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

by Michael Sims

  The Absent-Minded Coterie

  Some years ago I enjoyed the unique experience of pursuing a man for one crime, and getting evidence against him of another. He was innocent of the misdemeanor, the proof of which I sought, but was guilty of another most serious offense, yet he and his confederates escaped scot-free in circumstances which I now purpose to relate.

  You may remember that in Rudyard Kipling’s story, “Bedalia Herodsfoot,” the unfortunate woman’s husband ran the risk of being arrested as a simple drunkard, at a moment when the blood of murder was upon his boots. The case of Ralph Summertrees was rather the reverse of this. The English authorities were trying to fasten upon him a crime almost as important as murder, while I was collecting evidence which proved him guilty of an action much more momentous than that of drunkenness.

  The English authorities have always been good enough, when they recognize my existence at all, to look down upon me with amused condescension. If to-day you ask Spenser Hale, of Scotland Yard, what he thinks of Eugène Valmont, that complacent man will put on the superior smile which so well becomes him, and if you are a very intimate friend of his, he may draw down the lid of his right eye as he replies: “Oh, yes; a very decent fellow, Valmont, but he’s a Frenchman!” as if, that said, there was no need of further inquiry.

  Myself, I like the English detective very much, and if I were to be in a melee to-morrow, there is no man I would rather find beside me than Spenser Hale. In any situation where a fist that can fell an ox is desirable, my friend Hale is a useful companion, but for intellectuality, mental acumen, finesse—ah, well! I am the most modest of men, and will say nothing.

  It would amuse you to see this giant come into my room during an evening, on the bluff pretense that he wishes to smoke a pipe with me. There is the same difference between this good-natured giant and myself as exists between that strong black pipe of his and my delicate cigarette, which I smoke feverishly, when he is present, to protect myself from the fumes of his terrible tobacco. I look with delight upon the huge man, who, with an air of the utmost good humor, and a twinkle in his eye as he thinks he is twisting me about his finger, vainly endeavors to obtain a hint regarding whatever case is perplexing him at that moment. I baffle him with the ease that an active greyhound eludes the pursuit of a heavy mastiff, then at last I say to him, with a laugh: “Come, mon ami Hale, tell me all about it, and I will help you if I can.”

  Once or twice at the beginning he shook his massive head, and replied the secret was not his. The last time he did this I assured him that what he said was quite correct, and then I related full particulars of the situation in which he found himself, excepting the names, for these he had not mentioned. I had pieced together his perplexity from scraps of conversation in his half-hour’s fishing for my advice, which, of course, he could have had for the plain asking. Since that time he has not come to me except with cases he feels at liberty to reveal, and one or two complications I have happily been enabled to unravel for him.

  But, stanch as Spenser Hale holds the belief that no detective service on earth can excel that centering in Scotland Yard, there is one department of activity in which even he confesses that Frenchmen are his masters, although he somewhat grudgingly qualifies his admission, by adding that we in France are constantly allowed to do what is prohibited in England. I refer to the minute search of a house during the owner’s absence. If you read that excellent story entitled “The Purloined Letter,” by Edgar Allan Poe, you will find a record of the kind of thing I mean, which is better than any description I, who have so often taken part in such a search, can set down.

  Now, these people among whom I live are proud of their phrase, “The Englishman’s house is his castle,” and into that castle even a policeman cannot penetrate without a legal warrant. This may be all very well in theory, but if you are compelled to March up to a man’s house, blowing a trumpet and rattling a snare drum, you need not be disappointed if you fail to find what you are in search of when all the legal restrictions are complied with. Of course, the English are a very excellent people, a fact to which I am always proud to bear testimony, but it must be admitted that for cold common sense the French are very much their superiors. In Paris, if I wish to obtain an incriminating document, I do not send the possessor a carte postale to inform him of my desire, and in this procedure the French people sanely acquiesce. I have known men who, when they go out to spend an evening on the boulevards, toss their bunch of keys to the concierge, saying: “If you hear the police rummaging about while I’m away, pray assist them, with an expression of my distinguished consideration.”

  I remember, while I was chief detective in the service of the French Government, being requested to call at a certain hour at the private hotel of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It was during the time that Bismarck meditated a second attack upon my country, and I am happy to say that I was instrumental in supplying the Secret Bureau with documents which mollified that iron man’s purpose, a fact which I think entitled me to my country’s gratitude, not that I ever even hinted such a claim when a succeeding ministry forgot my services. The memory of a republic, as has been said by a greater man than I, is short. However, all that has nothing to do with the incident I am about to relate. I merely mention the crisis to excuse a momentary forgetfulness on my part which in any country might have been followed by serious results to myself. But in France—ah, we understand those things, and nothing happened.

  I am the last person in the world to give myself away, as they say in the great West. I am usually the calm, collected Eugène Valmont whom nothing can perturb, but this was a time of great tension, and I had become absorbed. I was alone with the minister in his private house, and one of the papers he wished was in his bureau at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs; at least, he thought so, and said: “Ah! it is in my desk at the bureau. How annoying! I must send for it!”

  “No, Excellency,” I cried, springing up in a self-oblivion the most complete; “it is here.”

  Touching the spring of a secret drawer, I opened it, and taking out the document he wished, handed it to him.

  It was not until I met his searching look, and saw the faint smile on his lips, that I realized what I had done.

  “Valmont,” he said quietly, “on whose behalf did you search my house?”

  “Excellency,” I replied in tones no less agreeable than his own, “to-night at your orders I pay a domiciliary visit to the mansion of Baron Dumoulaine, who stands high in the estimation of the President of the French Republic. If either of those distinguished gentlemen should learn of my informal call, and should ask me in whose interests I made the domiciliary visit, what is it you wish that I should reply?”

  “You should reply, Valmont, that you did it in the interests of the Secret Service.”

  “I shall not fail to do so, Excellency, and in answer to your question just now, I had the honor of searching this mansion in the interests of the Secret Service of France.”

  The Minister for Foreign Affairs laughed; a hearty laugh that expressed no resentment.

  “I merely wished to compliment you, Valmont, on the efficiency of your search and the excellence of your memory. This is indeed the document which I thought was left in my office.”

  I wonder what Lord Lansdowne would say if Spenser Hale showed an equal familiarity with his private papers! But now that we have returned to our good friend Hale, we must not keep him waiting any longer.

  Mr. Spenser Hale of Scotland Yard

  I well remember the November day when I first heard of the Summertrees case, because there hung over London a fog so thick that two or three times I lost my way, and no cab was to be had at any price. The few cabmen then in the streets were leading their animals slowly along, making for their stables. It was one of those depressing London days which filled me with ennui and a yearning for my own clear city of Paris, where, if we are ever visited by a slight mist, it is at least clean, white vapor, and not this horrible London mixture saturated wi
th suffocating carbon.

  The fog was too thick for any passer to read the contents bills of the newspapers plastered on the pavement, and as there were probably no races that day the newsboys were shouting what they considered the next most important event—the election of an American President. I bought a paper and thrust it into my pocket. It was late when I reached my flat, and, after dining there, which was an unusual thing for me to do, I put on my slippers, took an easy-chair before the fire, and began to read my evening journal. I was distressed to learn that the eloquent Mr. Bryan had been defeated. I knew little about the silver question, but the man’s oratorical powers had appealed to me, and my sympathy was aroused because he owned many silver mines, and yet the price of the metal was so low that apparently he could not make a living through the operation of them. But, of course, the cry that he was a plutocrat, and a reputed millionaire over and over again, was bound to defeat him in a democracy where the average voter is exceedingly poor and not comfortably well-to-do, as is the case with our peasants in France. I always took great interest in the affairs of the huge republic to the west, having been at some pains to inform myself accurately regarding its politics; and although, as my readers know, I seldom quote anything complimentary that is said of me, nevertheless, an American client of mine once admitted that he never knew the true inwardness—I think that was the phrase he used—of American politics until he heard me discourse upon them. But then, he added, he had been a very busy man all his life.

  I had allowed my paper to slip to the floor, for in very truth the fog was penetrating even into my flat, and it was becoming difficult to read, notwithstanding the electric light. My man came in, and announced that Mr. Spenser Hale wished to see me, and, indeed, any night, but especially when there is rain or fog outside, I am more pleased to talk with a friend than to read a newspaper.

  “Mon Dieu, my dear Monsieur Hale, it is a brave man you are to venture out in such a fog as is abroad to-night.”

  “Ah, Monsieur Valmont,” said Hale with pride, “you cannot raise a fog like this in Paris!”

  “No. There you are supreme,” I admitted, rising and saluting my visitor, then offering him a chair.

  “I see you are reading the latest news,” he said, indicating my newspaper. “I am very glad that man Bryan is defeated. Now we shall have better times.”

  I waved my hand as I took my chair again. I will discuss many things with Spenser Hale, but not American politics; he does not understand them. It is a common defect of the English to suffer complete ignorance regarding the internal affairs of other countries.

  “It is surely an important thing that brought you out on such a night as this. The fog must be very thick in Scotland Yard.”

  This delicate shaft of fancy completely missed him, and he answered stolidly: “It’s thick all over London, and, indeed, throughout most of England.”

  “Yes, it is,” I agreed, but he did not see that either.

  Still, a moment later, he made a remark which, if it had come from some people I know, might have indicated a glimmer of comprehension.

  “You are a very, very clever man, Monsieur Valmont, so all I need say is that the question which brought me here is the same as that on which the American election was fought. Now, to a countryman, I should be compelled to give further explanation, but to you, monsieur, that will not be necessary.”

  There are times when I dislike the crafty smile and partial closing of the eyes which always distinguishes Spenser Hale when he places on the table a problem which he expects will baffle me. If I said he never did baffle me, I would be wrong, of course, for sometimes the utter simplicity of the puzzles which trouble him leads me into an intricate involution entirely unnecessary in the circumstances.

  I pressed my finger tips together, and gazed for a few moments at the ceiling. Hale had lit his black pipe, and my silent servant placed at his elbow the whisky and soda, then tiptoed out of the room. As the door closed my eyes came from the ceiling to the level of Hale’s expansive countenance.

  “Have they eluded you?” I asked quietly.

  “Who?”

  “The coiners.”

  Hale’s pipe dropped from his jaw, but he managed to catch it before it reached the floor. Then he took a gulp from the tumbler.

  “That was just a lucky shot,” he said.

  “Parfaitement,” I replied carelessly.

  “Now, own up, Valmont, wasn’t it?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. A man cannot contradict a guest in his own house.

  “Oh, stow that!” cried Hale impolitely. He is a trifle prone to strong and even slangy expressions when puzzled. “Tell me how you guessed it.”

  “It is very simple, mon ami. The question on which the American election was fought is the price of silver, which is so low that it has ruined Mr. Bryan, and threatens to ruin all the farmers of the West who possess silver mines on their farms. Silver troubled America, ergo silver troubles Scotland Yard.

  “Very well; the natural inference is that some one has stolen bars of silver. But such a theft happened three months ago, when the metal was being unloaded from a German steamer at Southampton, and my dear friend Spenser Hale ran down the thieves very cleverly as they were trying to dissolve the marks off the bars with acid. Now crimes do not run in series, like the numbers in roulette at Monte Carlo. The thieves are men of brains. They say to themselves, ‘What chance is there successfully to steal bars of silver while Mr. Hale is at Scotland Yard?’ Eh, my good friend?”

  “Really, Valmont,” said Hale, taking another sip, “sometimes you almost persuade me that you have reasoning powers.”

  “Thanks, comrade. Then it is not a theft of silver we have now to deal with. But the American election was fought on the price of silver. If silver had been high in cost, there would have been no silver question. So the crime that is bothering you arises through the low price of silver, and this suggests that it must be a case of illicit coinage, for there the low price of the metal comes in. You have, perhaps, found a more subtle illegitimate act going forward than heretofore. Some one is making your shillings and your half crowns from real silver, instead of from baser metal, and yet there is a large profit which has not hitherto been possible through the high price of silver. With the old conditions you were familiar, but this new element sets at naught all your previous formulas. That is how I reasoned the matter out.”

  “Well, Valmont, you have hit it, I’ll say that for you; you have hit it. There is a gang of expert coiners who are putting out real silver money, and making a clear shilling on the half crown. We can find no trace of the coiners, but we know the man who is shoving the stuff.”

  “That ought to be sufficient,” I suggested.

  “Yes, it should, but it hasn’t proved so up to date. Now I came to-night to see if you would do one of your French tricks for us, right on the quiet.”

  “What French trick, Monsieur Spenser Hale?” I inquired with some asperity, forgetting for the moment that the man invariably became impolite when he grew excited.

  “No offense intended,” said this blundering officer, who really is a good-natured fellow, but always puts his foot in it, and then apologizes. “I want some one to go through a man’s house without a search warrant, spot the evidence, let me know, and then we’ll rush the place before he has time to hide his tracks.”

  “Who is this man, and where does he live?”

  “His name is Ralph Summertrees, and he lives in a very natty little bijou residence, as the advertisements call it, situated in no less a fashionable street than Park Lane.”

  “I see. What has aroused your suspicions against him?”

  “Well, you know, that’s an expensive district to live in; it takes a bit of money to do the trick. This Summertrees has no ostensible business, yet every Friday he goes to the United Capital Bank in Piccadilly, and deposits a bag of swag, usually all silver coin.”

  “Yes; and this money?”

  “This money, so far as we can le
arn, contains a good many of these new pieces which never saw the British Mint.”

  “It’s not all the new coinage, then?”

  “Oh, no, he’s a bit too artful for that! You see, a man can go round London, his pockets filled with new-coined five-shilling pieces, buy this, that, and the other, and come home with his change in legitimate coins of the realm—half crowns, florins, shillings, sixpences, and all that.”

  “I see. Then why don’t you nab him one day when his pockets are stuffed with illegitimate five-shilling pieces?”

  “That could be done, of course, and I’ve thought of it, but, you see, we want to land the whole gang. Once we arrested him without knowing where the money came from, the real coiners would take flight.”

  “How do you know he is not the real coiner himself?”

  Now poor Hale is as easy to read as a book. He hesitated before answering this question, and looked confused as a culprit caught in some dishonest act.

  “You need not be afraid to tell me,” I said soothingly, after a pause. “You have had one of your men in Mr. Summertrees’s house, and so learned that he is not the coiner. But your man has not succeeded in getting you evidence to incriminate other people.”

  “You’ve about hit it again, Monsieur Valmont. One of my men has been Summertrees’s butler for two weeks, but, as you say, he has found no evidence.”

  “Is he still butler?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now tell me how far you have got. You know that Summertrees deposits a bag of coin every Friday in the Piccadilly Bank, and I suppose the bank has allowed you to examine one or two of the bags.”

  “Yes, sir, they have, but, you see, banks are very difficult to treat with. They don’t like detectives bothering round, and while they do not stand out against the law, still they never answer any more questions than they’re asked, and Mr. Summertrees has been a good customer at the United Capital for many years.”