler

  “Four Square Jane” was originally published in Four Square Jane (London, Readers Library, 1929).

  FOUR SQUARE JANE

  Edgar Wallace

  MR. JOE LEWINSTEIN slouched to one of the long windows which gave light to his magnificent drawing-room and stared gloomily across the lawn.

  The beds of geraniums and lobelias were half-obscured by a driving mist of rain, and the well-kept lawns that were the pride of his many gardeners were sodden and, in places, under water.

  “Of course it had to rain to-day,” he said bitterly.

  His large and comfortable wife looked up over her glasses.

  “Why, Joe,” she said, “what’s the good of grousing? They haven’t come down for an al fresco fête; they’ve come down for the dance and the shooting, and anything else they can get out of us.”

  “Oh, shut up, Miriam,” said Mr. Lewinstein irritably; “what does it matter what they’re coming for? It’s what I want them for myself. You don’t suppose I’ve risen from what I was to my present position without learning anything, do you?” Mr. Lewinstein was fond of referring to his almost meteoric rise in the world of high finance, if not in the corresponding world of society. And, to do him justice, it must be added that such companies as he had promoted, and they were many, had been run on the most straightforward lines, nor had he, to use his own words, risked the money of the “widows and orphans.” At least, not unnecessarily.

  “It’s knowing the right kind of people,” he continued, “and doing them the right kind of turns that counts. It’s easier to make your second million than your first, and I’m going to make it, Miriam,” he added, with grim determination. “I’m going to make it, and I’m not sticking at a few thousands in the way of expenses!”

  A housewifely fear lest their entertainment that night was going to cost them thousands floated through Mrs. Lewinstein’s mind, but she said nothing.

  “I’ll bet they’ve never seen a ball like ours is tonight,” her husband continued with satisfaction, as he turned his back on the window and came slowly towards his partner, “and the company will be worth it, Miriam, you believe me. Everybody who’s anybody in the city is coming. There’ll be more jewels here tonight than even I could buy.”

  His wife put down her paper with an impatient gesture.

  “That’s what I’m thinking about,” she said. “I hope you know what you’re doing. It’s a big responsibility.”

  “What do you mean by responsibility?” asked Joe Lewinstein.

  “All this loose money lying about,” said his wife. “Don’t you read the paper? Don’t any of your friends tell you?”

  Mr. Lewinstein burst into a peal of husky laughter.

  “Oh, I know what’s biting you,” he said. “You’re thinking of Four Square Jane.”

  “Four Square Jane!” said the acid Mrs. Lewinstein. “I’d give her Four Square Jane if I had her in this house!”

  “She’s no common burglar,” said Mr. Lewinstein shaking his head, whether in admonition or admiration it was difficult to say. “My friend, Lord Belchester—my friend, Lord Belchester, told me it was an absolute mystery how his wife lost those emeralds of hers. He was very worried about it, was Belchester. He took about half the money he made out of Consolidated Grains to buy those emeralds, and they were lost about a month after he bought them. He thinks that the thief was one of his guests.”

  “Why do they call her Four Square Jane?” asked Mrs. Lewinstein curiously.

  Her husband shrugged his shoulders.

  “She always leaves a certain mark behind her, a sort of printed label with four squares, and the letter J in the middle,” he said. “It was the police who called her Jane, and somehow the name has stuck.”

  His wife picked up the paper and put it down again, looking thoughtfully into the fire.

  “And you’re bringing all these people down here to stop the night, and you’re talking about them being loaded up with jewellery! You’ve got a nerve, Joe.”

  Mr. Lewinstein chuckled.

  “I’ve got a detective, too,” he said. “I’ve asked Ross, who has the biggest private detective agency in London, to send me his best woman.”

  “Goodness gracious,” said the dismayed Mrs. Lewinstein, “you’re not having a woman here?”

  “Yes, I am. She’s a lady, apparently one of the best girls Ross has got. He told me that in cases like this it’s much less noticeable to have a lady detective among the guests than a man. I told her to be here at seven.”

  Undoubtedly the Lewinstein’s house-party was the most impressive affair that the county had seen. His guests were to arrive by a special train from London and were to be met at the station by a small fleet of motor cars, which he had pressed to his service from all available sources. His own car was waiting at the door ready to take him to the station to meet his “special” when a servant brought him a card.

  “Miss Caroline Smith,” he read. On the corner was the name of the Ross Detective Agency.

  “Tell the young lady I’ll see her in the library.”

  He found her waiting for him. A personable, pretty girl, with remarkably shrewd and clever eyes that beamed behind rimless glasses and a veil, she met him with an elusive smile that came and went like sunshine on a wintry day.

  “So you’re a lady detective, eh?” said Lewinstein with ponderous good humour; “you look young.”

  “Why, yes,” said the girl, “even way home, where youth isn’t any handicap, I’m looked upon as being a trifle under the limit.”

  “Oh, you’re from America, are you?” said Mr. Lewinstein, interested.

  The girl nodded.

  “This is my first work in England, and naturally I am rather nervous.”

  She had a pleasant voice, a soft drawl, which suggested to Mr. Lewinstein, who had spent some years on the other side, that she came from one of the Southern States.

  “Well, I suppose you pretty well know your duties in the game to suppress this Four Square woman.”

  She nodded.

  “That may be a pretty tough proposition. You’ll give me leave to go where I like, and do practically what I like, won’t you? That is essential.”

  “Certainly,” said Mr. Lewinstein; “you will dine with us as our guest?”

  “No, that doesn’t work,” she replied. “The time I ought to be looking round and taking notice, my attention is wholly absorbed by the man who is taking me down to dinner and wants my views on prohibition.

  “So, if you please, I’d like the whole run of your house. I can be your young cousin, Miranda, from the high mountains of New Jersey. What about your servants?”

  “I can trust them with my life,” said Mr. Lewinstein.

  She looked at him with a half-twinkle in her eyes.

  “Can you tell me anything about this she-Raffles?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” said her host, “except that she is one of these society swells who frequent such—well, such parties as I am giving tonight. There will be a lot of ladies here—some of the best in the land—that is what makes it so difficult. As likely as not she will be one of them.”

  “Would you trust them all with your life?” she asked mischievously, and then going on: “I think I know your Four Square woman. Mind,” she raised her hand, “I’m not going to say that I shall discover her here.”

  “I hope to goodness you don’t,” said Joe heartily.

  “Or if I do find her I’m going to denounce her. Perhaps you can tell me something else about her.”

  Mr. Lewinstein shook his head.

  “The only thing I know is that when she’s made a haul, she usually leaves behind a mark.”

  “That I know,” said the girl nodding. “She does that in order that suspicion shall not fall upon the servants.”

  The girl thought a moment, tapping her teeth with a pencil, then she said:

  “Whatever I do, Mr. Lewinstein, you must not regard as remarkable. I have set my mind on capturing Four Square Jane, a
nd starting my career in England with a big flourish of silver trumpets.” She smiled so charmingly that Mrs. Lewinstein in the doorway raised her eyebrows.

  “It is time you were going, Joseph,” she said severely. “What am I to do with this young woman?”

  “Let somebody show her her room,” said the temporarily flustered Mr. Lewinstein, and hurried out to the waiting car.

  Mrs. Lewinstein rang the bell. She had no interest in detectives, especially pretty detectives of twenty-three.

  Adchester Manor House was a large establishment, but it was packed to its utmost capacity to accommodate the guests who arrived that night.

  All Mrs. Lewinstein had said—that these pretty women and amusing men had been lured into Buckinghamshire with a lively hope of favours to come—might be true. Joe Lewinstein was not only a power in the City, with the control of four great corporations, but the Lewinstein interests stretched from Colorado to Vladivostock.

  It was a particularly brilliant party which sat down to dinner that night, and if Mr. Lewinstein swelled a little with pride, that pride was certainly justified. On his right sat Lady Ovingham, a thin woman with the prettiness that consists chiefly in huge appealing eyes and an almost alarming pallor of skin. Her appearance greatly belied her character, for she was an unusually able business woman, and had partnered Mr. Lewinstein in some of his safer speculations. An arm covered from wrist to elbow with diamond bracelets testified to the success of these ventures in finance, for Lady Ovingham had a way of investing her money in diamonds, for she knew that these stones would not suddenly depreciate in value.

  The conversation was animated and, in many cases, hilarious, for Mr. Lewinstein had mixed his guests as carefully as his butler had mixed the cocktails, and both things helped materially towards the success of the evening.

  It was towards the end of the dinner that the first disagreeable incident occurred. His butler leant over him, ostensibly to pour out a glass of wine, and whispered:

  “That young lady that came this afternoon, sir, has been taken ill.”

  “Ill!” said Mr. Lewinstein in dismay. “What happened?”

  “She complained of a bad headache, was seized with tremblings, and had to be taken up to her room,” said the butler in a low voice.

  “Send into the village for the doctor.”

  “I did, sir,” said the man, “but the doctor had been called away to London on an important consultation.”

  Mr. Lewinstein frowned. Then a little gleam of relief came to him. The detective had asked him not to be alarmed at anything that might happen. Possibly this was a ruse for her own purpose. She ought to have told him though, he complained to himself.

  “Very good, wait till dinner is over,” he said.

  When that function was finished, and the guests had reached the coffee and cigarette stage before entering the big ballroom or retiring to their cards, Mr. Lewinstein climbed to the third floor to the tiny bedroom which had been allocated by his lady wife as being adequate for a lady detective.

  He knocked at the door.

  “Come in,” said a faint voice.

  The girl was lying on the bed, covered with an eiderdown quilt, and she was shivering.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me even.”

  “Good Lord!” said Mr. Lewinstein in dismay, “you’re not really ill, are you?”

  “I’m afraid so; I’m awfully sorry. I don’t know what has happened to me, and I have a feeling that my illness is not wholly accidental. I was feeling well until I had a cup of tea, which was brought to my room, when suddenly I was taken with these shivers. Can you get me a doctor?”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Mr. Lewinstein, for he had a kindly heart.

  He went downstairs a somewhat anxious man. If, as the girl seemed to suggest, she had been doped, that presupposed the presence in the house either of Four Square Jane or one of her working partners. He reached the hall to find the butler waiting.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said the butler, “but rather a fortunate thing has happened. A gentleman who has run short of petrol came up to the house to borrow a supply——”

  “Well?” said Mr. Lewinstein.

  “Well, sir, he happens to be a doctor,” said the butler. “I asked him to see you, sir.”

  “Fine,” said Mr. Lewinstein enthusiastically, “that’s a good idea of yours. Bring him into the library.”

  The stranded motorist, a tall young man, came in full of apologies.

  “I say, it’s awfully good of you to let me have this juice,” he said. “The fact is, my silly ass of a man packed me two empty tins.”

  “Delighted to help you, doctor,” said Mr. Lewinstein genially; “and now perhaps you can help me.”

  The young man looked at the other suspiciously.

  “You haven’t anybody ill, have you?” he asked, “I promised my partner I wouldn’t look at a patient for three months. You see,” he explained, “I’ve had rather a heavy time lately, and I’m a bit run down.”

  “You’d be doing us a real kindness if you’d look at this young lady,” said Mr. Lewinstein earnestly. “I don’t know what to make of her, doctor.”

  “Setheridge is my name,” said the doctor. “All right, I’ll look at your patient. It was ungracious of me to pull a face I suppose. Where is she? Is she one of your guests by the way? I seem to have butted in on a party.”

  “Not exactly,” Mr. Lewinstein hesitated, “she is—er—a visitor.”

  He led the way up to the room, and the young man walked in and looked at the shivering girl with the easy confident smile of the experienced practitioner.

  “Hullo,” he said, “what’s the matter with you?”

  He took her wrist in his hand and looked at his watch, and Mr. Lewinstein, standing in the open doorway, saw him frown. He bent down and examined the eyes, then pulled up the sleeve of his patient’s dress and whistled.

  “Is it serious?” she asked anxiously.

  “Not very, if you are taken care of; though you may lose some of that hair,” he said, with a smile at the brown mop on the pillow.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Scarlet fever, my young friend.”

  “Scarlet fever!” It was Mr. Lewinstein who gasped the words. “You don’t mean that?”

  The doctor walked out and joined him on the landing, closing the door behind him.

  “It’s scarlet fever, all right. Have you any idea where she was infected?”

  “Scarlet fever,” moaned Mr. Lewinstein; “and I’ve got the house full of aristocracy!”

  “Well, the best thing you can do is to keep the aristocracy in ignorance of the fact. Get the girl out of the house.”

  “But how? How?” wailed Mr. Lewinstein.

  The doctor scratched his head.

  “Of course, I don’t want to do it,” he said slowly; “but I can’t very well leave a girl in a mess like this. May I use your telephone?”

  “Certainly, use anything you like; but, for goodness’ sake, get the girl away!”

  Mr. Lewinstein showed him the library, where the young man called up a number and gave some instructions. Apparently his telephone interview was satisfactory, for he came back to the hall, where Mr. Lewinstein was nervously drumming his fingers on the polished surface of a table, with a smile.

  “I can get an ambulance out here, but not before three in the morning,” he said; “anyway, that will suit us, because your guests will be abed and asleep by then, and most of the servants also, I suppose. And we can get her out without anybody being the wiser.”

  “I’m awfully obliged to you, doctor,” said Mr. Lewinstein, “anything you like to charge me——”

  The doctor waved fees out of consideration.

  Then a thought occurred to Mr. Lewinstein.

  “Doctor, could that disease be communicated to the girl by means of a drug, or anything?”

  “Why do you ask?” said the other quickly.


  “Well, because she was all right till she had a cup of tea. I must take you into my confidence,” he said, lowering his voice. “She is a detective, brought down here to look after my guests. There have been a number of robberies committed lately by a woman who calls herself ‘Four Square Jane,’ and, to be on the safe side, I had this girl down to protect the property of my friends. When I saw her before dinner she was as well as you or I; then a cup of tea was given to her, and immediately she had these shiverings.”

  The doctor nodded thoughtfully.

  “It is curious you should say that,” he said; “for though she has the symptoms of scarlet fever, she has others which are not usually to be found in scarlet fever cases. Do you suggest that this woman, this Four Square person, is in the house?”

  “Either she or her agent,” said Mr. Lewinstein. “She has several people who work with her by all accounts.”

  “And you believe that she has given this girl a drug to put her out of the way?”

  “That’s my idea.”

  “By jove!” said the young man, “that’s rather a scheme. Well, anyway, there will be plenty of people knocking about tonight, and your guests will be safe for tonight.”

  The girl had been housed in the servants’ wing, but fortunately in a room isolated from all the others. Mr. Lewinstein made several trips upstairs during the course of the evening, saw through the open door the doctor sitting by the side of the bed, and was content. His guests retired towards one o’clock and this agitated Mrs. Lewinstein, to whom the news of the catastrophe had been imparted, having been successfully induced to go to bed, Mr. Lewinstein breathed more freely.

  At half-past one he made his third visit to the door of the sick room, for he, himself, was not without dread of infection, and saw through the open door the doctor sitting reading a book near the head of the bed.

  He stole quietly down, so quietly that he almost surprised a slim figure that was stealing along the darkened corridor whence opened the bedrooms of the principal guests.