At the police-station hard by, the usual formalities were gone through, and the clean-shaven man was constituted prosecutor. But the girl stoutly denied having been guilty of any offence.
The inspector in charge looked doubtful.
“Better search her,” he said.
And the girl was led off to a room for an interview with the female searcher.
The moment the door closed the girl put her hand into her pocket, pulled out the cigarette-case, and laid it upon the table.
“There you are,” she said. “That will fix matters so far.”
The woman looked rather surprised.
“Now,” said the girl, holding out her arms, “feel in this other pocket, and find my purse.”
The woman picked out the purse.
“Open it and read the note on the bit of paper inside.”
On the sheet of paper which the waiter had given her, the girl had written these words, which the searcher read in a muttered undertone—
“I am going to pick this man’s pocket as the best way of getting him into a police-station without violence. He is Colonel Mathurin, alias Rossiter, alias Connell, and he is wanted in Detroit, New York, Melbourne, Colombo, and London. Get four men to pin him unawares, for he is armed and desperate. I am a member of the New York detective force—Nora Van Snoop.”
“It’s all right,” said Miss Van Snoop, quickly, as the searcher looked up at her after reading the note. “Show that to the boss—right away.”
The searcher opened the door. After whispered consultation the inspector appeared, holding the note in his hand.
“Now then, be spry,” said Miss Van Snoop. “Oh, you needn’t worry! I’ve got my credentials right here,” and she dived into another pocket.
“But do you know—can you be sure,” said the inspector, “that this is the man who shot the Detroit bank manager?”
“Great heavens! Didn’t I see him shoot Will Stevens with my own eyes! And didn’t I take service with the police to hunt him out?”
The girl stamped her foot, and the inspector left. For two, three, four minutes, she stood listening intently. Then a muffled shout reached her ears. Two minutes later the inspector returned.
“I think you’re right,” he said. “We have found enough evidence on him to identify him. But why didn’t you give him in charge before to the police?”
“I wanted to arrest him myself,” said Miss Van Snoop, “and I have. Oh, Will! Will!”
Miss Van Snoop sank into a cane-bottomed chair, laid her head upon the table, and cried. She had earned the luxury of hysterics. In half an hour she left the station, and, proceeding to a post-office, cabled her resignation to the head of the detective force in New York.
DETECTIVE: HAGAR STANLEY
THE MANDARIN
Fergus Hume
A YEAR BEFORE THE PUBLICATION of the first Sherlock Holmes book, Fergusson Wright Hume (1859–1932) had the honor of writing the bestselling mystery novel of the nineteenth century, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886). He paid to have it published in Australia, but it quickly had a modest success and he sold all rights to a group of English investors called the Hansom Cab Publishing Company for fifty pounds sterling (not unlike Arthur Conan Doyle, who sold all rights to A Study in Scarlet for twenty-five pounds in 1887). It went on to sell more than a half million copies.
Although he had studied to be a barrister, Hume wanted to be a writer and once described how his famous book came to be written. He asked a Melbourne bookseller what sort of book sold best. The bookseller replied that “the detective stories of [Emile] Gaboriau had a large sale; and, as, at this time, I had never even heard of this author, I bought all his works…and I determined to write a book of the same class; containing a mystery, a murder, and a description of low life in Melbourne. This was the origin of Cab.” Hume went on to write an additional 130 novels—all of which have been largely forgotten.
The protagonist in “The Mandarin” is Hagar Stanley, a Gypsy and the niece of a miserly and corrupt owner of a pawnshop in London, where she is employed. Pretty, smart, and honest, she soon learns the trade, becoming an expert in various areas of antiques, and largely takes over the running of the shop. Known for her decency and fearlessness, she is quick to help people in righting wrongs and works as an amateur detective to that end. In the last story, Hagar gets married, and the happy couple become professional traveling booksellers.
“The Mandarin” was originally published in the author’s short story collection Hagar of the Pawn-Shop (London, Skeffington & Son, 1898).
The Mandarin
FERGUS HUME
THERE WAS SOMETHING VERY QUEER about that lacquer mandarin; and something still queerer about the man who pawned it. The toy itself was simply two balls placed together; the top ball, a small one, was the head, masked with a quaintly-painted face of porcelain, and surmounted by a pagoda-shaped hat jingling with tiny golden bells. The large ball below was the body, gaily tinted to imitate the official dress of a great Chinese lord; and therefrom two little arms terminating in porcelain hands, exquisitely finished even to the long nails, protruded in a most comical fashion. Weighted dexterously within, the mandarin would keel over this side and that, to a perilous angle, but he never went over altogether. When set in motion the big ball would roll, the arms would wag, and the head nod gravely, a little red tongue thrusting itself out at every bow. Then the golden bells would chime melodiously, and rolling, wagging, nodding, the mandarin made all who beheld him laugh, with his innocent antics. He was worthy, in all his painted beauty, to be immortalized by Hans Andersen.
“A very pretty toy?” said Hagar, as the quaint thing tipped itself right and left, front and back. “It comes from China, I suppose?”
She asked this question of the customer, who demanded two pounds on the figure; but in place of answering her, he burst out into a hoarse laugh, and leered unpleasantly at the girl.
“Comes from other side of Nowhere, I reckon, missus!” he said, in a coarse voice; “and a bloomin’ rum piece of goods ’tis, anyhow!”
Hagar did not like the man’s looks at all, although she was by no means exacting on the score of personal beauty—especially with regard to the male sex. Still, there was something brutal about this fellow which revolted her every sense. He had a bullet-head, with a crop of closely-cut hair; a clean-shaven face of a blue-black dirty hue, where the beard had been removed; a low forehead, a snub nose, a large ugly mouth, and two cunning gray eyes which never looked anyone straight in the face. This attractive gentleman wore a corduroy suit, a red linen handkerchief round his throat, and a fur cap with earflaps on his head. Also he carried a small black pipe between his teeth, and breathed therefrom an atmosphere of the vilest tobacco. Certainly the toy was queer; but the man queerer. Not at all the sort of person likely to be in possession of so delicate a work of Chinese art and fancy.
“Where did you get this?” demanded Hagar, drawing her black brows together and touching with one finger the swaying mandarin.
“It’s all on the square, missus!” growled the man in an injured tone. “I didn’t prig the blessed thing, if that’s yer lay. A pal o’ mine as is a sailor brought it from Lord-knows-where an’ guv’ it me. I wants rhino, I do; so if you kin spring two quid—”
“I’ll give you twenty shillings,” said Hagar, cutting him short.
“Oh, my bloomin’ eyes! if this ain’t robbery an’ blue murder!” whined the man; “twenty bob! why, the fun you gits out of it’s worth more!”
“That’s my offer—take it or leave it. I don’t believe you came honestly by it, and I’m running a risk in taking it.”
“Sling us the blunt, then!” said the customer, sullenly; “it’s the likes of you as grinds down the likes of me! Yah! you an’ yer preachin’.”
“In whose name am I to make out the ticket?” asked Hagar, coldly.
> “In the name of Mister William Smith—Larky Bill they calls me; but ’tain’t hetiikit to put h’endearin’ family names on pawn-tickets. I lives in Sawder Alley, Whitechapel.”
“Why didn’t you go to a nearer pawn-shop, then?” said Hagar, taking down Mr. Smith’s address, without smiling at his would-be wit.
“That’s my biz!” retorted Bill, scowling. “ ’Ere, gimme the tin; an’ don’t you arsk no questions an’ you won’t be tol’ no lies! D’ye see?”
Hagar stamped her foot. “Here’s the money and the ticket. Take yourself and your insolence out of my shop. Quick!”
“I’m gitting!” growled the man, shuffling towards the door. “See ’ere, missus; I comes fur that doll in three months, or it may be four. If it ain’t all right an’ ’anded up to me proper, I’ll break your neck!”
“What’s that you say?” Hagar was over the counter, and close at hand by this time. Larky Bill stared open-mouthed at her spirit. “You say another word, my jail-bird,” said Hagar, seizing his ear, “and I’ll put you into the gutter!”
“Lordy! what a donah!” muttered Bill, rubbing his ear when he found himself outside. “She’ll look arter the toy proper. Three months. Tck!” he rapped his thumbnail against his teeth. “I can’t get less from the beak; but I’ve bested Monkey anyhow!”
And with these enigmatic words, Mr. Smith turned on his heel and went to Whitechapel. There his forebodings were realized, for at the very door of his own house in Sawder Alley, he was taken in charge by a grim policeman, and sent to prison for four months. He had stolen some fruit off a coster’s barrow on the day previous to his arrest, and quite expected to be—as he phrased it—nabbed for the theft. Therefore he employed the small remnant of freedom still remaining to him in pawning the mandarin in the most distant pawn-shop he could think of, which happened to be Hagar’s. As Mr. Smith left the court to do his four months, a wizen-faced man slouched close to him.
“Bill,” he growled, edging against the policeman, “where’s that doll?”
“That’s all right, Monkey! I’ve put it where you won’t git it!” grunted Smith.
When Black Maria rolled away with Bill inside, the man he had called Monkey stood on the edge of the pavement and cursed freely till a policeman moved him on. He had a particular desire to gain possession of that doll, as he called it; and it was on this account that Larky Bill had taken the trouble to hide it. Monkey never thought of a pawn-shop. It was a case of diamond cut diamond; and one rogue had outwitted the other.
In the meantime, Hagar, quite unaware of the value attached to the Chinese toy, placed it away among other pawned articles upon a high shelf. But it did not always remain there, for Bolker, a child in many ways, notwithstanding his precocious intelligence, found it out, and frequently took it down to play with. Hagar would not have permitted this had she known, as the toy was given into her charge to keep safe, and she would have been afraid of Bolker spoiling the painting or rubbing off the gilding. Bolker knew this, and was clever enough to play with the mandarin only when Hagar was absent. He placed it on the counter, and made it sway in its quaint fashion. The waving arms, the nodding head, and the roseleaf of a tongue slipping in and out, enchanted the lad, and he would amuse himself for hours with it. It was strange that a gilded toy, no doubt made for the amusement of grave Chinese Emperors, should descend to afford pleasure to an arab of London City. But the mandarin was an exile from the Flowery Land, and rocked as merrily in the dingy pawn-shop as ever he had done in the porcelain palaces of Pekin.
A month or two after the mandarin had been pawned, Bolker announced in the most unexpected manner that he intended to better himself. He had been given, he said, the post of shop-boy in a West-end bookseller’s establishment; and as he was fond of literature, he intended to accept it. Hagar rather wondered that anyone should have placed sufficient confidence in this arab to give him a situation; but she kept her wonderment to herself, and permitted him to go. She was sorry to lose the benefit of his acute intelligence, but personally she had no great love for this scampish hunchback; so she saw him depart without displaying much sorrow. Thus Bolker vanished from the pawn-shop and from Carby’s Crescent, and ascended into higher spheres.
Nothing new happened after his departure. The mandarin remained untouched on the shelf, and the dust collected over his motionless figure. Hagar quite forgot about the toy and its pawner; and it was only when Larky Bill was released from prison and came to claim his property that she recalled the incident. She took down the figure, dusted it carefully, and set it swaying on the counter before Mr. Smith. Neither Bill nor Hagar noticed that it did not roll as easily and gracefully as usual.
“Here’s the quid and interest and ticket,” said Bill, tendering all three. “I’m glad to get this ’ere back again. No one’s touched it, ’ave they?”
“No. It has been on that shelf ever since you pawned it. Where have you been?”
Larky Bill grinned. “I’ve been stayin’ at a country ’ouse of mine fur my ’ealth’s sake,” he said, tucking the mandarin under his arm. “Say, missus, a cove called Monkey didn’t come smellin’ round ’ere fur this h’image?”
“Not that I know of. Nobody asked for the toy.”
“Guess it’s all right,” chuckled Bill, gleefully. “Lord, to think as how I’ve done that bloke! Won’t he cuss when he knows as I’ve got ’em!”
What “them” were Mr. Smith did not condescend to explain at that particular moment. He nodded familiarly to Hagar, and went off, still chuckling with the mandarin in charge. Hagar put away the money, and thought that she had seen the last of Bill; but she reckoned wrongly. Two hours afterwards he was back in the shop, mandarin and all, with a pale face, a wild eye, and a mouth full of abuse. At first he swore at large without giving any explanation; so Hagar waited till the bad language was ended, and then asked him quietly what was the matter. For answer Bill plumped down the Chinese toy on the counter, and clutched his fur cap with both hands.
“Matter, cuss you!” he shrieked, furiously—“as if ye didn’t know! I’ve been robbed!”
“Robbed! What nonsense are you talking? And what have I to do with your being robbed?”
Bill gasped, and pointed to the mandarin, who was rolling complacently, with a fat smile on his porcelain visage. “That—that doll!” he spluttered. “I’ve been robbed!”
“Of the doll?” asked Hagar, impatiently.
“Y’ young Jezebel! Of the dimins—dimins!”
“Diamonds!” echoed the girl, starting back in astonishment.
“Yes! Y’ know, hang you, y’ know! Twenty thousan’ poun’ of dimins! They was in that doll—inside ’im. They ain’t there now! Why not? ’Cause you’ve robbed me! Thief! Yah!”
“I did not know that there were any jewels concealed in the mandarin,” said Hagar, calmly. “Had I known I should have informed the police.”
“Blown the gaff, would ye? An’ why?”
“Because a man in your position does not possess diamonds, unless he steals them. And now I think of it,” added Hagar, quickly, “about the time you pawned this toy Lady Deacey’s jewels were stolen. You stole them!”
“P’raps I did, p’raps I didn’t!” growled Bill, mentally cursing Hagar for the acuteness of her understanding. “ ’Tany rate, ’twarn’t your biz to prig ’em!”
“I tell you I never touched them! I did not know they were in there!”
“Then who did, cuss you? When I guv you the doll, the dimins were inside; now they ain’t. Who took ’em?”
Hagar pondered. It was certainly odd that the diamonds should have been stolen. She had placed the mandarin on the shelf on the day of its pawning, and had not removed it again until she had returned it to its owner. Seeing her silent, Bill turned the toy upside down, and removed a square morsel of the lacquer, which fitted in so perfectly as to seem like one whole piece. Within was
the dark hollow of the ball—empty.
“I put them dimins into ’ere with my own ’and,” persisted Bill, pointing one grimy finger at the gap; “they were ’ere when I popped it; they ain’t ’ere now. Where are they? Who’s bin playing with my property?”
“Bolker!” cried Hagar, without thinking. It had just flashed across her mind that one day she had found Bolker amusing himself with the mandarin. At the time she had thought nothing of it, but had replaced the toy on its shelf, and forbidden the lad to meddle with it. But now, recalling the episode, and connecting it with Bolker’s sudden departure, she felt convinced that the imp had stolen the concealed jewels. But—as she wondered—how had he become cognizant that twenty thousands pounds’ worth of diamonds was hidden in the hollow body of the doll? The thing puzzled her.
“Bolker?” echoed Larky Bill, wrathfully. “And who may that cuss be?”
“He was my shop-boy; but he left three months ago to better himself.”
“I dessay! With my dimins, I’ll bet. Where is he, that I may cut his bloomin’ throat!”
“I shan’t tell you,” said Hagar, alarmed by the brutal threat of the man, and already regretting that she had been so candid.
“I’ll make you! I’ll twist your neck!” raged Bill, mad with anger.
He placed his great hands on the counter to vault over; but the next moment he dropped back before the shining tube of a neat little revolver, which leveled itself in Hagar’s hands. She had lately purchased it for defense.
“I keep this always by me,” said she, calmly, “to protect myself against such rogues as you!”
Bill stared at her blankly, then turned on his heel and left the shop. At the door he paused and shook his fist.
“I’ll find that Bolker, and smash the life out of him!” he said, hoarsely; “then, my fine madam, I’ll come back to lay you out!” after which he vanished, leaving the mandarin, with its eternal smile, still rocking on the counter.
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 13