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

by Michael Sims

  “Yes, sir.” Barney hesitated. “Did you get him?”

  “Who? Palmer? Oh, yes. Yes. He’s held for return to Chicago. Run along now. Be here sharp at four, with your bag packed. And tell your mother not to mark your linen—except with your initials. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Babbing regarded him whimsically. “How do you like being a detective?”

  “Oh, gee!” Barney grinned. “It’s great, Chief.”

  Babbing gave him a parting pat on the shoulder. “All right, boy,” he said. “I’m glad you like it.” And Barney did not understand why his tone of voice was depreciative!

  Anna Katharine Green

  (1846–1935)

  After Mary Fortune’s 1866 milestone—the first full-fledged detective story by a woman—Anna Katharine Green stands as the next important female writer in the genre. She was the author of the first known detective novel by a woman, The Leavenworth Case, published in 1878. This charming and fast-paced adventure introduced Ebenezer Gryce, a sardonic New York City policeman who would reappear in several novels, and launched one of the most successful careers in nineteenth-century crime writing. As noted in the introduction, the book became a bestseller and was soon required reading at Yale’s school of law, in part because of Green’s adroit handling of circumstantial evidence. Not bad for a book she had begun just after college and written on the sly in varicolored notebooks, until she was two-thirds finished, before showing it to her lawyer father, whose professional life had helped inspire it.

  Some critics nominate an 1866 novel as the first book-length detective story by a woman: The Dead Letter, by Seeley Regester, the pen name of Metta Victoria Fuller Victor. But Regester’s detective, Mr. Burton, relies upon the psychic visions of his daughter (which he demands of her despite their toll on her health and psyche). Supernatural or psychic detection has a long history, but it is a category of its own; the intrusion of such irrational plot elements disqualifies The Dead Letter from consideration as a true detective story. Regester was also an inferior writer who depended upon coincidence, exhibited little wit, and had a poor sense of pacing.

  In 1897, in the clever and amusing novel That Affair Next Door, Green created her first female detective, Amelia Butterworth, who starred in two sequels. She didn’t create her third detective until 1915, when G. P. Putnam’s Sons published The Golden Slipper and Other Problems for Violet Strange. Although appearing in the generation following the Victorian era, this beautiful young New York socialite recalled the Victorian habit of supplying lady detectives with excuses for their unladylike prying and snooping. Through a cycle of ten stories, Green gradually revealed that Strange performs her secretive detective work to support a disinherited sister, a laughably noble motive worthy of her ancestors in the field. Strange must keep her investigations secret or risk losing the very attribute that makes them possible—her position in upper-crust Gotham society.

  In the first story, “The Golden Slipper,” Strange’s boss, Mr. Driscoll, explains to a man who needs a discreet private detective within his own household that Violet Strange is the person for the job. The two men are at the opera and Driscoll indicates a box across the way. The potential client peers through his opera glasses.

  “She? Why those are the Misses Pratt and—”

  “Miss Violet Strange; no other.”

  “And do you mean to say—”

  “I do—”

  “That yon silly little chit, whose father I know, whose fortune I know, who is seen everywhere, and who is called one of the season’s belles is an agent of yours; a—a—”

  “No names here, please. You want a mystery solved. It is not a matter for the police—that is, as yet,—and so you come to me, and when I ask for the facts, I find that women and only women are involved, and that these women are not only young but one and all of the highest society. Is it a man’s work to go to the bottom of a combination like this? No. Sex against sex, and, if possible, youth against youth. Happily, I know such a person—a girl of gifts and extraordinarily well placed for the purpose. Why she uses her talents in this direction—why, with means enough to play the part natural to her as a successful debutante, she consents to occupy herself with social and other mysteries, you must ask her, not me. Enough that I promise you her aid if you want it. That is, if you can interest her. She will not work otherwise.”

  An Intangible Clue

  Have you studied the case?”

  “Not I.”

  “Not studied the case which for the last few days has provided the papers with such conspicuous headlines?”

  “I do not read the papers. I have not looked at one in a whole week.”

  “Miss Strange, your social engagements must be of a very pressing nature just now?”

  “They are.”

  “And your business sense in abeyance?”

  “How so?”

  “You would not ask if you had read the papers.”

  To this she made no reply save by a slight toss of her pretty head. If her employer felt nettled by this show of indifference, he did not betray it save by the rapidity of his tones as, without further preamble and possibly without real excuse, he proceeded to lay before her the case in question. “Last Tuesday night a woman was murdered in this city; an old woman, in a lonely house where she has lived for years. Perhaps you remember this house? It occupies a not inconspicuous site in Seventeenth Street—a house of the olden time?”

  “No, I do not remember.”

  The extreme carelessness of Miss Strange’s tone would have been fatal to her socially; but then, she would never have used it socially. This they both knew, yet he smiled with his customary indulgence.

  “Then I will describe it.”

  She looked around for a chair and sank into it. He did the same.

  “It has a fanlight over the front door.”

  She remained impassive.

  “And two old-fashioned strips of parti-coloured glass on either side.”

  “And a knocker between its panels which may bring money some day.”

  “Oh, you do remember! I thought you would, Miss Strange.”

  “Yes. Fanlights over doors are becoming very rare in New York.”

  “Very well, then. That house was the scene of Tuesday’s tragedy. The woman who has lived there in solitude for years was foully murdered. I have since heard that the people who knew her best have always anticipated some such violent end for her. She never allowed maid or friend to remain with her after five in the afternoon; yet she had money—some think a great deal—always in the house.”

  “I am interested in the house, not in her.”

  “Yet, she was a character—as full of whims and crotchets as a nut is of meat. Her death was horrible. She fought—her dress was torn from her body in rags. This happened, you see, before her hour for retiring; some think as early as six in the afternoon. And”—here he made a rapid gesture to catch Violet’s wandering attention—“in spite of this struggle; in spite of the fact that she was dragged from room to room—that her person was searched—and everything in the house searched—that drawers were pulled out of bureaus—doors wrenched off of cupboards—china smashed upon the floor—whole shelves denuded and not a spot from cellar to garret left unransacked, no direct clue to the perpetrator has been found—nothing that gives any idea of his personality save his display of strength and great cupidity. The police have even deigned to consult me,—an unusual procedure—but I could find nothing, either. Evidences of fiendish purpose abound—of relentless search—but no clue to the man himself. It’s uncommon, isn’t it, not to have any clue?”

  “I suppose so.” Miss Strange hated murders and it was with difficulty she could be brought to discuss them. But she was not going to be let off; not this time.

  “You see,” he proceeded insistently, “it’s not only mortifying to the police but disappointing to the press, especially as few reporters believe in the No-thoroughfare business. They say, and we cannot but
agree with them, that no such struggle could take place and no such repeated goings to and fro through the house without some vestige being left by which to connect this crime with its daring perpetrator.”

  Still she stared down at her hands—those little hands so white and fluttering, so seemingly helpless under the weight of their many rings, and yet so slyly capable.

  “She must have queer neighbours,” came at last, from Miss Strange’s reluctant lips. “Didn’t they hear or see anything of all this?”

  “She has no neighbours—that is, after half-past five o’clock. There’s a printing establishment on one side of her, a deserted mansion on the other side, and nothing but ware houses back and front. There was no one to notice what took place in her small dwelling after the printing house was closed. She was the most courageous or the most foolish of women to remain there as she did. But nothing except death could budge her. She was born in the room where she died; was married in the one where she worked; saw husband, father, mother, and five sisters carried out in turn to their graves through the door with the fanlight over the top—and these memories held her.”

  “You are trying to interest me in the woman. Don’t.”

  “No, I’m not trying to interest you in her, only trying to explain her. There was another reason for her remaining where she did so long after all residents had left the block. She had a business.”

  “Oh!”

  “She embroidered monograms for fine ladies.”

  “She did? But you needn’t look at me like that. She never embroidered any for me.”

  “No? She did first-class work. I saw some of it. Miss Strange, if I could get you into that house for ten minutes—not to see her but to pick up the loose intangible thread which I am sure is floating around in it somewhere—wouldn’t you go?”

  Violet slowly rose—a movement which he followed to the letter.

  “Must I express in words the limit I have set for myself in our affair?” she asked. “When, for reasons I have never thought myself called upon to explain, I consented to help you a little now and then with some matter where a woman’s tact and knowledge of the social world might tell without offence to herself or others, I never thought it would be necessary for me to state that temptation must stop with such cases, or that I should not be asked to touch the sordid or the bloody. But it seems I was mistaken, and that I must stoop to be explicit. The woman who was killed on Tuesday might have interested me greatly as an embroiderer, but as a victim, not at all. What do you see in me, or miss in me, that you should drag me into an atmosphere of low-down crime?”

  “Nothing, Miss Strange. You are by nature, as well as by breeding, very far removed from everything of the kind. But you will allow me to suggest that no crime is low-down which makes imperative demand upon the intellect and intuitive sense of its investigator. Only the most delicate touch can feel and hold the thread I’ve just spoken of, and you have the most delicate touch I know.”

  “Do not attempt to flatter me. I have no fancy for handling befouled spider webs. Besides, if I had—if such elusive filaments fascinated me—how could I, well-known in person and name, enter upon such a scene without prejudice to our mutual compact?”

  “Miss Strange”—she had reseated herself, but so far he had failed to follow her example (an ignoring of the subtle hint that her interest might yet be caught, which seemed to annoy her a trifle), “I should not even have suggested such a possibility had I not seen a way of introducing you there without risk to your position or mine. Among the boxes piled upon Mrs. Doolittle’s table—boxes of finished work, most of them addressed and ready for delivery—was one on which could be seen the name of—shall I mention it?”

  “Not mine? You don’t mean mine? That would be too odd—too ridiculously odd. I should not understand a coincidence of that kind; no, I should not, notwithstanding the fact that I have lately sent out such work to be done.”

  “Yet it was your name, very clearly and precisely written—your whole name, Miss Strange. I saw and read it myself.”

  “But I gave the order to Madame Pirot on Fifth Avenue. How came my things to be found in the house of this woman of whose horrible death we have been talking?”

  “Did you suppose that Madame Pirot did such work with her own hands?—or even had it done in her own establishment? Mrs. Doolittle was universally employed. She worked for a dozen firms. You will find the biggest names on most of her packages. But on this one—I allude to the one addressed to you—there was more to be seen than the name. These words were written on it in another hand. Send without opening. This struck the police as suspicious; sufficiently so, at least, for them to desire your presence at the house as soon as you can make it convenient.”

  “To open the box?”

  “Exactly.”

  The curl of Miss Strange’s disdainful lip was a sight to see.

  “You wrote those words yourself,” she coolly observed. “While someone’s back was turned, you whipped out your pencil and—”

  “Resorted to a very pardonable subterfuge highly conducive to the public’s good. But never mind that. Will you go?”

  Miss Strange became suddenly demure.

  “I suppose I must,” she grudgingly conceded. “However obtained, a summons from the police cannot be ignored even by Peter Strange’s daughter.”

  Another man might have displayed his triumph by smile or gesture; but this one had learned his role too well. He simply said:

  “Very good. Shall it be at once? I have a taxi at the door.”

  But she failed to see the necessity of any such hurry. With sudden dignity she replied:

  “That won’t do. If I go to this house it must be under suitable conditions. I shall have to ask my brother to accompany me.”

  “Your brother!”

  “Oh, he’s safe. He—he knows.”

  “Your brother knows?” Her visitor, with less control than usual, betrayed very openly his uneasiness.

  “He does and—approves. But that’s not what interests us now, only so far as it makes it possible for me to go with propriety to that dreadful house.”

  A formal bow from the other and the words:

  “They may expect you, then. Can you say when?”

  “Within the next hour. But it will be a useless concession on my part,” she pettishly complained. “A place that has been gone over by a dozen detectives is apt to be brushed clean of its cobwebs, even if such ever existed.”

  “That’s the difficulty,” he acknowledged; and did not dare to add another word; she was at that particular moment so very much the great lady, and so little his confidential agent. He might have been less impressed, however, by this sudden assumption of manner, had he been so fortunate as to have seen how she employed the three quarters of an hour’s delay for which she had asked.

  She read those neglected newspapers, especially the one containing the following highly coloured narration of this ghastly crime:

  “A door ajar—an empty hall—a line of sinister looking blotches marking a guilty step diagonally across the flagging—silence—and an unmistakable odour repugnant to all humanity,—such were the indications which met the eyes of Officer O’Leary on his first round last night, and led to the discovery of a murder which will long thrill the city by its mystery and horror.

  “Both the house and the victim are well known.” Here followed a description of the same and of Mrs. Doolittle’s manner of life in her ancient home, which Violet hurriedly passed over to come to the following:

  “As far as one can judge from appearances, the crime happened in this wise: Mrs. Doolittle had been in her kitchen, as the tea-kettle found singing on the stove goes to prove, and was coming back through her bedroom, when the wretch, who had stolen in by the front door which, to save steps, she was unfortunately in the habit of leaving on the latch till all possibility of customers for the day was over, sprang upon her from behind and dealt her a swinging blow with the poker he had caught up from the hearthstone.


  “Whether the struggle which ensued followed immediately upon this first attack or came later, it will take medical experts to determine. But, whenever it did occur, the fierceness of its character is shown by the grip taken upon her throat and the traces of blood which are to be seen all over the house. If the wretch had lugged her into her workroom and thence to the kitchen, and thence back to the spot of first assault, the evidences could not have been more ghastly. Bits of her clothing torn off by a ruthless hand, lay scattered over all these floors. In her bedroom, where she finally breathed her last, there could be seen mingled with these a number of large but worthless glass beads; and close against one of the base-boards, the string which had held them, as shown by the few remaining beads still clinging to it. If in pulling the string from her neck he had hoped to light upon some valuable booty, his fury at his disappointment is evident. You can almost see the frenzy with which he flung the would-be necklace at the wall, and kicked about and stamped upon its rapidly rolling beads.

  “Booty! That was what he was after; to find and carry away the poor needlewoman’s supposed hoardings. If the scene baffles description—if, as some believe, he dragged her yet living from spot to spot, demanding information as to her places of concealment under threat of repeated blows, and, finally baffled, dealt the finishing stroke and proceeded on the search alone, no greater devastation could have taken place in this poor woman’s house or effects. Yet such was his precaution and care for himself that he left no finger-print behind him nor any other token which could lead to personal identification. Even though his footsteps could be traced in much the order I have mentioned, they were of so indeterminate and shapeless a character as to convey little to the intelligence of the investigator.