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

by Michael Sims

  I had just written these few lines, and was closing my journal, when there came a knock at the door. I answered it, thinking that Robert had called on his way home to say good-night, and found myself face to face with a strange gentleman, who immediately asked for Anne Rodway. On hearing that I was the person inquired for, he requested five minutes’ conversation with me. I showed him into the little empty room at the back of the house, and waited, rather surprised and fluttered, to hear what he had to say.

  He was a dark man, with a serious manner, and a short, stern way of speaking. I was certain that he was a stranger, and yet there seemed something in his face not unfamiliar to me. He began by taking a newspaper from his pocket, and asking me if I was the person who had given evidence at the trial of Noah Truscott on a charge of manslaughter. I answered immediately that I was.

  “I have been for nearly two years in London seeking Mary Mallinson, and always seeking her in vain,” he said. “The first and only news I have had of her I found in the newspaper report of the trial yesterday.”

  He still spoke calmly, but there was something in the look of his eyes which showed me that he was suffering in spirit. A sudden nervousness overcame me, and I was obliged to sit down.

  “You knew Mary Mallinson, sir?” I asked, as quietly as I could.

  “I am her brother.”

  I clasped my hands and hid my face in despair. Oh, the bitterness of heart with which I heard him say those simple words!

  “You were very kind to her,” said the calm, tearless man. “In her name and for her sake, I thank you.”

  “Oh, sir,” I said, “why did you never write to her when you were in foreign parts?”

  “I wrote often,” he answered; “but each of my letters contained a remittance of money. Did Mary tell you she had a step-mother? If she did, you may guess why none of my letters were allowed to reach her. I now know that this woman robbed my sister. Has she lied in telling me that she was never informed of Mary’s place of abode?”

  I remembered that Mary had never communicated with her step-mother after the separation, and could therefore assure him that the woman had spoken the truth.

  He paused for a moment after that, and sighed. Then he took out a pocket-book, and said:

  “I have already arranged for the payment of any legal expenses that may have been incurred by the trial, but I have still to reimburse you for the funeral charges which you so generously defrayed. Excuse my speaking bluntly on this subject; I am accustomed to look on all matters where money is concerned purely as matters of business.”

  I saw that he was taking several bank-notes out of the pocket book, and stopped him.

  “I will gratefully receive back the little money I actually paid, sir, because I am not well off, and it would be an ungracious act of pride in me to refuse it from you,” I said; “but I see you handling bank-notes, any one of which is far beyond the amount you have to repay me. Pray put them back, sir. What I did for your poor lost sister I did from my love and fondness for her. You have thanked me for that, and your thanks are all I can receive.”

  He had hitherto concealed his feelings, but I saw them now begin to get the better of him. His eyes softened, and he took my hand and squeezed it hard.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said; “I beg your pardon, with all my heart.”

  There was silence between us, for I was crying, and I believe, at heart, he was crying too. At last he dropped my hand, and seemed to change back, by an effort, to his former calmness.

  “Is there no one belonging to you to whom I can be of service?” he asked. “I see among the witnesses on the trial the name of a young man who appears to have assisted you in the inquiries which led to the prisoner’s conviction. Is he a relation?”

  “No, sir—at least, not now—but I hope—”

  “What?”

  “I hope that he may, one day, be the nearest and dearest relation to me that a woman can have.” I said those words boldly, because I was afraid of his otherwise taking some wrong view of the connection between Robert and me

  “One day?” he repeated. “One day may be a long time hence.”

  “We are neither of us well off, sir,” I said. “One day means the day when we are a little richer than we are now.”

  “Is the young man educated? Can he produce testimonials to his character? Oblige me by writing his name and address down on the back of that card.”

  When I had obeyed, in a handwriting which I am afraid did me no credit, he took out another card and gave it to me.

  “I shall leave England to-morrow,” he said. “There is nothing now to keep me in my own country. If you are ever in any difficulty or distress (which I pray God you may never be), apply to my London agent, whose address you have there.”

  He stopped, and looked at me attentively, then took my hand again.

  “Where is she buried?” he said, suddenly, in a quick whisper, turning his head away. I told him, and added that we had made the grave as beautiful as we could with grass and flowers. I saw his lips whiten and tremble.

  “God bless and reward you!” he said, and drew me toward him quickly and kissed my forehead. I was quite overcome, and sank down and hid my face on the table. When I looked up again he was gone.

  June 25th, 1841. I write these lines on my wedding morning, when little more than a year has passed since Robert returned to England.

  His salary was increased yesterday to one hundred and fifty pounds a year. If I only knew where Mr. Mallinson was, I would write and tell him of our present happiness. But for the situation which his kindness procured for Robert, we might still have been waiting vainly for the day that has now come.

  I am to work at home for the future, and Sally is to help us in our new abode. If Mary could have lived to see this day! I am not ungrateful for my blessings; but oh, how I miss that sweet face on this morning of all others!

  I got up to-day early enough to go alone to the grave, and to gather the nosegay that now lies before me from the flowers that grow round it. I shall put it in my bosom when Robert comes to fetch me to the church. Mary would have been my bridesmaid if she had lived; and I can’t forget Mary, even on my wedding-day …

  Alexandre Dumas, père

  (1802–1870)

  The titles of the best-known historical adventure novels by Alexandre Dumas seem to be accompanied by an audible clash of swords—The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask. The latter is actually only part of The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, the huge, 268-chapter third volume in the d’Artagnan Romances, the wildly popular series begun with Musketeers in 1844 and continued the next year with Twenty Years After. The following selection comes from this final installment. Dumas was inspired by the adventures of the real-life Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, the actual Comte d’Artagnan—or at least he was inspired by the already fictionalized version of d’Artagnan who had appeared in Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras’s 1700 memoir-novel about him.

  Dumas’s son, laboring under the burden of parental fame, became a successful author in his own right, producing a couple of novels, including The Lady of the Camellias, and many plays, including a famous adaptation of the novel. Each writer was well enough known that they are remembered as Dumas père and fils. After beginning his career as a dramatist, Dumas père wrote, besides the d’Artagnan cycle, a series of novels about Marie Antoinette, many other novels, essays and articles on contemporary topics, and volumes recording his travels to Florence and Switzerland and elsewhere. One of his more surprising books is a monumental Great Dictionary of Cuisine, published in 1873, three years after his death. He intended the encyclopedic cookbook and compendium of cultural history “to be read by worldly people and to be used by professionals,” and it is entertainingly browsable as well as packed with recipes that bring to life the cuisine and culture of a lost era.

  The following selection, from Louise de la Vallière— the second part, named after the mistress of Louis XIV,
of the huge novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne—comprises a bit more than a chapter from this last installment of the d’Artagnan series. The title comes from a phrase within the text. In these fast-moving scenes Dumas presents his favorite cocky, violent superhero swordsman as a brilliantly observant detective who reads footprints and matchsticks with Sherlockian aplomb at the command of the king. In the first brief scene, Saint-Aignan has served as a duplicitous messenger between the lovestruck king and his mistress, and he returns with bad news about a terrible hunting accident. Soon d’Artagnan investigates and learns the truth behind Saint-Aignan’s account.

  True, the action takes place in the third quarter of the seventeenth century, but the scene was written in the mid-nineteenth. While interested in the crime writing around him, Dumas was surely also paying tribute to his countryman Voltaire. Zadig’s example hovers over d’Artagnan’s every move.

  You Are Not Human, Monsieur d’Artagnan

  There is great excitement prevailing at Mademoiselle de la Vallière’s.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With her as with all the ladies of the court.”

  “Why?”

  “On account of poor De Guiche’s accident.”

  “Has anything serious happened to De Guiche, then?”

  “Yes, sire, he has one hand nearly destroyed, a hole in his breast; in fact, he is dying.”

  “Good heavens! who told you that?”

  “Manicamp brought him back just now to the house of a doctor here in Fontainebleau, and the rumor soon reached us all.”

  “Brought back! Poor De Guiche; and how did it happen?”

  “Ah! that is the very question,—how did it happen?”

  “You say that in a very singular manner, Saint-Aignan. Give me the details. What does he say himself?”

  “He says nothing, sire; but others do.”

  “What others?”

  “Those who brought him back, sire.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I do not know, sire; but M. de Manicamp knows. M. de Manicamp is one of his friends.”

  “As everybody is, indeed,” said the king.

  “Oh! no!” returned Saint-Aignan, “you are mistaken, sire; every one is not precisely a friend of M. de Guiche.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Does your majesty require me to explain myself?”

  “Certainly I do.”

  “Well, sire, I believe I have heard something said about a quarrel between two gentlemen.”

  “When?”

  “This very evening, before your majesty’s supper was served.”

  “That can hardly be. I have issued such stringent and severe ordinances with respect to duelling, that no one, I presume, would dare to disobey them.”

  “In that case, Heaven preserve me from excusing any one!” exclaimed Saint-Aignan. “Your majesty commanded me to speak, and I spoke accordingly.”

  “Tell me, then, in what way the Comte de Guiche has been wounded?”

  “Sire, it is said to have been at a boar-hunt.”

  “This evening?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “One of his hands shattered, and a hole in his breast. Who was at the hunt with M. de Guiche?”

  “I do not know, sire; but M. de Manicamp knows, or ought to know.”

  “You are concealing something from me, Saint-Aignan.”

  “Nothing, sire, I assure you.”

  “Then, explain to me how the accident happened; was it a musket that burst?”

  “Very likely, sire. But yet, on reflection, it could hardly have been that, for De Guiche’s pistol was found close by him still loaded.”

  “His pistol? But a man does not go to a boar-hunt with a pistol, I should think.”

  “Sire, it is also said that De Guiche’s horse was killed and that the horse is still to be found in the wide open glade in the forest.”

  “His horse?—Guiche go on horseback to a boar-hunt?—Saint-Aignan, I do not understand a syllable of what you have been telling me. Where did this affair happen?”

  “At the Rond-point, in that part of the forest called the Bois-Rochin.”

  “That will do. Call M. d’Artagnan.” Saint-Aignan obeyed, and the musketeer entered.

  “Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said the king, “you will leave this place by the little door of the private staircase.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “You will mount your horse.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “And you will proceed to the Rond-point du Bois-Rochin. Do you know the spot?”

  “Yes, sire. I have fought there twice.”

  “What!” exclaimed the king, amazed at the reply.

  “Under the edicts, sire, of Cardinal Richelieu,” returned D’Artagnan, with his usual impassability.

  “That is very different, monsieur. You will, therefore, go there, and will examine the locality very carefully. A man has been wounded there, and you will find a horse lying dead. You will tell me what your opinion is upon the whole affair.”

  “Very good, sire.”

  “As a matter of course, it is your own opinion I require, and not that of any one else.”

  “You shall have it in an hour’s time, sire.”

  “I prohibit your speaking with any one, whoever it may be.”

  “Except with the person who must give me a lantern,” said D’Artagnan.

  “Oh! that is a matter of course,” said the king, laughing at the liberty, which he tolerated in no one but his captain of the musketeers. D’Artagnan left by the little staircase.

  “Now, let my physician be sent for,” said Louis. Ten minutes afterwards the king’s physician arrived, quite out of breath.

  “You will go, monsieur,” said the king to him, “and accompany M. de Saint-Aignan wherever he may take you; you will render me an account of the state of the person you may see in the house you will be taken to.” The physician obeyed without a remark, as at that time people began to obey Louis XIV, and left the room preceding Saint-Aignan.

  “Do you, Saint-Aignan, send Manicamp to me, before the physician can possibly have spoken to him.” And Saint-Aignan left in his turn.

  While the king was engaged in making these last-mentioned arrangements in order to ascertain the truth, D’Artagnan, without losing a second, ran to the stable, took down the lantern, saddled his horse himself, and proceeded towards the place his majesty had indicated. According to the promise he had made, he had not accosted any one; and, as we have observed, he had carried his scruples so far as to do without the assistance of the stable-helpers altogether. D’Artagnan was one of those who in moments of difficulty pride themselves on increasing their own value. By dint of hard galloping, he in less than five minutes reached the wood, fastened his horse to the first tree he came to, and penetrated to the broad open space on foot. He then began to inspect most carefully, on foot and with his lantern in his hand, the whole surface of the Rond-point, went forward, turned back again, measured, examined, and after half an hour’s minute inspection, he returned silently to where he had left his horse, and pursued his way in deep reflection and at a foot-pace to Fontainebleau. Louis was waiting in his cabinet; he was alone, and with a pencil was scribbling on paper certain lines which D’Artagnan at the first glance recognized as unequal and very much touched up. The conclusion he arrived at was, that they must be verses. The king raised his head and perceived D’Artagnan. “Well, monsieur,” he said, “do you bring me any news?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “What have you seen?”

  “As far as probability goes, sire—” D’Artagnan began to reply.

  “It was certainty I requested of you.”

  “I will approach it as near as I possibly can. The weather was very well adapted for investigations of the character I have just made; it has been raining this evening, and the roads were wet and muddy—”

  “Well, the result, M. d’Artagnan?”

  “Sire, your majesty told me tha
t there was a horse lying dead in the cross-road of the Bois-Rochin, and I began, therefore, by studying the roads. I say the roads, because the center of the crossroad is reached by four separate roads. The one that I myself took was the only one that presented any fresh traces. Two horses had followed it side by side; their eight feet were marked very distinctly in the clay. One of the riders was more impatient than the other, for the footprints of the one were invariably in advance of the other about half a horse’s length.”

  “Are you quite sure they were traveling together?” said the king.

  “Yes sire. The horses are two rather large animals of equal pace,—horses well used to maneuvers of all kinds, for they wheeled round the barrier of the Rond-point together.”

  “Well—and after?”

  “The two cavaliers paused there for a minute, no doubt to arrange the conditions of the engagement; the horses grew restless and impatient. One of the riders spoke, while the other listened and seemed to have contented himself by simply answering. His horse pawed the ground, which proves that his attention was so taken up by listening that he let the bridle fall from his hand.”

  “A hostile meeting did take place then?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Continue; you are a very accurate observer.”

  “One of the two cavaliers remained where he was standing, the one, in fact, who had been listening; the other crossed the open space, and at first placed himself directly opposite to his adversary. The one who had remained stationary traversed the Rond-point at a gallop, about two-thirds of its length, thinking that by this means he would gain upon his opponent; but the latter had followed the circumference of the wood.”

  “You are ignorant of their names, I suppose?”

  “Completely so, sire. Only he who followed the circumference of the wood was mounted on a black horse.”