Joseph Allamore, who was really almost half-mad, was confined to an asylum for the insane, where he died some months afterward.
8. A DAY AMONG THE FEMALE MONSTERS
A Cry of Distress
Ethel King stopped at the door of an elegant house on Samson Street in Philadelphia and rang the bell. When the servant came to answer the door, she asked:
“Is Mr. O’Beering at home?”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Then give him my card, please. I wish to speak to Mr. and Mrs. O’Beering on an urgent matter.”
The servant went to tell his employer and soon returned to show the detective into the downstairs drawing room.
Ethel King found herself in the presence of a lady dressed in dark clothing, whose face, framed by white hair, expressed goodness, and of an old gentleman with a grave and dignified demeanor.
James O’Beering greeted the detective with a great deal of kindness and invited her to sit down.
“I’m very pleased to see you in my house, Miss King. You’ve probably come about that swindling business we were the victims of.”
“Indeed, Mr. O’Beering. I would like to ask you to give me precise information on that story. I was absent a week from Philadelphia. On my return, I learned through Inspector Golding that you had come up against persecutions by a gang of criminals. Since this wasn’t the first job by these swindlers. I thought it was my duty to try to put an end to their shameful exploits.”
“Mr. Golding did, in fact, tell us that he was trying to interest you in this case,” O’Beering commented.
Mrs. O’Beering gave a discouraged smile.
“The information that we can furnish you with, is, unfortunately, very incomplete,” she said. “We’ve already given them to the police, and nevertheless up until now the investigation hasn’t progressed.”
“I will ask you, even so, to recount the facts, as you know them, to me.”
“We will do that very willingly,” the gentleman declared. “You begin, dear Ellen.”
Ellen O’Beering began:
“Here’s how it was. A week ago, I had told our chauffeur, Hinricks to have our automobile coupe ready at 6 p.m. I wanted to go to a seamstress I use from time to time. She lives in Camden, on the other side of the Delaware River. It was a dark and rainy autumn day and night was falling when I left the house. The automobile made the trip to No. 292 Oxford Street rather quickly. My chauffeur waited for me down below with the car while I went upstairs to my couturiere. I stayed an hour in the house and when I came back down, it was completely dark. I hurried because I was afraid of being late for supper. There was fog and the nearby street light didn’t light up the shadows.
“The chauffeur, seeing me come down, started the motor and settled in his seat again. I ordered him to return home as soon as possible. He grumbled an unintelligible answer. I got into the dark coupe and the automobile started off.
“At that same instant I noticed that I wasn’t alone; a black form was crouched in the foldaway seat. Fear froze me. I wanted to cry out, open the window, but I had scarcely started a gesture when the shadow threw itself on me. Two bony hands seized my throat. There was a menacing whisper in my ear.
“I uttered a stifled cry and I lost consciousness. Where did they take me? I couldn’t say.”
Ellen O’Beering shuddered at the memory of those experiences. At the end of a moment she continued.
“When I came to, I was stretched out on a kind of litter made of straw and filthy rags. A strong odor of mold rose to my nose. There was an almost impenetrable darkness in the space where I was imprisoned. I stood up, crying out in fear. I was in a cellar containing nothing but the pallet on which I found myself. The only exit was a massive door, reinforced with iron. The light came from a smoky lantern hung on the wall.
“I hadn’t yet had time to think of my horrible situation when the door opened and let in some creatures whose aspect increased my terror even more. There were four old women with bestial faces, dressed in rags. Their vulgar features expressed brutality, hate, cruelty. They came up to me and one of them began to speak.
“ ‘Good-evening, My Lady,’ she said in a mocking tone. ‘We’re glad to find that you have recovered your spirits, because you’re going to be able to leave this magnificent drawing room which you don’t seem to like very much.’
“ ‘What have I done to you?’ I cried out. ‘Why have you brought me here?’
“The four shrews burst out laughing and a big ruddy-faced one answered:
“ ‘Times are hard. We’re forced to invent a way to earn money if we don’t want to die of hunger.’
“ ‘What do you hope to gain. I don’t have any money on me.’
“ ‘But you can get some for us. You have only to write to your husband to ask him to send us a ransom of $5000. As soon as our emissaries have received that amount, we’ll set you free.’
“ ‘Never,’ I shouted, and I at first opposed with stubborn resistance their bad treatments and their threats. But at the end they beat me with so much brutality that I fainted a second time. They threw me down on the pallet where I stayed for long hours. When I awoke I tried to call for help, but not a sound could go across those thick walls. I struck in vain with all my strength on the closed door.
“The brutes left me two days without food or drink and when they came back in sniggering, I lay helpless on my pallet, my resistance was broken. They renewed their threats and their bad treatment and I finally agreed to write what they dictated. I begged James to pay the money as soon as possible, because I felt I was on the point of death.
“The wretches came back in the evening; they threw themselves on me and beat me senseless with clubs. When I regained consciousness, I was in the alley of a private house on 47th Street, and as a consequence, near Samson Street and my house. I got up painfully and called a policeman who brought me here. They had given me my liberty because my husband had paid the ransom demanded.
“I had to stay in bed three days before I was almost over the terrible tortures which had been inflicted on me.”
Ethel King had listened in silence, only letting an exclamation of indignation escape from time to time.
“Oh! The wretches. These harpies won’t escape punishment,” she exclaimed. “I’ll do everything to locate them and put them out of a state to do any harm.”
“Yes, yes, Miss King. I ask you to do that,” Mrs. O’Beering continued. “I don’t wish any harm to those like me, but such criminals merit punishment that will set an example.”
“They will get it. And you, Mr. O’Beering, what do you have to say about this business?”
The gentleman, whose wife’s story had plunged him into extreme nervousness, was pacing up and down in the drawing room. He came and stood in front of the detective and declared:
“I don’t know very much, Miss King, unfortunately. I can give you only insignificant clues. My wife’s disappearance, as you might think, plunged me into despair. I alerted the police; I got in touch with detectives, but they didn’t manage to find Ellen.
“They picked up my unconscious chauffeur under a coach doorway on Oxford Street. He had a deep wound to the head. When he regained consciousness, he recounted that he had walked up and down on the sidewalk while waiting for my wife to return and he had received a formidable blow on the head without seeing the author of the attack.
“The criminal had taken off his overcoat, his cap and his glasses. My wife had no idea that it wasn’t our chauffeur that got behind the wheel.
“The auto was found that same night abandoned in a small street, the third from here, going toward the center of the city. You can judge my sorrow when I knew that all the circumstances indicated that Ellen had been the victim of a gang of scoundrels. I despaired of ever seeing her alive again.
“The next evening I received a letter through the mail in which I was told that my wife was in a secure place and well guarded and that she would be set free if I agreed to pay a ransom of
$5000. An emissary was to come the next morning to pick up the sum in carefully packaged bank notes. If I refused to comply with that requirement, Ellen would die.”
“Do you still have the letter?”
O’Beering took out of his pocket a dirty sheet of paper on which were traced a few hardly legible lines in deplorable handwriting. The ink was pale, as if someone had mixed water with it.
Ethel King read that brutal missive and asked:
“Then what did you do?”
“I informed the police and the next day when the emissary arrived he was arrested.”
“That was a mistake.”
“Yes, but Inspector Golding thought he was doing the right thing. The individual arrested was a hoodlum about 20 years old, badly dressed and uncouth. He claimed that his name was Tom Kensing and that he was a day laborer. If he’s to be believed, a passerby approached him in Diamond Street and asked if he wanted to earn an easy $5.
“He eagerly accepted and was given the mission of going to my house to get a tied up package and take it to Jim Tornelly’s saloon on Lombard Street. We couldn’t get anything else out of him. The police have kept him under arrest, but they will probably be forced to release him for lack of proof, even though he gave me the impression of being a scoundrel of the worst sort.”
“I’ll question that man. They should have left him free and followed him. That would have been a great deal smarter,” Ethel King declared.
“That’s exactly my opinion,” O’Beering said. “That arrest produced no result. They sent disguised agents to Jim Tornelly’s saloon in vain. They found no suspicious individuals in the establishment.
“Another night went by. Hundreds of policemen and detectives spread out in search of my wife but their efforts were fruitless. The next morning a boy about 15 years old came to my door. He brought a letter requiring an answer. That was the letter that Ellen’s tormentors had made her write. A postscript in the handwriting of one of the wretches told me to give the money immediately to the messenger, or if I didn’t, my wife would be executed the same day.
“What was I to do? I didn’t want to go to the police again. Their repeated failures had made me lose all confidence in them. I therefore made a package of the bank notes and gave them to the young boy with the intention of following him. But I had scarcely put the package in his hand than he ran off and disappeared from sight before I had seriously thought about following him. I understood that all searches would henceforth be useless, and I resigned myself to wait here, in mortal agony, for the return of my dear Ellen.
“The day went by, however, without bringing her back to me. I began to despair again. I had informed the police of these last events. Toward midnight I was still in my office, almost insane with sorrow, when someone rang at the door. A policeman brought my wife back half dead. You can imagine what our reunion was like.
“The maid helped Ellen get to bed and I had our doctor called. My wife’s body was covered with bruises and bleeding stripes, traces of the wicked treatment that those wretches had inflicted on their victim.
“My indignation knew no limits. I expressly asked the police to find the criminals and bring them to justice. At present, Miss King, all my hope resides in you. I beg you to put these ferocious beasts away so they can do no more harm, because they will try to renew their hideous crime.”
Ethel King stood up.
“I will proceed immediately,” she answered. “If I succeed in ridding society of these harpies, that will be one of the greatest successes of my career.”
She turned toward Mrs. O’Beering and added:
“So, you don’t have any idea of what neighborhood or what gang held you prisoner?”
“No, I was unconscious when they took me to that cellar and when they brought me out of it.”
“Neither can you give me a description of your jailors?”
“I only recall well the feature of the one who spoke to me. She was a fat woman with a puffy face and filthy skin. Her eyes had a greenish tint. She had full lips. Her hair was untidy; her hands large and red. She had a small, snub nose.”
“These women didn’t call each other by their first names in front of you?”
Mrs. O’Beering thought a moment.
“I don’t recall, however…it seems to me I heard the name Jenny. But I don’t know which of the four women it applied to.”
“What kind of weapon did the wretches threaten you with?”
“They beat me with scrubbing brushes and clubs and threatened me with knives. One of them even suggested throwing me into boiling washing water.”
Ethel King made a gesture of satisfaction.
“Now there’s a clue all right.”
O’Beering and his wife looked at the detective in astonishment.
“How’s that?” the gentleman exclaimed.
“Oh, yes! You said a while ago, Mrs. O’Beering, that the head of the gang had red hands. The threat to throw you into boiling washing water, the fact of having beat you with scrubbing brushes, leads us to conclude that the four wretches are washerwomen.”
“Ah! Now I remember,” Ellen exclaimed. “When the women opened the door, I thought I smelled the odor of soap. That fact struck me, now that you call attention to it.”
“In that case, my hypothesis is becoming almost a certainty. Goodbye, Mr. and Mrs. O’Beering. I don’t despair of finding in the immense city of Philadelphia a washerwoman named Jenny.”
A Fruitful Interrogation
Edith King went immediately to the police to see Inspector Golding.
“Well!” he exclaimed when she entered his office. “Have you been to see James O’Beering? The case doesn’t look good, does it? The two spouses’ information doesn’t furnish the slightest clue, unfortunately.”
Ethel King smiled.
“I hold another opinion, Mr. Golding.”
The official looked wide-eyed at his visitor.
“What!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been able to deduce something serious from what they said?”
“I believe so.”
“What is it?” the Chief of Police asked, anxious to know.
The young woman warded off the question with a gesture.
“I can’t say anything yet,” she declared calmly. “I would first like to get authorization to interrogate the prisoner, Tom Kensing.”
“Do what you like, Miss King. If you really possess a clue that will allow us to find the criminals, hurry, because I was told this morning about the disappearance of a young girl, and I believe that this new horrible crime must be attributed to the four shrews.”
“Who was it?”
“Miss Maud Sutter, the daughter of the well-known banker. The father, who is in despair, came to see me personally and begged me to get his child back. He offered to pay out a huge amount of money.”
“Miss Maud Sutter,” Ethel King repeated thoughtfully. “Isn’t she that somewhat too emancipated young girl known for her eccentric behavior?”
“Yes, that’s the one,” Golding replied. “And it’s also due to odd behavior that she must have fallen into the hands of the gang. Yesterday she was in Wharton Street, at the house of a friend, Miss Rysing. She had ordered her chauffeur to come pick her up at 10 p.m. with the car. The man wasn’t on time, which infuriated the young girl. In her impatience, she declared that she would walk the long distance from Wharton Street to Lehigh Avenue. Miss Rysing tried in vain to make her give up that idea. Miss Sutter even refused to let a servant go with her, and since at 10:30 p.m. the chauffeur still hadn’t arrived, she left without waiting any longer. She hasn’t yet returned home.”
“I think that if Maud Sutter has had the same adventure as Mrs. O’Beering, she’ll be wiser in the future.”
“That’s my opinion,” Golding said approvingly. “Besides, up until now I’ve kept the incident secret and seen to it that the newspapers don’t talk about it. I wanted to first wait for the result of your visit to O’Beering and his wife, to see if you would ob
tain some important information. Since this seems to be the case, please tell me if you think it necessary to send a note to the press concerning the disappearance of Miss Maud Sutter.”
“Not at the moment. I want first to proceed to the interrogation of Tom Kensing. After that, I’ll tell you what seems preferable to me.”
The famous detective went to the holding cells, where, on her request, they took her to Tom Kensing’s cell.
The man, dressed in rags, had a vulgar expression and a treacherous look. He was walking up and down in his cell whistling. A key grated in the lock and the jailor let the detective in.
Tom raised his head, surprised, and shouted:
“Goddam, better and better! Now I even receive ladies in my prison. I’m curious to know what this one wants with me.”
The young woman waited until the jailor had left, then she spoke to the prisoner.
“I’m Ethel King,” she said with composure.
“Ethel King,” he repeated.
He had obviously not expected to hear that name. He showed a certain worry. He gave the young woman a sheepish look.
“You know why I’ve come,” Ethel King said.
“No, I don’t know that,” he grumbled in a not very confident voice. “I’ll certainly be released. I can’t be punished for having been a delivery man for an unknown person.”
“Don’t lie,” Ethel King said with such firmness that he lowered his eyes.
Kensing’s embarrassment lasted only an instant. He shrugged and sneered.
“You’re trying to intimidate me, but you won’t succeed. I’m innocent. Things happened like I said.”
Ethel King didn’t get upset.
“How stupid you are!” she said coldly. “Your accomplices didn’t let you off. They’ve thrown all the responsibility on you.”
The man recoiled a step and swore.
“Goddam! If that was true!” he exclaimed.
The Adventures of Ethel King, the Female Nick Carter Page 20