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

by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

  “Pshaw!” was my spirited comment as she paused to take her breath and see how I was affected by this grewsome tale. “A dream of the poor little lad! He had heard stories of this apparition and his imagination supplied the rest.”

  “No; excuse me, madam, he had been carefully kept from hearing all such tales. You could see this by the way he told his story. He hardly believed what he had himself seen. It was not till some foolish neighbor blurted out, ‘Why, that was the phantom coach,’ that he had any idea he was not relating a dream.”

  My second Pshaw! was no less marked than the first.

  “He did know about it, notwithstanding,” I insisted. “Only he had forgotten the fact. Sleep often supplies us with these lost memories.”

  “Very true, and your supposition is very plausible, Miss Butterworth, and might be regarded as correct, if he had been the only person to see this apparition. But Mrs. Jenkins saw it too, and she is a woman to be believed.”

  This was becoming serious.

  “Saw it before he did or afterwards?” I asked. “Does she live on the highway or somewhere in Lost Man’s Lane?”

  “She lives on the highway about a half-mile from the station. She was sitting up with her sick husband and saw it just as it was going down the hill. She said it made no more noise than a cloud slipping by. She expects to lose old Rause. No one could behold such a thing as that and not have some misfortune follow.”

  I laid all this up in my mind. My hour of waiting was not likely to prove wholly unprofitable.

  “You see,” the good woman went on, with a relish for the marvellous that stood me in good stead, “there is an old tradition of that road connected with a coach. Years ago, before any of us were born, and the house where you are now staying was a gathering-place for all the gay young bloods of the county, a young man came up from New York to visit Mr. Knollys. I do not mean the father or even the grandfather of the folks you are visiting, ma’am. He was great-grandfather to Lucetta, and a very fine gentleman, if you can trust the pictures that are left of him. But my story has not to do with him. He had a daughter at that time, a widow of great and sparkling attractions, and though she was older than the young man I have mentioned, every one thought he would marry her, she was so handsome and such an heiress.

  “But he failed to pay his court to her, and though he was handsome himself and made a fool of more than one girl in the town, every one thought he would return as he had come, a free-hearted bachelor, when suddenly one night the coach was missed from the stables and he from the company, which led to the discovery that the young widow’s daughter was gone too, a chit who was barely fifteen, and without a hundredth part of the beauty of her mother. Love only could account for this, for in those days young ladies did not ride with gentlemen in the evening for pleasure, and when it came to the old gentleman’s ears, and, what was worse, came to the mother’s, there was a commotion in the great house, the echoes of which, some say, have never died out. Though the pipers were playing and the fiddles were squeaking in the great room where they used to dance the night away, Mrs. Knollys, with her white brocade tucked up about her waist, stood with her hand on the great front door, waiting for the horse upon which she was determined to follow the flying lovers. The father, who was a man of eighty years, stood by her side. He was too old to ride himself, but he made no effort to hold her back, though the jewels were tumbling from her hair and the moon had vanished from the highway.

  “‘I will bring her back or die!’ the passionate beauty exclaimed, and not a lip said her nay, for they saw, what neither man nor woman had been able to see up to that moment, that her very life and soul were wrapped up in the man who had stolen away her daughter.

  “Shrilly piped the pipes, squeak and hum went the fiddles, but the sound that was sweetest to her was the pound of the horses’ hoofs on the road in front. That was music indeed, and as soon as she heard it she bestowed one wild kiss on her father and bounded from the house. An instant later and she was gone. One flash of her white robe at the gate, then all was dark on the highway, and only the old father stood in the wide-open door, waiting, as he vowed he would wait, till his daughter returned.

  “She did not go alone. A faithful groom was behind her, and from him was learned the conclusion of that quest. For an hour and a half they rode; then they came upon a chapel in the mountains, in which were burning unwonted lights. At the sight the lady drew rein and almost fell from her horse into the arms of her lackey. ‘A marriage!’ she murmured; ‘a marriage!’ and pointed to an empty coach standing in the shadow of a wide-spreading tree. It was their family coach. How well she knew it! Rousing herself, she made for the chapel door. ‘I will stop these unhallowed rites!’ she cried! ‘I am her mother, and she is not of age.’ But the lackey drew her back by her rich white dress. ‘Look!’ he cried, pointing in at one of the windows, and she looked. The man she loved stood before the altar with her daughter. He was smiling in that daughter’s face with a look of passionate devotion. It went like a dagger to her heart. Crushing her hands against her face, she wailed out some fearful protest; then she dashed toward the door with ‘Stop! stop!’ on her lips. But the faithful lackey at her side drew her back once more. ‘Listen!’ was his word, and she listened. The minister, whose form she had failed to note in her first hurried look, was uttering his benediction. She had come too late. The young couple were married.

  “Her servant said, or so the tradition runs, that when she realized this she grew calm as walking death. Making her way into the chapel, she stood ready at the door to greet them as they issued forth, and when they saw her there, with her rich bedraggled robe and the gleam of jewels on a neck she had not even stopped to envelop in more than the veil from her hair, the bridegroom seemed to realize what he had done and stopped the bride, who in her confusion would have fled back to the altar where she had just been made a wife. ‘Kneel!’ he cried. ‘Kneel, Amarynth! Only thus can we ask pardon of our mother.’ But at that word, a word which seemed to push her a million miles away from these two beings who but two hours before had been the delight of her life, the unhappy woman gave a cry and fled from their presence. ‘Go! go!’ were her parting words. ‘As you have chosen, you must abide. But let no tongue ever again call me mother.’

  “They found her lying on the grass outside. As she could no longer sustain herself on a horse, they put her into the coach, gave the reins to her devoted lackey, and themselves rode off on horseback. One man, the fellow who had driven them to that place, said that the clock struck twelve from the chapel tower as the coach turned away and began its rapid journey home. This may and may not be so. We only know that its apparition always enters Lost Man’s Lane a few minutes before one, which is the very hour at which the real coach came back and stopped before Mr. Knollys’ gate. And now for the worst, Miss Butterworth. When the old gentleman went down to greet the runaways, he found the lackey on the box and his daughter sitting all alone in the coach. But the soil on the brocaded folds of her white dress was no longer that of mud only. She had stabbed herself to the heart with a bodkin she wore in her hair, and it was a corpse which the faithful negro had been driving down the highway that night.”

  I am not a sentimental woman, but this story as thus told gave me a thrill I do not know as I really regret experiencing.

  “What was this unhappy mother’s name?” I asked.

  “Lucetta,” was the unexpected and none too reassuring answer.

  CHAPTER XIII

  GOSSIP

  This name once mentioned called for more gossip, but of a somewhat different nature.

  “The Lucetta of today is not like her ancient namesake,” observed Mrs. Carter. “She may have the heart to love, but she is not capable of showing that love by any act of daring.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I replied, astonished that I felt willing to enter into a discussion with this woman
on the very subject I had just shrunk from talking over with the locksmith. “Girls as frail and nervous as she is, sometimes astonish one at a pinch. I do not think Lucetta lacks daring.”

  “You don’t know her. Why, I have seen her jump at the sight of a spider, and heaven knows that they are common enough among the decaying walls in which she lives. A puny chit, Miss Butterworth; pretty enough, but weak. The very kind to draw lovers, but not to hold them. Yet every one pities her, her smile is so heart-broken.”

  “With ghosts to trouble her and a lover to bemoan, she has surely some excuse for that,” said I.

  “Yes, I don’t deny it. But why has she a lover to bemoan? He seemed a proper man and much beyond the ordinary. Why let him go as she did? Even her sister admits that she loved him.”

  “I am not acquainted with the circumstances,” I suggested.

  “Well, there isn’t much of a story to it. He is a young man from over the mountains, well educated, and with something of a fortune of his own. He came here to visit the Spears, I believe, and seeing Lucetta leaning one day on the gate in front of her house, he fell in love with her and began to pay her his attentions. That was before the lane got its present bad name, but not before one or two men had vanished from among us. William—that is her brother, you know—has always been anxious to have his sisters marry, so he did not stand in the way, and no more did Miss Knollys, but after two or three weeks of doubtful courtship, the young man went away, and that was the end of it. And a great pity, too, say I, for once clear of that house, Lucetta would grow into another person. Sunshine and love are necessities to most women, Miss Butterworth, especially to such as are weakly and timid.”

  I thought the qualification excellent.

  “You are right,” I assented, “and I should like to see the result of them upon Lucetta.” Then, with an attempt to still further sound this woman’s mind and with it the united mind of the whole village, I remarked: “The young do not usually throw aside such prospects without excellent reasons. Have you never thought that Lucetta was governed by principle in discarding this very excellent young man?”

  “Principle? What principle could she have had in letting a desirable husband go?”

  “She may have thought the match an undesirable one for him.”

  “For him? Well, I never thought of that. True, she may. They are known to be poor, but poverty don’t count in such old families as theirs. I hardly think she would be influenced by any such consideration. Now, if this had happened since the lane got its bad name and all this stir had been made about the disappearance of certain folks within its precincts, I might have given some weight to your suggestion—women are so queer. But this happened long ago and at a time when the family was highly thought of, leastwise the girls, for William does not go for much, you know—too stupid and too brutal.”

  William! Would the utterance of that name heighten my suggestion? I surveyed her closely, but could detect no change in her somewhat puzzled countenance.

  “My allusions were not in reference to the disappearances,” said I. “I was thinking of something else. Lucetta is not well.”

  “Ah, I know! They say she has some kind of heart complaint, but that was not true then. Why, her cheeks were like roses in those days, and her figure as plump and pretty as any you could see among our village beauties. No, Miss Butterworth, it was through her weakness she lost him. She probably palled upon his taste. It was noticed that he held his head very high in going out of town.”

  “Has he married since?” I asked.

  “Not to my knowledge, ma’am.”

  “Then he loved her,” I declared.

  She looked at me quite curiously. Doubtless that word sounds a little queer on my lips, but that shall not deter me from using it when the circumstances seem to require. Besides, there was once a time—But there, I promised to fall into no digressions.

  “You should have been married yourself, Miss Butterworth,” said she.

  I was amazed, first at her daring, and secondly that I was so little angry at this sudden turning of the tables upon myself. But then the woman meant no offence, rather intended a compliment.

  “I am very well contented as I am,” I returned. “I am neither sickly nor timid.”

  She smiled, looked as if she thought it only common politeness to agree with me, and tried to say so, but finding the situation too much for her, coughed and discreetly held her peace. I came to her rescue with a new question:

  “Have the women of the Knollys family ever been successful in love? The mother of these girls, say—she who was Miss Althea Burroughs—was her life with her husband happy? I have always been curious to know. She and I were schoolmates.”

  “You were? You knew Althea Knollys when she was a girl? Wasn’t she charming, ma’am? Did you ever see a livelier girl or one with more knack at winning affection? Why, she couldn’t sit down with you a half-hour before you felt like sharing everything you had with her. It made no difference whether you were man or woman, it was all the same. She had but to turn those mischievous, pleading eyes upon you for you to become a fool at once. Yet her end was sad, ma’am; too sad, when you remember that she died at the very height of her beauty alone and in a foreign land. But I have not answered your question. Were she and the judge happy together? I have never heard to the contrary, ma’am. I’m sure he mourned her faithfully enough. Some think that her loss killed him. He did not survive her more than three years.”

  “The children do not favor her much,” said I, “but I see an expression now and then in Lucetta which reminds me of her mother.”

  “They are all Knollys,” said she. “Even William has traits which, with a few more brains back of them, would remind you of his grandfather, who was the plainest of his race.”

  I was glad that the talk had reverted to William.

  “He seems to lack heart, as well as brains,” I said. “I marvel that his sisters put up with him as well as they do.”

  “They cannot help it. He is not a fellow to be fooled with. Besides, he holds third share in the house. If they could sell it! But, deary me, who would buy an old tumble-down place like that, on a road you cannot get folks who have any consideration for their lives to enter for love or money? But excuse me, ma’am; I forgot that you are living just now on that very road. I’m sure I beg a thousand pardons.”

  “I am living there as a guest,” I returned. “I have nothing to do with its reputation—except to brave it.”

  “A courageous thing to do, ma’am, and one that may do the road some good. If you can spend a month with the Knollys girls and come out of their house at the end as hale and hearty as you entered it, it will be the best proof possible that there is less to be feared there than some people think. I shall be glad if you can do it, ma’am, for I like the girls and would be glad to have the reputation of the place restored.”

  “Pshaw!” was my final comment. “The credulity of the town has had as much to do with its loss as they themselves. That educated people such as I see here should believe in ghosts!”

  I say final, for at this moment the good lady, springing up, put an end to our conversation. She had just seen a buggy pass the window.

  “It’s Mr. Trohm,” she exclaimed. “Ma’am, if you wish to return home before Mr. Simsbury comes back you may be able to do so with this gentleman. He’s a most obliging man, and lives less than a quarter of a mile from the Misses Knollys.”

  I did not say I had already met the gentleman. Why, I do not know. I only drew myself up and waited with some small inner perturbation for the result of the inquiry I saw she had gone to make.

  CHAPTER XIV

  I FORGET MY AGE, OR, RATHER, REMEMBER IT

  Mr. Trohm did not disappoint my expectations. In another moment I perceived him standing in the open doorway with the most genial smile on his lips.
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  “Miss Butterworth,” said he, “I feel too honored. If you will deign to accept a seat in my buggy, I shall only be too happy to drive you home.”

  I have always liked the manners of country gentlemen. There is just a touch of formality in their bearing which has been quite eliminated from that of their city brothers. I therefore became gracious at once and accepted the seat he offered me without any hesitation.

  The heads that showed themselves at the neighboring windows warned us to hasten on our route. Mr. Trohm, with a snap of his whip, touched up his horse, and we rode in dignified calm away from the hotel steps into the wide village street known as the main road. The fact that Mr. Gryce had told me that this was the one man I could trust, joined to my own excellent knowledge of human nature and the persons in whom explicit confidence can be put, made the moment one of great satisfaction to me. I was about to make my appearance at the Knollys mansion two hours before I was expected, and thus outwit Lucetta by means of the one man whose assistance I could conscientiously accept.