The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries

by The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries (retail) (epub)

  The day so eagerly longed for by Merton and the confederates—by the spoilers and their prey—arrived; and I awaited with feverish anxiety the coming on of night. Only the chief conspirators—eight in number—were to be present; and no stranger except myself—a privilege I owed to the moonshine legacy I had just received—was to be admitted to this crowning triumph of successful fraud. One only hint I had ventured to give Mr. Merton, and that under a promise, “on his honour as a gentleman,” of inviolable secrecy. It was this: “Be sure, before commencing play to-morrow night, that the bonds and obligations you have signed, the jewels you have lost, with a sum in notes or gold to make up an equal amount to that which you mean to risk, is actually deposited on the table.” He promised to insist on this condition. It involved much more than he dreamt of.

  My arrangements were at length thoroughly complete; and a few minutes past twelve o’clock the whispered password admitted me into the house. An angry altercation was going on. Mr. Merton was insisting, as I had advised, upon the exhibition of a sum equal to that which he had brought with him—for, confident of winning, he was determined to recover his losses to the last farthing; and although his bonds, bills, obligations, his sister’s jewels, and a large amount in gold and genuine notes, were produced, there was still a heavy sum deficient. “Ah, by-the-by,” exclaimed Sandford as I entered, “Waters can lend you the sum for an hour or two—for a consideration,” he added in a whisper. “It will soon be returned.”

  “No, thank you,” I answered coldly. “I never part with my money till I have lost it.”

  A malignant scowl passed over the scoundrel’s features; but he made no reply. Ultimately it was decided that one of the fraternity should be despatched in search of the required amount. He was gone about half an hour, and returned with a bundle of notes. They were, as I hoped and expected, forgeries on foreign banks. Mr. Merton looked at and counted them; and play commenced. As it went on, so vividly did the scene recall, the evening that had sealed my own ruin, that I grew dizzy with excitement, and drained tumbler after tumbler of water to allay the fevered throbbing of my veins. The gamblers were fortunately too much absorbed to heed my agitation. Merton lost continuously—without pause or intermission. The stakes were doubled—trebled—quadrupled! His brain was on fire; and he played, or rather lost, with the recklessness of a madman.

  “Hark! what’s that?” suddenly exclaimed Sandford, from whose Satanic features the mask he had so long worn before Merton had been gradually slipping. “Did you not hear a noise below?” My ear had caught the sound; and I could better interpret it than he. It ceased.

  “Touch the signal-bell, Adolphe,” added Sandford.

  Not only the play, but the very breathing of the villains, was suspended as they listened for the reply.

  It came. The answering tinkle sounded once—twice—thrice. “All right!” shouted Sandford. “Proceed! The farce is nearly played out.”

  I had instructed the officers that two of them in plain clothes should present themselves at the front door, obtain admission by means of the password I had given them, and immediately seize and gag the doorkeeper. I had also acquainted them with the proper answer to the signal-ring—three distinct pulls at the bell-handle communicating with the first floor. Their comrades were then to be admitted, and they were all to silently ascend the stairs, and wait on the landing till summoned by me to enter and seize the gamesters. The back entrance to the house was also securely but unobtrusively watched.

  One only fear disturbed me: it was lest the scoundrels should take alarm in sufficient time to extinguish the lights, destroy the forged papers, and possibly escape by some private passage which might, unknown to me, exist.

  Rousing myself, as soon as the play was resumed, from the trance of memory by which I had been in some sort absorbed, and first ascertaining that the handles of my pistols were within easy reach—for I knew I was playing a desperate game with desperate men—I rose, stepped carelessly to the door, partially opened it, and bent forward, as if listening for a repetition of the sound which had so alarmed the company. To my great delight the landing and stairs were filled with police-officers—silent and stern as death. I drew back, and walked towards the table at which Mr. Merton was seated. The last stake—an enormous one—was being played for. Merton lost. He sprang upon his feet, death-pale, despairing, overwhelmed, and a hoarse execration surged through his clenched teeth. Sandford and his associates coolly raked the plunder together, their features lighted up with fiendish glee.

  “Villian!—traitor!—miscreant!” shrieked Mr. Merton, as if smitten with sudden frenzy, and darting at Sandford’s throat: “You, devil that you are, have undone, destroyed me!”

  “No doubt of it,” calmly replied Sandford, shaking off his victim’s grasp; “and I think it has been very artistically and effectually done, too. Snivelling, my fine fellow, will scarcely help you much.”

  Mr. Merton glared upon the taunting villain in speechless agony and rage.

  “Not quite so fast, Cardon, if you please,” I exclaimed, at the same time taking up a bundle of forged notes. “It does not appear to me that Mr. Merton has played against equal stakes, for unquestionably this paper is not genuine.”

  “Dog!” roared Sandford, “do you hold your life so cheap?” and he rushed towards me, as if to seize the forged notes.

  I was as quick as he, and the levelled tube of a pistol sharply arrested his eager onslaught. The entire gang gathered near us, flaming with excitement. Mr. Merton looked bewilderedly from one to another, apparently scarcely conscious of what was passing around him.

  “Wrench the papers from him!” screamed Sandford, recovering his energy. “Seize him—stab, strangle him!”

  “Look to yourself, scoundrel!” I shouted with equal vehemence. “Your hour is come! Officers, enter and do your duty!” In an instant the room was filled with police; and surprised, panic-stricken, paralysed by the suddenness of the catastrophe, the gang were all secured without the slightest resistance, though most of them were armed, and marched off in custody.

  Three—Sandford, or Cardon (but he had half a dozen aliases), one of them—were transported for life; the rest were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. My task was effectually accomplished. My superiors were pleased to express very warm commendation of the manner in which I had acquitted myself; and the first step in the promotion which ultimately led to my present position in another branch of the public service was soon afterwards conferred upon me. Mr. Merton had his bonds, obligations, jewels, and money restored to him; and, taught wisdom by terrible experience, never again entered a gaming-house. Neither he nor his lady-mother was ungrateful for the service I had been fortunate enough to render them.

  The Biter Bit

  WILKIE COLLINS

  It would be difficult to find many authors who have played a greater role in making mystery fiction a popular literary genre than William Wilkie Collins (1824–1889), a friend and frequent collaborator of Charles Dickens and author of two of the greatest novels in the history of detective fiction, The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868).

  The inventor of what became known as the “sensation” novel and one of the most-loved and highest-paid of all Victorian novelists, he was born in London, the son of the very successful landscape painter William Collins. Wilkie Collins received a law degree but never practiced, deciding to become a full-time writer instead. Over the course of his life, he published twenty-five novels, fifteen plays, more than fifty short stories, and over a hundred nonfiction articles. He met Dickens in 1851 and soon cowrote a play with him, The Frozen Deep (1857), then collaborated with him on short stories, articles, etc.

  When Dickens founded a magazine, All the Year Round, in 1859, Collins assured its success by serializing The Woman in White in its pages. He later wrote Christmas stories for the periodical, serialized the long novel No Name (1862) and, in 1868, the classic T
he Moonstone, which T. S. Eliot described as “the first, the longest, and the best” detective novel of all time.

  Collins adapted The Woman in White for the stage in 1871; it has been filmed frequently, most memorably in 1948 with Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Gig Young, and Sydney Greenstreet as the evil Count Fosco. The Moonstone was also dramatized by Collins, opening in 1877; it has been filmed at least five times.

  An unusually humorous story for Collins, “The Biter Bit” tells the tale of an arrogant young policeman engaging in a snarky correspondence with his superior, convinced that he will have little difficulty solving a case. Dorothy L. Sayers selected it as one of the masterpieces in her rightly famous omnibuses of crime.

  “The Biter Bit” was first published in the April 1858 issue of The Atlantic Monthly as “Who Is the Thief?” and was uncredited; its first British periodical appearance has not been traced. It was first collected in The Queen of Hearts under the title “Brother Griffith’s Story of the Biter Bit” (London, Hurst and Blackett, 1859).

  THE BITER BIT

  Wilkie Collins

  Extracted from the Correspondence of the London Police.

  FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE, OF THE DETECTIVE POLICE, TO SERGEANT BULMER, OF THE SAME FORCE.

  London, 4th July, 18——.

  SERGEANT BULMER—This is to inform you that you are wanted to assist in looking up a case of importance, which will require all the attention of an experienced member of the force. The matter of the robbery on which you are now engaged you will please to shift over to the young man who brings you this letter. You will tell him all the circumstances of the case, just as they stand; you will put him up to the progress you have made (if any) toward detecting the person or persons by whom the money has been stolen; and you will leave him to make the best he can of the matter now in your hands. He is to have the whole responsibility of the case, and the whole credit of his success if he brings it to a proper issue.

  So much for the orders that I am desired to communicate to you.

  A word in your ear, next, about this new man who is to take your place. His name is Matthew Sharpin, and he is to have the chance given him of dashing into our office at one jump—supposing he turns out strong enough to take it. You will naturally ask me how he comes by this privilege. I can only tell you that he has some uncommonly strong interest to back him in certain high quarters, which you and I had better not mention except under our breaths. He has been a lawyer’s clerk, and he is wonderfully conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand, to look at. According to his own account, he leaves his old trade and joins ours of his own free will and preference. You will no more believe that than I do. My notion is that he has managed to ferret out some private information in connection with the affairs of one of his master’s clients, which makes him rather an awkward customer to keep in the office for the future, and which, at the same time, gives him hold enough over his employer to make it dangerous to drive him into a corner by turning him away. I think the giving him this unheard-of chance among us is, in plain words, pretty much like giving him hush money to keep him quiet. However that may be, Mr. Matthew Sharpin is to have the case now in your hands, and if he succeeds with it he pokes his ugly nose into our office as sure as fate. I put you up to this, sergeant, so that you may not stand in your own light by giving the new man any cause to complain of you at headquarters, and remain yours,

  FRANCIS THEAKSTONE.

  FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.

  London, 5th July, 18——.

  DEAR SIR—Having now been favored with the necessary instructions from Sergeant Bulmer, I beg to remind you of certain directions which I have received relating to the report of my future proceedings which I am to prepare for examination at headquarters.

  The object of my writing, and of your examining what I have written before you send it to the higher authorities, is, I am informed, to give me, as an untried hand, the benefit of your advice in case I want it (which I venture to think I shall not) at any stage of my proceedings. As the extraordinary circumstances of the case on which I am now engaged make it impossible for me to absent myself from the place where the robbery was committed until I have made some progress toward discovering the thief, I am necessarily precluded from consulting you personally. Hence the necessity of my writing down the various details, which might perhaps be better communicated by word of mouth. This, if I am not mistaken, is the position in which we are now placed. I state my own impressions on the subject in writing, in order that we may clearly understand each other at the outset; and have the honor to remain your obedient servant,

  MATTHEW SHARPIN.

  FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE TO MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN.

  London, 5th July, 18——.

  SIR—You have begun by wasting time, ink, and paper. We both of us perfectly well knew the position we stood in toward each other when I sent you with my letter to Sergeant Bulmer. There was not the least need to repeat it in writing. Be so good as to employ your pen in future on the business actually in hand.

  You have now three separate matters on which to write me. First, you have to draw up a statement of your instructions received from Sergeant Bulmer, in order to show us that nothing has escaped your memory, and that you are thoroughly acquainted with all the circumstances of the case which has been intrusted to you. Secondly, you are to inform me what it is you propose to do. Thirdly, you are to report every inch of your progress (if you make any) from day to day, and, if need be, from hour to hour as well. This is your duty. As to what my duty may be, when I want you to remind me of it, I will write and tell you so. In the meantime, I remain yours,

  FRANCIS THEAKSTONE.

  FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.

  London, 6th July, 18——.

  SIR—You are rather an elderly person, and as such, naturally inclined to be a little jealous of men like me, who are in the prime of their lives and their faculties. Under these circumstances, it is my duty to be considerate toward you, and not to bear too hardly on your small failings. I decline, therefore, altogether to take offense at the tone of your letter; I give you the full benefit of the natural generosity of my nature; I sponge the very existence of your surly communication out of my memory—in short, Chief Inspector Theakstone, I forgive you, and proceed to business.

  My first duty is to draw up a full statement of the instructions I have received from Sergeant Bulmer. Here they are at your service, according to my version of them.

  At Number Thirteen Rutherford Street, Soho, there is a stationer’s shop. It is kept by one Mr. Yatman. He is a married man, but has no family. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Yatman, the other inmates in the house are a lodger, a young single man named Jay, who occupies the front room on the second floor, a shopman, who sleeps in one of the attics, and a servant-of-all-work, whose bed is in the back kitchen. Once a week a charwoman comes to help this servant. These are all the persons who, on ordinary occasions, have means of access to the interior of the house, placed, as a matter of course, at their disposal. Mr. Yatman has been in business for many years, carrying on his affairs prosperously enough to realize a handsome independence for a person in his position. Unfortunately for himself, he endeavored to increase the amount of his property by speculating. He ventured boldly in his investments; luck went against him; and rather less than two years ago he found himself a poor man again. All that was saved out of the wreck of his property was the sum of two hundred pounds.

  Although Mr. Yatman did his best to meet his altered circumstances, by giving up many of the luxuries and comforts to which he and his wife had been accustomed, he found it impossible to retrench so far as to allow of putting by any money from the income produced by his shop. The business has been declining of late years, the cheap advertising stationers having done it injury with the public. Consequently, up to the last week, the
only surplus property possessed by Mr. Yatman consisted of the two hundred pounds which had been recovered from the wreck of his fortune. This sum was placed as a deposit in a joint-stock bank of the highest possible character.

  Eight days ago Mr. Yatman and his lodger, Mr. Jay, held a conversation on the subject of the commercial difficulties which are hampering trade in all directions at the present time. Mr. Jay (who lives by supplying the newspapers with short paragraphs relating to accidents, offenses, and brief records of remarkable occurrences in general—who is, in short, what they call a penny-a-liner) told his landlord that he had been in the city that day and heard unfavorable rumors on the subject of the joint-stock banks. The rumors to which he alluded had already reached the ears of Mr. Yatman from other quarters, and the confirmation of them by his lodger had such an effect on his mind—predisposed as it was to alarm by the experience of his former losses—that he resolved to go at once to the bank and withdraw his deposit. It was then getting on toward the end of the afternoon, and he arrived just in time to receive his money before the bank closed.

  He received the deposit in bank-notes of the following amounts: one fifty-pound note, three twenty-pound notes, six ten-pound notes, and six five-pound notes. His object in drawing the money in this form was to have it ready to lay out immediately in trifling loans, on good security, among the small tradespeople of his district, some of whom are sorely pressed for the very means of existence at the present time. Investments of this kind seemed to Mr. Yatman to be the most safe and the most profitable on which he could now venture.