“I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to take a look at these windows.”
“Oh—windows,” said the county attorney scoffingly.
“We’ll be right out, Mr. Hale,” said the sheriff to the farmer, who was still waiting by the door.
Hale went to look after the horses. The sheriff followed the county attorney into the other room. Again—for one final moment—the two women were alone in that kitchen.
Martha Hale sprang up, her hands tight together, looking at that other woman, with whom it rested. At first she could not see her eyes, for the sheriff’s wife had not turned back since she turned away at that suggestion of being married to the law. But now Mrs. Hale made her turn back. Her eyes made her turn back. Slowly, unwillingly, Mrs. Peters turned her head until her eyes met the eyes of the other woman. There was a moment when they held each other in a steady, burning look in which there was no evasion nor flinching. Then Martha Hale’s eyes pointed the way to the basket in which was hidden the thing that would make certain the conviction of the other woman—that woman who was not there and yet who had been there with them all through that hour.
For a moment Mrs. Peters did not move. And then she did it. With a rush forward, she threw back the quilt pieces, got the box, tried to put it in her hand-bag. It was too big. Desperately she opened it, started to take the bird out. But there she broke—she could not touch the bird. She stood there helpless, foolish.
There was the sound of a knob turning in the inner door. Martha Hale snatched the box from the sheriff’s wife, and got it in the pocket of her big coat just as the sheriff and the county attorney came back into the kitchen.
“Well, Henry,” said the county attorney facetiously, “at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was going to—what is it you call it, ladies?”
Mrs. Hale’s hand was against the pocket of her coat.
“Knot it,” was her low reply.
He did not see her eyes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bonner; Geraldine. The Castlecourt Diamond Case. New York: Funk & Wagnalls (1906).
Brunsdale, Mitzi M. Icons of Mystery and Crime Detection. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO (2010).
Clark, Sandra. Women and Crime in the Street Literature of Early Modern England. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan (2004).
Cohen, Daniel A. Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace. New York: Oxford University Press (1992).
Craig, Patricia, and Mary Cadogan. The Lady Investigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction. New York: St. Martins Press (1981).
Crowe, Catherine. Susan Hopley or, The Adventures of a Maid Servant. London: G. Routledge (1852).
Curran, John. Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making. New York: HarperCollins (2011).
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn. Gothic Tales. New York: Penguin Books (2000).
Green, Anna Katharine. Masterpieces of Mystery. Indianapolis: Dodd, Mead and Company (1913).
———. The Golden Slipper: And Other Problems for Violet Strange. San Bernardino, CA : World Library Classics (2017).
———. The Leavenworth Case. Edited by Michael Sims. New York: Penguin Group USA (2010).
Groner, Augusta. Detective Joe Muller Five Mysteries. Translated by Grace Isabel Colbron. N.p.: Mcallister Editions (2015).
Haining, Peter. The Classic Era of Crime Fiction. Chicago: Chicago Review Press (2002).
Janik, Erika. Pistols and Petticoats: 175 Years of Lady Detectives in Fact and Fiction. Boston: Beacon Press (2016).
Kestner, Joseph A. Sherlock’s Sisters: British Female Detectives, 1864-1913. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate (2003).
Knight, Stephen Thomas. Crime Fiction since 1800. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan (2010).
———. Towards Sherlock Holmes: A Thematic History of Crime Fiction in the 19th Century World. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co. (2017).
Nickerson, Catherine Ross. The Web of Iniquity: Early Detective Fiction by American Women. Durham, NC: Duke University Press (1998).
Queen, Ellery. The Female of the Species: The Great Women Detectives and Criminals. Boston: Little, Brown (1943).
Rielly, Edward J. Murder 101: Essays on the Teaching of Detective Fiction. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. (2009).
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Sims, Michael, ed. The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime. New York: Penguin Classics (2011).
———. The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Detective Stories. New York: Walker & Company (2012).
Slung, Michele B. Crime on Her Mind: Fifteen Stories of Female Sleuths from the Victorian Era to the Forties. New York: Pantheon Books (1975).
Sussex, Lucy. Women Writers and Detectives in Nineteenth-Century Crime Fiction. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan (2010).
Van Deventer, Emma Murdoch. Shadowed by Three. Chicago: Donnelly, Gassette & Lloyd (1883).
Victor, Metta Victoria Fuller. The Dead Letter: An American Romance. New York: Beadle & Co. (1866).
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Wood, Mrs. Henry. Johnny Ludlow. London: Richard Bentley & Son (1874).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to the terrific team at Pegasus Books: Claiborne Hancock, Iris Blasi, and Maria Fernandez. This is our fourth book together, and I look forward to many more. No book is the product of a single person, and every writer relies on a “village.” Mine is populated with the greatest people: my agent, Don Maass; my lawyer and friend Jonathan Kirsch; my longtime Sherlockian friends Andy Peck, Jerry Margolin, and Mike Whelan, constant cheerleaders; my frequent collaborator Laurie R. King, whom I adore and admire; my friend and colleague Neil Gaiman, who always reaches for the stars and shows us how to follow; my dear friend and writing partner Laura Caldwell, who has read and criticized more of my work than I ever had any right to ask; my children and grandchildren; and especially, as always, the woman, my wife, Sharon, who made me become a writer.
Very special thanks to my friend Sara Paretsky, who inspired me both generally and specifically to write this book. Sara’s career, and her indomitable pursuit of truth and justice, are shining examples of how I and many others want to live our lives. I was privileged to hear Sara give a talk on forgotten Victorian women crime writers, and it gave me the idea for this anthology. I hope that Sara regards it as a grateful appreciation for the writers included in the book as well as those discussed in the introduction. We must not forget the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Leslie S. Klinger is considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, H. P. Lovecraft, Frankenstein, and nineteenth-century genre fiction and has annotated or edited more than thirty books. Klinger is a long-time member of the Baker Street Irregulars, and served as the series editor for the Manuscript Series of the Baker Street Irregulars; he is currently the series editor for the BSI’s Biography Series. He served three terms as chapter president of the SoCal chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and on its national board. He is also the treasurer of the Horror Writers Association. He lectures frequently on Holmes, Dracula, Lovecraft, Frankenstein, and their worlds, including frequent panels at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Bouchercon, StokerCon, NecronomiCon, the World Horror Convention, World Fantasy Convention, VampireCon, Comicpalooza, WonderCon, and San Diego Comic-Con, and he has taught courses on Holmes and Dracula at UCLA Extension.
Klinger’s work has received numerous awards and nominations, including the Edgar for Best Critical-Biographical Book in 2005 for The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories and the Anthony and Silver Falchion awards for Best Anthology in 2015 for In the Company of Sherlock Holmes (co-edited with Laurie R. King), as well as nominations for the
Bram Stoker Award for Best Nonfiction book for New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft and Annotated Sandman. His introductions and essays have appeared in numerous books, graphic novels, academic journals, newspapers, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Playboy Magazine; he also reviews books for the Los Angeles Times and other periodicals. He was the technical advisor for Warner Bros. on the film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) and served (without credit) in that role for Warner Bros.’ earlier hit Sherlock Holmes (2009). He has consulted on a number of novels, comic books, graphic novels, and other films featuring Holmes and Dracula.
Klinger received an A.B. in English from the University of California; he also received a J.D. degree from the University of California School of Law (Boalt Hall). He and his wife, Sharon, have five adult children, and six grandchildren, and they live in Malibu with their dog and cat. By day, Klinger practices law in Westwood, specializing in tax, estate planning, and business law.
ALSO EDITED BY LESLIE S. KLINGER
“The Date Being—?”: A Compendium of Chronological Data (with Andrew Jay Peck)
The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes
The New Annotated Dracula
Baker Street Rambles
The Annotated Sandman
The Grand Game: A Celebration of Sherlockian Scholarship (with Laurie R. King)
A Study in Sherlock: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon (with Laurie R. King)
Sherlock Holmes and the Bookman: An Anthology of Literary Treasures (1895–1933) (with S. E. Dahlinger)
In the Shadow of Sherlock Holmes: Classic Detective Fiction, 1865–1910
In the Shadow of Dracula: Classic Vampire Fiction, 1819–1914 (with Jeff Conners)
The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft
In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon (with Laurie R. King)
In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe: Classic Horror Fiction, 1816-1914
Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Tales Inspired by the Holmes Canon (with Laurie R. King)
Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted (with Laura Caldwell)
The New Annotated Frankenstein
Watchmen: The Annotated Edition
IN THE SHADOW OF AGATHA CHRISTIE
Pegasus Books Ltd.
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New York, NY 10018
Compilation and Introduction copyright © 2018 by Leslie S. Klinger
First Pegasus Books cloth edition January 2018
Interior design by Maria Fernandez
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN: 978-1-68177-630-9
ISBN: 978-1-68177-698-9 (e-book)
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In the Shadow of Agatha Christie Page 35