“So, my child, I’ll tackle the professor forthwith.”
“I want you to,” retorted the girl. “He caught the eight fifty-three from Ascot on Saturday morning the sixteenth and was supposed to leave for the Riviera on the eleven o’clock from Victoria.”
TELLING IT STRAIGHT
“He had a reservation. Verify that—it shouldn’t be difficult. Of course,” a little twinkle came into her eyes, “if you’d care to fly over to Cannes to the Megantic Hotel and see if—”
“It’s as well money’s no object,” answered Williamson, with a grin. “You’d break any ordinary firm in a week. Still, there’s nothing like doing a job properly.
“I believe half our success is due to the fact that we do so many entirely unnecessary things that we can’t help hitting the necessary one in the process.”
Daphne made a little moue.
“Well, we get there,” she replied. “All the same I can’t quite see how we’re going to get there this time, and I tell you so straight. It looks seriously to me as if we’d taken on the impossible.”
For nearly an hour more they sat there discussing the case from every angle. But that was always Daphne Wrayne’s method. She had laid it down emphatically once to a reporter, and her words had been repeated in the next morning’s paper to form a controversy that lasted for weeks.
“The police are only out to catch the criminal,” she had said. “We’re merely after recovering the victim’s stolen property. Therefore we’re bound to work on different lines for the most part.”
HUNTING THE UNUSUAL
“In cases where the police have been called in first and have covered all the ordinary channels without success, we are fairly safe in assuming that we have to look to the unusual ones for the solution of the problem. Therefore, if time permits, I call my colleagues together and ask for new ideas.
“No idea that they suggest is too impossible to be dismissed. Each one, however fantastic, has to be labeled and held in readiness in case one single new fact arises to suggest that it has a chance of being the correct solution.”
Consequently when Daphne arrived that evening at Forest Lodge, though she was by no means suspecting the professor of any share in the robbery she was holding in her mind the remote possibility that he could have had something to do with it.
“Except for myself and my servants, my dear,” said the duchess, “the house is empty. All my guests have gone and I’ve put off those who were coming—for a couple of days. You’re a famous young woman, you know, and I don’t want to handicap you in any way.”
“The famous young woman,” replied the girl airily, “hasn’t a notion what to do and doesn’t mind admitting it. Still she’s trying. Give her some tea, please, and then let her come up and see your room. All pukka detectives do that. No! I’m hanging on to this attaché case. It’s highly important.”
“What’s in it?” asked the duchess interestedly.
“The usual stock in trade,” answered Daphne with a little laugh. “An amazingly powerful magnifying glass, a foot-rule, a pair of compasses, a complete apparatus for finger-prints, a very extra-special camera and apparatus, bottles, boxes, et cetera. Some detective this child, I assure you!”
She dropped into a chair and producing her case lit a cigarette.
“Any news, duchess?”
“Not a bit. Have you?”
“Nix.”
“Any theories?”
“Whole bunches—and no facts to fit ’em.”
The duchess regarded her half smiling.
“I wish I could understand you, Daph!” she said. “You look like a schoolgirl on a holiday.”
THE MYSTERIOUS ROOM
“Well, that’s all I am really—only I’m on an interesting job of work. I don’t believe anyone will ever believe in me until I wear horn-rimmed glasses, homemade frocks, and elastic-sided boots. It’s a hard world for us women.”
She sighed pathetically as she lay back in her chair crossing her slender silken legs. But her eyes were mischievous all the same.
“Then why don’t you do it?” retorted the duchess.
“No darned fear! I just love fogging people. Come on!” jumping up. “Let’s go and explore the mysterious room.”
For nearly an hour the duchess sat in a chair in the corner of her bedroom while Daphne wandered round exploring everything. Scarcely a word passed between them during that hour—but the duchess saw an entirely new Daphne Wrayne.
There was very little of the “schoolgirl on a holiday” now about her. She went over every inch of that room with serious face and wrinkled white forehead. Nothing seemed to escape her notice. Magnifying glass in hand she examined every nook and crevice, safe, doors, floor, ceiling, walls.
Then at last she finished, came slowly over to the fireplace, pulled up a chair, lit another cigarette. She was looking puzzled, almost worried. For some minutes she smoked in silence, her eyes on the fire. Then at last the duchess spoke.
AT A DEAD END
“Well, my dear?” she ventured.
The girl’s head came up quickly, and a smile flickered over her face.
“You’re rather a sweet person, aren’t you?” she queried. “You still persist in believing that I can do what the police have been unable to do. But I’m afraid,” a little wistfully, “that I’ve got to disappoint you.
“Duchess, all I can tell you is that I’m absolutely certain the burglar never came in through the window. But then I knew that before I came down here. And yet—” With an impatient gesture she got up from her chair and gazed round the room frowning.
“Those footprints outside were a blind,” she said shortly. “They were deliberately done to make you think that the burglar entered by the window. Momentarily, I’m at a dead end. I think I’ll go and have a hot tub and dress for dinner.”
A look of disappointment crossed the duchess’s face, but she merely answered quietly:
“I’ll take you and show you your room, my dear.”
Dinner was rather a taciturn meal. Daphne in her silver frock, and white shoes and stockings was looking more absurdly schoolgirlish than ever, but she seemed distinctly preoccupied and times without number her eyes kept wandering to the telephone which stood in the corner of the room.
And then suddenly it whirred into one of its calls and she sprang to her feet.
“That may be for me, duchess!” she exclaimed as she ran across the room. Then: “Hello—hello! Yes! It’s Daphne Wrayne speaking.” A little pause, and very slowly and deliberately: “P. Q. R. 22. Answer, please!”
The duchess looked on open-mouthed, saw the sudden smile that rippled over the girl’s face, and heard her go on, relief in her voice:
“Is that you, A 3? Well, have you any news for me?”
The duchess watched her intently. The beautiful face now became grave in a moment, a little frown had developed on the smooth white forehead—Daphne was listening intently, nodding thoughtfully, but still obviously worried.
“Yes, as you say, it’s distinctly curious— Oh! Most certainly suspicious! Can’t find a single thing to help us—I shall be here all tomorrow in case you find out anything more—Good-by, old man!”
LIKE A FLASH
She hung up the receiver slowly, thoughtfully—came back to her chair and sat down. Absently she picked up her cigarette case.
“Duchess,” she said, “if you take my tip you’ll never embark on a career like mine. It’s just one mass of—”
She stopped suddenly, abruptly. One slim hand had gone up to her mouth. Her whole attitude was that of one who had suddenly been arrested by an amazing idea.
“What’s the matter, Daph?”
For the space of seconds the girl sat very still as if carved in stone. Then:
“Duchess! Where’
s the safe key?”
“In the safe. You left it there.”
“Wait here a minute!”
She was out of the room in a flash. In a few minutes she was back again, but now her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were shining.
“Duchess!” her voice was almost quivering. “Come upstairs with me—quickly, please! Oh, don’t talk! Just come!”
Up in the bedroom Daphne turned to the amazed woman who was staring helplessly around.
“I want an empty jewel case—quickly!” she said. “Any old one will do.”
SOLVING IT
Still regarding her bewilderedly the other went to her chest of drawers, unlocked it.
“Will this do?”
“Fine! Anything in it? No? Good. Come over to the safe!”
Snatching the case from her hands Daphne half pulled her across the room, flung open the safe.
“Now I’m putting it inside—see?”
She thrust the jewel case in, pushed to the safe door, turned the key—waited for the space of seconds. Then once more she turned the key in the lock and pulled open the safe door.
The safe was empty!
In a moment she had seized the duchess by the waist and was whirling her round the room delightedly.
“I’ve solved it, I’ve solved it!” she exclaimed. “Your jewels are here, old lady—in this very room! And if I have to pull the darned place to pieces I’ll have ’em for you this very night.”
“But—but”—stammering—“I don’t understand—”
“Lock the door quickly,” interrupted the girl, “we don’t want anyone in. And don’t ask me any questions for a few minutes, for the love of Mike.”
She was across the room in a moment and regardless of her dainty frock was down on her hands and knees tapping on the walls and the floor in the immediate neighborhood of the safe. As for the duchess she could only stand and watch her, speechless.
“I’m afraid we’ve got to move this chest of drawers!” exclaimed Daphne suddenly, jumping up and pointing to the big mahogany piece that stood immediately under the picture that had hidden the safe. “Can you give me a hand, my dear?”
“Won’t we need some help?”
Daphne made an impatient gesture.
“For Heaven’s sake, no! There’ll be enough scandal as it is presently.”
They got it away at last by dint of extensive shoving and pushing. And then Daphne was down on her hands and knees again pulling back the carpet—and suddenly she gave a little cry of triumph.
“Great heavens!” exclaimed the duchess.
No more than that. She simply stood there staring with bulging eyes. At her side, Daphne Wrayne on her knees, rippling delight in every line of her pretty face. And before her a trap door pushed back, a yawning black cavity, and at the bottom of it in a heap—the Duchess of Arlington’s jewel cases!
A WONDERFUL SAFE
“Montarthur was positive,” said Daphne as she and the duchess sat together over the fire, “that the burglary was not done through the window. And the moment I came to examine the window I was equally sure.
“But both of us were led astray by the fact that from twelve o’clock at midnight until six thirty the next evening it was possible for anyone to enter this room of yours. All the same Montarthur missed the full significance of two facts which both my colleagues and I spotted.
“The first was that both Lady Castlebrough and yourself possess very famous jewels. The second, that the professor showed you both over the house himself, and in each case dilated on the advantages of the safe. I’m not saying I suspected the professor from that moment. But I do say that he then became a person who had to be cleared.
“Supposing that the professor had duplicate keys of the house and safe—as he easily could have. What easier than for him to use them? He knows the whole place.
“If by any chance he is discovered in the house, it’s his own house, and he can bring up a hundred excuses to cover himself.”
She paused a moment to light the inevitable cigarette and then went on:
BEFORE THE CALL
“And the professor came further under my direct notice from the fact that apparently only he knew that you were going to occupy this room. And this was when he made his big mistake.
“He argued that by cutting the wires outside your bedroom only, we should immediately say after seeing the footprints, ‘That’s how the burglar entered.’
“Instead of which, I said, after examining everything, ‘Those footprints were obviously a blind—and what the cut wires tell me is that only a person with a very intimate knowledge of the house could have done this.’ Valuable deduction, my dear!”
“I don’t wonder the Adjusters are a success,” murmured the duchess admiringly. “Daph, you’re simply wonderful.”
“Frankly,” admitted the girl, though the pleasure was showing in her face, “I don’t agree. I happen to have a logical mind and that’s why I took this game up. You had only been in residence a day, duchess! No one without an intimate knowledge of you and your movements could have known in what room you were.
“Montarthur had the records of all the servants from A to Z. It was no use my going over the old ground again. The Adjusters are only called in when the police methods—darned thorough methods, too, let me tell you—have failed.
“The only reason, believe me, why we discover the seemingly impossible is because that’s all there is left for us to look for! It isn’t such marvelous cleverness, duchess! The mere fact of the police being baffled tells us that only the really fantastic can find the solution to the problem.”
“But how did you get to this amazing solution, Daphne?” queried the other. “What gave you the idea of that safe?”
“As you know,” answered the girl thoughtfully, “I was up against a dead end, right until the phone bell rang. It was one of my colleagues who called me up and this is what he told.”
She leaned forward in her chair checking off the points on her slim fingers.
“The professor canceled his departure on the Saturday morning train—took another reservation on Tuesday morning and went by it. The disappearance of your jewels happened some time after Monday night.”
THE PROFESSOR’S TRIP
“The professor, incidentally staying at the Continental, left his hotel on Monday evening at nine o’clock and arrived back about twelve thirty that night. My colleague trots off to Ascot in his car. Makes inquiries.
“The porter remembers the professor traveling up on that particular night—knows him well by sight—and on that particular ten forty train. Quaint, isn’t it? Why had he come down? Where had he been? What had he been doing?”
As she paused, smiling at the duchess, the latter drew a deep breath.
“But even then that was an hour and a half before I went to bed!” she said.
“Quite so,” replied the girl, “and that proved obviously that the professor didn’t go down to get into his house. Then why did he go? Obviously to plant those footmarks and make you think positively that some one had been in the house.
“Then I said to myself: ‘Obviously he never entered the house at all, and if he didn’t, where are the jewels?’ And then in a moment, duchess, the idea came out and hit me between the eyes. If you put something in a box, shut the box, open it again and find that something’s gone, then obviously one of two things has happened.
“Either somebody’s taken it out, or—it’s never been taken out at all! And that’s why I left the table in such a hurry to go and test my theory. I took an empty jewel case of my own, shoved it in the safe, locked it, reopened it and—it had gone! The whole thing was clear.
“The professor is an ingenious crook playing for enormous stakes. He tried for the Castlebrough jewels and failed, just because Lady Ca
stlebrough happens to distrust safes. You don’t and—well, he nearly got away with it!
“When Montarthur comes to take that safe to pieces, he’ll find, I fancy, that it’s a masterpiece of ingenuity and shows the amazingly clever mechanical brain of our learned friend. He will find that the turning of the key releases the bottom of the safe, the contents slide through, and the bottom comes up again.
“It’s really a masterpiece of construction. I’ve examined the inside of the safe pretty thoroughly and even now I know I can’t detect exactly how it’s done!”
She stretched her slender white arms above her head, yawning a little. Then:
“Of course, I’ve done my part of the job,” she said. “You asked me for your jewels and you’ve got ’em. Naturally I’m now turning the whole business over to Montarthur and he can do what he pleases.
“Though if the professor chooses to swear, as he probably will swear, that he knows nothing whatsoever about this ‘peculiarity’ of his safe, Montarthur’s not going to have a cakewalk to convict him.
“Mind you, I haven’t the slightest doubt that he did it, but it’s going to be purely circumstantial. If I were defending him I think I could make out quite a good case for him. Just shows, duchess,” with a smile, “what clever people we Adjusters really are!
“All we do is to find the stolen stuff, give it to the rightful owners and get all the kudos. These other poor fish have to get convictions—and that’s an appalling business when once you start!”
DETECTIVE: PAT SEAWARD AND JACK CARDIGAN
RED HOT
Frederick Nebel
NOT ONLY WAS LOUIS FREDERICK NEBEL (1903–1967) a prolific writer of pulp fiction, but he achieved that magical gold ring for writers of that era—creating a successful series, meaning that there was always a market for another story or novella. In fact, Nebel, who was at the very top of the B-list authors of the pulp era, wrote several long-running series, mainly for Black Mask and its closest rival, Dime Detective, in a career that essentially ended after a single decade (1927-1937). His protagonists are tough and frequently violent, but they bring a strong moral code to their jobs, as well as a level of realism achieved by few other pulp writers.
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 32