The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK ™: 20 Modern and Classic Tales of Female Detectives

by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

  “Ah, he had a key.”

  The tone in which this was said recurred to me afterwards, but at the moment I was much more impressed by a peculiar sound I heard behind me, something between a gasp and a click in the throat, which came I knew from the scrub-woman, and which, odd and contradictory as it may appear, struck me as an expression of satisfaction, though what there was in my admission to give satisfaction to this poor creature I could not conjecture. Moving so as to get a glimpse of her face, I went on with the grim self-possession natural to my character:

  “And when he came out he walked briskly away. The carriage had not waited for him.”

  “Ah!” again muttered the gentleman, picking up one of the broken pieces of china which lay haphazard about the floor, while I studied the cleaner’s face, which, to my amazement, gave evidences of a confusion of emotions most unaccountable to me.

  Mr. Gryce may have noticed this too, for he immediately addressed her, though he continued to look at the broken piece of china in his hand.

  “And how come you to be cleaning the house?” he asked. “Is the family coming home?”

  “They are, sir,” she answered, hiding her emotion with great skill the moment she perceived attention directed to herself, and speaking with a sudden volubility that made us all stare. “They are expected any day. I didn’t know it till yesterday—was it yesterday? No, the day before—when young Mr. Franklin—he is the oldest son, sir, and a very nice man, a very nice man—sent me word by letter that I was to get the house ready. It isn’t the first time I have done it for them, sir, and as soon as I could get the basement key from the agent, I came here, and worked all day yesterday, washing up the floors and dusting. I should have been at them again this morning if my husband hadn’t been sick. But I had to go to the infirmary for medicine, and it was noon when I got here, and then I found this lady standing outside with a policeman, a very nice lady, a very nice lady indeed, sir, I pay my respects to her”—and she actually dropped me a curtsey like a peasant woman in a play—“and they took my key from me, and the policeman opens the door, and he and me go upstairs and into all the rooms, and when we come to this one—”

  She was getting so excited as to be hardly intelligible. Stopping herself with a jerk, she fumbled nervously with her apron, while I asked myself how she could have been at work in this house the day before without my knowing it. Suddenly I remembered that I was ill in the morning and busy in the afternoon at the Orphan Asylum, and somewhat relieved at finding so excellent an excuse for my ignorance, I looked up to see if the detective had noticed anything odd in this woman’s behavior. Presumably he had, but having more experience than myself with the susceptibility of ignorant persons in the presence of danger and distress, he attached less importance to it than I did, for which I was secretly glad, without exactly knowing my reasons for being so.

  “You will be wanted as a witness by the Coroner’s jury,” he now remarked to her, looking as if he were addressing the piece of china he was turning over in his hand. “Now, no nonsense!” he protested, as she commenced to tremble and plead. “You were the first one to see this dead woman, and you must be on hand to say so. As I cannot tell you when the inquest will be held, you had better stay around till the Coroner comes. He’ll be here soon. You, and this other woman too.”

  By other woman he meant me, Miss Butterworth, of Colonial ancestry and no inconsiderable importance in the social world. But though I did not relish this careless association of myself with this poor scrub-woman, I was careful to show no displeasure, for I reasoned that as witnesses we were equal before the law, and that it was solely in this light he regarded us.

  There was something in the manner of both these gentlemen which convinced me that while my presence was considered desirable in the house, it was not especially wanted in the room. I was therefore moving reluctantly away, when I felt a slight but peremptory touch on the arm, and turning, saw the detective at my side, still studying his piece of china.

  He was, as I have said, of portly build and benevolent aspect; a fatherly-looking man, and not at all the person one would be likely to associate with the police. Yet he could take the lead very naturally, and when he spoke, I felt bound to answer him.

  “Will you be so good, madam, as to relate over again, what you saw from your window last night? I am likely to have charge of this matter, and would be pleased to hear all you may have to say concerning it.”

  “My name is Butterworth,” I politely intimated.

  “And my name is Gryce.”

  “A detective?”

  “The same.”

  “You must think this matter very serious,” I ventured.

  “Death by violence is always serious.”

  “You must regard this death as something more than an accident, I mean.”

  His smile seemed to say: “You will not know today how I regard it.”

  “And you will not know today what I think of it either,” was my inward rejoinder, but I said nothing aloud, for the man was seventy-five if he was a day, and I have been taught respect for age, and have practised the same for fifty years and more.

  I must have shown what was passing in my mind, and he must have seen it reflected on the polished surface of the porcelain he was contemplating, for his lips showed the shadow of a smile sufficiently sarcastic for me to see that he was far from being as easy-natured as his countenance indicated.

  “Come, come,” said he, “there is the Coroner now. Say what you have to say, like the straightforward, honest woman you appear.”

  “I don’t like compliments,” I snapped out. Indeed, they have always been obnoxious to me. As if there was any merit in being honest and straightforward, or any distinction in being told so!

  “I am Miss Butterworth, and not in the habit of being spoken to as if I were a simple countrywoman,” I objected. “But I will repeat what I saw last night, as it is no secret, and the telling of it won’t hurt me and may help you.”

  Accordingly I went over the whole story, and was much more loquacious than I had intended to be, his manner was so insinuating and his inquiries so pertinent. But one topic we both failed to broach, and that was the peculiar manner of the scrub-woman. Perhaps it had not struck him as peculiar and perhaps it should not have struck me so, but in the silence which was preserved on the subject I felt I had acquired an advantage over him, which might lead to consequences of no small importance. Would I have felt thus or congratulated myself quite so much upon my fancied superiority, if I had known he was the man who managed the Leavenworth case, and who in his early years had experienced that very wonderful adventure on the staircase of the Heart’s Delight? Perhaps I would; for though I have had no adventures, I feel capable of them, and as for any peculiar acumen he may have shown in his long and eventful career, why that is a quality which others may share with him, as I hope to be able to prove before finishing these pages.

  CHAPTER III

  AMELIA DISCOVERS HERSELF

  There is a small room at the extremity of the Van Burnam mansion. In this I took refuge after my interview with Mr. Gryce. As I picked out the chair which best suited me and settled myself for a comfortable communion with my own thoughts, I was astonished to find how much I was enjoying myself, notwithstanding the thousand and one duties awaiting me on the other side of the party-wall.

  Even this very solitude was welcome, for it gave me an opportunity to consider matters. I had not known up to this very hour that I had any special gifts. My father, who was a shrewd man of the old New England type, said more times than I am years old (which was not saying it as often as some may think) that Araminta (the name I was christened by, and the name you will find in the Bible record, though I sign myself Amelia, and insist upon being addressed as Amelia, being, as I hope, a sensible woman and not the piece of antiquated sentimentality suggested by the former cognomen)
—that Araminta would live to make her mark; though in what capacity he never informed me, being, as I have observed, a shrewd man, and thus not likely to thoughtlessly commit himself.

  I now know he was right; my pretensions dating from the moment I found that this affair, at first glance so simple, and at the next so complicated, had aroused in me a fever of investigation which no reasoning could allay. Though I had other and more personal matters on my mind, my thoughts would rest nowhere but on the details of this tragedy; and having, as I thought, noticed some few facts in connection with it, from which conclusions might be drawn, I amused myself with jotting them down on the back of a disputed grocer’s bill I happened to find in my pocket.

  Valueless as explaining this tragedy, being founded upon insufficient evidence, they may be interesting as showing the workings of my mind even at this early stage of the matter. They were drawn up under three heads.

  First, was the death of this young woman an accident?

  Second, was it a suicide?

  Third, was it a murder?

  Under the first head I wrote:

  My reasons for not thinking it an accident.

  1. If it had been an accident and she had pulled the cabinet over upon herself, she would have been found with her feet pointing towards the wall where the cabinet had stood.

  (But her feet were towards the door and her head under the cabinet.)

  2. The decent, even precise, arrangement of the clothing about her feet, which precludes any theory involving accident.

  Under the second:

  Reason for not thinking it suicide.

  She could not have been found in the position observed without having lain down on the floor while living and then pulled the shelves down upon herself.

  (A theory obviously too improbable to be considered.)

  Under the third:

  Reason for not thinking it murder.

  She would need to have been held down on the floor while the cabinet was being pulled over on her; something which the quiet aspect of the hands and feet made appear impossible.

  To this I added:

  Reasons for accepting the theory of murder.

  1. The fact that she did not go into the house alone; that a man entered with her, remained ten minutes, and then came out again and disappeared up the street with every appearance of haste and an anxious desire to leave the spot.

  2. The front door, which he had unlocked on entering, was not locked by him on his departure, the catch doing the locking. Yet, though he could have re-entered so easily, he had shown no disposition to return.

  3. The arrangement of the skirts, which show the touch of a careful hand after death.

  Nothing clear, you see. I was doubtful of all; and yet my suspicions tended most toward murder.

  I had eaten my luncheon before interfering in this matter, which was fortunate for me, as it was three o’clock before I was summoned to meet the Coroner, of whose arrival I had been conscious some time before.

  He was in the front parlor where the dead girl lay, and as I took my way thither I felt the same sensations of faintness which had so nearly overcome me on the previous occasion. But I mastered them, and was quite myself before I crossed the threshold.

  There were several gentlemen present, but of them all I only noticed two, one of whom I took to be the Coroner, while the other was my late interlocutor, Mr. Gryce. From the animation observable in the latter, I gathered that the case was growing in interest from the detective standpoint.

  “Ah, and is this the witness?” asked the Coroner, as I stepped into the room.

  “I am Miss Butterworth,” was my calm reply. “Amelia Butterworth. Living next door and present at the discovery of this poor murdered body.”

  “Murdered,” he repeated. “Why do you say murdered?”

  For reply I drew from my pocket the bill on which I had scribbled my conclusions in regard to this matter.

  “Read this,” said I.

  Evidently astonished, he took the paper from my hand, and, after some curious glances in my direction, condescended to do as I requested. The result was an odd but grudging look of admiration directed towards myself and a quick passing over of the paper to the detective.

  The latter, who had exchanged his bit of broken china for a very much used and tooth-marked lead-pencil, frowned with a whimsical air at the latter before he put it in his pocket. Then he read my hurried scrawl.

  “Two Richmonds in the field!” commented the Coroner, with a sly chuckle. “I am afraid I shall have to yield to their allied forces. Miss Butterworth, the cabinet is about to be raised; do you feel as if you could endure the sight?”

  “I can stand anything where the cause of justice is involved,” I replied.

  “Very well, then, sit down, if you please. When the whole body is visible I will call you.”

  And stepping forward he gave orders to have the clock and broken china removed from about the body.

  As the former was laid away on one end of the mantel someone observed:

  “What a valuable witness that clock might have been had it been running when the shelves fell!”

  But the fact was so patent that it had not been in motion for months that no one even answered; and Mr. Gryce did not so much as look towards it. But then we had all seen that the hands stood at three minutes to five.

  I had been asked to sit down, but I found this impossible. Side by side with the detective, I viewed the replacing of that heavy piece of furniture against the wall, and the slow disclosure of the upper part of the body which had so long lain hidden.

  That I did not give way is a proof that my father’s prophecy was not without some reasonable foundation; for the sight was one to try the stoutest nerves, as well as to awaken the compassion of the hardest heart.

  The Coroner, meeting my eye, pointed at the poor creature inquiringly.

  “Is this the woman you saw enter here last night?”

  I glanced down at her dress, noted the short summer cape tied to the neck with an elaborate bow of ribbon, and nodded my head.

  “I remember the cape,” said I. “But where is her hat? She wore one. Let me see if I can describe it.” Closing my eyes I endeavored to recall the dim silhouette of her figure as she stood passing up the change to the driver; and was so far successful that I was ready to announce at the next moment that her hat presented the effect of a soft felt with one feather or one bow of ribbon standing upright from the side of the crown.

  “Then the identity of this woman with the one you saw enter here last night is established,” remarked the detective, stooping down and drawing from under the poor girl’s body a hat, sufficiently like the one I had just described, to satisfy everybody that it was the same.

  “As if there could be any doubt,” I began.

  But the Coroner, explaining that it was a mere formality, motioned me to stand aside in favor of the doctor, who seemed anxious to approach nearer the spot where the dead woman lay. This I was about to do when a sudden thought struck me, and I reached out my hand for the hat.

  “Let me look at it for a moment,” said I.

  Mr. Gryce at once handed it over, and I took a good look at it inside and out.

  “It is pretty badly crushed,” I observed, “and does not present a very fresh appearance, but for all that it has been worn but once.”

  “How do you know?” questioned the Coroner.

  “Let the other Richmond inform you,” was my grimly uttered reply, as I gave it again into the detective’s hand.

  There was a murmur about me, whether of amusement or displeasure, I made no effort to decide. I was finding out something for myself, and I did not care what they thought of me.

  “Neither has she worn this dress long,” I continued; “but that i
s not true of the shoes. They are not old, but they have been acquainted with the pavement, and that is more than can be said of the hem of this gown. There are no gloves on her hands; a few minutes elapsed then before the assault; long enough for her to take them off.”

  “Smart woman!” whispered a voice in my ear; a half-admiring, half-sarcastic voice that I had no difficulty in ascribing to Mr. Gryce. “But are you sure she wore any? Did you notice that her hand was gloved when she came into the house?”

  “No,” I answered, frankly; “but so well-dressed a woman would not enter a house like this, without gloves.”

  “It was a warm night,” someone suggested.

  “I don’t care. You will find her gloves as you have her hat; and you will find them with the fingers turned inside out, just as she drew them from her hand. So much I will concede to the warmth of the weather.”

  “Like these, for instance,” broke in a quiet voice.

  Startled, for a hand had appeared over my shoulder dangling a pair of gloves before my eyes, I cried out, somewhat too triumphantly I own:

  “Yes, yes, just like those! Did you pick them up here? Are they hers?”

  “You say that this is the way hers should look.”

  “And I repeat it.”

  “Then allow me to pay you my compliments. These were picked up here.”

  “But where?” I cried. “I thought I had looked this carpet well over.”

  He smiled, not at me but at the gloves, and the thought crossed me that he felt as if something more than the gloves was being turned inside out. I therefore pursed my mouth, and determined to stand more on my guard.

  “It is of no consequence,” I assured him; “all such matters will come out at the inquest.”

  Mr. Gryce nodded, and put the gloves back in his pocket. With them he seemed to pocket some of his geniality and patience.