The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

by Otto Penzler

  “It is no use, John,” she said firmly. “I’m not going to let you marry the family. When I can make mother independent I’ll marry.”

  “Margaret,” he said, “that means waiting another fifty years—but I’ll wait. What is your new boss like?”

  “He’s English and inoffensive,” she said tersely.

  Which in a sense was true, though Elegant Edward had his own doubts about his inoffensiveness.

  Edward would have fired her the day she came, only he couldn’t summon sufficient courage. Thereafter, he was lost. She took control of the office, the business, and Elegant Edward. It was she who had the idea for appointing the travellers to carry the joyous news about the Trevenay Tin Mine to the remotest parts of Scotland; she who discharged them when their expense accounts came in; she who saw the printers and corrected the proofs of the circular describing the history of the Trevenay Mine; she who bought the typewriter, and insisted upon Edward coming to the office at ten o’clock every morning. She liked Edward; she told him so. Usually such a declaration, coming from so charming a female, would have set Edward’s head wagging. But she had so many qualifications to her admiration that he was almost terrified at her praise.

  “I don’t like that moustache. Why do you wax it, Mr. Mackenzie?” she demanded. “It looks so ridiculous! I wonder how you would look clean-shaven?”

  Now Edward’s moustache was the pride of his life, and he made one great effort to preserve it intact.

  “My personal appearance——” he began with tremulous hauteur.

  “Take it off; I’d like to see you without it,” she said, “unless you’ve got a bad mouth. Most men wear moustaches because their mouths won’t stand inspection.”

  The next morning Edward came clean-shaven, and she looked at him dubiously.

  “I think you had better grow it again,” she said. It was her only comment.

  Money was coming in in handsome quantities—Mr. Farthindale’s new profession was paying handsome dividends.

  One day there floated into his office an acquaintance of other days, Lew Bennyfold—an adventurer at large. Happily the dominant Margaret was out at lunch.

  “Thought it was you,” said Lew, seating himself uninvited. “I spotted you coming into the building yesterday; it took me all the morning to locate you. What’s the graft?”

  Edward gazed upon the apparition in dismay. He had some slight acquaintance with this confidence man—he did not wish to improve upon it.

  “This is no graft, Mr. Bennyfold,” he said gently, “but honest toil and labour—I’m running a mine.”

  “Go on?” said the other incredulously. “You’re not the What-is-it Tin Mine, are you?”

  Edward nodded.

  “That explains everything,” said Mr. Lew Bennyfold gravely, and rose to his feet. “Well, I won’t stay—I don’t want to be in this.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Edward.

  Mr. Bennyfold smiled pityingly.

  “From what I’ve heard of you, you’re a fly mug,” he said; “in fact, you’ve got a name for being clever but easy. But how any grafter could sit here in an office, working with a ‘nose’ and not be wise to it, beats me.”

  “A nose!” said the startled Edward.

  Mr. Bennyfold nodded again.

  “I’ve been working Dundee, and ‘work’s’ a good word. It has been perishing hard work. And I’ve been here long enough to see things. How do you think I came to be watching this office?”

  Edward had wondered that too.

  “I’ve been tailing up Sergeant Walker and his girl,” said Lew. “I happen to lodge opposite the sergeant—he’s the smartest ‘busy’ in Dundee. And I’ve noticed that he’s always with a girl. Meets her after dark and they go long walks. So I got on the track of the girl. And she led me here.”

  “Here?” gasped Edward turning pale. “You don’t mean to tell me——?”

  “She’s Miss Margaret Elton,” said Bennyfold, “and if you’ve let her know anything about your business, you’re as good as jugged.”

  Elegant Edward wiped his warm forehead.

  His business was an honest one—only an insider who knew the office secrets could prove otherwise. Usually, Elegant Edward did not allow an insider to know much, but this bossy girl had taken the office workings into her own hands.

  “He’s sweet on her—there’s no doubt about that,” said Bennyfold. “My landlady told me they’re going to be married. But that’s worse for you, because she’ll do anything for him and swear anything. Mr. Farthindale, I wouldn’t be in your shoes for a million!”

  He left with this, and his anxiety to avoid complications added to Edward’s distress.

  When the girl came back from lunch he regarded her with a new and a fearful interest. There was something very remorseless about her mouth; her eyes, he thought, were pitiless, her profile made him shudder.

  “Our agent in Ayr isn’t doing much business,” she said brusquely. “I think we had better fire him and get another man.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Now he understood her bossiness. She had behind her the power and authority of the law.

  Late in the afternoon she interruped his gloomy meditations.

  “Will you excuse me for a few minutes? A friend of mine wants to see me.”

  “Certainly, Miss Elton,” he said, almost humbly.

  When she had left the room, he went to the window and looked out.

  A tall, stern-looking young man was pacing the sidewalk on the opposite side, from time to time looking up at the office window. With him was an older man—a typical chief constable in mufti.

  Edward saw the girl join them, watched the earnest conversation between them, and once saw the girl look up to the window where he was standing. She saw him and said something and all three looked up.

  Edward drew back quickly out of sight.

  So Lew was right. He was trapped!

  Now Edward was a quick thinker and a man to whom inspiration came very readily. He was inspired now. The scheme came to him in a flash—the greatest wangle that had ever entered his mind. He waited until the girl came back.

  “I’m sorry I was so long. That young gentleman you saw me with—I noticed you were looking—is my fiancé, and the other gentleman is a house agent. Willie is buying a house, though I doubt if he’ll ever put it to the use he intends.”

  “Indeed,” said Edward politely. “I’ll be going to my lawyers for a few minutes to get my will made. Will you witness it for me?”

  She looked at him in surprise.

  “Thinking of dying?” she asked suspiciously.

  Edward had the feeling that to die without her permission would be regarded by her as an unfriendly act.

  The little lawyer who had fixed up his tenancy was in.

  “I want a short deed drawn up, transferring my business to a young lady,” said Edward. “I want it done right away so that I can get it signed.”

  The lawyer was puzzled.

  “A deed? I don’t think it is necessary. A receipt would be sufficient. I’ll draw it up for you. How much is being paid?”

  “Half-a-crown,” said Edward. He didn’t think Margaret would part with more without explanation. “But it has got to have her signature.”

  “I see—a nominal transfer,” said the lawyer, and drew up the document on the spot.

  Edward carried the paper back to his office.

  “You sign this here,” he said, as he wrote his name across the stamp, “and to make this document legal you’ve got to put your name under mine and give me half-a-crown.”

  “Why? I’ve got no half-crowns to throw away!”

  Eventually and on the promise that the money would be returned, she consented, signed the paper, paid, and was repaid the money.

  Edward put the document into an envelope, sealed it, and placed it in his little safe.

  “Now everything’s all right,” he said and smiled seraphically.

  The n
ext morning came fifty inquiries for Trevenay Shares. The afternoon post brought forty more. He went to his bank and drew six hundred pounds. He must be ready to move at a moment’s notice.

  Edward had often lived on the edges of volcanoes and thrived in the atmosphere of sulphur, but he was more than usually nervous that day and the next; and on the evening of the second day the blow fell.

  He was leaving his office when he saw the tall stern young man come quickly towards him. Elegant Edward stood stock still.

  “I want you, Mr. Mackenzie,” said the officer.

  “I don’t know what you want me for,” said Edward loudly, and at that moment Margaret Elton came out into the street.

  “You may want this young lady, but you certainly don’t want me.”

  The officer stared at him.

  “I don’t understand you,” he said.

  “You don’t? Well, I’ll tell you something—the business belongs to her. If you’ll step inside I’ll show you.”

  Edward led the way back to his sanctum, opened the safe, took out and opened the envelope.

  “Here you are,” he said, “read this.”

  Sergeant Walker read in silent amazement the document that transferred to Margaret Elton, “the business known as the Trevenay Share Syndicate, together with all shares held by that company, exclusive of monies standing to the credit of the syndicate, furniture, leaseholds, and all properties whatsoever.”

  “You mean…this is Miss Elton’s business?” gasped Walker.

  Edward nodded gravely.

  “I gave it to her as—as a wedding present,” he said, “there’s the key of the safe—bless you, my children!”

  He was out of the office before they could stop him.

  “What does it mean?” asked the amazed girl.

  Sergeant Walker shook his head.

  “I don’t know—it must be that miracle you’re always talking about,” he said. “I stopped him in the street to ask him if he could give you a fortnight’s holiday and come to the wedding and he sprung this on me. How did he know we were getting married?”

  —

  The first person Edward saw on Edinburgh railway station was the professor, and he was sober. The recognition was mutual and the professor waved a cheery greeting.

  “Going south, eh? So am I. Yes, sir, thanks to the activities of the quacks, I haven’t seen London for thirty years.”

  The old man got into the carriage and deposited his bag on the hat rack, and as the train began to move slowly out of the station on its non-stop run to Newcastle, he explained the object of his journey.

  “I’m going to meet my dear friend, Macginnis, who has made me a rich man. The Trevenay Mine, sir, is a gold mine! I am speaking figuratively, of course. A new tin deposit has been discovered, the shares which were not worth the paper they are written on, are now worth a pound—perhaps two pounds. You said you had some? I congratulate you….”

  Edward did not hear any more. He had swooned.

  Rogue: Fidelity Dove

  The Genuine Old Master

  DAVID DURHAM

  TWO VERY ORIGINAL CHARACTERS, each quite different from the other, highlight the accomplishments of William Edward Vickers (1889–1965), who wrote under the nom de plume of Roy Vickers. The Exploits of Fidelity Dove (1924) recounts the adventures of the angelic-looking girl whose ethereal beauty has made emotional slaves of many men. She is a fearless and inventive crook, whose “gang” consists of a lawyer, a businessman, a scientist, and other devoted servants. She always wears gray, partly because the color matches well with her violet eyes but also because it reflects her strict, puritanical life. She is committed to righting wrongs, to helping those who cannot help themselves, while also being certain that the endeavor is profitable to herself. Her frustrated adversary, Detective Inspector Rason, finds greater success when he joins the Department of Dead Ends, Vickers’s other memorable series. The Exploits of Fidelity Dove was published under the pseudonym David Durham and is one of the rarest volumes of crime fiction of the twentieth century; it was reissued eleven years later by Roy Vickers.

  The Department of Dead Ends is an obscure branch of Scotland Yard that has the unenviable task of trying to solve crimes that have been abandoned as hopeless. The stories in this series are “inverted” detective tales in which the reader witnesses the crime being committed, is aware when the incriminating clue is discovered, and follows the police methods that lead to the arrest. The department’s unusual cases are recorded in several short story collections, beginning with The Department of Dead Ends (1947); the British edition of 1949 has mainly different stories.

  Vickers’s novel The Girl in the News (1937) was released on film in 1940 to mostly good reviews. It was directed by Carol Reed, with a screenplay by Sidney Gilliat, and starred Margaret Lockwood, Barry K. Barnes, and Emlyn Williams.

  “The Genuine Old Master” was originally published in The Exploits of Fidelity Dove (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1924).

  THE GENUINE OLD MASTER

  David Durham

  THE UNFRIENDLY CRITICS of Fidelity Dove have urged that her ingenuity, her courage, and her resource have been grossly exaggerated. They point to the fact that she worked with a company of metallurgists, electricians, mechanics, and artists. They suggest that these men supplied the daring and the originality, and that Fidelity was little more than a competent actress.

  In point of fact, as the episode of the Old Master amply proves, Fidelity was a great deal more than a competent actress. She was a shrewd little psychologist with a decided flair for calculating just how the human brain would act in a given set of circumstances—and as she was generally the one to “give” the circumstances, she was nearly always right. Ask Sir Rufus Blatch to tell you about his Old Master.

  —

  “Clery’s ‘Sister of Charity,’ ” murmured Fidelity, gazing up at the picture. “You have seen reproductions, of course, Sir Rufus?”

  Sir Rufus Blatch, the button-stick baronet—his fortune and title had come to him through the contract to supply the entire Forces of the Crown with button-sticks during the Great War—removed his eyes hastily from Fidelity’s angelic face and, looking up at the Clery, said that of course he had seen many reproductions. He stared at the oval face, enclosed so straitly by the stiff, winged coif of a nun, and the pale hands folded upon a breviary. “Very little life in it,” was his private opinion.

  “No reproduction can give those velvet shadows their value or suggest the true beauty of the flesh-tints,” murmured Fidelity, still gazing up at the picture. It hung above the carved mantelpiece in the room she called “the study,” a stately apartment that afforded a rich setting to her own ethereal beauty.

  Sir Rufus admired the Clery volubly. He was ready to admire anything that Fidelity admired. He had that day had the privilege of entertaining Fidelity to lunch in his gilded Kensington residence, packed with objets d’art. He had driven her home after lunch in one of his smaller cars, and afterwards, at her request, entered her house to see the “Sister of Charity.”

  “I congratulate you on such a valuable possession, my dear,” said Sir Rufus, and hastily added, as Fidelity’s limpid eyes rested upon his—“Miss Dove.”

  Fidelity waved a slender hand up at the picture.

  “If you really like it so much, Sir Rufus,” she said, “you will only be doing me a kindness by taking it off my hands. I know it would be useless to offer it to you as a present for you would not take it. You may pay me what I gave for it.” There was a tiny pause, and then: “Ten thousand pounds.”

  Sir Rufus coughed. It was a nasty shock, and he did not quite know how to deal with it. It was impossible to believe that with those eyes, that voice, that grave naïveté, she had deliberately led him to this point.

  “Really, my dear young lady, you’re most generous, but—your proposition is rather sudden, as it were. I would not for a moment dispute the worth of the picture, but ten thousand pounds is a great deal of money, even
if I felt—”

  “Not to you, Sir Rufus,” said Fidelity. “They say you are one of the richest men in London.”

  Sir Rufus beamed. He had not at that moment the smallest intention of buying the picture, but it was pleasant to be regarded as one of the richest men in London. He looked down at Fidelity. If, by purchasing the picture, he could make sure of the fair owner—well, he could afford to do that sort of thing if he wanted to. But he would not be rushed into it. Fidelity must make her intentions clearer first.

  “I’ll think it over, Miss Dove,” he said, eyeing her with mingled shrewdness and desire, “and I’ll let you know tomorrow. Dear me! Half-past three! I must be going.”

  “Please take ample time for consideration,” said Fidelity with silver sweetness. “You have perhaps friends whose opinion you value. It will be a pleasure to afford them a view of the picture.”

  “Ah, thanks. Yes.” Sir Rufus had brightened. Apparently Fidelity’s final suggestion had reminded him of someone. “I’ll let you know later on. Good-bye.”

  As the bulky form of the button-stick baronet disappeared, another and much younger man sauntered into the study by way of the conservatory at the far end. He approached the picture, moistened his finger and touched it, then drew back. Fidelity watched him with enigmatic kindliness.

  “The frame,” he said slowly, “is not a bad piece of gilding. I value that at about four pounds. For the picture itself, as it is a quite passably good copy, I would allow twelve guineas. H’m! There’s a bit of careful work about the eyes done by a man who is no amateur. Call it twenty pounds. Total twenty-four. What did you pay for it, Fidelity?”

  “Forty guineas,” said Fidelity.

  “Then you’ve not been too badly swindled,” said Garfield. (You will remember Garfield’s picture in the Academy a few years ago—you see now the reason behind his sensational disappearance.) “The original ‘Sister of Charity,’ by the way, is in the possession of Lord Doucester—unless the poor old dear has been compelled to part with it. It’s a long way from being a national treasure, but it’s worth quite fifteen hundred.”