The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries

by The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries (retail) (epub)

  “That afternoon at Mr. Charrington’s chambers Rinaldi called upon him. Desperately hard up, he had determined to try and bully Mr. Charrington out of the jewellery. He shouted and swore, and talked of an action at law and exposure, and was delighted to find that his victim was nervous. Mr. Charrington declared that he could not give him the jewellery back. Whereupon Mr. Rinaldi informed him that if by twelve o’clock the next day it was not in his possession he should summon him for detaining it.

  “Mr. Charrington rushed off to his jewellers. How long would it take them to find the exact counterpart of certain jewellery if he brought them the things they had to match? And how long would they want the originals? The jewellers said if they had them for an hour and made a coloured drawing of them they could make up or find a set within ten days.

  “That night Charrington abstracted the birthday present he had given his wife from her jewel-box. The next morning at ten o’clock it was in the hands of the jewellers, and at mid-day when Rinaldi called to make his final demand the jewellery was handed over to him.

  “Then Mr. Charrington went out of town. On his return the new jewellery was ready and was delivered to him. In the dead of the night, while his wife was asleep, he put it back in the empty cases. And that,” said Dorcas, “is—as Dr. Lynn, at the Egyptian Hall, used to say—‘how it was done.’ ”

  “And the wife?” asked Paul, turning his blind eyes towards Dorcas; “you did not make her unhappy by telling her the truth?”

  “No, dear,” said Dorcas. “I arranged the story with Mr. Charrington. He went home and asked his wife for her birthday present. She brought the jewels out nervously, wondering if he had heard or suspected anything. He took the bracelet and the pendant from the cases.

  “ ‘Very pretty, indeed, my dear,’ he said. ‘And so you’ve never noticed the difference?’

  “ ‘Difference?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why—why—what do you mean?’

  “ ‘Why, that I made a dreadful mistake when I bought them and only found it out afterwards. The first that I gave you, my dear, were imitation. I wouldn’t confess to you that I had been done, so I took them without your knowing and had real ones made. The real ones I put back the other night while you were fast asleep.’

  “ ‘Oh, Claude, Claude,’ she cried, ‘I am so glad. I did miss them, dear, and I was afraid there was a thief in the house, and I dared not tell you I’d lost them. And now—oh, how happy you’ve made me!’ ”

  * * *

  —

  Two months later Dorcas told me that young Claude Charrington was engaged to Miss Dolamore with his father’s consent, but he had insisted that she should leave Fitzroy Street at once, and acting on private information which Dorcas had given him, he assured Claude that diamond lizards were unlucky, and as he had seen Miss Dolamore with one on he begged to offer her as his first present to his son’s intended a very beautiful diamond true-lovers’-knot in its place. At the same time he induced his wife to let him have her diamond lizard for a much more valuable diamond poodle with ruby eyes.

  So those two lizards never met under Mrs. Charrington’s roof, and perhaps, all things considered, it was just as well.

  A Prince of Swindlers

  GUY BOOTHBY

  Although born in Australia, Guy Newell Boothby (1867–1905) was educated in England and, after returning to Australia to spend a few years as secretary to the mayor of Adelaide, he returned to England with his wife in 1894 and went on to write more than fifty novels over the next eleven years before his death from influenza at the age of thirty-eight.

  Fame and financial success came when he created his most famous character, Dr. Nikola, in A Bid for Fortune; or, Dr. Nikola’s Vendetta (1895). Nikola was a sinister, ruthless occultist who preceded the similar and better-known insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by nearly two decades. Both sought immortality and world domination with hordes of devoted Chinese assassins. Nikola paid his assistants well but required absolute loyalty. “I demand from you your whole and absolute labour,” he tells three associates at the outset of one adventure. “While you are serving me you are mine body and soul.” Nikola appears in four more novels.

  The other Boothby character with a significant place in the history of crime fiction is Simon Carne, who appeared in A Prince of Swindlers (1897), a short-story collection that recounts his successful con jobs and robberies. Although less well known than E. W. Hornung’s Raffles, who made his debut in The Amateur Cracksman (1899), and Grant Allen’s Colonel Clay, the relentless rogue in An African Millionaire (1897), Carne saw print before either of them.

  While individual stories about Carne are occasionally anthologized, this volume contains the first three episodes of A Prince of Swindlers because the melodramatic backstory of his subsequent predations on an unsuspecting London society lend depth to the character and context to his nefarious activities.

  “A Prince of Swindlers” and “The Den of Iniquity” were originally published in the January 1897 issue of Pearson’s Magazine; “The Duchess of Wiltshire’s Diamonds” was originally published in the February 1897 issue of Pearson’s Magazine; all stories were first collected in A Prince of Swindlers (London, Ward, Lock & Co., 1900).

  A PRINCE OF SWINDLERS

  Guy Boothby

  I

  A CRIMINAL IN DISGUISE

  After no small amount of deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that it is only fit and proper I should set myself right with the world in the matter of the now famous 18— swindles. For, though I have never been openly accused of complicity in those miserable affairs, yet I cannot rid myself of the remembrance that it was I who introduced the man who perpetrated them to London society, and that in more than one instance I acted, innocently enough, Heaven knows, as his Deus ex machinâ, in bringing about the very results he was so anxious to achieve. I will first allude, in a few words, to the year in which the crimes took place, and then proceed to describe the events that led to my receiving the confession which has so strangely and unexpectedly come into my hands.

  Whatever else may be said on the subject, one thing at least is certain—it will be many years before London forgets that season of festivity. The joyous occasion which made half the sovereigns of Europe our guests for weeks on end, kept foreign princes among us until their faces became as familiar to us as those of our own aristocracy, rendered the houses in our fashionable quarters unobtainable for love or money, filled our hotels to repletion, and produced daily pageants the like of which few of us have ever seen or imagined, can hardly fail to go down to posterity as one of the most notable in English history. Small wonder, therefore, that the wealth, then located in our great metropolis, should have attracted swindlers from all parts of the globe.

  That it should have fallen to the lot of one who has always prided himself on steering clear of undesirable acquaintances, to introduce to his friends one of the most notorious adventurers our capital has ever seen, seems like the irony of fate. Perhaps, however, if I begin by showing how cleverly our meeting was contrived, those who would otherwise feel inclined to censure me will pause before passing judgment, and will ask themselves whether they would not have walked into the snare as unsuspectedly as I did.

  It was during the last year of my term of office as Viceroy, and while I was paying a visit to the Governor of Bombay, that I decided upon making a tour of the Northern Provinces, beginning with Peshawur, and winding up with the Maharajah of Malar-Kadir. As the latter potentate is so well known, I need not describe him. His forcible personality, his enlightened rule, and the progress his state has made within the last ten years, are well known to every student of the history of our magnificent Indian Empire.

  My stay with him was a pleasant finish to an otherwise monotonous business, for his hospitality has a worldwide reputation. When I arrived he placed his palace, his servants, and his stables at my disposal to use just as I pleased.
My time was practically my own. I could be as solitary as a hermit if I so desired; on the other hand, I had but to give the order, and five hundred men would cater for my amusement. It seems therefore the more unfortunate that to this pleasant arrangement I should have to attribute the calamities which it is the purpose of this series of stories to narrate.

  On the third morning of my stay I woke early. When I had examined my watch I discovered that it wanted an hour of daylight, and, not feeling inclined to go to sleep again, I wondered how I should employ my time until my servant should bring me my chota hazri, or early breakfast. On proceeding to my window I found a perfect morning, the stars still shining, though in the east they were paling before the approach of dawn. It was difficult to realize that in a few hours the earth which now looked so cool and wholesome would be lying, burnt up and quivering, beneath the blazing Indian sun.

  I stood and watched the picture presented to me for some minutes, until an overwhelming desire came over me to order a horse and go for a long ride before the sun should make his appearance above the jungle trees. The temptation was more than I could resist, so I crossed the room and, opening the door, woke my servant, who was sleeping in the antechamber. Having bidden him find a groom and have a horse saddled for me, without rousing the household, I returned and commenced my toilet. Then, descending by a private staircase to the great courtyard, I mounted the animal I found awaiting me there, and set off.

  Leaving the city behind me I made my way over the new bridge with which His Highness has spanned the river, and, crossing the plain, headed towards the jungle, that rises like a green wall upon the other side. My horse was a waler of exceptional excellence, as everyone who knows the Maharajah’s stable will readily understand, and I was just in the humor for a ride. But the coolness was not destined to last long, for by the time I had left the second village behind me, the stars had given place to the faint grey light of dawn. A soft breeze stirred the palms and rustled the long grass, but its freshness was deceptive; the sun would be up almost before I could look round, and then nothing could save us from a scorching day.

  After I had been riding for nearly an hour it struck me that, if I wished to be back in time for breakfast, I had better think of returning. At the time I was standing in the center of a small plain, surrounded by jungle. Behind me was the path I had followed to reach the place; in front, and to the right and left, others leading whither I could not tell. Having no desire to return by the road I had come, I touched up my horse and cantered off in an easterly direction, feeling certain that even if I had to make a divergence, I should reach the city without very much trouble.

  By the time I had put three miles or so behind me the heat had become stifling, the path being completely shut in on either side by the densest jungle I have ever known. For all I could see to the contrary, I might have been a hundred miles from any habitation.

  Imagine my astonishment, therefore, when, on turning a corner of the track, I suddenly left the jungle behind me, and found myself standing on the top of a stupendous cliff, looking down upon a lake of blue water. In the center of this lake was an island, and on the island a house. At the distance I was from it the latter appeared to be built of white marble, as indeed I afterward found to be the case. Anything, however, more lovely than the effect produced by the blue water, the white building, and the jungle-clad hills upon the other side, can scarcely be imagined. I stood and gazed at it in delighted amazement. Of all the beautiful places I had hitherto seen in India this, I could honestly say, was entitled to rank first. But how it was to benefit me in my present situation I could not for the life of me understand.

  Ten minutes later I had discovered a guide, and also a path down the cliff to the shore, where, I was assured, a boat and a man could be obtained to transport me to the palace. I therefore bade my informant precede me, and after some minutes’ anxious scrambling my horse and I reached the water’s edge.

  Once there, the boatman was soon brought to light, and, when I had resigned my horse to the care of my guide, I was rowed across to the mysterious residence in question.

  On reaching it we drew up at some steps leading to a broad stone esplanade, which, I could see, encircled the entire place. Out of a grove of trees rose the building itself, a confused jumble of Eastern architecture crowned with many towers. With the exception of the vegetation and the blue sky, everything was of a dazzling white, against which the dark green of palms contrasted with admirable effect.

  Springing from the boat I made my way up the steps, imbued with much the same feeling of curiosity as the happy Prince, so familiar to us in our nursery days, must have experienced when he found the enchanted castle in the forest. As I reached the top, to my unqualified astonishment, an English man-servant appeared through a gateway and bowed before me.

  “Breakfast is served,” he said, “and my master bids me say that he waits to receive your lordship.”

  Though I thought he must be making a mistake, I said nothing, but followed him along a terrace, through a magnificent gateway, on the top of which a peacock was preening himself in the sunlight, through court after court, all built of the same white marble, through a garden in which a fountain was playing to the rustling accompaniment of pipal and pomegranate leaves, to finally enter the veranda of the main building itself.

  Drawing aside the curtain which covered the finely carved doorway, the servant invited me to enter, and as I did so announced “His Excellency the Viceroy.”

  The change from the vivid whiteness of the marble outside to the cool semi-European room in which I now found myself was almost disconcerting in its abruptness. Indeed, I had scarcely time to recover my presence of mind before I became aware that my host was standing before me. Another surprise was in store for me. I had expected to find a native, instead of which he proved to be an Englishman.

  “I am more indebted than I can say to your Excellency for the honor of this visit,” he began, as he extended his hand. “I can only wish I were better prepared for it.”

  “You must not say that,” I answered. “It is I who should apologize. I fear I am an intruder. But to tell you the truth I had lost my way, and it is only by chance that I am here at all. I was foolish to venture out without a guide, and have none to blame for what has occurred but myself.”

  “In this case I must thank the Fates for their kindness to me,” returned my host. “But don’t let me keep you standing. You must be both tired and hungry after your long ride, and breakfast, as you see, is upon the table. Shall we show ourselves sufficiently blind to the conventionalities to sit down to it without further preliminaries?”

  Upon my assenting he struck a small gong at his side, and servants, acting under the instructions of the white man who had conducted me to his master’s presence, instantly appeared in answer to it. We took our places at the table, and the meal immediately commenced.

  While it was in progress I was permitted an excellent opportunity of studying my host, who sat opposite me, with such light as penetrated the jhilmills falling directly upon his face. I doubt, however, vividly as my memory recalls the scene, whether I can give you an adequate description of the man who has since come to be a sort of nightmare to me.

  In height he could not have been more than five feet two. His shoulders were broad, and would have been evidence of considerable strength but for one malformation, which completely spoilt his whole appearance. The poor fellow suffered from curvature of the spine of the worst sort, and the large hump between his shoulders produced a most extraordinary effect. But it is when I endeavor to describe his face that I find myself confronted with the most serious difficulty.

  How to make you realize it I hardly know.

  To begin with, I do not think I should be overstepping the mark were I to say that it was one of the most beautiful countenances I have ever seen in my fellow men. Its contour was as perfect as that of the bust of th
e Greek god Hermes, to whom, all things considered, it is only fit and proper he should bear some resemblance. The forehead was broad, and surmounted with a wealth of dark hair, in color almost black. His eyes were large and dreamy, the brows almost pencilled in their delicacy; the nose, the most prominent feature of his face, reminded me more of that of the great Napoleon than any other I can recall.

  His mouth was small but firm, his ears as tiny as those of an English beauty, and set in closer to his head than is usual with those organs. But it was his chin that fascinated me most. It was plainly that of a man accustomed to command; that of a man of iron will whom no amount of opposition would deter from his purpose. His hands were small and delicate, and his fingers taper, plainly those of the artist, either a painter or a musician. Altogether he presented a unique appearance, and one that once seen would not be easily forgotten.

  During the meal I congratulated him upon the possession of such a beautiful residence, the like of which I had never seen before.

  “Unfortunately,” he answered, “the place does not belong to me, but is the property of our mutual host, the Maharajah. His Highness, knowing that I am a scholar and a recluse, is kind enough to permit me the use of this portion of the palace; and the value of such a privilege I must leave you to imagine.”

  “You are a student, then?” I said, as I began to understand matters a little more clearly.

  “In a perfunctory sort of way,” he replied. “That is to say, I have acquired sufficient knowledge to be aware of my own ignorance.”

  I ventured to inquire the subject in which he took most interest. It proved to be china and the native art of India, and on these two topics we conversed for upwards of half an hour. It was evident that he was a consummate master of his subject. This I could the more readily understand when, our meal being finished, he led me into an adjoining room, in which stood the cabinets containing his treasures. Such a collection I had never seen before. Its size and completeness amazed me.