“Gad! Henriette,” I cried. “You are worthy of Raffles, I swear it. You can be easy about your rent for sixteen years.”
“That is about the size of it, as these Newport people have it,” said Mrs. Raffles, beaming upon me.
“I’m still in the dark as to where I come in,” said I.
“Promise to obey my directions implicitly,” said Henriette “and you will receive your share of the booty.”
“Henriette—” I cried, passionately, seizing her hand.
“No—Bunny—not now,” she remonstrated, gently. “This is no time for sentiment. Just promise to obey, the love and honor business may come later.”
“I will,” said I.
“Well, then,” she resumed, her color mounting high, and speaking rapidly, “you are to return at once to New York, taking with you three trunks which I have already packed, containing one of the most beautiful collections of jade ornaments that has ever been gathered together. You will rent a furnished apartment in some aristocratic quarter. Spread these articles throughout your rooms as though you were a connoisseur, and on Thursday next when Mr. Harold Van Gilt calls upon you to see your collection you will sell it to him for not less than eight thousand dollars.”
“Aha!” said I. “I see the scheme.”
“This you will immediately remit to me here,” she continued, excitedly. “Mr. Van Gilt will pay cash.”
I laughed. “Why eight thousand?” I demanded. “Are you living beyond your—ah—income?”
“No,” she answered, “but next month’s rent is due Tuesday, and I owe my servants and tradesmen twenty-five hundred dollars more.”
“Even then there will be three thousand dollars over,” I put in.
“True, Bunny, true. But I shall need it all, dear. I am invited to the P. J. D. Gasters on Sunday afternoon to play bridge,” Henriette explained. “We must prepare for emergencies.”
I returned to New York on the boat that night, and by Wednesday was safely ensconced in very beautifully furnished bachelor quarters near Gramercy Square, where on Thursday Mr. Harold Van Gilt called to see my collection of jades which I was selling because of a contemplated five-year journey into the East. On Friday Mr. Van Gilt took possession of the collection, and that night a check for eight thousand dollars went to Mrs. Van Raffles at Newport. Incidentally, I passed two thousand dollars to my own credit. As I figured it out, if Van Gilt was willing to pay ten thousand dollars for the stuff, and Henriette was willing to take eight thousand dollars for it, nobody was the loser by my pocketing two thousand dollars—unless, perhaps, it was Mr. and Mrs. Constant Scrappe who owned the goods. But that was none of my affair. I played straight with the others, and that was all there was to it as far as I was concerned.
III
Two days after my bargain with Mr. Harold Van Gilt, in which he acquired possession of the Scrappe jades and Mrs. Van Raffles and I shared the proceeds of the ten thousand dollars check, I was installed at Bolivar Lodge as head-butler and steward, my salary to consist of what I could make out of it on the side, plus ten percent of the winnings of my mistress. It was not long before I discovered that the job was a lucrative one. From various tradesmen of the town I received presents of no little value in the form sometimes of diamond scarf-pins, gold link sleeve-buttons, cases of fine wines for my own use, and in one or two instances checks of substantial value. There was also what was called a steward’s rebate on the monthly bills, which in circles where lavish entertainment is the order of the day amounted to a tidy little income in itself. My only embarrassment lay in the contact into which I was necessarily brought with other butlers, with whom I was perforce required to associate. This went very much against the grain at first, for, although I am scarcely more than a thief after all, I am an artistic one, and still retain the prejudice against inferior associations which an English gentleman whatever the vicissitudes of his career can never quite rid himself of. I had to join their club—an exclusive organization of butlers and “gentlemen’s gentlemen”—otherwise valets—and in order to quiet all suspicion of my real status in the Van Raffles household I was compelled to act the part in a fashion which revolted me. Otherwise the position was pleasant, and, as I have intimated, more than lucrative.
It did not take me many days to discover that Henriette was a worthy successor to her late husband. Few opportunities for personal profit escaped her eye, and I was able to observe as time went on and I noted the accumulation of spoons, forks, nutcrackers, and gimcracks generally that she brought home with her after her calls upon or dinners with ladies of fashion that she had that quality of true genius which never overlooks the smallest details.
The first big coup after my arrival, as the result of her genius, was in the affair of Mrs. Gaster’s maid. Henriette had been to a bridge afternoon at Mrs. Gaster’s and upon her return manifested an extraordinary degree of excitement. Her color was high, and when she spoke her voice was tremulous. Her disturbed condition was so evident that my heart sank into my boots, for in our business nerve is a sine qua non of success, and it looked to me as if Henriette was losing hers. She has probably lost at cards today, I thought, and it has affected her usual calmness. I must do something to warn her against this momentary weakness. With this idea in mind, when the opportunity presented itself later I spoke.
“You lost at bridge today, Henriette,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied. “Twenty-five hundred dollars in two hours. How did you guess?”
“By your manner,” said I. “You are as nervous as a young girl at a commencement celebration. This won’t do, Henriette. Nerves will prove your ruin, and if you can’t stand your losses at bridge, what will you do in the face of the greater crisis which in our profession is likely to confront us in the shape of an unexpected visit of police at any moment?”
Her answer was a ringing laugh.
“You absurd old rabbit,” she murmured. “As if I cared about my losses at bridge! Why, my dear Bunny, I lost that money on purpose. You don’t suppose that I am going to risk my popularity with these Newport ladies by winning, do you? Not I, my boy. I plan too far ahead for that. For the good of our cause it is my task to lose steadily and with good grace. This establishes my credit, proves my amiability, and confirms my popularity.”
“But you are very much excited by something, Henriette,” said I. “You cannot deny that.”
“I don’t—but it is the prospect of future gain, not the reality of present losses, that has taken me off my poise,” she said. “Whom do you suppose I saw at Mrs. Gaster’s today?”
“No detectives, I hope,” I replied, paling at the thought.
“No, sir,” she laughed. “Mrs. Gaster’s maid. We must get her, Bunny.”
“Oh, tush!” I ejaculated. “All this powwow over another woman’s maid!”
“You don’t understand,” said Henriette. “It wasn’t the maid so much as the woman that startled me, Bunny. You can’t guess who she was.”
“How should I?” I demanded.
“She was Fiametta de Belleville, one of the most expert hands in our business. Poor old Raffles used to say that she diminished his income a good ten thousand pounds a year by getting in her fine work ahead of his,” explained Henriette. “He pointed her out to me in Piccadilly once and I have never forgotten her face.”
“I hope she did not recognize you,” I observed.
“No, indeed—she never saw me before, so how could she? But I knew her the minute she took my cloak,” said Henriette. “She’s dyed her hair, but her eyes were the same as ever, and that peculiar twist of the lip that Raffles had spoken of as constituting one of her fascinations remained unchanged. Moreover, just to prove myself right, I left my lace handkerchief and a five hundred dollar bill in the cloak pocket. When I got the cloak back both were gone. Oh, she’s Fiametta de Belleville all right, and we must get her.”
“What for—to rob you?”
“No,” returned Henrietta, “rather that we—but there, there, B
unny, I’ll manage this little thing myself. It’s a trifle too subtle for a man’s intellect—especially when that man is you.”
“What do you suppose she is doing here?” I asked.
“You silly boy,” laughed Henriette.
“Doing? Why, Mrs. Gaster, of course. She is after the Gaster jewels.”
“Humph!” I said, gloomily. “That cuts us out, doesn’t it?”
“Does it?” asked Henriette, enigmatically.
It was about ten weeks later that the newspapers of the whole country were ringing with the startling news of the mysterious disappearance of Mrs. Gaster’s jewels. The lady had been robbed of three hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars worth of gems, and there was apparently no clew even to the thief. Henriette and I, of course, knew that Fiametta de Belleville had accomplished her mission, but apparently no one else knew it. True, she had been accused, and had been subjected to a most rigid examination by the Newport police and the New York Central Office, but no proof of any kind establishing her guilt could be adduced, and after a week of suspicion she was to all intents and purposes relieved of all odium.
“She’ll skip now,” said I.
“Not she,” said Henriette. “To disappear now would be a confession of guilt. If Fiametta de Belleville is the woman I take her for she’ll stay right here as if nothing had happened, but of course not at Mrs. Gaster’s.”
“Where then?” I asked.
“With Mrs. A. J. Van Raffles,” replied Henriette. “The fact is,” she added, “I have already engaged her. She has acted her part well, and has seemed so prostrated by the unjust suspicion of the world that even Mrs. Gaster is disturbed over her condition. She has asked her to remain, but Fiametta has refused. ‘I couldn’t, madam,’ she said when Mrs. Gaster asked her to stay. ‘You have accused me of a fearful crime—a crime of which I am innocent—and—I’d rather work in a factory, or become a shop-girl in a department store, than stay longer in a house where such painful things have happened.’ Result, next Tuesday Fiametta de Belleville comes to me as my maid.”
“Well, Henriette,” said I, “I presume you know your own business, but why you lay yourself open to being robbed yourself and to having the profits of your own business diminished I can’t see. Please remember that I warned you against this foolish act.”
“All right, Bunny, I’ll remember,” smiled Mrs. Van Raffles, and there the matter was dropped for the moment.
The following Tuesday Fiametta de Belleville was installed in the Van Raffles household as the maid of Mrs. A. J. Van Raffles. To her eagle eye it was another promising field for profit, for Henriette had spared neither pains nor money to impress Fiametta with the idea that next to Mrs. Gaster she was about as lavish and financially capable a householder as could be found in the Social Capital of the United States. As for me, I was the picture of gloom. The woman’s presence in our household could not be but a source of danger to our peace of mind as well as to our profits, and for the life of me I could not see why Henriette should want her there. But I was not long in finding out.
A week after Fiametta’s arrival Mrs. Raffles rang hurriedly for me.
“Yes, madam,” I said, responding immediately to her call.
“Bunny,” she said, her hand trembling a little, “the hour for action has arrived. I have just sent Fiametta on an errand to Providence. She will be gone three hours.”
“Yes!” said I. “What of it?”
“I want you during her absence to go with me to her room—”
The situation began to dawn on me.
“Yes!” I cried, breathlessly. “And search her trunks?”
“No, Bunny, no—the eaves,” whispered Henriette. “I gave her that room in the wing because it has so many odd cubby-holes where she could conceal things. I am inclined to think—well, the moment she leaves the city let me know. Follow her to the station, and don’t return till you know she is safely out of town and on her way to Providence. Then our turn will come.”
Oh, that woman! If I had not adored her before I—but enough. This is no place for sentiment. The story is the thing, and I must tell it briefly.
I followed out Henriette’s instructions to the letter, and an hour later returned with the information that Fiametta was, indeed, safely on her way.
“Good,” said Mrs. Raffles. “And now, Bunny, for the Gaster jewels.”
Mounting the stairs rapidly, taking care, of course, that there were none of the other servants about to spy upon us, we came to the maid’s room. Everything in it betokened a high mind and a good character. There were religious pictures upon the bureau, prayer-books, and some volumes of essays of a spiritual nature were scattered about—nothing was there to indicate that the occupant was anything but a simple, sweet child of innocence except—
Well, Henriette was right—except the Gaster jewels. Even as my mistress had suspected, they were cached under the eaves, snuggled close against the huge dormer-window looking out upon the gardens; laid by for a convenient moment to get them out of Newport, and then—back to England for Fiametta. And what a gorgeous collection they were! Dog-collars of diamonds, yards of pearl rope, necklaces of rubies of the most lustrous color and of the size of pigeons’ eggs, rings, brooches, tiaras—everything in the way of jewelled ornament the soul of woman could desire—all packed closely away in a tin box that I now remembered Fiametta had brought with her in her hand the day of her arrival. And now all these things were ours—Henriette’s and mine—without our having had to stir out-of-doors to get them. An hour later they were in the safety-deposit vault of Mrs. A. J. Van Raffles in the sturdy cellars of the Tiverton Trust Company, as secure against intrusion as though they were locked in the heart of Gibraltar itself.
And Fiametta? Well—a week later she left Newport suddenly, her eyes red with weeping and her slight little figure convulsed with grief. Her favorite aunt had just died, she said, and she was going back to England to bury her.
*
For more tales of Bunny & Mrs. Raffles, see the book Mrs. Raffles, by John Kendrick Bangs, originally published in 1905.
THE BIG BOW MYSTERY, By Israel Zangwill
INTRODUCTION: OF MURDERS AND MYSTERIES.
As this little book was written some four years ago, I feel able to review it without prejudice. A new book just hot from the brain is naturally apt to appear faulty to its begetter, but an old book has got into the proper perspective and may be praised by him without fear or favor. “The Big Bow Mystery” seems to me an excellent murder story, as murder stories go, for, while as sensational as the most of them, it contains more humor and character creation than the best. Indeed, the humor is too abundant. Mysteries should be sedate and sober. There should be a pervasive atmosphere of horror and awe such as Poe manages to create. Humor is out of tone; it would be more artistic to preserve a somber note throughout. But I was a realist in those days, and in real life mysteries occur to real persons with their individual humors, and mysterious circumstances are apt to be complicated by comic. The indispensable condition of a good mystery is that it should be able and unable to be solved by the reader, and that the writer’s solution should satisfy. Many a mystery runs on breathlessly enough till the dénouement is reached, only to leave the reader with the sense of having been robbed of his breath under false pretenses. And not only must the solution be adequate, but all its data must be given in the body of the story. The author must not suddenly spring a new person or a new circumstance upon his reader at the end. Thus, if a friend were to ask me to guess who dined with him yesterday, it would be fatuous if he had in mind somebody of whom he knew I had never heard. The only person who has ever solved “The Big Bow Mystery” is myself. This is not paradox but plain fact. For long before the book was written, I said to myself one night that no mystery-monger had ever murdered a man in a room to which there was no possible access. The puzzle was scarcely propounded ere the solution flew up and the idea lay stored in my mind till, years later, during the silly season, the edit
or of a popular London evening paper, anxious to let the sea-serpent have a year off, asked me to provide him with a more original piece of fiction. I might have refused, but there was murder in my soul, and here was the opportunity. I went to work seriously, though the Morning Post subsequently said the skit was too labored, and I succeeded at least in exciting my readers, so many of whom sent in unsolicited testimonials in the shape of solutions during the run of the story that, when it ended, the editor asked me to say something by way of acknowledgement. Thereupon I wrote a letter to the paper, thanking the would-be solvers for their kindly attempts to help me out of the mess into which I had got the plot. I did not like to wound their feelings by saying straight out that they had failed, one and all, to hit on the real murderer, just like real police, so I tried to break the truth to them in a roundabout, mendacious fashion, as thus:
To the Editor of “The Star.”
Sir: Now that “The Big Bow Mystery” is solved to the satisfaction of at least one person, will you allow that person the use of your invaluable columns to enable him to thank the hundreds of your readers who have favored him with their kind suggestions and solutions while his tale was running and they were reading? I ask this more especially because great credit is due to them for enabling me to end the story in a manner so satisfactory to myself. When I started it, I had, of course, no idea who had done the murder, but I was determined no one should guess it. Accordingly, as each correspondent sent in the name of a suspect, I determined he or she should not be the guilty party. By degrees every one of the characters got ticked off as innocent—all except one, and I had no option but to make that character the murderer. I was very sorry to do this, as I rather liked that particular person, but when one has such ingenious readers, what can one do? You can’t let anybody boast that he guessed aright, and, in spite of the trouble of altering the plot five or six times, I feel that I have chosen the course most consistent with the dignity of my profession. Had I not been impelled by this consideration I should certainly have brought in a verdict against Mrs. Drabdump, as recommended by the reader who said that, judging by the illustration in the “Star,” she must be at least seven feet high, and, therefore, could easily have got on the roof and put her (proportionately) long arm down the chimney to effect the cut. I am not responsible for the artist’s conception of the character. When I last saw the good lady she was under six feet, but your artist may have had later information. The “Star” is always so frightfully up to date. I ought not to omit the humorous remark of a correspondent, who said: “Mortlake might have swung in some wild way from one window to another, at any rate in a story.” I hope my fellow-writers thus satirically prodded will not demand his name, as I object to murders, “at any rate in real life.” Finally, a word with the legions who have taken me to task for allowing Mr. Gladstone to write over 170 words on a postcard. It is all owing to you, sir, who announced my story as containing humorous elements. I tried to put in some, and this gentle dig at the grand old correspondent’s habits was intended to be one of them. However, if I am to be taken “at the foot of the letter” (or rather of the postcard), I must say that only today I received a postcard containing about 250 words. But this was not from Mr. Gladstone. At any rate, till Mr. Gladstone himself repudiates this postcard, I shall consider myself justified in allowing it to stand in the book.
The Victorian Mystery Megapack: 27 Classic Mystery Tales Page 18
