Whenever a woman has been very deeply wronged by the circumstances of her engagement, such as that she has been withheld from the matrimonial market for a considerable number of years, or her chastity has been filched from her, or the fact of her expected marriage has prevented her fitting herself for the labour market, then the defendant should compensate her up to the measure of her financial wrongs.34
She did concede, however, that breach of promise law was increasingly being used either out of spite or for commercial gain. Some cases, she said, were little more than ‘blackmail by litigation’. As for repeat offenders, these were common in America, but could not flourish in England due to the legal system: ‘… the fact that a lady had recovered damages in one action would make a jury here reluctant to encourage her in the next.’
Maud would have disagreed. As one who dealt with matters often unseen by the courts, she had pointed out in 1919 that British damage hunters used only the threat of legal action to extract payment. As an example, she shared a case brought to her by an artist who was being pursued for breach of promise. When he had received the first request for compensation, he’d written back, admitting everything and enclosing ten shillings by way of settlement. The damage hunter responded with an action for £1,000. Maud and her client waited. As expected, the case was withdrawn the day before it was due to be heard. ‘She dared not have gone into court,’ Maud explained. ‘I had ascertained that she already had had damages from at least three other victims, whom I could have produced.’35
None of my research into the frauds perpetrated on the vulnerable or naive had shed any light on what the Elliott brothers were up to. But, whilst researching the variety of business opportunities – genuine or otherwise – that might have tempted women with war savings, I’d made another unexpected discovery about Maud’s personal life.
It was contained in a short Daily Mail piece about an exhibition that had been held at the American Women’s Club in Grosvenor Street in 1937. Organized by the Alpha Club, a women’s business network which welcomed one representative from each profession into its membership, the exhibition had showcased the variety of businesses run by women in London, from tea merchants to property developers and silver fox farmers.36 It was, the Daily Mail said, ‘a revelation of what women are doing in every sphere of life.’ The article itself, however, contained a revelation of a very different kind. One of the accompanying photographs was of a young, dark-haired woman wearing a jaunty hat and a tight, guarded smile.
The caption read: ‘Miss Maud West jun., a lover of detective work – “sometimes a chic West End butterfly, sometimes a newsboy.”’37
Maud West junior? Surely not. The journalist must have misheard in the clamour of the exhibition. The woman in the photograph had to be one of Maud’s staff. But no, the reporter was adamant that she was indeed the ‘daughter of Maud West, woman detective’ and was tipped to take over the agency at some point.
A child. I had assumed that Maud had been too busy to be a mother. She was hardly ever at home. Besides, what about Harry? Was he even the father? His medical report hadn’t sounded particularly promising in that regard.
Coverage of the exhibition elsewhere suggested that Maud West junior was very much her mother’s daughter, at least. For a start, she was keen on disguise, although she advised against the ‘old-fashioned’ sort. That was rarely necessary, she said: ‘New eyebrows and make-up and a different style of dressing can change a girl so much that her friends won’t recognise her.’ That’s not to say she eschewed all her mother’s tricks; she had once ‘acted as a male chauffeur for a week without being detected.’38
At the time the photograph was taken in 1937, Maud junior was twenty-five years old, so she would have been born sometime around 1912 – and there would be a record of her birth to prove it. Having nothing else to go on, I started with the assumption, unlikely as it seemed, that Harry was her father. The civil register listed quite a few female Elliotts born in the London area during that period, but I struck lucky early on. Before long I had a copy of her birth certificate in my hands.39
Her name was Evelyn, and Harry was indeed her father. She had been born on 6 May 1913 in a terraced house in Willesden, north-west London. Maud would have been in her early- to mid-thirties at the time, Harry thirty-three. Interestingly, Harry hadn’t been working as a detective at the time; he gave his occupation as ‘advertising agent’. Was this his main career? If so, he must have had connections in the press. Was his the invisible hand behind Maud’s success in terms of self-promotion?
Looking closer at the dates, I realized that Evelyn had been born just three days after Maud’s first set of articles concluded in Pearson’s Weekly. She would have been heavily pregnant whilst writing and presumably unable to undertake her usual work. Sleep deprivation after the birth could also explain her strange, rambling piece in the Pittsburgh Press later that summer. As for her statement that she was close to a breakdown during the First World War, not only was she short-staffed and looking after haemorrhaging Harry, but she had a toddler to contend with. No wonder she was exhausted.
Evelyn’s arrival on the scene had been a surprise – perhaps as much to Maud as to me – but it also held the key to unlocking the mystery of Maud’s past, because there on the birth certificate was the name I’d been seeking for months:
Barber. I’d come across that name before. It was the surname of the housekeeper at Pearley – or, as now seemed more likely, not the housekeeper but a relative of some sort. A maiden aunt, or an unmarried sister? It wouldn’t be difficult to find out. I could now track down all of Edith’s family. I’d be able to find her relatives in the legal profession who’d got her started in the detective business – her father, her brothers, her uncle – and the mother she never mentioned.
As for her marriage to Harry Elliott, the boy from the wrong side of the tracks, just when had that taken place? They seemed a curiously mismatched couple. Had they really eloped when Edith was nineteen, or had the wedding taken place later – say, in the nine months before Evelyn’s birth?
I cleared my desk, ready for the next influx of paper.
The Countess and the Snowman
BY MAUD WEST
One day a client who appeared by special appointment under the name of Mr. Smith went straight to the point by saying: ‘Miss West, I have had strict inquiries made about you, and I am satisfied that I can trust you on an important matter. I am now going to relieve myself of a mental burden.’
An odd way of expressing himself, I thought, yet his demeanour was so serious that I refrained from smiling.
My client was a foreign nobleman whose daughter, an only child, had left home. According to all reports she had become associated with people of the underworld. As she was now known to be in London, he instructed me to find out her associates and how they were obtaining the drugs to which she had fallen victim.
The case was not a simple one, but I did not anticipate that it would take me into places where cocaine is made or that I should see it in the process of manufacture.
To establish the identification of the girl was rather difficult because it was imperative that no open inquiries about her should be made. My only course was to haunt the hotel lounges and clubs night after night, and even make friends with women of questionable character.
After several nights, my patience was rewarded. I was sitting smoking in a night club, having previously heard some talk about a ‘countess’, when a beautiful girl entered. Tall and slender, she spoke with a slight foreign accent. Immediately I recognised her as the nobleman’s daughter. A full description of her appearance had been supplied to me, and a thin, almost unnoticeable, blue line on her lower lip completed the identification.
I obtained an introduction to her, and we became quite friendly. Even at this time she was under the influence of drink or drugs. To obtain her address I offered her a lift home in my car. She not only accepted but invited me inside. We had been talking for about ten minutes when th
e phone rang, and I heard her say to the caller, ‘No, don’t come to-night. I have a friend here. In any case, I could not get the money.’
As she replaced the receiver, I expressed regret for inconveniencing her.
‘Oh! don’t you worry,’ she replied. ‘It is only Tom wanting money for the “snow” which I sold for him.’
Several weeks went by. The girl was watched day by day, and I met her every evening. I spent my client’s money lavishly in trying to create the impression that money was no object to a fool.
One evening, I called at the flat only to learn that the ‘countess’ was packing and could not see anyone. Making my way in as an old friend, I learned that she was going to Paris next morning. I could not get any address out of her, so next morning I, too, was bound for Paris, disguised as an old lady.
On arrival at the Gare du Nord, the ‘countess’ entered a waiting car with a man. Luckily, I got a sporting taxi-driver who took up the chase of the car with delight. How we drove! I was tossed from one side of the cab to the other round the corners all the way to Porte d’Orléans. Then a wheel of the cab came off. Hastily giving the man some money, I grabbed my case and jumped on a tram-way car to the bewilderment of the driver and occupants. However, the tram, having got me across the circus in which direction the other car had gone, was now held up in a traffic block.
There was not an empty taxi to be had. I was becoming really agitated when I noticed that the driver of a car was evidently watching me. Taking the bull by the horns, I asked him to follow the car in front which was just moving off. ‘It is a matter of great importance,’ I told him.
‘Yes, I expect it is,’ he replied, ‘or you would not be disguised as you are. Old ladies, you know, can’t run and jump on trams as you did. Jump in.’
I admitted my disguise and mistake in being too active, and found a really good friend who helped me considerably, first by tracking the car and its occupants to their destination, and afterwards loaning me his car until I could arrange to hire one.
The block of flats the ‘countess’ and her companion had entered were typical of most flats or apartments in Paris. I kept observation until one o’clock the next morning – without any sign of the ‘countess’ or the man.
Early next day inquiries by my Paris agent about the occupants of the flats revealed that the only likely one was rented by a man named Brozan. He was something of a mystery to the concierge. Apparently he had no occupation, and was in the habit of being away for weeks at a time, never saying where he was going or where he had been. This information was not much use to me. However, early in the afternoon the man Brozan left the flat and, hailing a taxi, drove to a travel agency where I saw him book two tickets to Rio de Janeiro. I likewise booked a ticket.
At this point I let the man go, as I had to make a few purchases and send cables. In fact, I did not attempt to go near the flat at all, but simply took the train the next morning for Boulogne, and lay in wait for them. When they in due course arrived, I was alarmed at the appearance of the ‘countess’. She looked desperately ill and on the verge of collapse.
We sailed on one of the Blue Star Line boats, the journey taking about 15 days, during which time I was in disguise the whole time as a nurse. The purchase of that uniform was a happy inspiration. Two days’ journey from Rio I was approached by Brozan, who asked whether I could do anything for his wife, as she was seriously ill. I jumped at the opportunity.
In the ‘countess’s’ cabin I found her in such a terrible state that she did not know me. I was able to help her a little, and finally I learned the extraordinary story of her life. It appeared that during girlhood she had always been wild and restless, with an insatiable desire for adventure. In a round of the night clubs she had met Brozan and married him without her parents’ knowledge. She expressed great sorrow about her father’s anguish, but declared that she was not fit to go back to him. At Rio de Janeiro my offer to accompany Mrs. Brozan to her hotel was gratefully accepted.
The next day I tracked him to a house in a low quarter of the town. After waiting a long time until he had left, I determined to investigate. Going down the back steps of the house I made my way cautiously along a narrow passage. As I turned a corner I suddenly found myself facing an automatic revolver, held by a heavily bearded, dirty-looking man, who made one grab at me and pushed me into a small room. I think he was a Portuguese. I did not understand his language, and he could not speak English. He left me in the room, having locked the door as he went. By this time I had a chance to look round the room, which had all the appearance of a laboratory.
The man returned in a few minutes accompanied by an American who asked me what I was doing there. I explained to him that I had evidently mistaken the place, for I was a journalist seeking ‘local colour’. He just smiled and looked at me intently. Then I called bluff to my aid, and calmly asked: ‘What are you weird people doing here?’
His reply was like a shot from a gun. ‘Jane,’ he said, in boastful innocence. ‘We make all kinds of poisonous drugs. Would you like to try some?’
Airing a little knowledge of chemistry, I soon got the man talking. Eventually he showed me how cocaine was made. He told me that the extract was got from coca leaves, mixed with lead acetate, that it was filtered and rendered alkaline, and then purified by crystallisation from alcohol.
So, this was what my man Brozan was up to – a maker of deadly drugs. I apologised for intruding, and thanked the American for his ‘local colour’. Unfortunately he was so pleased with our little acquaintance that he offered to show me back to my hotel. As I had given him a fictitious name and the wrong hotel, I hardly knew what to do. However, I suggested that we should take wine at one of the cafés, and there I managed to lose him.
From further inquiries I learned that Brozan had various agents who made friends in hotels and night clubs with people who might be persuaded to carry parcels through the French and Belgian ports and post them to other agents in various parts of the Continent and the British Isles. I immediately informed my client of my discoveries, and received instructions that I should do everything possible to persuade the girl to leave the wretched life she had been leading and return to her own country.
I was very doubtful about this because, for one thing, his daughter was too ill to be moved. However, I went straight back to my hotel, and again adopting the uniform of a nurse, called on her. She was unconscious. I explained to the doctors in confidence that I had been sent by her father and was allowed to stay by her bedside.
I shall never forget that scene as long as I live. The genuine grief of Brozan – for he really loved his wife, scoundrel though he was – was pitiful to see. For several hours I stayed there. The ‘countess’ never recovered consciousness but died that night as I sat stroking her poor, bloodless hand on the coverlet.
Matters moved quickly after Brozan’s wife was buried. He and his confederates were arrested. Though he got his deserts as a scoundrel, I shall always think that his love for that wilful, misguided girl was a beautiful thing.40
Chapter Ten
Tracks in the Snow
You must have something of the primitive hunting instincts to enjoy being a detective.
Maud West, 19381
‘There is no more interesting department of detective work than the tracing of missing people.’2 So said my new book, a hefty manual called Crime Detection, which had been published in 1928 for private detectives in the United States. I’d had it shipped over from a rare-book dealer in Long Island and whilst much of the content, such as the sections on the Mafia and tips on using bloodhounds, was particular to the work of American detectives, it was the best resource I’d found yet on the practicalities of inter-war investigative work.
Reading the chapter about missing people, I could see why such cases might brighten a detective’s day. This was real sleuthing, starting with the slenderest of clues – a list of books borrowed from the library, a cryptic postcard, an empty bank account – and heading off i
nto the unknown in search of answers. Who knew what might turn up? Elopement? Fraud? Insanity? Murder?
More often than not, however, the hunt had a different purpose. America, it seemed, was scattered with unsuspecting heirs to European fortunes who had emigrated to the land of freedom and opportunity. Following the trail from immigration records to house-to-house inquiries, the book said, may have lacked excitement, but the romance! From the vast prairies of the Midwest to the gold-speckled shores of California, ordinary folk were toiling away unaware of the good news heading in their direction.
The same applied on the other side of the pond, although the hunting ground for British detectives was even more extensive, taking in not just the New World, but the whole of the British Empire and beyond. In Crook Pie, John Goodwin said that this aspect of detective work was arguably the best part of the job:
It often entails travelling in comfort in strange and fascinating countries, with no risks or anxieties, and as the missing heir or relative is almost invariably the recipient of ‘something to his advantage’ such journeys do not terminate in any of the unpleasantness that attends other kinds of searches.3
The words ‘missing persons traced’ appeared in almost every detective’s advertisements at one point or another, so it was clear that this kind of work formed a core part of the job. Foreign travel, too, seemed a given. When Charlotte Antonia Williamson, aka Antonia Moser of Moser’s Ladies Detective Agency, was divorced by her husband in 1890, for example, he cited as one of the death knells for the marriage a work trip she had wanted to take to Constantinople with her boss (and suspected lover) Maurice Moser.4 In 1926, Maud herself said:
… to dash to Holland, France, Spain, Italy at an hour’s notice means no more than a trip from London to Brighton to most people. The longest journeys I have made so far, in connection with cases, took me to South Africa and the British East Indies. On both occasions I travelled with my own maid bearing copious letters of introduction, and had the most wonderful time.5
The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective Page 17