Richard Dalby (ed)

by Crime for Christmas

  In the course of the next few months Mrs Hetherington and her daughter removed to the village of Bowness, on the banks of Windermere, as they had friends living there; and it was arranged that the marriage should take place in the parish church of that place.

  The wedding day came. It was a glorious summer’s morning, and the air was filled with the music of birds and the scent of flowers. The wedding was to be very quiet, and but few guests had been invited. Those who knew Lily well said that the ‘Red Lily had drooped.’ All the brightness was out of her life, for she felt that her heart was beneath the waves of the Bay of Biscay.

  The wedding party had assembled in the church, and the ceremony had commenced. When the grey-haired clergyman asked if anyone knew any just cause or impediment why the man and woman should not be joined together in the bonds of holy matrimony, there rose up a man in the body of the church, and in a loud and steady voice exclaimed:

  ‘I forbid this marriage.’

  Had a thunderbolt fallen through the roof the consternation and confusion could not have been greater. With a great cry the Red Lily threw up her arms, and then fell forward on her face in a swoon. For a few moments Cornell stood as if petrified. His face was ghastly pale. By this time the man had come forward to the altar rails, and then Cornell found tongue.

  ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed, ‘is it possible that the dead can come to life?’

  ‘No; but the living can thwart the machinations of a villain, and I am here to do that,’ said Dick Fenton, for he it was. ‘This man,’ continued Dick, addressing the astonished spectators, ‘attempted to murder me.’

  No one moved. They were dumb with amazement, for they naturally thought a madman was amongst them. Dick himself stooped and lifted up the inanimate form of the Lily, and bore her into the vestry. Taking advantage of the confusion—for everyone seemed bewildered—Cornell stole from the church, got clear away, and was never heard of more.

  It was some time before Lily recovered consciousness. It is better to leave the reunion of the lovers to the imagination of the reader, for words always fail to convey anything like an adequate notion of such a scene. The news of the affair had rapidly spread over the village; an enormous crowd had gathered about the church, and the uproar was immense. The wedding party had to wait a considerable time before they could get back to their homes; then explanations were given.

  On that dreadful night in the Bay of Biscay Dick had escaped death almost by a miracle, as it were. He was a good swimmer, but was a little stunned by striking his head against the side of the vessel in his descent. He had a recollection, however, of making a powerful effort to swim, and in a little while he felt something touch his hand, and found it was a life buoy. On this he supported himself for a long time—it seemed to him two or three hours. Then he saw the outlines of a vessel, which he took to be the Sirocco, and he shouted with all his might, and presently had the satisfaction to hear the plash of oars. He had only a faint recollection of hearing a human voice, and feeling the grasp of hands about him. Then ensued a blank. When next he opened his eyes he found himself in a comfortable cabin, and he soon learnt that it was not the Sirocco that had picked him up, but an outward bound ship, called the Golden Fleece. She was bound for the Cape, and so Dick was mortified to find that he must accompany her there, unless a homeward bounder should be fallen in with, and he could get on board. This chance did not occur, and so to the Cape he went, but the vessel made a long voyage. As soon after arrival as possible he took ship for England, and on reaching there he soon discovered to his amazement that the Red Lily was on the eve of being married to Cornell. He hurried down to the Lake district, and was there a whole week determining not to declare himself until the last moment, so that the discomfiture of his enemy might be the more complete.

  For some months after this strange and startling incident Lily remained in such delicate health that grave fears were at one time entertained. Sudden joy is almost as bad as great sorrow at times, and the unexpected return of her lost lover had been too great a shock. Care, attention, and change of air, however, gradually restored her, and again she made preparations for her marriage, which was to take place on Christmas Day, twelve months after the terrible scene in the Bay of Biscay, when Dick was hurled into the sea.

  The day came at last—cold, crisp, and bright. The earth was wrapped in a robe of spotless white, and the church was decorated with holly and winter flowers. As the bells pealed forth merrily, and the winter sun shone out from the dull sky, Dick Fenton led his bride down the pathway to the carriage that waited them at the gate, and the crowd of villagers that had gathered in the old churchyard declared that no bonnier bride had ever been seen than the Red Lily.

  THE BLACK BAG LEFT ON A DOORSTEP - C. L. Pirkis

  The amazing and worldwide success of Sherlock Holmes quickly brought a large number of detectives in his wake, solving numerous crimes in the pages of popular monthly magazines, which were often reprinted in book form. One of the best—the earliest—female detectives was Loveday Brooke, whose exploits were described by novelist Mrs Catherine Louisa Pirkis (1841-1910) in the Ludgate magazine during 1893 and collected as The Experiences of Loveday Brooke: Lady Detective (Hutchinson, 1894). Mrs Pirkis was an enthusiastic humanitarian and antivivisectionist, and one of the founders of the National Canine Defence League in Britain.

  ‘It’s a big thing,’ said Loveday Brooke, addressing Ebenezer Dyer, I chief of the well-known detective agency in Lynch Court, Fleet Street; ‘Lady Cathrow has lost £30,000 worth of jewellery, if the newspaper accounts are to be trusted.’

  ‘They are fairly accurate this time. The robbery differs in few respects from the usual run of country-house robberies. The time chosen, of course, was the dinner-hour, when the family and guests were at table and the servants not on duty were amusing themselves in their own quarters. The fact of its being Christmas Eve would also of necessity add to the busyness and consequent distraction of the household. The entry to the house, however, in this case was not effected in the usual manner by a ladder to the dressing-room window, but through the window of a room on the ground floor—a small room with one window and two doors, one of which opens into the hall, and the other into a passage that leads by the back stairs to the bedroom floor. It is used, I believe, as a sort of hat and coat room by the gentlemen of the house.’

  ‘It was, I suppose, the weak point of the house?’

  ‘Quite so. A very weak point indeed. Craigen Court, the residence of Sir George and Lady Cathrow, is an oddly built old place, jutting out in all directions, and as this window looked out upon a blank wall, it was filled in with stained glass, kept fastened by a strong brass catch, and never opened, day or night, ventilation being obtained by means of a glass ventilator fitted in the upper panes. It seems absurd to think that this window, being only about four feet from the ground, should have had neither iron bars nor shutters added to it; such, however, was the case. On the night of the robbery, someone within the house must have deliberately, and of intention, unfastened its only protection, the brass catch, and thus given the thieves easy entrance to the house.’

  ‘Your suspicions, I suppose, centre upon the servants?’

  ‘Undoubtedly; and it is in the servants’ hall that your services will be required. The thieves, whoever they were, were perfectly cognizant of the ways of the house. Lady Cathrow’s jewellery was kept in a safe in her dressing-room, and as the dressing-room was over the dining-room, Sir George was in the habit of saying that it was the “safest” room in the house. (Note the pun, please, Sir George is rather proud of it. ) By his orders the window of the dining-room immediately under the dressing-room window was always left unshuttered and without blind during dinner, and as a full stream of light thus fell through it on to the outside terrace, it would have been impossible for anyone to have placed a ladder there unseen.’

  ‘I see from the newspapers that it was Sir George’s invariable custom to fill his house and give a large dinner on Christmas
Eve.’

  ‘Yes. Sir George and Lady Cathrow are elderly people, with no family and few relatives, and have consequently a large amount of time to spend on their friends.’

  ‘I suppose the key of the safe was frequently left in the possession of Lady Cathrow’s maid?’

  ‘Yes. She is a young French girl, Stephanie Delcroix by name. It was her duty to clear the dressing-room directly after her mistress left it: put away any jewellery that might be lying about, lock the safe, and keep the key till her mistress came up to bed. On the night of the robbery, however, she admits that, instead of so doing, directly her mistress left the dressing-room, she ran down to the housekeeper’s room to see if any letters had come for her, and remained chatting with the other servants for some time—she could not say for how long. It was by the half-past-seven post that her letters generally arrived from St Omer, where her home is.’

  ‘Oh, then, she was in the habit of thus running down to enquire for her letters, no doubt, and the thieves, who appear to be so thoroughly cognizant of the house, would know this also.’

  ‘Perhaps; though at the present moment I must say things look very black against the girl. Her manner, too, when questioned, is not calculated to remove suspicion. She goes from one fit of hysterics into another; contradicts herself nearly every time she opens her mouth, then lays it to the charge of her ignorance of our language; breaks into voluble French; becomes theatrical in action, and then goes off into hysterics once more.’

  ‘All that is quite Francais, you know,’ said Loveday. ‘Do the authorities at Scotland Yard lay much stress on the safe being left unlocked that night?’

  ‘They do, and they are instituting a keen enquiry as to the possible lovers the girl may have. For this purpose they have sent Bates down to stay in the village and collect all the information he can outside the house. But they want someone within the walls to hob-nob with the maids generally, and to find out if she has taken any of them into her confidence respecting her lovers. So they sent to me to know if I would send down for this purpose one of the shrewdest and most clear-headed of my female detectives. I, in my turn, Miss Brooke, have sent for you— you may take it as a compliment if you like. So please now get out your notebook, and I’ll give you sailing orders.’

  Loveday Brooke, at this period of her career, was a little over thirty years of age, and could be best described in a series of negations.

  She was not tall, she was not short; she was not dark, she was not fair; she was neither handsome nor ugly. Her features were altogether nondescript; her one noticeable trait was a habit she had, when absorbed in thought, of dropping her eyelids over her eyes till only a line of eyeball showed, and she appeared to be looking out at the world through a slit, instead of through a window.

  Her dress was invariably black, and was almost Quaker-like in its neat primness.

  Some five or six years previously, by a jerk of Fortune’s wheel, Loveday had been thrown upon the world penniless and all but friendless. Marketable accomplishments she had found she had none, so she had forthwith defied convention, and had chosen for herself a career that had cut her off sharply from her former associates and her position in society. For five or six years she drudged away patiently in the lower walks of her profession; then chance, or, to speak more precisely, an intricate criminal case, threw her in the way of the experienced head of the flourishing detective agency in Lynch Court. He quickly enough found out the stuff she was made of, and threw her in the way of better-class work—work, indeed, that brought increase of pay and of reputation alike to him and to Loveday.

  Ebenezer Dyer was not, as a rule, given to enthusiasm; but he would at times wax eloquent over Miss Brooke’s qualifications for the profession she had chosen.

  ‘Too much of a lady, do you say?’ he would say to anyone who chanced to call in question those qualifications. ‘I don’t care two-pence-halfpenny whether she is or is not a lady. I only know she is the most sensible and practical woman I ever met. In the first place, she has the faculty—so rare among women—of carrying out orders to the very letter; in the second place, she has a clear, shrewd brain, unhampered by any hard-and-fast theories; thirdly, and most important item of all, she has so much common sense that it amounts to genius—positively to genius, sir.’

  But although Loveday and her chief as a rule worked together upon an easy and friendly footing, there were occasions on which they were wont, so to speak, to snarl at each other.

  Such an occasion was at hand now.

  Loveday showed no disposition to take out her notebook and receive her ‘sailing orders’.

  ‘I want to know,’ she said, ‘if what I saw in one newspaper is true—that one of the thieves before leaving, took the trouble to close the safe door, and to write across it in chalk: ‘To be let, unfurnished?’

  ‘Perfectly true; but I do not see that stress need be laid on the fact. The scoundrels often do that sort of thing out of insolence or bravado. In that robbery at Reigate, the other day, they went to a lady’s Davenport, took a sheet of her notepaper, and wrote their thanks on it for her kindness in not having had the lock of her safe repaired. Now, if you will get out your note-book—’

  ‘Don’t be in such a hurry,’ said Loveday calmly; ‘I want to know if you have seen this?’ She leaned across the writing table at which they sat, one either side, and handed to him a newspaper cutting which she took from her letter-case.

  Mr Dyer was a tall, powerfully built man with a large head, benevolent bald forehead and a genial smile. That smile, however, often proved a trap to the unwary, for he owned a temper so irritable that a child with a chance word might ruffle it.

  The genial smile vanished as he took the newspaper cutting from Loveday’s hand.

  ‘I would have you to remember, Miss Brooke,’ he said severely, ‘that although I am in the habit of using despatch in my business, I am never known to be in a hurry; hurry in affairs I take to be the especial mark of the slovenly and unpunctual.’

  Then, as if still further to give contradiction to her words, he very deliberately unfolded her slip of newspaper and slowly, accentuating each word and syllable, read as follows: —

  ‘Singular Discovery.’

  ‘A black leather bag, or portmanteau, was found early yesterday morning by one of Smith’s newspaper boys on the doorstep of a house in the road running between Easterbrook and Wreford, and inhabited by an elderly spinster lady. The contents of the bag include a clerical collar and necktie, a Church Service, a book of sermons, a copy of the works of Virgil, a facsimile of Magna Carta, with translations, a pair of black kid gloves, a brush and comb, some newspapers, and several small articles suggesting clerical ownership. On the top of the bag the following extraordinary letter, written in pencil on a long slip of paper, was found:

  “The fatal day has arrived. I can exist no longer. I go hence and shall be no more seen. But I would have Coroner and Jury know that I am a sane man, and a verdict of temporary insanity in my case would be an error most gross after this intimation. I care not if it is felo de se, as I shall have passed all suffering. Search diligently for my poor lifeless body in the immediate neighbourhood—on the cold heath, the rail, or the river by yonder bridge—a few moments will decide how I shall depart. If I had walked aright I might have been a power in the Church of which I am now an unworthy member and priest; but the damnable sin of gambling got hold on me, and betting has been my ruin, as it has been the ruin of thousands who have preceded me. Young man, shun the bookmaker and the racecourse as you would shun the devil and hell. Farewell, chums of Magdalen. Farewell, and take warning. Though I can claim relationship with a Duke, a Marquess, and a Bishop, and though I am the son of a noble woman, yet am I a tramp and an outcast, verily and indeed. Sweet death, I greet thee. I dare not sign my name. To one and all, farewell. O, my poor Marchioness mother, a dying kiss to thee. RIP.”

  ‘The police and some of the railway officials have made a “diligent search” in the neighbourhood of the
railway station, but no “poor lifeless body” has been found. The police authorities are inclined to the belief that the letter is a hoax, though they are still investigating the matter.’

  In the same deliberate fashion as he had opened and read the cutting, Mr Dyer folded and returned it to Loveday.

  ‘May I ask,’ he said sarcastically, ‘what you see in that silly hoax to waste your and my valuable time over?’

  ‘I wanted to know,’ said Loveday, in the same level tones as before, ‘if you saw anything in it that might in some way connect this discovery with the robbery at Craigen Court?’

  Mr Dyer stared at her in utter, blank astonishment.

  ‘When I was a boy,’ he said sarcastically as before, ‘I used to play at a game called “what is my thought like?” Someone would think of something absurd—say the top of the monument—and someone else would hazard a guess that his thought might be—say the toe of his left boot, and that unfortunate individual would have to show the connection between the toe of his left boot and the top of the monument. Miss Brooke, I have no wish to repeat the silly game this evening for your benefit and mine.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ said Loveday, calmly; ‘I fancied you might like to talk it over, that was all. Give me my “sailing orders”, as you call them, and I’ll endeavour to concentrate my attention on the little French maid and her various lovers.’

  Mr Dyer grew amiable again.

  ‘That’s the point on which I wish you to fix your thoughts,’ he said, ‘you had better start for Craigen Court by the first train tomorrow—it’s about sixty miles down the Great Eastern line. Huxwell is the station you must land at. There one of the grooms from the Court will meet you, and drive you to the house. I have arranged with the housekeeper there—Mrs Williams, a very worthy and discreet person—that you shall pass in the house for a niece of hers, on a visit to recruit, after severe study in order to pass board-school teachers’ exams. Naturally you have injured your eyes as well as your health with overwork; and so you can wear your blue spectacles. Your name, by the way, will be Jane Smith—better write it down. All your work will lie among the servants of the establishment, and there will be no necessity for you to see either Sir George or Lady Cathrow—in fact, neither of them have been appraised of your intended visit—the fewer we take into our confidence the better. I’ve no doubt, however, that Bates will hear from Scotland Yard that you are in the house, and will make a point of seeing you.’