The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories

by Michael Sims

  As discussed in the introduction, Edgar Allan Poe is almost universally acclaimed the inventor of the detective story, with the 1841 publication of his “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Although it is excellent, William Burton’s story doesn’t challenge Poe’s preeminence. L—, the detective in “The Secret Cell,” isn’t the kind of eccentric genius, à la Dupin, that would ultimately capture the public imagination in the form of Sherlock Holmes. Realistic, flawed, hardworking but not brilliant, he is more of an ancestor to the “casebook” stories that would become popular three decades later—tales purporting to be based upon actual police cases. This story is clearly fiction, despite Burton’s framing of it as reminiscence.

  The son of an author and printer, William E. Burton was born in London in 1804. His father, author of books such as Biblical Researches, expected him to enter the ministry. The father died before the plan could be put into effect, however, leaving his eighteen-year-old son to make his way in the world on his own. Having worked as a printer and proofer in the family business, and as an editor after his father’s death, Burton then tried his hand at acting. By the mid-1820s he was touring in the provinces and in 1831 first played London. “It may be said,” noted an early biographer who had known Burton, “that his career was not free from the vicissitudes that frequently attend dramatic itineracy.” He was well known when he left England. In 1834 Burton arrived in Philadelphia and was soon starring in comedies at the Arch Street Theatre. He featured humorous ballads and performed in some of his own works. Burton went on to considerable acclaim as an actor, especially in comedies, and as a producer and theater manager, as well as attracting notice for his writings on Shakespeare and other topics.

  In 1837 Burton founded his own periodical in Philadelphia, the Gentleman’s Magazine. Two years later, he hired a brilliant but unstable thirty-year-old Baltimore writer named Edgar Allan Poe, who had already published “The Ms. Found in a Bottle” and “Ligeia” and other works. For not quite a year, Poe served as editor to Burton’s publisher. His erratic behavior and growing unreliability locked horns with Burton’s own volatile ways, and Burton fired him. (For more about Poe, see the next story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”) Shortly afterward, Burton sold his periodical to a young Philadelphia journalist and publisher named George Rex Graham, who merged it with another he had bought, Atkinson’s Casket, and launched Graham’s Magazine, which would publish Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” in 1841. After Poe’s death eight years later, Graham defended him against critics who denounced his literary preoccupations and real-life shortcomings.

  In September 1837, just after Burton launched the Gentleman’s Magazine, and only three months after eighteen-year-old Victoria acceded to the throne, the fourth issue included the first half of Burton’s own story “The Secret Cell,” which concluded the next month. The tale appeared as part of a series entitled “Leaves from a Life in London.” It seems likely, considering the circumstances related above, that Poe read this tale before composing his own detective stories. It has many virtues: a lively and literate style, convincing dialogue, suspenseful legwork and fisticuffs, a detective who works in disguise and tails suspects. Probably Poe would have found it too realistic.

  The epigraph is from George Crabbe’s allegedly opium-induced poem “Sir Eustace Grey,” set in part in a madhouse.

  The Secret Cell

  I’ll know no more;—the heart is torn

  By views of woe we cannot heal;

  Long shall I see these things forlorn.

  And oft again their griefs shall feel,

  As each upon the mind shall steal;

  That wan projector’s mystic style,

  That lumpish idiot leering by,

  That peevish idler’s ceaseless wile,

  And that poor maiden’s half-formed smile,

  While struggling for the full-drawn sigh—

  —Crabbe

  About eight years ago, I was the humble means of unravelling a curious piece of villainy that occurred in one of the suburbs of London; it is well worth recording in exemplification of that portion of “Life” which is constantly passing in the holes and corners of the Great Metropolis. My tale, although romantic enough to be a fiction, is excessively common-place in some of the details—it is a jumble of real life; a conspiracy, an abduction, a nunnery, and a lunatic asylum are mixed up with constables, hackney-coaches, and an old washerwoman. I regret also that my heroine is not only without a lover, but is absolutely free from the influence of the passion, and is not persecuted on account of her transcendent beauty.

  Mrs. Lobenstein was the widow of a German coachman who had accompanied a noble family from the continent of Europe and, anticipating a lengthened stay, he had prevailed upon his wife to bring over their only child, a daughter, and settle down in the rooms apportioned to his use over the stable in one of the fashionable mews at the west end of London. But Mr. Lobenstein had scarcely embraced his family ere he was driven off, post-haste, to the other world, leaving his destitute relict, with a very young daughter, to buffet her way along the rugged path of life.

  With a little assistance from the nobleman in whose employ her husband had for some time been settled, Mrs. Lobenstein was enabled to earn a respectable livelihood, and filled the honorable situation of laundress to many families of gentility, besides diverse stray bachelors, dandies, and men about town. The little girl grew to be an assistance, instead of a drag, to her mother, and the widow found that her path was not entirely desolate, nor “choked with the brambles of despair.”

  In the sixth year of her bereavement, Mrs. Lobenstein, who presided over the destinies of my linen, called at my rooms, in company with a lady of equal width, breadth, and depth. Mrs. L was of the genuine Hanseatic build—of the real Bremen beam; when in her presence, you felt the overwhelming nature of her pretensions to be considered a woman of some weight in the world and standing in society. On the occasion of the visit in question, her friend was equally adipose, and it would have puzzled a conjurer to have turned the party into a tallowy trio. Mrs. L begged leave to recommend her friend as her successor in the lavatorial line—for her own part, she was independent of work, thank heaven, and meant to retire from the worry of trade.

  I congratulated her on the successful termination of her flourish with the wash tubs.

  “Oh, I have not made the money, bless you! I might have scrubbed my fingers to the bones before I could have done more than earn my daily bread and get, maybe, a black silk gown or so for Sundays. No, no! My Mary has done more with her quiet, meeting-day face in one year than either the late Mr. Lobenstein or myself could compass in our lives.”

  Mary Lobenstein, an artless, merry, blue-eyed girl of seventeen had attracted the attention of a bed-ridden lady whose linen she was in the habit of carrying home; and in compliance with the importunities of the old lady, she agreed to reside in her house as the invalid’s sole and especial attendant. The old lady, luckily, was almost friendless; an hypocritical hyena of a niece, who expected, and had been promised, the reversion of her fortune, would occasionally give an inquiry relative to the state of her aunt’s health. But so miserably did she conceal her joy at the approach of the old lady’s dissolution that the party in question perceived her selfish and mercenary nature and, disgusted at her evident security of purpose, called in an attorney and executed an entirely new will. There was no oilier relative to select—Mary Lobenstein had been kind and attentive and, more from revenge than good nature, the old lady bequeathed the whole of her property to the lucky little girl, excepting a trifling annuity to the old maid, her niece, who also held the chance of possession in case of Mary’s death.

  When this will was read by the man of law, who brought it forth in due season after the old lady’s demise, Mary’s wonder and delight almost equalled the rage and despair of the hyena of a niece, whom we shall beg leave to designate by the name of Elizabeth Bishop. She raved and swore the deadliest revenge against the innocent Mary, who one minute tremb
led at the denunciations of the thin and yellow spinster, and in the next chuckled and danced at the suddenness of her unexpected good fortune.

  Mr. Wilson, the lawyer, desired the dis-inherited to leave the premises to the legal owner, and stayed by Miss Mary Lobenstein and her fat mama till they were in full and undisturbed possession. The “good luck,” as Mrs. L called it, had fallen so suddenly upon them that a very heavy wash was left unfinished to attend to the important business, and the complaints of the naked and destitute customers alone aroused the lucky laundress to a sense of her situation. The right and privilege of the routine of customers were sold to another fat lady, and Mrs. Lobenstein called upon me, among the rest of her friends, to solicit the continuance of my washing for her stout successor.

  A year passed away. I was lying in bed one wintry morning and shivering with dread at the idea of poking my uncased legs into the cold air of the room when my landlady disturbed my cogitations by knocking loudly at the room door and requesting my instant appearance in the parlor, where “a fat lady in tears” wished my presence. The existence of the obese Mrs. Lobenstein had almost slipped my memory, and I was somewhat startled at seeing that lady, dressed in a gaudy-colored silk gown and velvet hat and feathers, in violent hysterics upon my crimson silk ottoman, that groaned beneath its burden. The attentions of my landlady and her domestic soon restored my ci-devant laundress to a state of comparative composure, when the distressed lady informed me that her daughter, her only child, had been missing for several days, and that, notwithstanding the utmost exertions of herself, her lawyer, and her friends, she had been unable to obtain the smallest intelligence respecting her beloved Mary. She had been to the police offices, had advertised in the newspapers, had personally inquired of all her friends or acquaintance, yet every exertion bad resulted in disappointment.

  “Everybody pities me, but no one suggests a means of finding my darling, and I am almost distracted. She left me one evening—it was quite early—to carry a small present to the chandler’s-shop woman, who was so kind to us when I was left a destitute widow. My dear girl had but three streets to go; and ran out without a cloak or shawl; she made her gift to the poor woman, and instantly set out to return home. She never reached home—and, woe is me, I fear she never will. The magistrates at the police office said that she had eloped with some sweetheart; my Mary loved no one but her mother—and my heart tells me that my child could not willingly abandon her widowed parent for any new affection that might have entered her young breast. She had no followers—we were never for one hour apart, and I knew every thought of her innocent mind.

  “One gentleman—he said he was a parson—called on me this morning to administer consolation; yet he hinted that my poor girl had probably committed self-destruction—that the light of grace had suddenly burst upon her soul, and the sudden knowledge of her sinful state had been too much for her to bear and, in desperation, she had hurried from the world. Alas, if my poor Mary is indeed no more, it was not by her own act that she appeared in haste before her Maker—God loved the little girl that He had made so good. The light of heavenly happiness glistened in her bright and pretty eyes; and she was too fond of this world’s beauties, and the delights of life showered by the Almighty upon His children, to think of repaying Him by gloom and suicide! No, no! Upon her bended knees, morning and night, she prayed to her Father in Heaven that His will might be done; her religion, like her life, was simple, but pure. She was not of the creed professed by him who thought to cheer a parent’s broken heart by speaking of a daughter’s shameful death.”

  The plain but earnest eloquence of the poor lady excited my warmest sympathy. She had called on me for advice, but I resolved to give her my personal assistance and exert all my faculties in the clearance of this mystery. She denied the probability of anyone being concerned in kidnapping, or conveying away her daughter—for, as she simply expressed herself, “she was too insignificant to have created an enemy of such importance.”

  I had a friend in the police department—a man who suffered not his intimacy with the villainy of the world to dull the humanities of nature. At the period of my tale, he was but little known and the claims of a large family pressed hard upon him; yet his enemies have been unable to affix a stain upon his busy life. He has since attained a height of reputation that must ensure a sufficient income; he is established as the head of the private police of London—a body of men possessing rare and wonderful attainments. To this man I went and, in a few words, excited his sympathy for the heart-stricken mother and obtained a promise of his valuable assistance.

  “The mother is rich,” said I, “and if successful in your search, I can warrant you a larger reward than the sum total of your last year’s earnings.”

  “A powerful inducement, I confess,” replied L—, “but my professional pride is roused; it is a case deserving attention from its apparent inexplicability—to say nothing of the mother’s misery, and that is something to a father and a son.”

  I mentioned every particular connected with the affair and, as he declined visiting Mrs. Lobenatein’s house, invited her to a conference with the officer at my lodgings, where he was made acquainted with many a curious item that seemed to have no connection with the subject we were in consultation upon. But this minute curiosity pleased the mother, and she went on her way rejoicing, for she was satisfied in her own mind that the officer would discover the fate of her child. Strange to say, although L— declared that he possessed not the slightest clue, this feeling on the part of the mother daily became stronger; a presentiment of the officer’s success became the leading feature of her life, and she waited for many days with a placid face and a contented mind. The prophetic fancies of her maternal heart were confirmed; and L— eventually restored the pretty Mary to her mother’s arms.

  About ten days after the consultation, he called on me and reported progress—requiring my presence at the police office for the purpose of making the affidavit necessary for the procuration of a search warrant.

  “I have been hard at work,” said he, and if I have not found out where the young lady is concealed, I have at least made a singular discovery. My own inquiries in the mother’s neighborhood were not attended with any success. I therefore sent my wife, a shrewd woman, and well adapted for the business. She went without a shawl or bonnet, as if she had but stopped out from an adjacent house, into the baker’s, the grocer’s, the chandler’s, and the beer shop, and while making her trifling purchases, she asked in a careless, gossiping way if any intelligence of Miss Lobenstein had been obtained? Everybody was willing to talk of such a remarkable circumstance, and my wife listened patiently to many different versions of the story, but without obtaining any useful intelligence. One day, the last attempt that I had determined she should make, she observed that a huckster woman who was standing in a baker’s shop when the question was discussed betrayed a violence of speech against the bereaved parent, and seemed to rejoice in her misfortunes. The womanly feeling of the rest of the gossips put down her inhuman chucklings, but my wife, with considerable tact, I must say, joined the huckster in her vituperation, rightly judging that there must be some peculiar reason for disliking a lady who seems generally esteemed and who was then suffering under an affliction the most distressing to a female heart. The huckster invited my wife to walk down the street with her.

  “‘I say—are you one of Joe’s gang?’ whispered the huckster.

  “ ‘Yes,’ said my wife.

  “ ‘I thought so, when I seed you grinning at the fat old Dutchey’s trouble. Did Joe come down with the rhino pretty well to you about this business?’

  “ ‘Not to me,’ said my wife, at a venture.

  “ ‘Nor to me, neither, the shabby varmint. Where was your post?’

  “This question rather bothered my wife, but she answered, ‘I swore not to tell.’

  “ ‘Oh, stuff! They’ve got the girl, and it’s all over now, in course; though Sal Brown who giv’d Joe the information about
the girl says that five pounds won’t stop her mouth when there’s a hundred offered for the information—so we thought of splitting upon Joe, and touching the rhino. If you knows any more nor we do, and can make your share of the work, you may join our party, and come in for your whacks.’

  “ ‘Well, I know a good deal, if I liked to tell it—what do you know!’

  “ ‘Why, I knows that four of us were employed to watch when Miss Lobenstein went out in the evening without her mother, and to let Joe know directly; and I know that we did watch for six months and more; and when Sal Brown did let him know, that the girl was missing that same night, and ha’n’t been heard on since.’

  “ ‘But do you know where she is?’ said my wife in a whisper.

  “ ‘Well, I can’t say that I do. My stall is at the corner near the mother’s house; and Sal Brown was walking past, up and down the street, a following her profession. She’s of opinion that the girl has been sent over the herring pond to some place abroad; but my idea is that she ha’n’t far off, fur Joe hasn’t been away many hours together, I know.’

  “My wife declared that she was acquainted with every particular and would join them in forcing Joe to be more liberal in his disbursements or give him up to justice and claim the reward. She regretted that she was compelled to go to Hornsey to her mother for the next few days, but agreed to call at the huckster’s stall immediately on her return.

  “There was one point more that my wife wished to obtain. ‘I saw the girl alone one night when it was quite dark, but Joe was not to be found when I went after him. Where did Sal Brown meet with him when she told of the girl?’

  “ ‘Why, at the Blue Lion beer-shop, to be sure,’ said the other.

  “I was waiting in the neighborhood, well-disguised. I received my wife’s valuable information, and in a few minutes was sitting in the tap room of the Blue Lion, an humble public house of inferior pretension. I was dressed in a shooting jacket, breeches, and gaiters, with a shot belt and powder horn slung round me. A huge pair of red whiskers circled my face, and a dark red shock of hair peeped from the sides of my broad-rimmed hat. I waited in the dull room, stinking of beer and tobacco, till the house closed for the night, but heard nothing of my Joe, although I listened attentively to the conversation of the incomers, a strange, uncouth set, entirely composed of the lower order of laborers, and seemingly unacquainted with each other.