Toward the Golden Age

by Ashley, Mike;

  “The shooting gallery?” asked Mr. Montmorency a little sulkily.

  “The same. If you happen to come through this alive and are interested you might ask Zinghi to show you a target of mine that he keeps. Seven shots at twenty yards, the target indicated by four watches, none of them so loud as the one you are wearing. He keeps it as a curiosity.”

  “I wear no watch,” muttered Dompierre, expressing his thought aloud.

  “No, Monsieur Dompierre, but you wear a heart, and that not on your sleeve,” said Carrados. “Just now it is quite as loud as Mr. Montmorency’s watch. It is more central too—I shall not have to allow any margin. That is right; breathe naturally”—for the unhappy Dompierre had given a gasp of apprehension. “It does not make any difference to me, and after a time holding one’s breath becomes really painful.”

  “Monsieur,” declared Dompierre earnestly, “there was no intention of submitting you to injury, I swear. This Englishman did but speak within his hat. At the most extreme you would have been but bound and gagged. Take care: killing is a dangerous game.”

  “For you—not for me,” was the bland rejoinder. “If you kill me you will be hanged for it. If I kill you I shall be honourably acquitted. You can imagine the scene—the sympathetic court—the recital of your villainies—the story of my indignities. Then with stumbling feet and groping hands the helpless blind man is led forward to give evidence. Sensation! No, no, it isn’t really fair but I can kill you both with absolute certainty and Providence will be saddled with all the responsibility. Please don’t fidget with your feet, Monsieur Dompierre. I know that you aren’t moving but one is liable to make mistakes.”

  “Before I die,” said Montmorency—and for some reason laughed unconvincingly in the dark—“before I die, Mr. Carrados, I should really like to know what has happened to the light. That, surely, isn’t Providence?”

  “Would it be ungenerous to suggest that you are trying to gain time? You ought to know what has happened. But as it may satisfy you that I have nothing to fear from delay, I don’t mind telling you. In my hand was a sharp knife—contemptible, you were satisfied, as a weapon; beneath my nose the ‘flex’ of the electric lamp. It was only necessary for me to draw the one across the other and the system was short-circuited. Every lamp on that fuse is cut off and in the distributing-box in the hall you will find a burned-out wire. You, perhaps—but Monsieur Dompierre’s experience in plating ought to have put him up to simple electricity.”

  “How did you know that there is a distributing-box in the hall?” asked Dompierre, with dull resentment.

  “My dear Dompierre, why beat the air with futile questions?” replied Max Carrados. “Whatever does it matter? Have it in the cellar if you like.”

  “True,” interposed Montmorency. “The only thing that need concern us now—”

  “But it is in the hall—nine feet high,” muttered Dompierre in bitterness. “Yet he, this blind man—”

  “The only thing that need concern us,” repeated the Englishman, severely ignoring the interruption, “is what you intend doing in the end, Mr. Carrados?”

  “The end is a little difficult to foresee,” was the admission. “So far, I am all for maintaining the status quo. Will the first grey light of morning find us still in this impasse? No, for between us we have condemned the room to eternal darkness. Probably about daybreak Dompierre will drop off to sleep and roll against the door. I, unfortunately, mistaking his intention, will send a bullet through—Pardon, Madame, I should have remembered—but pray don’t move.”

  “I protest, Monsieur—”

  “Don’t protest; just sit still. Very likely it will be Mr. Montmorency who will fall off to sleep the first after all.”

  “Then we will anticipate that difficulty,” said the one in question, speaking with renewed decision. “We will play the last hand with our cards upon the table if you like. Nina, Mr. Carrados will not injure you whatever happens—be sure of that. When the moment comes you will rise—”

  “One word,” put in Carrados with determination. “My position is precarious and I take no risks. As you say, I cannot injure Madame Dompierre and you two men are therefore my hostages for her good behaviour. If she rises from the couch you, Dompierre, fall. If she advances another step Mr. Montmorency follows you.”

  “Do nothing rash, carissima,” urged her husband, with passionate solicitude. “You might get hit in place of me. We will yet find a better way.”

  “You dare not, Mr. Carrados!” flung out Montmorency, for the first time beginning to show signs of wear in this duel of the temper. “He dare not, Dompierre. In cold blood and unprovoked! No jury would acquit you!”

  “Another who fails to do you justice, Madame Nina,” said the blind man, with ironic gallantry. “The action might be a little high-handed, one admits, but when you, appropriately clothed and in your right complexion, stepped into the witness-box and I said: ‘Gentlemen of the jury, what is my crime? That I made Madame Dompierre a widow!’ can you doubt their gratitude and my acquittal? Truly my countrymen are not all bats or monks, Madame.” Dompierre was breathing with perfect freedom now, while from the couch came the sounds of stifled emotion, but whether the lady was involved in a paroxysm of sobs or of laughter it might be difficult to swear.

  * * *

  It was perhaps an hour after the flourish of the introduction with which Madame Dompierre had closed the door of the trap upon the blind man’s entrance.

  The minutes had passed but the situation remained unchanged, though the ingenuity of certainly two of the occupants of the room had been tormented into shreds to discover a means of turning it to their advantage. So far the terrible omniscience of the blind man in the dark and the respect for his marksmanship with which his coolness had inspired them, dominated the group. But one strong card yet remained to be played, and at last the moment came upon which the conspirators had pinned their despairing hopes.

  There was the sound of movement in the hall outside, not the first about the house, but toward the new complication Carrados had been strangely unobservant. True, Montmorency had talked rather loudly, to carry over the dangerous moments. But now there came an unmistakable step and to the accomplices it could only mean one thing. Montmorency was ready on the instant.

  “Down, Dom!” he cried, “throw yourself down! Break in, Guido. Break in the door. We are held up!”

  There was an immediate response. The door, under the pressure of a human battering-ram, burst open with a crash. On the threshold the intruders—four or five in number—stopped starkly for a moment, held in astonishment by the extraordinary scene that the light from the hall, and of their own bull’s-eyes, revealed.

  Flat on their faces, to present the least possible surface to Carrados’s aim, Dompierre and Montmorency lay extended beside the window and behind the door. On the couch, with her head buried beneath the cushions, Madame Dompierre sought to shut out the sight and sound of violence. Carrados—Carrados had not moved, but with arms resting on the table and fingers placidly locked together he smiled benignly on the new arrivals. His attitude, compared with the extravagance of those around him, gave the impression of a complacent modern deity presiding over some grotesque ceremonial of pagan worship.

  “So, Inspector, you could not wait for me, after all?” was his greeting.

  The Ninescore Mystery

  Baroness Orczy

  The emergence of female detectives (often, but not always, by female authors) was also prevalent in the decades before the Golden Age. There had, of course, been female detectives way back in the nineteenth century, such as in The Female Detective (1864) by Andrew Forrester and Revelations of a Lady Detective (1864), attributed to William Stephens Hayward. Amelia Butterworth assisted Ebenezer Gryce in several novels by Anna Katharine Green starting with The Affair Next Door (1897). With the success of Sherlock Holmes and other story series, the popular magazines began running various series of which Catherine L. Pirkis’s Loveday Brooke in The Ludgate
in 1893 was the first.

  However, it was Baroness Orczy (1865–1947)—or Emma Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josefa Barbara Orczy de Orci, to give the rich fullness of her name—who created the first woman detective employed by the police, in fact the Head of the Female Department of Scotland Yard. This was Lady Molly Robertson-Kirk, whose stories, which started appearing in 1909, were collected in Lady Molly of Scotland Yard (1910). Lady Molly is so delighted in her work and the trust placed in her that she brings an enthusiasm and verve to her investigations, as well as much insight and common sense.

  Baroness Orczy is best known for her immortal character the Scarlet Pimpernel, an undercover agent during the French Revolution, who first appeared in both a play and a novel in 1905. But she had been writing crime stories even earlier, creating one of the first “armchair” detectives (that is, who solves crimes without having to visit the scene but based on data brought to them) in “The Old Man in the Corner,” whose tales first appeared in 1901. Later in life she created her own version of the unscrupulous Randolph Mason in the form of Patrick Mulligan in Skin o’ My Tooth (1928).

  1

  WELL, you know, some say she is the daughter of a duke, others that she was born in the gutter, and that the handle has been soldered on to her name in order to give her style and influence.

  I could say a lot, of course, but “my lips are sealed,” as the poets say. All through her successful career at the Yard she honoured me with her friendship and confidence, but when she took me in partnership, as it were, she made me promise that I would never breathe a word of her private life, and this I swore on my Bible oath—“wish I may die,” and all the rest of it.

  Yes, we always called her “my lady,” from the moment that she was put at the head of our section; and the chief called her “Lady Molly” in our presence. We of the Female Department are dreadfully snubbed by the men, though don’t tell me that women have not ten times as much intuition as the blundering and sterner sex; my firm belief is that we shouldn’t have half so many undetected crimes if some of the so-called mysteries were put to the test of feminine investigation.

  Do you suppose for a moment, for instance, that the truth about that extraordinary case at Ninescore would ever have come to light if the men alone had had the handling of it? Would any man have taken so bold a risk as Lady Molly did when—But I am anticipating.

  Let me go back to that memorable morning when she came into my room in a wild state of agitation.

  “The chief says I may go down to Ninescore if I like, Mary,” she said in a voice all a-quiver with excitement.

  “You!” I ejaculated. “What for?”

  “What for—what for?” she repeated eagerly. “Mary, don’t you understand? It is the chance I have been waiting for—the chance of a lifetime? They are all desperate about the case up at the Yard; the public is furious, and columns of sarcastic letters appear in the daily press. None of our men know what to do; they are at their wits’ end, and so this morning I went to the chief—”

  “Yes?” I queried eagerly, for she had suddenly ceased speaking.

  “Well, never mind now how I did it—I will tell you all about it on the way, for we have just got time to catch the 11 a.m. down to Canterbury. The chief says I may go, and that I may take whom I like with me. He suggested one of the men, but somehow I feel that this is woman’s work, and I’d rather have you, Mary, than anyone. We will go over the preliminaries of the case together in the train, as I don’t suppose that you have got them at your fingers’ ends yet, and you have only just got time to put a few things together and meet me at Charing Cross booking-office in time for that 11.00 sharp.”

  She was off before I could ask her any more questions, and anyhow I was too flabbergasted to say much. A murder case in the hands of the Female Department! Such a thing had been unheard of until now. But I was all excitement, too, and you may be sure I was at the station in good time.

  Fortunately Lady Molly and I had a carriage to ourselves. It was a non-stop run to Canterbury, so we had plenty of time before us, and I was longing to know all about this case, you bet, since I was to have the honour of helping Lady Molly in it.

  The murder of Mary Nicholls had actually been committed at Ash Court, a fine old mansion which stands in the village of Ninescore. The Court is surrounded by magnificently timbered grounds, the most fascinating portion of which is an island in the midst of a small pond, which is spanned by a tiny rustic bridge. The island is called “The Wilderness,” and is at the furthermost end of the grounds, out of sight and earshot of the mansion itself. It was in this charming spot, on the edge of the pond, that the body of a girl was found on the 5th of February last.

  I will spare you the horrible details of this gruesome discovery. Suffice it to say for the present that the unfortunate woman was lying on her face, with the lower portion of her body on the small grass-covered embankment, and her head, arms, and shoulders sunk in the slime of the stagnant water just below.

  It was Timothy Coleman, one of the under-gardeners at Ash Court, who first made this appalling discovery. He had crossed the rustic bridge and traversed the little island in its entirety, when he noticed something blue lying half in and half out of the water beyond. Timothy is a stolid, unemotional kind of yokel, and, once having ascertained that the object was a woman’s body in a blue dress with white facings, he quietly stooped and tried to lift it out of the mud.

  But here even his stolidity gave way at the terrible sight which was revealed before him. That the woman—whoever she might be—had been brutally murdered was obvious, her dress in front being stained with blood; but what was so awful that it even turned old Timothy sick with horror, was that, owing to the head, arms and shoulders having apparently been in the slime for some time, they were in an advanced state of decomposition.

  Well, whatever was necessary was immediately done, of course. Coleman went to get assistance from the lodge, and soon the police were on the scene and had removed the unfortunate victim’s remains to the small local police-station.

  Ninescore is a sleepy, out-of-the-way village, situated some seven miles from Canterbury and four from Sandwich. Soon everyone in the place had heard that a terrible murder had been committed in the village, and all the details were already freely discussed at the Green Man.

  To begin with, everyone said that though the body itself might be practically unrecognisable, the bright blue serge dress with the white facings was unmistakable, as were the pearl and ruby ring and the red leather purse found by Inspector Meisures close to the murdered woman’s hand.

  Within two hours of Timothy Coleman’s gruesome find the identity of the unfortunate victim was firmly established as that of Mary Nicholls, who lived with her sister Susan at 2, Elm Cottages, in Ninescore Lane, almost opposite Ash Court. It was also known that when the police called at that address they found the place locked and apparently uninhabited.

  Mrs. Hooker, who lived at No. 1 next door, explained to Inspector Meisures that Susan and Mary Nicholls had left home about a fortnight ago, and that she had not seen them since.

  “It’ll be a fortnight to-morrow,” she said. “I was just inside my own front door a-calling to the cat to come in. It was past seven o’clock, and as dark a night as ever you did see. You could hardly see your ’and afore your eyes, and there was a nasty damp drizzle comin’ from everywhere. Susan and Mary come out of their cottage; I couldn’t rightly see Susan, but I ’eard Mary’s voice quite distinck. She says: ‘We’ll have to ’urry,’ says she. I, thinkin’ they might be goin’ to do some shoppin’ in the village, calls out to them that I’d just ’eard the church clock strike seven, and that bein’ Thursday, and early closin’, they’d find all the shops shut at Ninescore. But they took no notice, and walked off towards the village, and that’s the last I ever seed o’ them two.”

  Further questioning among the village folk brought forth many curious details. It seems that Mary Nicholls was a very flighty young woman, about whom there had alr
eady been quite a good deal of scandal, whilst Susan, on the other hand—who was very sober and steady in her conduct—had chafed considerably under her younger sister’s questionable reputation, and, according to Mrs. Hooker, many were the bitter quarrels which occurred between the two girls. These quarrels, it seems, had been especially violent within the last year whenever Mr. Lionel Lydgate called at the cottage. He was a London gentleman, it appears—a young man about town, it afterward transpired—but he frequently stayed at Canterbury, where he had some friends, and on those occasions he would come over to Ninescore in his smart dogcart and take Mary out for drives.

  Mr. Lydgate is brother to Lord Edbrooke, the multi-millionaire, who was the recipient of birthday honours last year. His lordship resides at Edbrooke Castle, but he and his brother Lionel had rented Ash Court once or twice, as both were keen golfers and Sandwich Links are very close by. Lord Edbrooke, I may add, is a married man. Mr. Lionel Lydgate, on the other hand, is just engaged to Miss Marbury, daughter of one of the canons of Canterbury.

  No wonder, therefore, that Susan Nicholls strongly objected to her sister’s name being still coupled with that of a young man far above her in station, who, moreover, was about to marry a young lady in his own rank of life.

  But Mary seemed not to care. She was a young woman who only liked fun and pleasure, and she shrugged her shoulders at public opinion, even though there were ugly rumours anent the parentage of a little baby girl whom she herself had placed under the care of Mrs. Williams, a widow who lived in a somewhat isolated cottage on the Canterbury road. Mary had told Mrs. Williams that the father of the child, who was her own brother, had died very suddenly, leaving the little one on her and Susan’s hands; and, as they couldn’t look after it properly, they wished Mrs. Williams to have charge of it. To this the latter readily agreed.