Sisters in Crime

by Mike Ashley

  Loveday’s work seemed to bristle with difficulties now. Here was she, as it were, unearthed in her own ambush, for there could be but little doubt that during the whole time she had stood watching those sisters that man, from a safe vantage point, had been watching her.

  She found Mrs Golightly a civil and obliging person. She showed Loveday to her room above the shop, brought her the letters which Inspector Gunning had been careful to have posted to her during the day. Then she supplied her with pen and ink and, in response to Loveday’s request, with some strong coffee that she said, with a little attempt at a joke, would ‘keep a dormouse awake all through the winter without winking’.

  While the obliging landlady busied herself about the room, Loveday had a few questions to ask about the sisterhood who lived down the court opposite. On this head, however, Mrs Golightly could tell her no more than she already knew, beyond the fact that they started every morning on their rounds at eleven o’clock punctually and that before that hour they were never to be seen outside their door.

  Loveday’s watch that night was to be a fruitless one. Though she sat with her lamp turned out and safely screened from observation until close upon midnight, with eyes fixed upon numbers 7 and 8 Paved Court, not so much as a door opening or shutting at either house rewarded her vigil. The lights flitted from the lower to the upper floors in both houses and then disappeared somewhere between nine and ten in the evening, and, after that, not a sign of life did either tenement show.

  And all through the long hours of that watch, backwards and forwards there seemed to flit before her mind’s eye, as if in some sort it were fixed upon its retina, the sweet, sad face of Sister Anna.

  Why it was this face should so haunt her, she found it hard to say.

  ‘It has a mournful past and a mournful future written upon it as a hopeless whole,’ she said to herself. ‘It is the face of an Andromeda! “Here am I,” it seems to say, “tied to my stake, helpless and hopeless.”’

  The church clocks were sounding the midnight hour as Loveday made her way through the dark streets to her hotel outside the town. As she passed under the railway arch that ended in the open country road the echo of not-very-distant footsteps caught her ear. When she stopped they stopped, when she went on they went on, and she knew that once more she was being followed and watched, though the darkness of the arch prevented her seeing even the shadow of the man who was thus dogging her steps.

  The next morning broke keen and frosty. Loveday studied her map and her country-house index over a seven o’clock breakfast and then set off for a brisk walk along the country road. No doubt in London the streets were walled in and roofed with yellow fog; here, however, bright sunshine played in and out of the bare tree boughs and leafless hedges on to a thousand frost spangles, turning the prosaic macadamized road into a gangway fit for Queen Titania herself and her fairy train.

  Loveday turned her back on the town and set herself to follow the road as it wound away over the hill in the direction of a village called Northfield. Early as she was, she was not to have that road to herself. A team of strong horses trudged by on their way to their work in the fuller’s-earth pits. A young fellow on a bicycle flashed past at a tremendous pace, considering the upward slant of the road. He looked hard at her as he passed then slackened pace, dismounted and awaited her coming on the brow of the hill.

  ‘Good-morning, Miss Brooke,’ he said, lifting his cap as she came alongside of him. ‘May I have five minutes’ talk with you?’

  The young man who thus accosted her had not the appearance of a gentleman. He was a handsome, bright-faced young fellow of about two-and-twenty and was dressed in ordinary cyclists’ dress; his cap was pushed back from his brow over thick, curly, fair hair, and Loveday, as she looked at him, could not repress the thought of how well he would look at the head of a troop of cavalry, giving the order to charge the enemy.

  He led his machine to the side of the footpath.

  ‘You have the advantage of me,’ said Loveday. ‘I haven’t the remotest notion who you are.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘although I know you, you cannot possibly know me. I am a north-countryman, and I was present, about a month ago, at the trial of old Mr Craven of Troyte’s Hill – in fact, I acted as reporter for one of the local papers. I watched your face so closely as you gave your evidence that I should know it anywhere among a thousand.’

  ‘And your name is …?’

  ‘George White, of Grenfell. My father is part-proprietor of one of the Newcastle papers. I am a bit of a literary man myself and sometimes figure as a reporter, sometimes as leader writer to that paper.’ Here he gave a glance towards his side pocket, from which protruded a small volume of Tennyson’s poems.

  The facts he had stated did not seem to invite comment, and Loveday ejaculated merely, ‘Indeed!’

  The young man went back to the subject that was evidently filling his thoughts. ‘I have special reasons for being glad to have met you this morning, Miss Brooke,’ he went on, making his footsteps keep pace with hers. ‘I am in great trouble, and I believe you are the only person in the whole world who can help me out of that trouble.’

  ‘I am rather doubtful as to my power of helping anyone out of trouble,’ said Loveday. ‘So far as my experience goes, our troubles are as much a part of ourselves as our skins are of our bodies.’

  ‘Ah, but not such trouble as mine,’ said White eagerly. He broke off for a moment, then, with a sudden rush of words, told her what that trouble was. For the past year he had been engaged to be married to a young girl, who, until quite recently, had been fulfilling the duties of a nursery governess in a large house in the neighbourhood of Redhill.

  ‘Will you kindly give me the name of that house?’ interrupted Loveday.

  ‘Certainly. Wootton Hall the place is called, and Annie Lee is my sweetheart’s name. I don’t care who knows it!’ He threw his head back as he said this, as if he would be delighted to announce the fact to the whole world. ‘Annie’s mother,’ he went on, ‘died when she was a baby, and we both thought her father was dead also when suddenly, about a fortnight ago, it came to her knowledge that instead of being dead he was serving his time at Portland for some offence committed years ago.’

  ‘Do you know how this came to Annie’s knowledge?’

  ‘Not the least in the world. I only know that I suddenly got a letter from her announcing the fact and, at the same time, breaking off her engagement with me. I tore the letter into a thousand pieces and wrote back saying I would not allow the engagement to be broken off but would marry her tomorrow if she would have me. To this letter she did not reply. There came instead a few lines from Mrs Copeland, the lady at Wootton Hall, saying that Annie had thrown up her engagement and joined some sisterhood and that she, Mrs Copeland, had pledged her word to Annie to reveal to no one the name and whereabouts of that sisterhood.’

  ‘And I suppose you imagine I am able to do what Mrs Copeland is pledged not to do?’

  ‘That’s just it, Miss Brooke,’ cried the young man enthusiastically. ‘You do such wonderful things; everyone knows you do. It seems as if, when anything is wanted to be found out, you just walk into a place, look round you and, in a moment, everything becomes clear as noonday.’

  ‘I can’t quite lay claim to such wonderful powers as that. As it happens, however, in the present instance no particular skill is needed to find out what you wish to know, for I fancy I have already come upon the traces of Miss Annie Lee.’

  ‘Miss Brooke!’

  ‘Of course, I cannot say for certain, but it is a matter you can easily settle for yourself – settle, too, in a way that will confer a great obligation on me.’

  ‘I shall be only too delighted to be of any … the slightest service to you,’ cried White, enthusiastically as before.

  ‘Thank you. I will explain. I came down here specially to watch the movements of a certain sisterhood who have somehow aroused the suspicions of the police. Well, I find that instead of
being able to do this, I am myself so closely watched – possibly by confederates of these sisters – that unless I can do my work by deputy I may as well go back to town at once.’

  ‘Ah! I see. You want me to be that deputy.’

  ‘Precisely. I want you to go to the room in Redhill that I have hired, take your place at the window – screened, of course, from observation – at which I ought to be seated, watch as closely as possible the movements of these sisters and report them to me at the hotel where I shall remain shut in from morning until night. It is the only way in which I can throw my persistent spies off the scent. Now, in doing this for me you will be also doing yourself a good turn, for I have little doubt but what under the blue serge hood of one of the sisters you will discover the pretty face of Miss Annie Lee.’

  As they had talked they had walked and now stood on the top of the hill at the head of the one little street that constituted the whole of the village of Northfield.

  On their left hand stood the village schools and the master’s house; nearly facing these, on the opposite side of the road beneath a clump of elms, stood the village pound. Beyond this pound, on either side of the way, were two rows of small cottages with tiny squares of garden in front, and in the midst of these small cottages a swinging sign beneath a lamp announced a ‘Postal and Telegraph Office’.

  ‘Now that we have come into the land of habitations again,’ said Loveday, ‘it will be best for us to part. It will not do for you and me to be seen together, or my spies will be transferring their attentions from me to you, and I shall have to find another deputy. You had better start on your bicycle for Redhill at once, and I will walk back at leisurely speed. Come to me at my hotel without fail at one o’clock and report proceedings. I do not say anything definite about remuneration, but I assure you, if you carry out my instructions to the letter your services will be amply rewarded by me and by my employers.’

  There were yet a few more details to arrange. White had been, he said, only a day and night in the neighbourhood, and special directions as to the locality had to be given to him. Loveday advised him not to attract attention by going to the draper’s private door but to enter the shop as if he were a customer and then explain matters to Mrs Golightly, who, no doubt, would be in her place behind the counter. Tell her he was the brother of the Miss Smith who had hired her room and ask permission to go through the shop to that room, as he had been commissioned by his sister to read and answer any letters that might have arrived there for her.

  ‘Show her the key of the side door – here it is,’ said Loveday, ‘it will be your credentials – and tell her you did not like to make use of it without acquainting her with the fact.’

  The young man took the key, endeavoured to put it in his waistcoat pocket, found the space there occupied and so transferred it to the keeping of a side pocket in his tunic.

  All this time Loveday stood watching him.

  ‘You have a capital machine there,’ she said, as the young man mounted his bicycle once more, ‘and I hope you will turn it to account in following the movements of these sisters about the neighbourhood. I feel confident you will have something definite to tell me when you bring me your first report at one o’clock.’

  White once more broke into a profusion of thanks and then, lifting his cap to the lady, started his machine at a fairly good pace.

  Loveday watched him out of sight down the slope of the hill then, instead of following him as she had said she would ‘at a leisurely pace’, she turned her steps in the opposite direction along the village street.

  It was an altogether ideal country village. Neatly dressed chubby-faced children, now on their way to the schools, dropped quaint little curtsies or tugged at curly locks as Loveday passed; every cottage looked the picture of cleanliness and trimness, and, though so late in the year, the gardens were full of late-flowering chrysanthemums and early-flowering Christmas roses.

  At the end of the village Loveday came suddenly into view of a large, handsome, red-brick mansion. It presented a wide frontage to the road from which it lay back amid extensive pleasure grounds. On the right hand, and a little in the rear of the house, stood what seemed to be large and commodious stables, and immediately adjoining these stables was a low-built, red-brick shed that had evidently been recently erected.

  That low-built, red-brick shed excited Loveday’s curiosity.

  ‘Is this house called North Cape?’ she asked of a man who chanced at that moment to be passing with a pickaxe and shovel.

  The man answered in the affirmative, and Loveday then asked another question. Could he tell her what was that small shed so close to the house. It looked like a glorified cow house; now what could be its use?

  The man’s face lighted up as if it were a subject on which he liked to be questioned. He explained that that small shed was the engine-house where the electricity that lighted North Cape was made and stored. Then he dwelt with pride upon the fact, as if he held a personal interest in it, that North Cape was the only house, far or near, that was thus lighted.

  ‘I suppose the wires are carried underground to the house,’ said Loveday, looking in vain for signs of them anywhere.

  The man was delighted to go into details on the matter. He had helped to lay those wires, he said. They were two in number, one for supply and one for return, and were laid three feet below ground in boxes filled with pitch. These wires were switched on to jars in the engine-house where the electricity was stored and, after passing underground, entered the family mansion under its flooring at its western end.

  Loveday listened attentively to these details and then took a minute and leisurely survey of the house and its surroundings. This done, she retraced her steps through the village, pausing, however, at the ‘Postal and Telegraph Office’ to dispatch a telegram to Inspector Gunning. It was one to send the inspector to his cipher-book. It ran as follows: ‘Rely solely on chemist and coal-merchant throughout the day. – LB’

  After this she quickened her pace, and in something over three-quarters of an hour was back again at her hotel.

  There she found more of life stirring than when she had quitted it in the early morning. There was to be a meeting of the Surrey Stags about a couple of miles off, and a good many hunting men were hanging about the entrance to the house, discussing the chances of sport after last night’s frost. Loveday made her way through the throng in leisurely fashion, and not a man who did not have keen scrutiny from her sharp eyes. No, there was no cause for suspicion there. They were evidently one and all just what they seemed to be: loud-voiced, hard-riding men, bent on a day’s sport. But – and here Loveday’s eyes travelled beyond the hotel courtyard to the other side of the road – who was that man with a bill-hook hacking at the hedge there, a thin-featured, round-shouldered old fellow with a bent-about hat? It might be as well not to take it too rashly for granted that her spies had withdrawn and had left her free to do her work in her own fashion.

  She went upstairs to her room. It was situated on the first floor in the front of the house and consequently commanded a good view of the high road. She stood well back from the window and, at an angle whence she could see and not be seen, took a long, steady survey of the hedger. And the longer she looked the more convinced she was that the man’s real work was something other than the bill-hook seemed to imply. He worked, so to speak, with his head over his shoulder, and when Loveday supplemented her eyesight with a strong field-glass she could see more than one stealthy glance shot from beneath his bent-about hat in the direction of her window.

  There could be little doubt about it: her movements were to be as closely watched today as they had been yesterday. Now it was of first importance that she should communicate with Inspector Gunning in the course of the afternoon. The question to solve was how it was to be done?

  To all appearance Loveday answered the question in extraordinary fashion. She pulled up her blind, she drew back her curtain and seated herself in full view at a small table in the
window recess. Then she took a pocket inkstand from her pocket, a packet of correspondence cards from her letter-case and, with rapid pen, set to work on them.

  About an hour and a half afterwards White, coming in according to his promise to report proceedings, found her still seated at the window – not, however, with writing materials before her but with needle and thread in her hand with which she was mending her gloves.

  ‘I return to town by the first train tomorrow morning,’ she said as he entered, ‘and I find these wretched things want no end of stitches. Now for your report.’

  White appeared to be in an elated frame of mind. ‘I’ve seen her!’ he cried. ‘My Annie, they’ve got her, those confounded sisters. But they shan’t keep her – no, not if I have to pull the house down about their ears to get her out.’

  ‘Well, now you know where she is you can take your time about getting her out,’ said Loveday. ‘I hope, however, you haven’t broken faith with me and betrayed yourself by trying to speak with her, because, if so, I shall have to look out for another deputy.’

  ‘Honour, Miss Brooke!’ answered White indignantly. ‘I stuck to my duty, though it cost me something to see her hanging over those kids and tucking them into the cart and never say a word to her, never so much as wave my hand.’

  ‘Did she go out with the donkey cart today?’

  ‘No, she only tucked the kids into the cart with a blanket and then went back to the house. Two old sisters, ugly as sin, went out with them. I watched them from the window, jolt, jolt, jolt, around the corner, out of sight, and then I whipped down the stairs and on to my machine and was after them in a trice and managed to keep them well in sight for over an hour and a half.’

  ‘And their destination today was?’

  ‘Wootton Hall.’

  ‘Ah, just as I expected.’

  ‘Just as you expected?’ echoed White.

  ‘I forgot. You do not know the nature of the suspicions that are attached to this sisterhood and the reasons I have for thinking that Wootton Hall, at this season of the year, might have an especial attraction for them.’