The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective

by Susannah Stapleton

  There was a lot that Maud didn’t want to give away. Not just professional secrets, or her true identity, or the fact that she was married, but, I suspected, the full range of the work she undertook. Her stories about love and love affairs, for example, failed to mention the more mercenary services inquiry agents offered in that area. According to the Belfast Evening Telegraph, detectives were sometimes hired by fortune hunters to provide information about the movements and habits of American heiresses and other wealthy women. It claimed that one man had recently charmed his way into a marriage worth £10,000 a year by using such information to book himself into the same hotels as the object of his wallet’s desire as she toured the Italian lakes. He then obtained an introduction through ‘a remote but mutual friend who was diligently hunted up for the purpose.’19

  Nor did Maud mention her business clients much, unless they provided a useful background to some improbable adventure. But they must have provided a significant part of her income. As the anonymous lady detective had said:

  Business princes believe in shadowing. They say it helps them weed out the drones from the workers and fraud from honesty. So whenever an employer becomes suspicious we are called in.20

  Female detectives, she said, were in particular demand when it came to following commercial travellers. They would shadow them from town to town, taking the same trains and checking with each shop they visited that they hadn’t been quoting inflated prices and pocketing the difference.

  Hadn’t John Goodwin said something about this? I dug out my copy of Crook Pie. Yes, there it was, although he gave it a slightly different spin: ‘Sometimes a business firm will employ a private detective to “shadow” its agents, or travellers, to find out whether they appear to be living within their means or whether some of the firm’s money is “sticking to their fingers.”’21

  He also gave other examples of work private detectives undertook on behalf of commercial clients. Insurance companies, for example, would hire them to investigate ‘bogus burglaries, “arranged” fires, fraudulent deaths, “stolen” cars and other insurance frauds …’, whilst employers with large unionized workforces had been known to employ detectives to gather intelligence on possible strike action or unrest.22

  Maud herself said that her very first commission as a professional detective had come from a firm in the City. She had been hired to stay at an expensive West End hotel in order to check up on a man from New York with whom they were doing business. After a week of fruitless shadowing, she had struck up a conversation with him in the lounge after dinner one evening. Through polite chit-chat, she elicited his plans for the weekend, which involved a visit to Hampshire and what turned out to be the country retreat of the head of a rival firm. This revelation, she said, saved the firm thousands of pounds – some of which presumably ended up in her pocket.23

  Goodwin also gave further details on the art of shadowing. In addition to core staff, he said, detective agencies also employed local ‘wires’ or ‘narks’ in major towns and cities to assist their work. These were not detectives as such, but were recruited from ‘Hawkers, newsboys, taxi-drivers, hotel porters, waiters, cloak-room attendants, chambermaids’ and so on. They would gather information, run errands and also put up visiting detectives when they were passing through town.

  He described a case in which a detective had shadowed a man from London to Bath to Oxford to Birmingham and back. In Bath, the detective arranged for a local nark to pose as a blind man selling bootlaces and matches opposite the man’s boarding house. As the city had two railway stations, the detective took a room at a hotel between the two. It was arranged that when the man emerged from his boarding house with luggage, the ‘blind’ nark would dispatch a child to the hotel with either six boxes of matches or six bootlaces to denote in which direction, and therefore to which station, the man was heading.

  Such methods as with those Maud described all took time and were generally employed in commercial investigations, divorce shadowings and other substantial cases. But, as the journalist Basil Tozer reported on behalf of the Daily Express in 1914, detective agencies also offered speedier services to businesses and individuals needing a quick credit check or information about a person’s character.

  For his article ‘London’s Secret Service: Wily Ways of Private Inquiry Agents’, Tozer had written to a private detective agency requesting information on two people. A comprehensive report on one came back within twelve hours, the other within twenty-four. They included information about income, outstanding debts, past history, current living arrangements, levels of sobriety and other habits. He found this ‘quite disconcerting’ and set out to find out how it was done.24

  Much of his findings were as one would expect. Basic information was taken from ‘books of reference’, by which I assumed he meant street directories, membership lists and publications such as Who’s Who. Being primarily a sports writer, Tozer focused on what these might say about a person’s recreational interests – ‘A is fond of golf. B is a billiard player. C is a hunting man. D delights in football, or possibly cricket. E is an ardent playgoer …’ – but any information such as club memberships or a business address would be a useful starting point.

  The next step was to visit the individual’s home or office. This would be carefully timed to ensure that the person was out at the time, so that the detective, using some form of cover, could get into conversation with a domestic servant or office clerk:

  With extreme tact and cleverness he draws his victim on to talk; he puts questions to him – or her – which do not appear to be questions; he suggests, insinuates, interpolates an amusing comment or some quaint story here and there, just to keep the ball rolling, and finally departs with his memory well stocked with information, leaving his victim in blissful ignorance of the fact that his brains have been carefully, secretly, and thoroughly picked.

  The same technique might be used in restaurants or tea shops to grill acquaintances or business partners. In an era accustomed to communal public eating this was relatively simple: ‘It is so easy to get into conversation with such people during the course of a meal, if you happen to sit at the same table.’

  The detectives, he said, were ‘affable and most plausible gentlemen, with a considerable amount of tact’, before adding, ‘some of the representatives are quite attractive women.’ The latter, he explained, had the advantage in that they were able to mine hairdressers, manicurists, chiropodists and other ‘great gossips’ for information:

  Lady A. spends an hour being manicured, and keeps up an animated conversation with the operator. She is followed by Mrs B., who also prattles irresponsibly. The next, a regular client, lets out all sorts of secrets about Lady A. and one or two other people …

  If the female detective had also set herself up as a regular client – I thought of Maud’s neatly trimmed nails – all this information was hers for the taking.

  As Tozer concluded, ‘It really is all very simple when you come to look into it – the way everything about everybody is known to the secret service.’

  Could any of this help with my search for Mr Elliott? Not really. All those methods assumed one knew the name of the person one was investigating, or at least had a chance of following them in order to find out. What would Maud do in my situation, I wondered, other than to tell me to stop poking about in her private life?

  She did have one other trick up her sleeve. It was something she mentioned often as a particular strength of female detectives: intuition. I couldn’t see how it could help me, with so little information from which to intuit anything, but, as logic was getting me nowhere, I decided to give it a go.

  What niggled? What made no sense? There were many things, but the one that stood out at that particular moment was the fact that she had legally changed her name in 1933. Why wait until so late in her career to make Maud West official? There must have been a reason. Had she got into trouble under her real name? Was she trying to distance herself professionally from some
thing in her private life, something that involved her husband, perhaps?

  A search of archive records and digitized newspapers for ‘Elliott private detective’ yielded no answers to those questions – so much for intuition – but it did bring up something else, or, rather, someone else: an inquiry agent named Henry, or Harry, Elliott.25

  As with most private detectives’ appearances in the press, Harry Elliott was generally to be found in court giving evidence in divorce cases. During one of those appearances it was stated that he worked for a woman detective.26 Could this be the Mr Elliott I had been looking for? Had Maud married one of her employees? This didn’t tally with Margaret Gilruth’s statement that she had a husband of independent means, but Harry’s earliest appearance in the press in 1912 certainly suggested that he was capable of generating the kind of headlines that Maud would enjoy:

  Harry hadn’t been the one up the tree (that was his colleague spying on a woman in her underwear), but he’d watched as a policeman yanked his partner out of the branches.27 I figured that men capable of climbing trees in 1912 would have been able to fight for King and Country two years later, so I searched the National Archives catalogue to see if Harry’s First World War record had survived. If it had, it was likely to include details of his next of kin.

  Luckily, he was the only Henry or Harry Elliott listed in the Discovery catalogue who was also a private detective. I’d need to see his actual record to get all the details, but the catalogue description did include a home address to get me started: Pearley, Finchley Avenue, Church End.

  The 1918 electoral roll for Church End, part of Finchley itself, showed that Harry was indeed married to a woman named Edith. Coincidence? Maybe. Edith was a common name, after all. As I cast about for anything that would give me a definitive answer, I realized that there had been a clue under my nose the whole time. Pinned above my desk was the advertisement that Maud had created in the 1920s using the gender-morphing illustration from the Pittsburgh Press and, next to the telephone number, was a name: Manager: H. Elliott.

  It still wasn’t enough, but it gave me an idea. If Harry Elliott was the manager and married to the boss, he was likely to have an official stake in the business. And if he did, along with all the other rate-paying business owners at Albion House, he would have had the right to vote in local elections in Holborn as well as his home borough. I returned to the electoral roll, this time for Albion House – and there they were in 1922, complete with a home address:

  I’d found him.

  Even better, the file listed in the Discovery catalogue wasn’t just the standard war record outlining campaigns fought, medals won and pensions received. It was much rarer than that, one of a tiny sample of medical tribunal records that had survived routine destruction. Harry had appealed against his conscription and I could expect to find the reason why and other details of his personal life when the copy I’d requested arrived. Things were looking up.

  The Chelsea Artist

  BY MAUD WEST

  To all appearances she was a young artist with a studio in Chelsea, though, unlike most artists, she seemed to have ample means. I had been asked to keep her under observation by the wife of an English naval officer, who had frequently been in the woman’s company.

  I discovered that the Chelsea artist made extensive tours of the country in a splendidly appointed car, which was chauffeur driven. After many hundreds of miles of shadowing, I learned that she showed a decided preference for seaports and the society of naval officers. At once I got permission from the authorities to strengthen my reserve watches.

  One day, in male disguise, I was following the woman and a naval officer companion, when, to my dismay, my car developed engine trouble. Fortunately the mishap occurred in a main thoroughfare, and I was able to hail a passing taxi cab. I told the driver to keep the car in sight at all costs, but the chase ended at the woman’s house. As her place was already under observation I told the driver to drop me at my address.

  The sequel was, to say the least, unexpected. The taxi driver had obviously seen through my disguise and, being suspicious, he went back to the woman’s address to tell the naval officer that he had been shadowed by a woman masquerading as a man. True to naval tradition, the officer acted promptly. Within half an hour I was under arrest as a suspected spy.

  Hectic hours followed. Inwardly I abused myself for being so foolish as to leave my address an open secret. All my pleading for release failed because, in the nature of my work, I dare not carry documents showing my identity. However, on the arrival of a certain police inspector who knew me, my identity was secretly divulged to the necessary officials and I was released.

  The naval officer who had informed against me in all sincerity was cashiered for his indiscreet association with the Chelsea artist. She herself was arrested and proved to be a highly-paid enemy spy.28

  Chapter Seven

  A Kiss Before Dying

  In my profession you can never afford to let the least chance of what I call ‘scoring a point’ slip.

  Maud West, 19131

  By 1914, Maud’s career was going from strength to strength. She hadn’t yet achieved the distinction, even in her own mind, of being London’s leading lady detective but she appeared to be edging closer. In a story in a New Zealand paper that spring, it was reported that a female investigator had been engaged to unravel a particularly thorny case – ‘one of the greatest crime mysteries of modern times’, no less. The journalist declined to say what the case might be, nor did he name the detective, saying only that she was ‘the only one in London who controls a firm of her own’. This was plainly untrue, but it did narrow the field, and various other clues in the interview suggested he was speaking about Maud rather than one of her known rivals. What clinched it, however, was this:

  ‘I get some pretty nasty experiences, but’ – and a business-like pistol appeared apparently from nowhere, and a moment later disappeared by the same route – ‘I’m not afraid.’2

  It had to be her.

  This was confirmed when I tracked down the original article in the Daily Express.3 It was by Basil Tozer again, presumably following up on the wily ways of private inquiry agents. The lady sleuth was still anonymous, but not only was there the photograph of Maud dressed as a dandy from the Pittsburgh Press but also a photograph of her supposedly in her own clothes:

  She shared a few more details of her family, saying her father was a solicitor (did he become a barrister later? I wondered), as were her brothers – ‘so I suppose I may have inherited their power, or whatever you like to call it, of putting two and two together and thinking things out logically, which, after all, is one of the principal essentials in this profession.’

  The article also mentioned a couple of new disguises – a Salvation Army ‘lassie’ and a club commissionaire – but what interested me most was the mention of her colleagues. I’d been finding it difficult to track down the ‘experienced male and female staff’ mentioned in her adverts. Her ill-fated collaboration with the shifty George Stafford Howell had flushed out two of them – the old-school detective’s son William Cheney and the mysterious Miss Magnen – and I was waiting on more information about her husband and office manager Harry Elliott. But who else was there? What help did she have?

  Thanks to Tozer’s barely concealed amazement that a woman with ‘such wonderful hair’ and ‘strangely-intelligent’ eyes could be in charge, the interview kept returning to that very subject. There were no names, but one of her staff made a dramatic entrance halfway through the interview when Tozer asked what she would do if he tried to strangle her there and then. In response, she made two quick taps on the wall with a pencil:

  … and on the instant a man pounced into the room who looked as though he could have punched out Wells and Carpentier simultaneously. She smiled at him, and he retired.

  Was this Harry? Her regular staff, she said, comprised seven men and five women, ‘but I have “first call” upon other specialists in this kind of
work when business is exceptionally brisk.’

  As she spoke, the London Season was under way. This was always her busiest time, she said, and presumably she was making good use of the extra help to cover the endless round of balls and receptions that launched the most eligible – and gullible – young women into society.

  That year, however, London didn’t settle into its usual summer torpor once all the tiaras had been packed away and the last debutante safely returned to the shires. The nation had been watching events in Europe warily since the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand on 28 June. By early August, with the German army on the rampage in Belgium (whose neutrality Britain was sworn to protect), the country had little choice but to enter the fray.

  As the war took hold, central London was transformed into something resembling a giant army camp. Temporary buildings sprang up in all the great parks, alongside training grounds, experimental bombing sites, internment camps and allotments. At night, the street lamps were dimmed to a faint glimmer, bathing the city in a dreary gloom punctuated only by searchlights scanning the skies for Zeppelins. When the air was still, the sound of distant explosions rumbled across from the front line in France.

  The stern face of Lord Kitchener loomed out of posters saying, ‘Your country needs YOU’, whilst a banner outside Charing Cross Hospital barked ‘QUIET for the WOUNDED’. Yet the streets were anything but quiet. They were full of soldiers, for a start, clomping through on their way to the front, or limping back on leave. Noticeable, too, were the number of refugees from war-torn Europe. And then there were the ordinary Londoners, jolted out of their normal daily routines to savour the novelty of this strange, new world. Of these, it was the young women who caused the biggest stir. Eventually, they would step into absent men’s shoes as bus conductors and railway guards, and work long shifts in munitions factories, but in the meantime, many were taking advantage of wartime opportunities of a very different kind.