The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories

by Michael Sims

  I declared my readiness to accompany her, but endeavored to impress upon her mind the inutility of further search. She relied securely upon the faith of her divine impression, as she termed it, and declared that God would never suffer so good a man as L— to be disappointed in his wonderful exertions; the keenness of a mother’s eye, the instinct of a mother’s love would help him in the completion of his sacred trust. It was impossible to argue with her, and I agreed to be with her at an early hour.

  I slept but little during the night, for my bruised shins and battered shoulder pained me considerably, and the strange excitement of the day’s events materially assisted to heighten both my corporeal and mental fever. When I arose in the morning, I felt so badly that nothing but the earnest and confident tone of the poor childless widow induced me to undertake the annoyance of the trip—I could not bear to disappoint her. I found the carriage ready at the door—a couple of mechanics, with sledge hammers, crow bars, and huge bunches of skeleton keys occupied the front seat, and having placed myself beside Mrs. Lobenstein upon the other seat, the horses trotted briskly along the street.

  During our ride she informed me that a lawyer had called upon her from Elizabeth Bishop, the disappointed spinster, who, it will be recollected, had lost her expected fortune by the intervention of the gentle Mary Lobenstein. The man stated that Miss Bishop had heard of the disappearance of the inheritor of her aunt’s estate and had desired him to give notice that if proof was not forthcoming of Miss Lobenstein’s existence, she should take possession of the property, agreeably to the provision existing in the will. “I am sure,” said the mother, “that woman is at the bottom of this affair—she has concerted the abduction of my daughter to obtain possession of the estate—but I trust in God that she will be disappointed in her foul design. A fearful whisper comes across my heart that those who would rob a mother of a child for gold would not object to rob that child of her existence; but my trust is in the Most High, Who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb and will not consent to the spoliation of the widow and the fatherless.”

  The probability of the poor girl’s murder had been suggested by L—at the termination of our unsuccessful search, and had occupied a serious portion of my thoughts during the wakeful moments of the past night. Expecting nothing from the mother’s repetition of the search, I determined to consult L— upon the feasibility of offering rewards to the villains Mills and Nares for a revelation of the truth, and if we failed in eliciting any intelligence, to institute a rigorous examination of the garden and the yard and discover, if possible, the remains of the murdered girl.

  The magistrate received Mrs. Lobenstein with tenderness and respect, and sanctioned her desire to penetrate into the mystery of the square stone house. L— had nothing new to disclose, excepting that in one of the rooms several articles of female apparel had been discovered, and he suggested that Mrs. L should inspect them as, perhaps, something that belonged to her daughter might be among them. The mother remarked that her daughter left home without a bonnet or a shawl, and it was scarcely likely that her body-clothes would be in the room. She, therefore, thought it useless to waste time in going upstairs, but requested the locksmith to accompany her to the stone house in the garden. It was impossible to help sympathizing with Mrs. Lobenstein in her anxiety; the magistrate deferred his return to London, where his presence was absolutely necessary to preside at the examination of Messrs. Nares, Mills, and Co., and the warm-hearted L— wiped the moisture from his eyes as he followed the mother across the yard and heard her encourage the workmen to commence the necessary proceedings for the release of her darling child. The lock of the stone house was picked—the door was thrown wide open—and the maternal voice was heard in loud citation, but the dull echo of the stone room was the only reply—there was no living creature within the place.

  We found the interior of the building to correspond with the description given by the under-keeper. The walls were hollowed into bins, which were filled with wine bottles packed in sawdust; a circular well, bricked up a little above the level of the floor, filled the centre of the room; the water rose to within a foot of the ground—an old pulley and bucket, rotten from desuetude, clogged up one side of the doorway, and two or three wine barrels filled up the remaining vacancy of space. It was impossible that a human being could be concealed in any part of the building.

  Mrs. Lobenstein sighed, and her countenance told of her dismay; but the flame of hope had warmed her heart into a heat that was not to be immediately cooled. “Gentlemen,” said she, “accompany me once more round the cells and secret places—let me be satisfied with my own eyes that a thorough search has been made, and it will remove my doubts that you have overlooked some obscure nook wherein the wretches have concealed my little girl.”

  The range of chambers was again traversed, but without success, and the widow was compelled to admit that every possible place had been looked into, and that a farther sojourn in the house was entirely useless. The old lady sat down upon the last stair of the second flight, and with a grievous expression of countenance looked into our several faces as we stood around her as if she was searching for that consolation it was not in our power to bestow. Tears rolled down her checks, and mighty sobs told of the anguish of her heart. I was endeavoring to rouse her to exertion as the only means of breaking the force of her grief, when my attention was drawn to the loud yelping of a dog, a small cocker spaniel, that had accompanied us in the carriage from Mrs. Lobenstein’s house and in prowling round the building, had been accidentally shut up in one of the rooms.

  “Poor Dash!” said the widow. “I must not lose you; my dear Mary was fond of you, and I ought to be careful of her favorite.” I took the hint and walking down the gallery, opened the door of the room from whence the barking proceeded. It was the apartment that contained the articles of wearing apparel which Mrs. L had visited in her round without discovering any token of her daughter. But the animal’s superior instinct enabled him to detect the presence of a pair of shoes that had graced the feet of the little Mary when she quitted her mother’s house on the day of her abduction. Immediately the door was opened, the faithful creature gathered up the shoes in his mouth and ran to his mistress and dropped them at her feet, inviting her attention by a loud and sagacious bark. The old lady knew the shoes in a moment. “Yes, they are my girl’s—I bought them myself for my darling. She has been here—has been murdered—and the body of my child is now moldering in the grave.” A violent fit of hysterics ensued, and I consigned her to the care of the wife and sister of the under-keeper, who had not been allowed to leave the house.

  I deemed the finding of the shoes to be of sufficient importance to recall the magistrate, who was in the carriage at the door and about to start for London. He immediately alighted and inquired into the particulars of the affair. Directly it was proved that Mary Lobenstein had been in the house, L— rushed up stairs and dragged the keeper into the presence of the magistrate, who sternly asked the man why he had deceived him in declaring that the girl had never been there. The fellow was evidently alarmed and protested vehemently that he knew no female of the name of Lobenstein—and the only clue he could give to the mystery of the shoes was that a young girl answering our description of Mary had been brought into the house at night time about a fortnight ago, but she was represented as an insane prostitute of the name of Hill who had been annoying some married gentlemen by riotous conduct at their houses—and it was said at first that she was to remain at the Farm for life—but that she had suddenly been removed by Nares, but where, he could not say.

  L— shook his head ominously when he heard this statement, and it was evident to us all that the mother’s suspicions were right, and that a deed of blood had been recently perpetrated. The best means of ascertaining the place of burial was consulted on, and we adjourned to the garden to search for any appearance of freshly disturbed ground, or other evidence that might lead to a discovery of her remains. When we had crossed the yard, and were a
bout entering the garden gate, L— suggested the propriety of fetching the little dog, whose excellent nose had afforded the only clue we had been able to obtain. I went back for the animal, but he refused to leave his mistress, and it was not without some danger of a bite that I succeeded in catching him by the neck and carrying him out of the room. I put him on his feet when we were past the garden gate, and endeavored to excite him to sprightliness by running along the walk and whistling to him to follow, but he sneaked after me with a drooping tail and a bowed head, as if he felt his share of the general grief.

  We walked round the garden without discovering any signs that warranted further search. We had traversed every path in the garden, excepting a narrow, transverse one that led from the gate to a range of green and hot houses that lined the farthest wall. We were on the point of leaving the place, satisfied that it was not in our power to remove the veil of mystery that shrouded the girl’s disappearance, when the dog, who had strayed into the entrance of the narrow path, gave extraordinary signs of liveliness and emotion—his tail wagged furiously, his ears were thrown forward, and a short but earnest yaffle broke into a continuous bark as he turned rapidly from one tide of the path to another, and finally ran down toward the green house with his nose bent to the ground. “He scents her,” said L—. “There is still a chance.”

  Our party, consisting of the magistrate, L— and two other officers, the under-keeper, the locksmith, and myself, followed the dog down the narrow path into the center of a piece of ground containing three or four cucumber beds covered with sliding glass frames. The spaniel, after searching round the bed, jumped upon the center frame and howled piteously. It was evident that he had lost the scent. L— pointed out to our notice that the sliding lid was fastened to the frame by a large padlock—this extraordinary security increased our suspicions. He seized a crow-bar from one of the smiths, and the lock was soon removed. The top of the frame was pulled up and the dog jumped into the tank that filled the bed and commenced scratching with all his might.

  L— thrust the bar into the yielding soil, and at the depth of a foot, the iron struck a solid substance. This intimation electrified us—we waited not for tools; our hands were dug into the bed and the tan and black mould were dragged from the frame with an eagerness that soon emptied it and exhibited the boarding of a large trap door, divided into two parts, but securely locked together. While the smiths essayed their skill upon the lock, the magistrate stood by with lifted hands and head uncovered—a tear was in the good man’s eye, and he breathed short from the excess of his anxiety. Everyone was visibly excited, and the loud and cheerful bark of the dog was hailed as an omen of success. L—’s impatience could not brook delay. He seized the sledgehammer of the smiths and with a blow that might have knocked in the side of a house, demolished the lock and bolt, and the doors jumped apart in the recoil from the blow. They were raised—a black and yawning vault was below—and a small flight of wooden steps, green and moldy from the effects of the earth’s dampness, led to the gloomy depths of the cavern.

  The little dog dashed bravely down the stairway, and L—, requesting us to stand from between him and the light, picked his way down the narrow, slimy steps. One of the smiths followed, and the rest of us hung our heads anxiously over the edge of the vault’s mouth, watching our friends as they receded in the distant gloom.

  A pause ensued; the dog was heard barking, and an indistinct muttering between L— and the smith ascended to the surface of the earth. I shouted to them and was frightened at the reverberation of my voice. Our anxiety became painful in the extreme—the magistrate called to L—, but obtained no answer, and we were on the point of descending in a body when the officer appeared at the root of the stairs. “We have found her,” said he—we gave a simultaneous shout. “But she is dead” was the appalling finish of his speech, as he emerged from the mouth of the vault.

  The smith, with the lifeless body of Mary Lobenstein swung over his shoulder, was assisted up the stairs. The corpse of the little girl was placed on one of the garden settees and, with heavy hearts and gloomy faces, we carried the melancholy burden into the house. The mother had not recovered from the shock which the anticipation of her daughter’s death had given to her feelings; she was lying senseless upon the bed where she had been placed by the keeper’s wife. We laid the body of her daughter in an adjoining room and directed the woman to perform the last sad duties to the senseless clay while we awaited the parent’s restoration. The magistrate returned to London; the smiths were packing up their tools preparatory to departure and I was musing in melancholy mood over the events of the day when the forbidding face of the keeper’s wife peeped in at the half-opened door and we were beckoned from the room.

  “Please your honor, I never seed a dead body look like that there corpse of the little girl upstair. I’ve seed a many corpses in my time, but there’s something onnataral about that there one, not like a dead body ought to be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, though her feet and hands are cold, her jaw ain’t dropped, and her eyes ain’t open—and there’s a limberness in her limbs that I don’t like. I really believe she’s only swounded.”

  L— and I hurried up stairs, and the smiths, with their baskets of tools dangling at their backs, followed us into the room. I anxiously searched for any pulsation at the heart and the wrists of poor Mary, whose appearance certainly corroborated the woman’s surmise, but the total absence of all visible signs of life denied us the encouragement of the flattering hope. One of the smiths took from his basket a tool of bright, fine-tempered steel; he held it for a few seconds against Mary’s half-closed mouth, and upon withdrawing it, said, with a loud and energetic voice, “She is alive! Her breath has damped the surface of the steel!”

  The man was right. Proper remedies were applied to the daughter and to her parent, and L— had the gratification of placing the lost Mary within her mother’s arms.

  Miss Lobenstein’s explanation afforded but little additional information. When she was brought to the Farm by the villain Mills and his friend Billy the ostler, she was informed that it was to be the residence of her future life. She was subjected to the treatment of a maniac, her questions remained unanswered, and her supplications for permission to send to her mother were answered with a sneer. About three nights ago, she was ordered from her room, her shoes were taken off that she might noiselessly traverse the passages, and she was removed to the secret cell in the garden; some biscuits and a jug of water were placed beside her, and she had remained in undisturbed solitude till the instinct of her favorite dog led to her discovery shortly after she had fainted from exhaustion and terror.

  There is little doubt but that the ruffians were alarmed at the watching and appearances of the indefatigable L—, and withdrew their victim to the securest hiding-place. I had the curiosity, in company with some of the officers, to descend into the secret cell; it had originally been dug out for the foundation of an intended house; the walls and partitions were solidly built, but the bankruptcy of the projector prevented any further progress. When Farrell and his gang took possession of the place, it was deemed easier to cover the rafters of the cellar with boards and earth than to fill it up—in time, the existence of the hole became forgotten, save by those most interested in its concealment. Farrell contrived the mode of entrance through the glass frame of the forcing bed, and when the adjacent green houses were constructed, an artificial flue or vent was introduced to the depths of the cell, and supplied it with a sufficiency of air.

  Mrs. Lobenstein refused to prosecute the spinster Bishop, the malignancy of whose temper preyed upon her own heart, and speedily consigned her unlamented to the grave. The true particulars of this strange affair were never given to the public, although I believe that its occurrence mainly contributed to effect an alteration in the English laws respecting private madhouses and other receptacles for lunatics.

  The magistracy of the county knew that they were to blame in permitt
ing the existence of such a den as Farrell’s Farm, and exerted themselves to quash proceedings against the fellows Mills and Nares, and their co-adjutors. A few months imprisonment was the only punishment awarded them, and that was in return for the assault upon the head of the police; but in Billy, the ostler, was recognized an old offender—various un-punished offences rose against him, and he was condemned to “seven pennorth” aboard the hulks at Chatham. The greatest rogue escaped the arm of justice for a time; but L— has since assured me he has every reason to believe that Farrell was, under a feigned name, executed in Somersetshire for horse stealing.

  The Farm was converted into a Poor House for some of the adjacent parishes; L— received his reward, and when I left England, our heroine Mary was the blooming mother of a numerous family.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  (1809–1849)

  Where is the ingenuity of unravelling a web which you yourself have woven for the express purpose of unravelling? These tales of ratiocination owe most of their popularity to being something in a new key. I do not mean to say that they are not ingenious—but people think they are more ingenious than they are—on account of the method and air of method.

  —Poe

  Few writers have so enriched the darker end of the literary spectrum as Edgar Allan Poe. The images haunt our imaginations: a premature burial, the gamble of mesmerism, a horrifying red plague, a murderer haunted by the phantom heartbeat of his victim, William Wilson’s encounter with his doppelgänger, the code behind a search for buried treasure, not to mention that annoying raven. Critics argue over Poe’s virtues and faults, but readers keep turning pages.

  Born in Boston in 1809 to itinerant actors, both of whom died while he was a toddler, Edgar Poe was then adopted by the Allan family in Richmond, Virginia. He attended various schools in England but was back in Virginia by the age of eleven. In 1826 he enrolled in the University of Virginia and had by the next year accumulated massive gambling debts that inspired him to leave college, move to his family’s roots in Baltimore, and join the army. The same year, 1827, he published his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, and he was off on a legendarily tempestuous career. At the age of twenty-seven, he married his thirteen-year-old cousin. He was reckless with love, money, alcohol, and other drugs, and by forty he was dead. Besides poetry and horror stories—including vampire tales at various levels of subtlety and quality—Poe wrote satire, literary criticism, and even science-minded essays. The latter include “Eureka: A Prose Poem,” an insightful and lyrical analysis of a perennial bugbear for astronomers—the question of why the night sky is black if space holds an infinite number of stars.