The Adventures of Ethel King, the Female Nick Carter

by Jean Petithuguenin

  Still, a halo of thought floats around that wide forehead; the nostrils of that aquiline nose vibrate, controlled by the thousand sentiments which agitate a noble soul; all kinds of smiles move across those lips, turn by turn ironic, menacing, tender, seductive, or simply pleasant, but never indifferent. And what about the eyes! Ethel King’s eyes! The entire universe seems to be reflected in her deep pupils. You couldn’t tell if they were blue or brown, their shade varies so much according to the mood and the impressions of their owner. Her expression is bright, open and loyal, and, even so, enigmatic. Even when she’s looking at you kindly, you have the feeling that you’re undergoing a serious test, as if none of your most secret thoughts must escape her; but if you have some misdeed on your conscience, then you tremble and have the fearful conviction that Ethel King can guess your ignominy under all the masks that you’ve decked yourself with to hide it from her. All that makes up something more than beauty; it’s the imprint of genius that gives those traits, not recognized by photography, a sublime grace that you cannot tire of contemplating.

  Seated across from Ethel King, I looked at her without trying to hide my admiration, which didn’t seem to bother her, but rather amused her.

  “You’ve already met my two bodyguards,” she said to me. “The young man that you saw at the window is Charley Lux, a cousin, made an orphan very young, who was brought up by my father, and later by me, and for who I’m like a big sister. He’s brave, intelligent, and strong. He has taken up the same profession as I have and acts as my assistant. His help, and most of all, his protection, are invaluable to me. The woman who met you at the door, that’s Mrs. Sara Cramp, my housekeeper or my companion—treating her as a maid would annoy her. You’ve seen that she’s solidly built; she has a good fist and a man doesn’t scare her; she’s proved it more than once.”

  I listened to these details with interest. However, since I was in the presence of Ethel King, a question was burning my lips. At the risk of offending the one I was questioning, I couldn’t resist any longer the desire to ask it.

  “Excuse me, Miss,” I began, hesitatingly, “but could you explain to me by what bizarre chain of circumstances a woman like you, attractive, charming—oh! I’m not a man to reel off insipid compliments to you; don’t insult me by believing it—I’m telling the truth: a woman like you, gifted to please, created in fact for love, by what strange destiny has she come to adopt an essentially masculine profession which requires her to renounce the prerogatives of her sex?”

  Ethel King didn’t answer immediately. Her look, fixed on me, wandered however very far from my person. I understood it. For her, the present was effaced and the sad world of memories appeared before her eyes. She was completely woman then in the dreamy and gentle expression on her face. A wrinkle of bitterness formed at the corner of her mouth and she finally answered.

  “It’s a sad story and I don’t like to talk about it, even though I keep the memory of the past like a cult. I can tell you that I am, like Nick Carter, the child of a detective. My father, who perhaps didn’t have the reputation that he deserved in Philadelphia in his lifetime, had as his assistant, a high-minded young man. Herbert, that was the first name of that young man, asked for my hand when I was old enough to be married, and I gladly became engaged to him because I loved him. I had lost my mother at an early age. Brought up by my father, I had taken a taste for the profession he followed. He often let me go along on the operations against criminals that he undertook with my fiancé. That was how I served my apprenticeship in my profession. I expected that, once I was married, the duties of a wife wouldn’t keep me from contributing to Herbert’s success as a detective. The beautiful dream of my youth had in store for me, alas, a terrible awakening.”

  The detective was silent a few moments as if to hold back the emotion overcoming her, then she continued:

  “Don’t expect a story full of exciting ups and downs. The drama was brief…striking like lightning. One day, when my father and fiancé had gone out in a car, a criminal who had sworn a mortal hatred against them threw a bomb. The unfortunate men were literally torn to shreds. I didn’t even have the sad consolation of looking at their dear features and kissing them after having closed their eyes. The murderer, I must say, was himself a victim of his attack. He was killed by a piece of shrapnel.”

  After another silence, which I didn’t dare interrupt, Ethel King added:

  “Do you understand now why I have consecrated my life to fighting crime? In your country, perhaps, a young girl, tested as I have been, would have entered a convent, but it isn’t in my character to abandon myself to passive despair. My disposition is too combative. I’m devoured by too great a need for activity to shut myself away in a cloister, or, as a nurse in a hospital.”

  She made a gesture as if to chase away the sad thoughts and smiled at me with her limpid eyes, where I thought I still saw sadness trembling, ever alive.

  “You may,” she told me, “go through my notes. They’re all open to you. They are most often simple notes, but if I may believe Nick Carter,” she added, motioning to my letter of introduction, “you have enough imagination to supply details for that lack.”

  I bowed at the praise.

  “And, sir, I’m very ready to supply you with information you may ask me for. You perhaps intend to write an article about me for a French newspaper?”

  “Better than that, Miss. With your consent, I would like to publish the story of the ‘sensational cases’ which you have been involved in. My editor, I’m sure, would jump at the proposition.”

  Ethel King nodded.

  “The idea doesn’t displease me,” she said, smiling. “Since, as you say, I’ve renounced the prerogatives of my sex, it’s just that I at least take advantage of that renunciation. I’m not, I admit it to you, insensitive to fame…Let’s admit that’s a weakness, but who doesn’t have one? Publish then my notes, or rather the stories you will compose using them. However, I add one condition: that you respect the anonymity of the persons who, directly, or indirectly, found themselves involved in my police activities.”

  “Nothing is easier, Miss. I’ll change the names and, when necessary, the places. Aside from that conventional alteration of reality, I will set myself, if you don’t see any reason I shouldn’t, to re-creating the facts and their consequences as exactly as possible. That is to say that I won’t always methodically follow the ‘professional’ order of your files. I’m going to present the public with dramas in which you are the main character. In order to give them life, I will re-establish, when necessary, scenes where you were not present, but which it may be logically concluded that they are circumstances you related. I will be scrupulously careful of the truth, nevertheless. Conjecture, but never invention, will be a part of ‘our’ stories. To sum it up, I want to do the work of an historian who doesn’t limit himself to coldly compiling texts.”

  “I applaud your intentions, sir, and I will do everything in my power to help you carry them out.”

  With these words, Ethel King stood up and showed me the numerous file cabinets where her dossiers were arranged in meticulous order. Her supple movements, her stances, revealed the harmonious vigor of a being used to all bodily exercises. That woman, to judge by the ease with which she, while chatting, moved about the heavy volumes placed on her desk, had the strength of an athlete.

  “Here are my files, sir. Go through them at your convenience,” she continued. “My house is open to you. Come back whenever you like, and as often as it pleases you. I must excuse myself and leave you. An urgent matter requires my attention.”

  This is how I have come to present to readers this publication which will, I hope, make them appreciate at her just value, Ethel King, the great detective. I went to the great detective’s house almost every day for five months, going through and copying her notes. Since then, aided by what I learned, I’ve spent almost two years composing the stories of the “sensational cases” of Ethel King and bringing them out. If I have
succeeded in interesting the public, I won’t regret the trouble I went to.

  The Legend of the Green Diamond

  Sara Cramp knocked discreetly at the office door and handed her mistress a calling card.

  Ethel King read:

  John Light

  Private Detective

  “John Light, I know that name. Have him come in, Sara.”

  A few minutes later the visitor bowed before Ethel King.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Light,” she said, motioning the detective to a chair. “Your name is not unknown to me. What brings you here?”

  “A serious motive, Miss King. I’ve come to propose a business affair to you, a very interesting case.”

  The young woman considered, not without surprise, the man speaking; a man about 30 years of age with an open and attractive face.

  “You will allow me to express my astonishment, Mr. Light,” she observed. “We are in some ways competitors.”

  “That doesn’t keep me from having esteem and respect for you, Miss King. Besides, your fame places you too far above me for my modest person to overshadow you.”

  “Celebrity aside, Mr. Light, it would be doing me an injury to attribute to me a feeling of mean jealousy…But let’s get to the point. My time is valuable…and yours also, undoubtedly.”

  “Here it is, Miss King. I’m charged by a third party to watch over the security of a young girl. This girl must not be aware of my intervention, which makes my mission very delicate, you understand. A man cannot, without inconvenience, get himself easily admitted into the personal life of a young girl, nor as a consequence ward off the dangers she’s threatened with.”

  “In general, no, I agree…But if the girl you’re protecting is ignorant of your mission and perhaps of your existence? By whom were you hired, Mr. Light?”

  “By Mr. Isaac Loewenmaul, a jeweler. I’m going to explain the situation to you as succinctly as possible; however, afterwards, if you consent to lend me your valuable collaboration, I would ask you to go with me to visit Mr. Loewenmaul.”

  “Six months ago my client acquired a seven-carat diamond known as the Green Diamond, even more famous for the perfection of its cut and its unusual coloration than for its weight. In addition, that stone, of a very beautiful shade, is tinted in green by metallic oxides picked up in its formation. This jewel, if its weight, its beauty and its rarity are considered, is of inestimable value. But it is considerably depreciated by a bizarre legend that has grown up around it. In fact, they claim that it brings bad luck to those who acquire it. The curse spares only those who buy and sell as jewelers, who buy it to resell with the intention of making money, and are actually only trustees. Except for these businessmen, everyone who has owned the green diamond has been the victim of some kind of catastrophe within a week after they have gained possession of the stone. One was murdered; another burned to death; another was ruined or changed, struck by blindness or deafness; another committed suicide.

  “If what they recount is true, this would naturally be seen only as a series of bad luck, or of the man who committed suicide, of autosuggestion. For a century and a half the diamond has belonged successively to ten persons having no tie of relationship to each other, excepting, naturally, the list of jewelers. Of this number four died a violent death; five were victims of various accidents and quickly got rid of the diamond. Only one, that was a woman, remained unscathed and kept the stone for 50 years, but she was almost killed three days after acquiring the diamond by the collapse of a ceiling. She was only saved by the heroic intervention of her brother, who saved her life by sacrificing his own for her. The fatality that has successively struck the owners of the green diamond has made the jewel almost unsellable. Thus, in the last 150 years, the stone has passed almost 100 of them to jewelers from whom, from time to time, a strong character has taken it, to his great loss. Now, Mr. Isaac Loewenmaul is about to sell the stone to Miss Eva Newborn, whom you undoubtedly know by name. The sale is supposed to be settled today. Miss Newborn is buying the jewel for $200,000 on the condition that nothing happen to her during the next week, beginning today. She reserves the right to return the stone and to take back her money if a misfortune strikes her or reaches a person associated with her. The jeweler, persuaded that it’s a matter of chance or a suggestion, has commissioned me to watch out for Miss Newborn so that nothing happens to her during the fixed time.”

  “Well, Mr. Light,” the female detective said, “I have a feeling you won’t have any trouble earning your honorarium. Eva Newborn is reputed to be an active young girl, not given to superstition. I don’t see what my role would be…”

  “Pardon me, Miss King. I have two reasons for coming to you. First of all, however firm Miss Newborn’s character may be, the danger of autosuggestion remains; let me tell you that in fact the stakes for the young girl have been particularly increased by another legendary virtue of the diamond, not more ill-fated than this one. The green diamond confers on is owner the gift of unmasking lies and impostures.”

  “Mr. Light, you are, I believe, about to tell me the prologue of a story from A Thousand and One Nights. But you have given me only one of your reasons. Let’s hear the second.”

  “Miss King, when I took up the profession of detective, I was still a bachelor. I have since married a charming woman whom I love dearly, and who has just given me a child. Maud—that’s her name—is urging me to give up my profession. Each time I undertake a new case, she goes through all the frights of worry. I had finally promised her to find another profession, when Isaac Loewenmaul contacted me. The jeweler, for whom it was important to conclude his sale, didn’t hold back. He offered me $20,000 if I successfully completed my mission. My word, that tempted me! With half of that sum I could buy a farm in Virginia and live there happily with my wife and child. Maud has one weakness. She is superstitious. When I spoke to her about the green diamond, she raised her arms to heaven and begged me not to take up that case. After trying for a long time to quiet her fears, I mentioned your name. My wife, Miss King, worships you as a kind of superior being. She thinks your presence would be enough to conjure the worst spells, to turn away an imminent catastrophe.”

  “There she attributes to me a power I don’t have,” exclaimed Ethel King, laughing.

  “Let’s say instead, Miss, that she sees a supernatural power in what is the purely natural effect of your genius.”

  “You flatter me, Mr. Light.”

  “No, Miss…To sum it up, Maud and I have agreed that if you agree to collaborate on this case, I will accept it; if not, I’ll ask Mr. Loewenmaul to find someone else. I’m offering you half of the fee, Miss King, $10,000. By agreeing, you will make both me and my wife happy.”

  “That last consideration is enough to make me decide, Mr. Light. I accept.”

  A gleam of joy lit the eyes of the visitor.

  “Thanks! Oh! Thanks, Miss King…My gratitude…”

  Smiling, Ethel interrupted him.

  “Let’s not waste our time, Mr. Light. Do you have a plan?”

  “Yes, Miss. It just so happens that Miss Newborn is looking for a female companion. Couldn’t you get that position?”

  “Eva Newborn knows me. I’ve met her two or three time in society. But I’ll disguise myself…So, oh, yes, I can apply for that position with the best chances of getting it. I’ll arrange for the highest recommendations. My friend, Mr. Golding, the Chief of Police, won’t refuse to give me a good letter of introduction, eulogistic as fits the situation.”

  “Good…Good, Miss King, marvelous! I’ll tell Maud the good news. In an hour, if that’s convenient for you, I’ll pick you up to take you to see Loewenmaul, who will tell us about his last meeting with Miss Eva Newborn. We can start our operations tomorrow morning.”

  “It’s agreed, Mr. Light. I’ll expect you in an hour.”

  Eva Newborn

  “That’s good, Miss Briar; I’ll engage you at $100 a month. That letter of Mr. Golding, the Chief of Police, helped me m
ake up my mind. I had almost settled on someone already, but I didn’t find that person very likeable and her references were not nearly as good as yours.”

  Ethel King, who, for the situation, had taken the pseudonym Ethel Briar, bowed silently as if she was very pleased with the praise of the young millionaire.

  “Could you start immediately, Miss Briar?” Miss Newborn asked.

  “Whenever you like, Miss. But as I haven’t been in Philadelphia very long and I have some business to take care of, I’ll ask your permission to be absent for an hour or two each day during the first week.”

  “Please yourself. If you would like to keep your liberty two or three days more…”

  “No, no, Miss Newborn. That would slow me down in getting settled here.”

  “Frankly, I prefer this, Miss Briar,” declared the girl, giving the visitor a pretty smile from her sweet mouth and her clear eyes. A ray of sunlight glinted in her soft tawny hair.

  “Since things are arranged,” she continued, “I’m going to have my maid show you to your apartment. Take off your hat and jacket and come join me here. You’ll spend the morning and lunch with me. Then you are free to spend the afternoon to have your baggage delivered and get moved in here. Is that all right with you?”

  “Completely, Miss. I’ll be down in five minutes.”

  A quarter of an hour later, the rich orphan and Ethel King were the best friends in the world. Miss Newborn had at first examined her new ladies’ companion closely. She wondered where she had seen that head before. But, since the detective had hidden her brown hair under a blonde wig, modified the color of her eyebrows, whitened her complexion, brightened the rose of her cheeks with make-up, and changed the shape of her nose by putting little tubes of invisible celluloid into her nostrils, the girl didn’t recognize Ethel King.

  “I like you a lot, Miss Briar,” she said after a minute. “If it’s all right with you, since we’re destined to live in constant intimacy, we can leave all formality aside and call each other by our first name, can’t we, Ethel?”