There was no signature, but we knew who had written this letter; and it left no doubt on our minds as to who had been accessory to the other burglaries. “Dick the Switcher” was a notorious housebreaker, whom the police had been seeking for some time. The “Jake” mentioned in Pearson’s letter was conjectured to be Jake Porter, a bird of the same feather who had recently been doing eighteen months for larceny, and who was already wanted for a still graver offence.
By the time explanations and consultations were over it was time for our men to “plant” themselves. We women retired to the young ladies’ boudoir to await events, while the six men posted themselves in readiness for the attack. We all went about our business very cautiously, for we were not sure that Pearson was not intending to afford other aid to her confederates than that of opening the pantry-windows. We sat without a light, to avoid scaring the would-be burglars, and pictured all sorts of horrible scenes going on below.
Apparently the man who called himself Blandford had not imagined that any one had got hold of the incriminatory piece of paper, for shortly after four he appeared at the pantry-window, as arranged with Pearson, and entered the house without much difficulty, followed by another man. The pair were allowed to reach the dining-room sideboard, and to lay their hands upon a handsome case of cutlery, before they were pounced upon from behind, and then they found themselves speedily handcuffed and helpless. I am told they swore awfully, and one of them vowed to murder Pearson, if ever he got the chance.
“I’ll learn her to peach on her own husband!” he snarled. By this time bells had been ringing, and the whole household was alarmed. Hodgson came running downstairs to see what was the matter, and his consternation was very great when he was told that the reason he had not been roused before was because his own wife was hand and glove with the burglars, and that we feared she would have warned them against venturing in. He alternately raved with anger and cried with dismay at being mixed up with so disreputable a gang. Meanwhile one of the policemen thought he would like to secure Pearson, and ordered Hodgson to show him where she was. That lady, however, had known that the plans of her associates had failed as soon as she heard the uproar caused by their capture. She had promptly lowered herself from her bedroom-window on to an outhouse, and had thence made good her escape through the back garden. Up to the time of writing her whereabouts have not been discovered. But Dick the Switcher, alias Blandford, alias Thompson, is provided with a home for many years to come, as is also Jake Porter, his accomplice, and it is satisfactory to note that Mr. Blanke recovered a great deal of the property stolen from him on former occasions by the same gang.
As for poor Hodgson, he was very thankful to find that he was exonerated from all suspicion of complicity, and even still more thankful to know that some one had a prior claim to the woman he had called his wife. He has foresworn married life for ever, and has even given up his Wednesday receptions, for, as he says, “It behooves one to be careful about who one introduces to one’s house.”
* The story has been transcribed from an appearance in the Leeds Mercury weekly supplement for April 16, 1892. The story is headed as Chapter III of the serialized Experiences of a Lady Detective.
† In the sense of someone to be imitated.
‡ Adelina Patti (1843–1919) was one of the most famous sopranos of the day, described by Giuseppe Verdi as perhaps the finest singer who ever lived.
§ “Amarplot” is someone who spoils another’s plans.
¶ Inform the police.
Catherine Louisa Pirkis (1839–1910) was one of the few British women producing crime writing at the end of the nineteenth century. Pirkis wrote much else as well, but shortly after the appearance of Sherlock Holmes, Pirkis created a true rival to Holmes, Miss Loveday Brooke, who appeared in a series of seven stories in The Ludgate Monthly magazine, collected as The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective in 1894. Brooke, having worked her way up through the “lower ranks” of the profession, came to the attention of Ebenezer Dyer, the head of a detective agency, who appreciated her talents and hired her. Although female private investigators had appeared in fiction previously, their adventures were written by men and seemed to be merely an attempt to fill the public’s appetite for new and different detectives. Here, in a story published in July 1893, Brooke breaks up a criminal organization that will seem all too familiar to twenty-first century readers.
THE GHOST OF FOUNTAIN LANE
C. L. PIRKIS
Will you be good enough to tell me how you procured my address?” said Miss Brooke, a little irritably. “I left strict orders that it was to be given to no one.”
“I only obtained it with great difficulty from Mr. Dyer; had, in fact, to telegraph three times before I could get it,” answered Mr. Clampe, the individual thus addressed. “I’m sure I’m awfully sorry to break into your holiday in this fashion, but—but pardon me if I say that it seems to be one in little more than name.” Here he glanced meaningly at the newspapers, memoranda and books of reference with which the table at which Loveday sat was strewn.
She gave a little sigh.
“I suppose you are right,” she answered; “it is a holiday in little more than name. I verily believe that we hard workers, after a time, lose our capacity for holiday-keeping. I thought I was pining for a week of perfect laziness and sea-breezes, and so I locked up my desk and fled. No sooner, however, do I find myself in full view of that magnificent sea-and-sky picture than I shut my eyes to it, fasten them instead on the daily papers and set my brains to work, con amore, on a ridiculous case that is never likely to come into my hands.”
That “magnificent sea-and-sky picture” was one framed by the windows of a room on the fifth floor of the Métropole, at Brighton, whither Loveday, overtaxed in mind and body, had fled for a brief respite from hard work. Here Inspector Clampe, of the Local District Constabulary, had found her out, in order to press the claims of what seemed to him an important case upon her. He was a neat, dapper-looking man, of about fifty, with a manner less brusque and business-like than that of most men in his profession.
“Oh pray drop the ridiculous case,” he said earnestly, “and set to work, ‘con amore,’ upon another far from ridiculous, and most interesting.”
“I’m not sure that it would interest me one quarter so much as the ridiculous one.”
“Don’t be sure till you’ve heard the particulars. Listen to this.” Here the inspector took a newspaper-cutting from his pocket-book and read aloud as follows:
A cheque, the property of the Rev. Charles Turner, Vicar of East Downes, has been stolen under somewhat peculiar circumstances. It appears that the Rev. gentleman was suddenly called from home by the death of a relative, and thinking he might possibly be away some little time, he left with his wife four blank cheques, signed, for her to fill in as required. They were made payable to self or bearer, and were drawn on the West Sussex Bank. Mrs. Turner, when first questioned on the matter, stated that as soon as her husband had departed, she locked up these cheques in her writing desk. She subsequently, however, corrected this statement, and admitted having left them on the table while she went into the garden to cut some flowers. In all, she was absent, she says, about ten minutes. When she came in from cutting her flowers, she immediately put the cheques away. She had not counted them on receiving them from her husband, and when, as she put them into her Davenport,* she saw there were only three, she concluded that that was the number he had left with her. The loss of the cheque was not discovered until her husband’s return, about a week later on. As soon as he was aware of the fact, he telegraphed to the West Sussex Bank to stop payment, only, however, to make the unpleasant discovery that the cheque, filled in to the amount of six hundred pounds, had been presented and cashed (in gold) two days previously. The clerk who cashed it took no particular notice of the person presenting it, except that he was of gentlemanly appearance, and declares himself to be quite incapable of identifying him. The largeness of the amount raised no su
spicion in the mind of the clerk, as Mr. Turner is a man of good means, and since his marriage, about six months back, has been refurnishing the Vicarage, and paying away large sums for old oak furniture and for pictures.
“There, Miss Brooke,” said the inspector as he finished reading, “if, in addition to these particulars, I tell you that one or two circumstances that have arisen seem to point suspicion in the direction of the young wife, I feel sure you will admit that a more interesting case, and one more worthy of your talents, is not to be found.”
Loveday’s answer was to take up a newspaper that lay beside her on the table. “So much for your interesting case,” she said; “now listen to my ridiculous one.” Then she read aloud as follows:
Authentic Ghost Story. The inhabitants of Fountain Lane, a small turning leading off Ship Street, have been greatly disturbed by the sudden appearance of a ghost in their midst. Last Tuesday night, between ten and eleven o’clock, a little girl named Martha Watts, who lives as a help to a shoemaker and his wife at No. 5 in the lane, ran out into the streets in her night-clothes in a great state of terror, saying that a ghost had come to her bedside. The child refused to return to the house to sleep, and was accordingly taken in by some neighbours. The shoemaker and his wife, Freer by name, when questioned by the neighbours on the matter, admitted, with great reluctance, that they, too, had seen the apparition, which they described as being a soldier-like individual, with a broad, white forehead and having his arms folded on his breast. This description is, in all respects confirmed by the child, Martha Watts, who asserts that the ghost she saw reminded her of pictures she had seen of the great Napoleon. The Freers state that it first appeared in the course of a prayer-meeting held at their house on the previous night, when it was distinctly seen by Mr. Freer. Subsequently, the wife, awakening suddenly in the middle of the night, saw the apparition standing at the foot of the bed. They are quite at a loss for an explanation of the matter. The affair has caused quite a sensation in the district, and at the time of going to press, the lane is so thronged and crowded by would-be ghost-seers that the inhabitants have great difficulty in going to and from their houses.
“A scare—a vulgar scare, nothing more,” said the inspector as Loveday laid aside the paper. “Now, Miss Brooke, I ask you seriously, supposing you get to the bottom of such a stupid, commonplace fraud as that, will you in any way add to your reputation?”
“And supposing I get to the bottom of such a stupid, commonplace fraud as a stolen cheque, how much, I should like to know, do I add to my reputation?”
“Well, put it on other grounds and allow Christian charity to have some claims. Think of the misery in that gentleman’s house unless suspicion can be lifted from the young wife and directed to the proper quarter.”
“Think of the misery of the landlord of the Fountain Lane houses if all his tenants decamp in a body, as they no doubt will, unless the ghost mystery is solved.”
The inspector sighed. “Well, I suppose I must take it for granted that you will have nothing to do with the case,” he said. “I brought the cheque with me, thinking you might like to see it.”
“I suppose it’s very much like other cheques?” said Loveday indifferently, and turning over her memoranda as if she meant to go back to her ghost again.
“Yes,” said Mr. Clampe, taking the cheque from his pocket-book and glancing down at it. “I suppose the cheque is very much like other cheques. This little scribble of figures in pencil at the back—144,000—can scarcely be called a distinguishing mark.”
“What’s that, Mr. Clampe?” asked Loveday, pushing her memoranda on one side. “144,000 did you say?”
Her whole manner had suddenly changed from apathy to that of keenest interest.
Mr. Clampe, delighted, rose and spread the cheque before her on the table.
“The writing of the words six hundred pounds,” he said, “bears so close a resemblance to Mr. Turner’s signature, that the gentleman himself told me he would have thought it was his own writing if he had not known that he had not drawn a cheque for that amount on the given date. You see it is that round, school-boy’s hand, so easy to imitate, I could write it myself with half-an-hour’s practice; no flourishes, nothing distinctive about it.”
Loveday made no reply. She had turned the cheque, and was now closely scrutinizing the pencilled figures at the back.
“Of course,” continued the inspector, “those figures were not written by the person who wrote the figures on the face of the cheque. That, however, matters but little. I really do not think they are of the slightest importance in the case. They might have been scribbled by some one making a calculation as to the number of pennies in six hundred pounds—there are, as no doubt you know, exactly 144,000.”
“Who has engaged your services in this case, the Bank or Mr. Turner?”
“Mr. Turner. When the loss of the cheque was first discovered, he was very excited and irate, and when he came to me the day before yesterday, I had much difficulty in persuading him that there was no need to telegraph to London for half-a-dozen detectives, as we could do the work quite as well as the London men. When, however, I went over to East Downes yesterday to look round and ask a few questions; I found things had altogether changed. He was exceedingly reluctant to answer any questions, lost his temper when I pressed them, and as good as told me that he wished he had not moved in the matter at all. It was this sudden change of demeanour that turned my thoughts in the direction of Mrs. Turner. A man must have a very strong reason for wishing to sit idle under a loss of six hundred pounds, for, of course, under the circumstances, the Bank will not bear the brunt of it.”
“Some other motives may be at work in his mind, consideration for old servants, the wish to avoid a scandal in the house.”
“Quite so. The fact, taken by itself, would give no ground for suspicion, but certainly looks ugly if taken in connection with another fact which I have since ascertained, namely, that during her husband’s absence from home, Mrs. Turner paid off certain debts contracted by her in Brighton before the marriage, and amounting to nearly £500. Paid them off, too, in gold. I think I mentioned to you that the gentleman who presented the stolen cheque at the Bank preferred payment in gold.”
“You are supposing not only a confederate, but also a vast amount of cunning as well as of simplicity on the lady’s part.”
“Quite so. Three parts cunning to one of simplicity is precisely what lady criminals are composed of. And it is, as a rule, that one part of simplicity that betrays them and leads to their detection.”
“What sort of woman is Mrs. Turner in other respects?”
“She is young, handsome and of good birth, but is scarcely suited for the position of vicar’s wife in a country parish. She has lived a good deal in society and is fond of gaiety, and, in addition, is a Roman Catholic, and, I am told, utterly ignores her husband’s church and drives every Sunday to Brighton to attend mass.”
“What about the servants in the house? Do they seem steady-going and respectable?”
“There was nothing on the surface to excite suspicion against any one of them. But it is precisely in that quarter than your services would be invaluable. It will, however, be impossible to get you inside the vicarage walls. Mr. Turner, I am confident, would never open his doors to you.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I can suggest nothing better than the house of the village schoolmistress, or, rather, of the village schoolmistress’s mother, Mrs. Brown. It is only a stone’s throw from the vicarage; in fact, its windows overlook the vicarage grounds. It is a four-roomed cottage, and Mrs. Brown, who is a very respectable person, turns over a little money in the summer by receiving lady lodgers desirous of a breath of country air. There would be no difficulty in getting you in there; her spare bedroom is empty now.”
“I should have preferred being at the vicarage, but if it cannot be, I must make the most of my stay at Mrs. Brown’s. How do we get there?”
“I
drove from East Downes here in a trap I hired at the village inn where I put up last night, and where I shall stay tonight. I will drive you, if you will allow me; it is only seven miles off. It’s a lovely day for a drive; breezy and not too much dust. Could you be ready in about half an hour’s time, say?”
But this, Loveday said, would be an impossibility. She had a special engagement that afternoon; there was a religious service in the town that she particularly wished to attend. It would not be over until three o’clock, and, consequently, not until half-past three would she be ready for the drive to East Downes.
Although Mr. Clampe looked unutterable astonishment at the claims of a religious service being set before those of professional duty, he made no demur to the arrangement, and accordingly half-past three saw Loveday and the inspector in a high-wheeled dog-cart rattling along the Marina in the direction of East Downes.
Loveday made no further allusion to her ghost story, so Mr. Clampe, out of politeness, felt compelled to refer to it.
“I heard all about the Fountain Lane ghost yesterday, before I started for East Downes,” he said; “and it seemed to me, with all deference to you, Miss Brooke, an every-day sort of affair, the sort of thing to be explained by a heavy supper or an extra glass of beer.”
“There are a few points in this ghost story that separate it from the every-day ghost story,” answered Loveday. “For instance, you would expect that such emotionally religious people, as I have since found the Freers to be, would have seen a vision of angels, or at least a solitary saint. Instead, they see a soldier! A soldier, too, in the likeness of a man who is anathema maranatha† to every religious mind—the great Napoleon.”
“To what denomination do the Freers belong?”
In the Shadow of Agatha Christie Page 12