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

by Michael Sims

  In front of the drawing-room window were heavy curtains, and I at once suggested that curtains were the usual place of concealment on the stage and might be in real life.

  As soon as I had asked the question Dorcas turned to the caretaker. “You are certain that every article of furniture is in its place exactly as it was that night?”

  “Yes; the police prepared a plan of the room for the trial, and since then by the solicitors’ orders we have not touched a thing.”

  “That settles the curtains then,” continued Dorcas. “Look at the windows for yourself. In front of one, close by the curtains, is an ornamental table covered with china and glass and bric-à-brac; and in front of the other a large settee. No man could have come from behind those curtains without shifting that furniture out of his way. That would have immediately attracted Mrs. Hannaford’s attention and given her time to scream and rush out of the room. No, we must find some other place for the assassin. Ah—I wonder if—”

  Dorcas’s eyes were fixed on a large brown bear which stood nearly against the wall by the fireplace. The bear, a very fine, big specimen, was supported in its upright position by an ornamental iron pole, at the top of which was fixed an oil lamp covered with a yellow silk shade.

  “That’s a fine bear lamp,” exclaimed Dorcas.

  “Yes,” said the caretaker, “it’s been here ever since I’ve been in the family’s service. It was bought by the poor mistress’s first husband, Mr. Drayson, and he thought a lot of it. But,” he added, looking at it curiously, “I always thought it stood closer to the wall than that. It used to—right against it.”

  “Ah,” exclaimed Dorcas, “that’s interesting. Pull the curtains right back and give me all the light you can.”

  As the man obeyed her directions she went down on her hands and knees and examined the carpet carefully.

  “You are right,” she said. “This has been moved a little forward, and not so very long ago—the carpet for a square of some inches is a different colour to the rest. The brown bear stands on a square mahogany stand, and the exact square now shows in the colour of the carpet that has been hidden by it. Only here is a discoloured portion and the bear does not now stand on it.”

  The evidence of the bear having been moved forward from a position it had long occupied was indisputable. Dorcas got up and went to the door of the drawing-room.

  “Go and stand behind that bear,” she said. “Stand as compact as you can, as though you were endeavouring to conceal yourself.”

  I obeyed, and Dorcas, standing in the drawing-room doorway, declared that I was completely hidden.

  “Now,” she said, coming to the centre of the room and turning her back to me, “reach down from where you are and see if you can pick up the shovel from the fire-place without making a noise.”

  I reached out carefully and had the shovel in my hand without making a sound.

  “I have it,” I said.

  “That’s right. The poker would have been on the same side as the shovel, and much easier to pick up quietly. Now, while my back is turned, grasp the shovel by the handle, leap out at me, and raise the shovel as if to hit me—but don’t get excited and do it, because I don’t want to realize the scene too completely.”

  I obeyed. My footsteps were scarcely heard on the heavy-pile drawing-room carpet. When Dorcas turned round the shovel was above her head ready to strike.

  “Thank you for letting me off,” she said, with a smile. Then her face becoming serious again, she exclaimed: “The murderer of Mrs. Hannaford concealed himself behind that brown bear lamp, and attacked her in exactly the way I have indicated. But why had he moved the bear two or three inches forward?”

  “To conceal himself behind it.”

  “Nonsense! His concealment was a sudden act That bear is heavy—the glass chimney of the lamp would have rattled if it had been done violently and hurriedly while Mrs. Hannaford was coming downstairs—that would have attracted her attention and she would have called out, ‘Who’s there?’ at the doorway, and not have come in looking about for her husband.”

  Dorcas looked the animal over carefully, prodded it with her fingers, and then went behind it.

  After a minute or two’s close examination, she uttered a little cry and called me to her side.

  She had found in the back of the bear a small straight slit. This was quite invisible. She had only discovered it by an accidentally violent thrust of her fingers into the animal’s fur. Into this slit she thrust her hand, and the aperture yielded sufficiently for her to thrust her arm in. The interior of the bear was hollow, but Dorcas’s hand as it went down struck against a wooden bottom. Then she withdrew her arm and the aperture closed up. It had evidently been specially prepared as a place of concealment, and only the most careful examination would have revealed it.

  “Now,” exclaimed Dorcas, triumphantly, “I think we are on a straight road! This, I believe, is where those missing bank-notes lay concealed for years. They were probably placed there by Mr. Drayson with the idea that some day his frauds might be discovered or he might be made a bankrupt. This was his little nest-egg, and his death in Paris before his fraud was discovered prevented him making use of them. Mrs. Hannaford evidently knew nothing of the hidden treasure, or she would speedily have removed it. But some one knew, and that some one put his knowledge to practical use the night that Mrs. Hannaford was murdered. The man who got in at the front door that night, got in to relieve the bear of its valuable stuffing; he moved the bear to get at the aperture, and was behind it when Mrs. Hannaford came in. The rest is easy to understand.”

  “But how did he get in at the front door?”

  “That’s what I have to find out. I am sure now that Flash George was in it. He was seen outside, and some of the notes that were concealed in the brown bear lamp have been traced to him. Who was Flash George’s accomplice we may discover to-night. I think I have an idea, and if that is correct we shall have the solution of the whole mystery before dawn to-morrow morning.”

  “Why do you think you will learn so much to-night?”

  “Because Flash George met a man two nights ago outside the Criterion. I was selling wax matches, and followed them up, pestering them. I heard George say to his companion, whom I had never seen with him before, ‘Tell him Hungerford Bridge, midnight, Wednesday. Tell him to bring the lot and I’ll cash up for them!’ ”

  “And you think the ‘him’—?”

  “Is the man who rifled the brown bear and killed Mrs. Hannaford.”

  At eleven o’clock that evening I met Dorcas Dene in Villiers Street. I knew what she would be like, otherwise her disguise would have completely baffled me. She was dressed as an Italian street musician, and was with a man who looked like an Italian organ-grinder.

  Dorcas took my breath away by her first words.

  “Allow me to introduce you,” she said, “to Mr. Thomas Holmes. This is the gentleman who was Charles Drayson’s partner, and was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude over the partnership frauds.”

  “Yes,” replied the organ-grinder in excellent English. “I suppose I deserved it for being a fool, but the villain was Drayson—he had all my money, and involved me in a fraud at the finish.”

  “I have told Mr. Holmes the story of our discovery,” said Dorcas. “I have been in communication with him ever since I discovered the notes were in circulation. He knew Drayson’s affairs, and he has given me some valuable information. He is with us to-night because he knew Mr. Drayson’s former associates, and he may be able to identify the man who knew the secret of the house at Haverstock Hill.”

  “You think that is the man Flash George is to meet?”

  “I do. What else can ‘Tell him to bring the lot and I’ll cash up’ mean but the rest of the bank-notes?”

  Shortly before twelve we got on to Hungerford Bridge—the narrow footway that runs across the Thames by the side of the railway.

  I was to walk ahead and keep clear of the Italians until I heard
a signal.

  We crossed the bridge after that once or twice, I coming from one end and the Italians from the other, and passing each other about the centre.

  At five minutes to midnight I saw Flash George come slowly along from the Middlesex, side. The Italians were not far behind. A minute later an old man with a grey beard, and wearing an old Inverness cape, passed me, coming from the Surrey side. When he met Flash George the two stopped and leant over the parapet, apparently interested in the river. Suddenly I heard Dorcas’s signal. She began to sing the Italian song, “Santa Lucia.”

  I had my instructions. I jostled up against the two men and begged their pardon.

  Flash George turned fiercely round. At the same moment I seized the old man and shouted for help. The Italians came hastily up. Several foot passengers rushed to the scene and inquired what was the matter.

  “He was going to commit suicide,” I cried. “He was just going to jump into the water.”

  The old man was struggling in my grasp. The crowd were keeping back Flash George. They believed the old man was struggling to get free to throw himself into the water.

  The Italian rushed up to me.

  “Ah, poor old man!” he said. “Don’t let him get away!”

  He gave a violent tug to the grey beard. It came off in his hands.

  Then with an oath he seized the supposed would-be suicide by the throat.

  “You infernal villain!” he said.

  “Who is he?” asked Dorcas.

  “Who is he!” exclaimed Thomas Holmes, “why, the villain who brought me to ruin—my precious partner—Charles Drayson!”

  As the words escaped from the supposed Italian’s lips, Charles Drayson gave a cry of terror, and leaping on to the parapet, plunged into the river.

  Flash George turned to run, but was stopped by a policeman who had just come up.

  Dorcas whispered something in the man’s ear, and the officer, thrusting his hand in the rascal’s pocket, drew out a bundle of banknotes.

  A few minutes later the would-be suicide was brought ashore. He was still alive, but had injured himself terribly in his fall, and was taken to the hospital.

  Before he died he was induced to confess that he had taken advantage of the Paris fire to disappear. He had flung his watch down in order that it might be found as evidence of his death. He had, previously to visiting the rue Jean Goujon, received a letter at his hotel which told him pretty plainly the game was up, and he knew that at any moment a warrant might be issued against him. After reading his name amongst the victims, he lived as best he could abroad, but after some years, being in desperate straits, he determined to do a bold thing, return to London and endeavour to get into his house and obtain possession of the money which was lying unsuspected in the interior of the brown bear lamp. He had concealed it, well knowing that at any time the crash might come, and everything belonging to him be seized. The hiding-place he had selected was one which neither his creditors nor his relatives would suspect.

  On the night he entered the house, Flash George, whose acquaintance he had made in London, kept watch for him while he let himself in with his latch-key, which he had carefully preserved. Mr. Hannaford’s leaving the house was one of those pieces of good fortune which occasionally favour the wicked.

  With his dying breath Charles Drayson declared that he had no intention of killing his wife. He feared that, having heard a noise, she had come to see what it was, and might alarm the house in her terror, and as she turned to go out of the drawing-room he struck her, intending only to render her senseless until he had secured the booty.

  Mr. Hannaford, completely recovered and in his right mind, was in due time released from Broadmoor. The letter from his mother to Dorcas Dene, thanking her for clearing her son’s character and proving his innocence of the terrible crime for which he had been practically condemned, brought tears to my eyes as Dorcas read it aloud to Paul and myself. It was touching and beautiful to a degree.

  As she folded it up and put it away, I saw that Dorcas herself was deeply moved.

  “These are the rewards of my profession,” she said. “They compensate for everything.”

  Bret Harte

  (1836–1902)

  “There are probably more imitations of Sherlock Holmes,” wrote Paul D. Herbert, “than of any other character from literature.” Aside from the admiring pastiches that seek—with wildly varying results—to honor the style and atmosphere of the original Conan Doyle stories, there have been uncountable numbers of parodies. Only four months after Arthur Conan Doyle launched the series of Holmes stories in 1891 in the Strand, with “A Scandal in Bohemia,” the first parody appeared. O. Henry took a shot at the sage of Baker Street and so did Mark Twain. The best, however, was “The Stolen Cigar-Case,” written by Twain’s contemporary and occasional rival, Bret Harte.

  Harte led a colorful life. As a journalist on the Northern Californian he publicly damned the infamous 1860 massacre of the Wiyot, a Native American tribe centered around Humboldt Bay and among the last natives to face the violent onslaught of white invaders—and he had to flee death threats. He was quick to condemn racism. He wrote his poem “Plain Language from Truthful James,” later reprinted as “The Heathen Chinee,” which he modeled upon a Swinburne poem, as a parody of Irish immigrants’ bias against Chinese immigrants who had suddenly become their competitors for jobs, but it was quickly adopted by the racists themselves as an anthem. Harte’s life was a roller coaster of good and bad fortune.

  At one point he was one of the highest-paid authors in America, on salary for the Atlantic Monthly, but a few years later he was reduced to writing marketing jingles. Beginning in the late 1870s, he was appointed as a consul to Germany and later to Scotland and wound up settling in England. He is remembered now mostly for stories such as “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and “The Outcasts of Poker Flat.” The following story appeared as part of his series of parodies, Later Condensed Novels. In the original publication, under “The Stolen Cigar-Case” appeared the words “by A. C---n D--le.”

  The Stolen Cigar-Case

  I found Hemlock Jones in the old Brook Street lodgings, musing before the fire. With the freedom of an old friend I at once threw myself in my old familiar attitude at his feet, and gently caressed his boot. I was induced to do this for two reasons; one that it enabled me to get a good look at his bent, concentrated face, and the other that it seemed to indicate my reverence for his superhuman insight. So absorbed was he, even then, in tracking some mysterious clue, that he did not seem to notice me. But therein I was wrong—as I always was in my attempt to understand that powerful intellect.

  “It is raining,” he said, without lifting his head.

  “You have been out then?” I said quickly.

  “No. But I see that your umbrella is wet, and that your overcoat, which you threw off on entering, has drops of water on it.”

  I sat aghast at his penetration. After a pause he said carelessly, as if dismissing the subject: “Besides, I hear the rain on the window. Listen.”

  I listened. I could scarcely credit my ears, but there was the soft pattering of drops on the pane. It was evident, there was no deceiving this man!

  “Have you been busy lately?” I asked, changing the subject. “What new problem—given up by Scotland Yard as inscrutable—has occupied that gigantic intellect?”

  He drew back his foot slightly, and seemed to hesitate ere he returned it to its original position. Then he answered wearily: “Mere trifles—nothing to speak of. The Prince Kapoli has been here to get my advice regarding the disappearance of certain rubies from the Kremlin; the Rajah of Pootibad, after vainly beheading his entire bodyguard, has been obliged to seek my assistance to recover a jewelled sword. The Grand Duchess of Pretzel-Brauntswig is desirous of discovering where her husband was on the night of the 14th of February, and last night”—he lowered his voice slightly—“a lodger in this very house, meeting me on the stairs, wanted to know ‘Why they don’t answer his
bell.’ ”

  I could not help smiling—until I saw a frown gathering on his inscrutable forehead.

  “Pray to remember,” he said coldly, “that it was through such an apparently trivial question that I found out, ‘Why Paul Ferroll killed his Wife,’ and ‘What happened to Jones!’ ”

  I became dumb at once. He paused for a moment, and then suddenly changing back to his usual pitiless, analytical style, he said: “When I say these are trifles—they are so in comparison to an affair that is now before me. A crime has been committed, and, singularly enough, against myself. You start,” he said; “you wonder who would have dared attempt it! So did I; nevertheless, it has been done. I have been robbed!”

  “You robbed—you, Hemlock Jones, the Terror of Peculators!” I gasped in amazement, rising and gripping the table as I faced him.

  “Yes; listen. I would confess it to no other. But you who have followed my career, who know my methods; yea, for whom I have partly lifted the veil that conceals my plans from ordinary humanity; you, who have for years rapturously accepted my confidences, passionately admired my inductions and inferences, placed yourself at my beck and call, become my slave, grovelled at my feet, given up your practice except those few unremunerative and rapidly-decreasing patients to whom, in moments of abstraction over my problems, you have administered strychnine for quinine and arsenic for Epsom salts; you, who have sacrificed everything and everybody to me—you I make my confidant!”

  I rose and embraced him warmly, yet he was already so engrossed in thought that at the same moment he mechanically placed his hand upon his watch chain as if to consult the time. “Sit down,” he said; “have a cigar?”

  “I have given up cigar smoking,” I said.