The Adventures of Ethel King, the Female Nick Carter

by Jean Petithuguenin

  “This is extraordinary,” she murmured. “I would never have thought that chance would have put me this way on the trail of the murderer. This diamond certainly came from Miss Ella Spring’s bracelet. The scoundrel would try to deny it in vain.”

  But what had become of the miller and Charley Lux? Had the criminal killed the young detective and had he carried his body away to make it disappear? That wasn’t impossible, but the criminal could also have taken Charley for a simple inoffensive tourist. And in that case, he would surely have dragged his victim to the Green Pool.

  Ethel King went again to the table to examine the pieces of paper. Charley Lux, when writing with the pencil, had borne down hard by design so that the words had been imprinted on the sheet of paper placed below that on which he had written them. Ethel King recognized the writing immediately as that of her assistant. She placed the paper under the light to decipher the words.

  “give…death…wasted…fortune…gambling…” And then: “existence… everybody pardon me!”

  She deduced the sense of the whole from these bits and pieces. So the murderer had forced Charley Lux also to make his death seem a suicide. The scoundrel must have taken a large sum from his prisoner, naturally without taking everything from him; then he had carried his victim to the Green Pool.

  The detective had trouble controlling her emotion. The murderer must have reached the pond some time before with Charley. Then everything was over. Charley was no longer in this world! And, nevertheless, it might still be possible to save the young man!

  Holding her revolver, the detective hurriedly descended the mill’s stairs and ran to the edge of the woods. Less than half an hour later, she was at the edge of the Green Pool. Bad luck was decidedly following her. At the moment she entered the woods, Charley Lux had again fallen into the hands of his enemy, behind the mill, at the top of the hill.

  Tom Ruby had rightfully told himself that his adversary, whose boldness he had experienced, would not run away, but try to take revenge. He had therefore hidden at the edge of the woods and was not long in seeing his young captive. He had slipped behind Charley so expertly that despite Charley’s practiced good hearing, he hadn’t heard anything. Besides, Tom Ruby always stayed a certain distance from his enemy. He had only gotten closer when he judged the opportunity favorable, and then he had jumped on the unsuspecting person from behind. And this was how the murderer had snatched his new victim, for the second time.

  When she came to the edge of the pond, Ethel King turned on her electric flashlight to see the surface of the water. Nothing showed her the presence of her assistant. That didn’t prove that the young man hadn’t been thrown into the water, because the drowned man might very well not yet have risen to the surface.

  Intense sorrow clutched at Ethel King’s heart. Charley Lux’s death would be a terrible blow to her! The young man was a beloved, devoted cousin, an intelligent, resolute assistant. The young woman made a tour of the pond and finally came to the spot where Tom Ruby had thrown Charley into the water. She found the obvious traces of the fight. She understood what had happened as if she had been there. She recognized that the two adversaries had fallen into the water, and she told herself that they had probably drowned each other.

  Deeply upset, her eyes full of tears, she stared fixedly at the water where the Moon’s silver disk was reflected as if she expected to see the face of her cousin, turned pale by death, surge up. She finally got control of herself, carried her whistle to her lips, and blew some strident sounds in the feeble hope of getting a response. Then she went through the woods once again to search for clues. After all, it was not impossible that the murderer had carried his victim somewhere else.

  But she discovered nothing. She spent the time until morning in this way, walking aimlessly around the edge of the pond. She finally decided to return to the mill. If the criminal hadn’t been killed in the fight, he surely was up there, and the young woman might catch him. If not, she would take the contents of the cupboard and go to Wilmington to tell the police what had happened.

  Daylight was turning the horizon red when Ethel King again found herself at the edge of the woods and raised her eyes toward the mill. Surprise nailed her to the spot. Great gods! Could she believe her eyes? Wasn’t that a man attached to a wing of the mill? She took out her binoculars, raised them to her eyes. She soon knew who was the victim of this new torture. It was Charley Lux, her assistant!

  Is he still alive? Ethel King worried anxiously. She watched the unfortunate man for a long time. She finally saw his face, the space of one second. The young man had his eyes open; his lips were moving.

  Ethel King quickly recovered all her calm, all her self-control. There was not a minute to lose; Charley had to be saved at any price. Then the young woman saw the wings of the mill stop. Then a man, a black man, put his head through the window and watched Charley Lux.

  His face seemed contorted with rage and he was brandishing a knife. Ethel King took to her heels and raced across the edge of the woods, climbing the hill as fast as her legs would carry her.

  Tom Ruby had spent almost the whole night watching his victim attached to one wing of the mill. When the wind died down and the movement of the windmill slowed down, he was greatly exasperated.

  The man told himself that his prisoner might be seen by some passerby. He therefore stopped the wings of his mill and he was going to come back to the window, when he thought about his two dogs and was surprised by their silence the past night. The miller went to the kennel, opened the door and raised his lamp in order to see better. He let out a cry of fury when he saw that his two dogs were dead.

  “That rogue killed them!” he screamed.

  In his blind rage it did not occur to him that his prisoner couldn’t have been the author of that assassination. He took a big knife from a drawer and ran to the window. The wings of the mill had stopped. He looked down below him at the detective, who was placed head downward.

  “Rogue,” he bellowed. “What you do? You pay dear for this!”

  “What do you claim I’ve done?” Charley answered in a feeble voice.

  He was hearing the words as if in a dream. He had not completely recovered his lucidity.

  “Rascal! You shoot my two dogs with revolver!”

  “Your two dogs?” Charley stammered.

  “Don’t lie; it was you! And now you going die!”

  Charley was becoming, little by little, capable of thought. The news of the death of the two dogs reached him. A feeling of triumph crept into his soul, because he immediately realized that only Edith King could have killed the dogs. The young woman was, then, in the vicinity! She was perhaps already about to arrest the murderer. And that thought gave the young man back all his calm, all his presence of mind. He burst out laughing and shouted:

  “The beasts are dead? God be praised! You’ll soon share their fate, with this difference: your death will be on the gallows and not with bullets.”

  “You think so?” the man asked, gritting his teeth. “Oh! You, you very mistaken! You killed my two faithful friends, my good dogs. Me leave this country carrying fortune. Nobody see me again.”

  “I tell you again, in a short time, you’ll be swinging at the end of a rope. You’re lost without any recourse.”

  “You become crazy!” Tom Ruby shouted. “No power in the world get you out of my hands. Even if 100 people tried storm mill, there be no time to stop me plunging knife into your heart.

  Charley gave another disdainful laugh.

  “So, then try!” he said, taunting his enemy. “Your life will be over the same moment that you lift your knife to strike me!”

  Tom Ruby couldn’t be any more enraged.

  “All right! We going right now see if you right or wrong. Watch out! Me pierce your heart!”

  A tremor shook Charley Lux. Where was his cousin? If she didn’t come, the young man was lost. The blade glittered under the rays of the rising Sun. Ruby brandished his weapon. At that critical mo
ment, a shot rang out and the man bellowed in pain. Ethel King had entered the mill and had arrived just in time to see the murderer threaten Charley. Without hesitating, she had lifted her revolver and fired. The bullet hit the man in the hand and made him drop his weapon. If she had missed her shot, the blade would have been driven right up to the handle in Charley Lux’s chest.

  Ruby turned around and saw Ethel King, who was still covering him with her revolver. He charged like an infuriated bull toward his adversary.

  “Stop!” Ethel King shouted at him. “Stop, you scoundrel, or I’ll kill you!”

  “Ah! A woman tries to order me; me kill you, scoundrel!

  He tried to grab her, but she pressed the trigger and he fell down, hit by a bullet in the stomach. The man rolled onto the floor shouting threats and curses, trying in vain to get his enemy between his powerful hands. Strength soon left him, however: he lost consciousness. The detective hurried to put handcuffs on him and to tie his feet. Then she leaned out the window and got Charley Lux out of his horrible situation. She had to call on all her strength to lift the young man and drag him into the mill. Charley’s arms and legs were stiff; he could hardly move.

  As soon as he was inside, he admitted, very contritely, that he was wrong not to immediately call his cousin when he found Ethel Spring’s handkerchief and picked up the miller’s trail. He tightened the murderer’s bonds and stayed, a revolver in his hand, at the mill to watch the prisoner while Ethel King went back to Wilmington to report to Inspector Haring, who was overjoyed when he learned of Ethel King’s rapid success. With the detective and some policemen, he started to the mill. They put Tom Ruby on a stretcher, and two hours later the scoundrel was in the prison infirmary.

  The miller’s wound was serious, but not mortal, and Ruby was soon well again. The money found on him, the diamond from Miss Spring’s bracelet, and his treatment of Charley Lux were conclusive proofs against him. Faced with such charges, the murderer didn’t try to deny anything but made cynical confessions. He had lured passersby into his mill, making them prisoners and forcing them to write the letters, after which he took part of their valuables and then transported them to the Green Pool, where he drowned them. He had made 11 victims in this way. The scoundrel paid for his crimes on the scaffold.

  Notes

  1 Available from Black Coat press under the title The Adventures of Miss Boston, The First Female Detective, ISBN 9781612271132.

  2 “L’Édition en fascicules de romans français entre 1870 et 1914 et leurs conservation par la BNF.” Available at: http://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/document-21200

  FRENCH MYSTERIES COLLECTION

  M. Allain & P. Souvestre. The Daughter of Fantômas

  A. Anicet-Bourgeois, Lucien Dabril. Rocambole: Two Stage plays

  Guy d’Armen. Doc Ardan and The City of Gold and Lepers

  A. Bernède. Belphegor

  A. Bernède. Judex (w/Louis Feuillade)

  A. Bernède. The Return of Judex (w/Louis Feuillade)

  A. Bisson & G. Livet. Nick Carter vs. Fantômas

  V. Darlay & H. de Gorsse. Lupin vs. Holmes: The Stage Play

  Paul Feval. Gentlemen of the Night / Captain Phantom

  Paul Feval. John Devil

  Paul Feval. ’Salem Street

  Paul Feval. The Invisible Weapon

  Paul Feval. The Parisian Jungle

  Paul Feval. The Companions of the Treasure

  Paul Feval. Heart of Steel

  Paul Feval. The Cadet Gang

  Paul Feval. The Sword-Swallower

  Emile Gaboriau. Monsieur Lecoq

  Goron & Gautier. Spawn of the Penitentiary

  Jean de La Hire. Enter the Nyctalope

  Jean de La Hire. The Nyctalope on Mars

  Jean de La Hire. The Nyctalope vs Lucifer

  Jean de La Hire. The Nyctalope Steps In

  Jean de La Hire. Night of the Nyctalope

  Maurice Leblanc. Arsène Lupin vs. Countess Cagliostro

  Maurice Leblanc. The Blonde Phantom

  Maurice Leblanc. The Hollow Needle

  Maurice Leblanc. The Many Faces of Arsène Lupin

  Gaston Leroux. Chéri-Bibi: The Stage Play

  Gaston Leroux. The Phantom of the Opera

  Gaston Leroux. Rouletabille & the Mystery of the Yellow Room

  Gaston Leroux. Rouletabille at Krupp’s

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. Tales of the Shadowmen 1

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. Tales of the Shadowmen 2

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. Tales of the Shadowmen 3

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. Tales of the Shadowmen 4

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. Tales of the Shadowmen 5

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. Tales of the Shadowmen 6

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. Tales of the Shadowmen 7

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. Tales of the Shadowmen 8

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. Tales of the Shadowmen 9

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. Tales of the Shadowmen 10

  Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. The Shadow of Judex

  Frank J. Morlock. Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper

  Jean Petithuguenin. The Adventures of Ethel King

  Antonin Reschal. The Adventures of Miss Boston

  P. de Wattyne & Y. Walter. Sherlock Holmes vs. Fantômas

  David White. Fantômas in America

  Pierre Yrondy. The Adventures of Therese Arnaud

  also translated and introduced by Nina Cooper:

  Emile Gaboriau: Monsieur Lecoq

  Antonin Reschal: The Adventures of Miss Boston, The First Female Detective

  Pierre Yrondy: The Adventures of Thérèse Arnaud of the French Secret Service

  English adaptation and introduction Copyright 2014 by Nina Cooper.

  Cover illustration Copyright 2014 by Jean-Claude Claeys.

  Visit our website at www.blackcoatpress.com

  ISBN 978-1-61227-233-7. First Printing. January 2014. Published by Black Coat Press, an imprint of Hollywood Comics.com, LLC, P.O. Box 17270, Encino, CA 91416. All rights reserved. Except for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The stories and characters depicted in this novel are entirely fictional. Printed in the United States of America.