Yours,
FRANCIS THEAKSTONE.
FROM SERGEANT BULMER TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.
London, July 10th.
INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE—Your letter and inclosure came safe to hand. Wise men, they say, may always learn something even from a fool. By the time I had got through Sharpin’s maundering report of his own folly, I saw my way clear enough to the end of the Rutherford Street case, just as you thought I should. In half an hour’s time I was at the house. The first person I saw there was Mr. Sharpin himself.
“Have you come to help me?” says he.
“Not exactly,” says I. “I’ve come to tell you that you are suspended till further notice.”
“Very good,” says he, not taken down by so much as a single peg in his own estimation. “I thought you would be jealous of me. It’s very natural and I don’t blame you. Walk in, pray, and make yourself at home. I’m off to do a little detective business on my own account, in the neighborhood of the Regent’s Park. Ta-ta, sergeant, ta-ta!”
With those words he took himself out of the way, which was exactly what I wanted him to do.
As soon as the maid-servant had shut the door, I told her to inform her master that I wanted to say a word to him in private. She showed me into the parlor behind the shop, and there was Mr. Yatman all alone, reading the newspaper.
“About this matter of the robbery, sir,” says I.
He cut me short, peevishly enough, being naturally a poor, weak, womanish sort of man.
“Yes, yes, I know,” says he. “You have come to tell me that your wonderfully clever man, who has bored holes in my second floor partition, has made a mistake, and is off the scent of the scoundrel who has stolen my money.”
“Yes, sir,” says I. “That is one of the things I came to tell you. But I have got something else to say besides that.”
“Can you tell me who the thief is?” says he, more pettish than ever.
“Yes, sir,” says I, “I think I can.”
He put down the newspaper, and began to look rather anxious and frightened.
“Not my shopman?” says he. “I hope, for the man’s own sake, it’s not my shopman.”
“Guess again, sir,” says I.
“That idle slut, the maid?” says he.
“She is idle, sir,” says I, “and she is also a slut; my first inquiries about her proved as much as that. But she’s not the thief.”
“Then, in the name of Heaven, who is?” says he.
“Will you please to prepare yourself for a very disagreeable surprise, sir?” says I. “And, in case you lose your temper, will you excuse my remarking that I am the stronger man of the two, and that if you allow yourself to lay hands on me, I may unintentionally hurt you, in pure self-defense.”
He turned as pale as ashes, and pushed his chair two or three feet away from me.
“You have asked me to tell you, sir, who has taken your money,” I went on. “If you insist on my giving you an answer—”
“I do insist,” he said, faintly. “Who has taken it?”
“Your wife has taken it,” I said, very quietly, and very positively at the same time.
He jumped out of the chair as if I had put a knife into him, and struck his fist on the table so heavily that the wood cracked again.
“Steady, sir,” says I. “Flying into a passion won’t help you to the truth.”
“It’s a lie!” says he, with another smack of his fist on the table—“a base, vile, infamous lie! How dare you—”
He stopped, and fell back into the chair again, looked about him in a bewildered way, and ended by bursting out crying.
“When your better sense comes back to you, sir,” says I, “I am sure you will be gentleman enough to make an apology for the language you have just used. In the meantime, please to listen, if you can, to a word of explanation. Mr. Sharpin has sent in a report to our inspector of the most irregular and ridiculous kind, setting down not only all his own foolish doings and sayings, but the doings and sayings of Mrs. Yatman as well. In most cases, such a document would have been fit only for the waste paper basket; but in this particular case it so happens that Mr. Sharpin’s budget of nonsense leads to a certain conclusion, which the simpleton of a writer has been quite innocent of suspecting from the beginning to the end. Of that conclusion I am so sure that I will forfeit my place if it does not turn out that Mrs. Yatman has been practicing upon the folly and conceit of this young man, and that she has tried to shield herself from discovery by purposely encouraging him to suspect the wrong persons. I tell you that confidently; and I will even go further. I will undertake to give a decided opinion as to why Mrs. Yatman took the money, and what she has done with it, or with a part of it. Nobody can look at that lady, sir, without being struck by the great taste and beauty of her dress—”
As I said those last words, the poor man seemed to find his powers of speech again. He cut me short directly as haughtily as if he had been a duke instead of a stationer.
“Try some other means of justifying your vile calumny against my wife,” says he. “Her milliner’s bill for the past year is on my file of receipted accounts at this moment.”
“Excuse me, sir,” says I, “but that proves nothing. Milliners, I must tell you, have a certain rascally custom which comes within the daily experience of our office. A married lady who wishes it can keep two accounts at her dressmaker’s; one is the account which her husband sees and pays; the other is the private account, which contains all the extravagant items, and which the wife pays secretly, by installments, whenever she can. According to our usual experience, these installments are mostly squeezed out of the housekeeping money. In your case, I suspect, no installments have been paid; proceedings have been threatened; Mrs. Yatman, knowing your altered circumstances, has felt herself driven into a corner, and she has paid her private account out of your cash-box.”
“I won’t believe it,” says he. “Every word you speak is an abominable insult to me and to my wife.”
“Are you man enough, sir,” says I, taking him up short, in order to save time and words, “to get that receipted bill you spoke of just now off the file, and come with me at once to the milliner’s shop where Mrs. Yatman deals?”
He turned red in the face at that, got the bill directly, and put on his hat. I took out of my pocket-book the list containing the numbers of the lost notes, and we left the house together immediately.
Arrived at the milliner’s (one of the expensive West-End houses, as I expected), I asked for a private interview, on important business, with the mistress of the concern. It was not the first time that she and I had met over the same delicate investigation. The moment she set eyes on me she sent for her husband. I mentioned who Mr. Yatman was, and what we wanted.
“This is strictly private?” inquires the husband. I nodded my head.
“And confidential?” says the wife. I nodded again.
“Do you see any objection, dear, to obliging the sergeant with a sight of the books?” says the husband.
“None in the world, love, if you approve of it,” says the wife.
All this while poor Mr. Yatman sat looking the picture of astonishment and distress, quite out of place at our polite conference. The books were brought, and one minute’s look at the pages in which Mrs. Yatman’s name figured was enough, and more than enough, to prove the truth of every word that I had spoken.
There, in one book, was the husband’s account which Mr. Yatman had settled; and there, in the other, was the private account, crossed off also, the date of settlement being the very day after the loss of the cash-box. This said private account amounted to the sum of a hundred and seventy-five pounds, odd shillings, and it extended over a period of three years. Not a single installment had been paid on it. Under the last line was an entry to this e
ffect: “Written to for the third time, June 23d.” I pointed to it, and asked the milliner if that meant “last June.” Yes, it did mean last June; and she now deeply regretted to say that it had been accompanied by a threat of legal proceedings.
“I thought you gave good customers more than three years’ credit?” says I.
The milliner looks at Mr. Yatman, and whispers to me, “Not when a lady’s husband gets into difficulties.”
She pointed to the account as she spoke. The entries after the time when Mr. Yatman’s circumstances became involved were just as extravagant, for a person in his wife’s situation, as the entries for the year before that period. If the lady had economized in other things, she had certainly not economized in the matter of dress.
There was nothing left now but to examine the cash-book, for form’s sake. The money had been paid in notes, the amounts and numbers of which exactly tallied with the figures set down in my list.
After that, I thought it best to get Mr. Yatman out of the house immediately. He was in such a pitiable condition that I called a cab and accompanied him home in it. At first he cried and raved like a child; but I soon quieted him; and I must add, to his credit, that he made me a most handsome apology for his language as the cab drew up at his house door. In return, I tried to give him some advice about how to set matters right for the future with his wife. He paid very little attention to me, and went upstairs muttering to himself about a separation. Whether Mrs. Yatman will come cleverly out of the scrape or not seems doubtful. I should say myself that she would go into screeching hysterics, and so frighten the poor man into forgiving her. But this is no business of ours. So far as we are concerned, the case is now at an end, and the present report may come to a conclusion along with it.
I remain, accordingly, yours to command,
THOMAS BULMER.
P.S.—I have to add that, on leaving Rutherford Street, I met Mr. Matthew Sharpin coming to pack up his things.
“Only think!” says he, rubbing his hands in great spirits, “I’ve been to the genteel villa residence, and the moment I mentioned my business they kicked me out directly. There were two witnesses of the assault, and it’s worth a hundred pounds to me if it’s worth a farthing.”
“I wish you joy of your luck,” says I.
“Thank you,” says he. “When may I pay you the same compliment on finding the thief?”
“Whenever you like,” says I, “for the thief is found.”
“Just what I expected,” says he. “I’ve done all the work, and now you cut in and claim all the credit—Mr. Jay, of course.”
“No,” says I.
“Who is it then?” says he.
“Ask Mrs. Yatman,” says I. “She’s waiting to tell you.”
“All right! I’d much rather hear it from that charming woman than from you,” says he, and goes into the house in a mighty hurry.
What do you think of that, Inspector Theakstone? Would you like to stand in Mr. Sharpin’s shoes? I shouldn’t, I can promise you.
FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE TO MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN.
July 12th.
SIR—Sergeant Bulmer has already told you to consider yourself suspended until further notice. I have now authority to add that your services as a member of the Detective police are positively declined. You will please to take this letter as notifying officially your dismissal from the force.
I may inform you, privately, that your rejection is not intended to cast any reflections on your character. It merely implies that you are not quite sharp enough for our purposes. If we are to have a new recruit among us, we should infinitely prefer Mrs. Yatman.
Your obedient servant,
FRANCIS THEAKSTONE.
* * *
—
NOTE ON THE PRECEDING CORRESPONDENCE, ADDED BY MR. THEAKSTONE.
* * *
—
The inspector is not in a position to append any explanations of importance to the last of the letters. It has been discovered that Mr. Matthew Sharpin left the house in Rutherford Street five minutes after his interview outside of it with Sergeant Bulmer, his manner expressing the liveliest emotions of terror and astonishment, and his left cheek displaying a bright patch of red, which looked as if it might have been the result of what is popularly termed a smart box on the ear. He was also heard by the shopman at Rutherford Street to use a very shocking expression in reference to Mrs. Yatman, and was seen to clinch his fist vindictively as he ran round the corner of the street. Nothing more has been heard of him; and it is conjectured that he has left London with the intention of offering his valuable services to the provincial police.
On the interesting domestic subject of Mr. and Mrs. Yatman still less is known. It has, however, been positively ascertained that the medical attendant of the family was sent for in a great hurry on the day when Mr. Yatman returned from the milliner’s shop. The neighboring chemist received, soon afterward, a prescription of a soothing nature to make up for Mrs. Yatman. The day after, Mr. Yatman purchased some smelling-salts at the shop, and afterward appeared at the circulating library to ask for a novel descriptive of high life that would amuse an invalid lady. It has been inferred from these circumstances that he has not thought it desirable to carry out his threat of separating from his wife, at least in the present (presumed) condition of that lady’s sensitive nervous system.
Hunted Down
CHARLES DICKENS
A compelling argument could be made that Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812–1870) was the greatest novelist who ever lived and that he was of major significance in the history of detective fiction.
Forced to work at the age of twelve because his father had been sent to debtor’s prison, his job in a factory was later described in his novel David Copperfield (1849–1850). With the publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836–1837), Dickens’s fortune had been secured but he continued to write tirelessly for the rest of his life, producing some of the most beloved and famous novels in the English language, peopling them with aptly named characters who have given their names to the language, including Fagin, Sydney Carton, Pickwick, and Scrooge.
Among his many contributions to the literature of crime are Bleak House (1852–1853), which introduced Inspector Bucket, the first significant detective in English literature, and Barnaby Rudge (1840–1841), whose plot revolves around two murders. In an extraordinary sidelight, Edgar Allan Poe read the first installment of this long, complex novel and accurately predicted virtually every path the plot would follow, including several subplots and difficulties facing the author. After seeing Poe’s essay, Dickens is reported to have expressed his incredulity, saying “the man must be the devil himself.”
Dickens died while writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), the first six chapters of which indicate it might have been one of the greatest of all mystery novels. It inspired a film version in 1935 that starred Claude Rains and Heather Angel and posits a killer. It also inspired the memorable 1985 Broadway musical by Rupert Holmes, in which the audience decides the culprit; Holmes wrote a solution for every character’s method, opportunity, and motive.
“Hunted Down” (1859) is a fictionalized account of the case of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, who murdered his sister-in-law for her life insurance fortune and was subsequently discovered to have also poisoned others.
“Hunted Down” was originally published in the August 20 and 27 and September 3, 1859, issues of The New York Ledger; it was first published in England in All the Year Round in 1860. Its first appearance in book form was Hunted Down (Leipzig, Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1860).
HUNTED DOWN
Charles Dickens
I
Most of us see some romances in life. In my capacity of Chief Manager of a Life Assurance Office, I think I have within the last thirty years seen more romances than the generality of men,
however unpromising the opportunity may, at first sight, seem.
As I have retired, and live at my ease, I possess the means that I used to want, of considering what I have seen, at leisure. My experiences have a more remarkable aspect, so reviewed, than they had when they were in progress. I have come home from the Play now, and can recall the scenes of the Drama upon which the curtain has fallen, free from the glare, bewilderment, and bustle of the Theatre.
Let me recall one of these Romances of the real world.
There is nothing truer than physiognomy, taken in connection with manner. The art of reading that book of which Eternal Wisdom obliges every human creature to present his or her own page with the individual character written on it, is a difficult one, perhaps, and is little studied. It may require some natural aptitude, and it must require (for everything does) some patience and some pains. That these are not usually given to it—that numbers of people accept a few stock commonplace expressions of the face as the whole list of characteristics, and neither seek nor know the refinements that are truest—that You, for instance, give a great deal of time and attention to the reading of music, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew, if you please, and do not qualify yourself to read the face of the master or mistress looking over your shoulder teaching it to you—I assume to be five hundred times more probable than improbable. Perhaps a little self-sufficiency may be at the bottom of this; facial expression requires no study from you, you think; it comes by nature to you to know enough about it, and you are not to be taken in.
The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries Page 6