Detection by Gaslight Read online

  “Mystery!” he added as if in answer to Polly’s own thoughts. “The murder of that man was never a mystery to me. I cannot understand how the police could have been so blind when every one of the witnesses, both for the prosecution and defence, practically pointed all the time to the one guilty person. What do you think of it all yourself?”

  “I think the whole case so bewildering,” she replied, “that I do not see one single clear point in it.”

  “You don’t?” he said excitedly, while the bony fingers fidgeted again with that inevitable bit of string. “You don’t see that there is one point clear which to me was the key of the whole thing?

  “Lavender was murdered, wasn’t he? Lord Arthur did not kill him. He had, at least, in Colonel McIntosh an unimpeachable witness to prove that he could not have committed that murder—and yet,” he added with slow, excited emphasis, marking each sentence with a knot, “and yet he deliberately tries to throw the guilt upon a man who obviously was also innocent. Now why?”

  “He may have thought him guilty.”

  “Or wished to shield or cover the retreat of one he knew to be guilty.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Think of someone,” he said excitedly, “someone whose desire would be as great as that of Lord Arthur to silence a scandal round that gentleman’s name. Someone who, unknown perhaps to Lord Arthur, had overheard the same conversation which George Higgins related to the police and the magistrate, someone who, whilst Chipps was taking Lavender’s card in to his master, had a few minutes’ time wherein to make an assignation with Lavender, promising him money, no doubt, in exchange for the compromising bills.”

  “Surely you don’t mean—” gasped Polly.

  “Point number one,” he interrupted quietly, “utterly missed by the police. George Higgins in his deposition stated that at the most animated stage of Lavender’s conversation with Lord Arthur, and when the bookmaker’s tone of voice became loud and threatening, a voice from the top of the steps interrupted that conversation, saying: ‘Your tea is getting cold.’”

  “Yes–but——” she argued.

  “Wait a moment, for there is point number two. That voice was a lady’s voice. Now, I did exactly what the police should have done, but did not do. I went to have a look from the racecourse side at those garden steps which to my mind are such important factors in the discovery of this crime. I found only about a dozen rather low steps; anyone standing on the top must have heard every word Charles Lavender uttered the moment he raised his voice.”

  “Even then——”

  “Very well, you grant that,” he said excitedly. “Then there was the great, the all-important point which, oddly enough, the prosecution never for a moment took into consideration. When Chipps, the footman, first told Lavender that Lord Arthur could not see him the bookmaker was terribly put out; Chipps then goes to speak to his master; a few minutes elapse, and when the footman once again tells Lavender that his lordship won’t see him, the latter says ‘Very well,’ and seems to treat the matter with complete indifference.

  “Obviously, therefore, something must have happened in between to alter the bookmaker’s frame of mind. Well! What had happened? Think over all the evidence, and you will see that one thing only had occurred in the interval, namely, Lady Arthur’s advent into the room.

  “In order to go into the smoking-room she must have crossed the hall; she must have seen Lavender. In that brief interval she must have realized that the man was persistent, and therefore a living danger to her husband. Remember, women have done strange things; they are a far greater puzzle to the student of human nature than the sterner, less complex sex has ever been. As I argued before—as the police should have argued all along–why did Lord Arthur deliberately accuse an innocent man of murder if not to shield the guilty one?

  “Remember, Lady Arthur may have been discovered; the man, George Higgins, may have caught sight of her before she had time to make good her retreat. His attention, as well as that of the constables, had to be diverted. Lord Arthur acted on the blind impulse of saving his wife at any cost.”

  “She may have been met by Colonel McIntosh,” argued Polly.

  “Perhaps she was,” he said. “Who knows? The gallant colonel had to swear to his friend’s innocence. He could do that in all conscience—after that his duty was accomplished. No innocent man was suffering for the guilty. The knife which had belonged to Lord Arthur would always save George Higgins. For a time it had pointed to the husband; fortunately never to the wife. Poor thing, she died probably of a broken heart, but women when they love, think only of one object on earth—the one who is beloved.

  “To me the whole thing was clear from the very first. When I read the account of the murder—the knife! stabbing!—bah! Don’t I know enough of English crime not to be certain at once that no Englishman, be he ruffian from the gutter or be he Duke’s son, ever stabs his victim in the back. Italians, French, Spaniards do it, if you will, and women of most nations. An Englishman’s instinct is to strike and not to stab. George Higgins or Lord Arthur Skelmerton would have knocked their victim down; the woman only would lie in wait till the enemy’s back was turned. She knows her weakness, and she does not mean to miss.

  “Think it over. There is not one flaw in my argument, but the police never thought the matter out—perhaps in this case it was as well.”

  He had gone and left Miss Polly Burton still staring at the photograph of a pretty, gentle-looking woman, with a decided, wilful curve round the mouth, and a strange, unaccountable look in the large pathetic eyes; and the little journalist felt quite thankful that in this case the murder of Charles Lavender the bookmaker—cowardly, wicked as it was—had remained a mystery to the police and the public.

  George R. Sims

  (1847–1922)

  GEORGE R. SIMS was a London journalist, novelist, and short-story writer, many of whose works sympathize with the conditions of London’s poor, though perhaps not quite as consistently as Arthur Morrison’s Tales of Mean Streets. The Devil in London (1908), for example, has Satan show up in Edwardian London and comment on all its social problems. Besides his detective stories, Sims is best remembered for editing three huge volumes entitled Living London (1902), containing elaborately illustrated essays about all aspects of that capital city at the turn of the century. The volumes were recently reprinted in England under the title Edwardian London.

  Beginning in 1889, most of Sims’s short-story collections contain detective or crime stories, but his most important work was a series of tales, published in two volumes, called Dorcas Dene, Detective: Her Adventures2 (1897–1898). Except for having probably the least euphonious name in mystery fiction, Dorcas Dene is one of the most interesting sleuths of the period. Born Dorcas Lester, she became an actress, but retired from the stage to marry Paul Dene, an artist. After her husband became blind, she used her acting ability to become a professional detective. Like so many detective stories of this period, her cases are narrated by a friend (in this instance “an old-fashioned, humdrum family solicitor”) for whom she can do no wrong.

  The Haverstock Hill Murder

  THE BLINDS had been down at the house in Elm Tree Road and the house shut for nearly six weeks. I had received a note from Dorcas saying that she was engaged on a case which would take her away for some little time, and that as Paul had not been very well lately she had arranged that he and her mother should accompany her. She would advise me as soon as they returned. I called once at Elm Tree Road and found it was in charge of the two servants and Toddlekins, the bulldog. The housemaid informed me that Mrs. Dene had not written, so that she did not know where she was or when she would be back, but that letters which arrived for her were forwarded by her instructions to Mr. Jackson of Penton Street, King’s Cross.

  Mr. Jackson, I remembered, was the ex-police-sergeant who was generally employed by Dorcas when she wanted a house watched or certain inquiries made among tradespeople. I felt that it would be unfair
to go to Jackson. Had Dorcas wanted me to know where she was she would have told me in her letter.

  The departure had been a hurried one. I had gone to the North in connection with a business matter of my own on a Thursday evening, leaving Dorcas at Elm Tree Road, and when I returned on Monday afternoon I found Dorcas’s letter at my chambers. It was written on the Saturday, and evidently on the eve of departure.

  But something that Dorcas did not tell me I learned quite accidentally from my old friend Inspector Swanage, of Scotland Yard, whom I met one cold February afternoon at Kempton Park Steeplechases.

  Inspector Swanage has a much greater acquaintance with the fraternity known as “the boys” than any other officer. He has attended race meetings for years, and the “boys” always greet him respectfully, though they wish him further. Many a prettily-planned coup of theirs has he nipped in the bud, and many an unsuspecting greenhorn has he saved from pillage by a timely whisper that the well-dressed young gentlemen who are putting their fivers on so merrily and coming out of the enclosure with their pockets stuffed full of bank-notes are men who get their living by clever swindling, and are far more dangerous than the ordinary vulgar pick-pocket.

  On one occasion not many years ago I found a well-known publisher at a race meeting in earnest conversation with a beautifully-dressed, grey-haired sportsman. The publisher informed me that his new acquaintance was the owner of a horse which was certain to win the next race, and that it would start at ten to one. Only in order not to shorten the price nobody was to know the name of the horse, as the stable had three in the race. He had obligingly taken a fiver off the publisher to put on with his own money.

  I told the publisher that he was the victim of a “tale-pitcher,” and that he would never see his fiver again. At that moment Inspector Swanage came on the scene, and the owner of racehorses disappeared as if by magic. Swanage recognized the man instantly, and having heard my publisher’s story said, “If I have the man taken will you prosecute?” The publisher shook his head. He didn’t want to send his authors mad with delight at the idea that somebody had eventually succeeded in getting a fiver the best of him. So Inspector Swanage strolled away. Half an hour later he came to us in the enclosure and said, “Your friend’s horse doesn’t run, so he’s given me that fiver back again for you.” And with a broad grin he handed my friend a bank-note.

  It was Inspector Swanage’s skill and kindness on this occasion that made me always eager to have a chat with him when I saw him at a race meeting, for his conversation was always interesting.

  The February afternoon had been a cold one, and soon after the commencement of racing there were signs of fog. Now a foggy afternoon is dear to the hearts of the “boys.” It conceals their operations, and helps to cover their retreat. As the fog came up the Inspector began to look anxious, and I went up to him.

  “You don’t like the look of things?” I said.

  “No, if this gets worse the band will begin to play—there are some very warm members of it here this afternoon. It was a day just like this last year that they held up a bookmaker going to the station, and eased him of over £500. Hullo?”

  As he uttered the exclamation the Inspector pulled out his race card and seemed to be anxiously studying it.

  But under his voice he said to me, “Do you see that tall man in a fur coat talking to a bookmaker? See, he’s just handed him a bank-note?”

  “Where?—I don’t see him.”

  “Yonder. Do you see that old gipsy-looking woman with race cards? She has just thrust her hand through the railings and offered one to the man.”

  “Yes, yes—I see him now.”

  “That’s Flash George. I’ve missed him lately, and I heard he was broke, but he’s in funds again evidently by his get-up.”

  “One of the boys?”

  “Has been—but he’s been on another lay lately. He was mixed up in that big jewel case—£10,000 worth of diamonds stolen from a demimondaine. He got rid of some of the jewels for the thieves, but we could never bring it home to him. But he was watched for a long time afterwards and his game was stopped. The last we heard of him he was hard up and borrowing from some of his pals. He’s gone now. I’ll just go and ask the bookie what he’s betting to.”

  The Inspector stepped across to the bookmaker and presently returned.

  “He is in luck again,” he said. “He’s put a hundred ready on the favourite for this race. By the bye, how’s your friend Mrs. Dene getting on with her case?”

  I confessed my ignorance as to what Dorcas was doing at the present moment—all I knew was that she was away.

  “Oh, I thought you’d have known all about it,” said the Inspector. “She’s on the Hannaford case.”

  “What, the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “But surely that was settled by the police? The husband was arrested immediately after the inquest.”

  “Yes, and the case against him was very strong, but we know that Dorcas Dene has been engaged by Mr. Hannaford’s family, who have made up their minds that the police, firmly believing him guilty, won’t look anywhere else for the murderer—of course they are convinced of his innocence. But you must excuse me—the fog looks like thickening, and may stop racing—I must go and put my men to work.”

  “One moment before you go—why did you suddenly ask me how Mrs. Dene was getting on? Was it anything to do with Flash George that put it in your head?”

  The Inspector looked at me curiously.

  “Yes,” he said, “though I didn’t expect you’d see the connection. It was a mere coincidence. On the night that Mrs. Hannaford was murdered, Flash George, who had been lost sight of for some time by our people, was reported to have been seen by the Inspector who was going his rounds in the neighbourhood. He was seen about half-past two o’clock in the morning looking rather dilapidated and seedy. When the report of the murder came in, the Inspector at once remembered that he had seen Flash George in Haverstock Hill. But there was nothing in it—as the house hadn’t been broken into and there was nothing stolen. You understand now why seeing Flash George carried my train of thought on to the Hannaford murder and Dorcas Dene. Good-bye.”

  The Inspector hurried away and a few minutes afterwards the favourite came in alone for the second race on the card. The stewards immediately afterwards announced that racing would be abandoned on account of the fog increasing, and I made my way to the railway station and went home by the members’ train.

  Directly I reached home I turned eagerly to my newspaper file and read up the Hannaford murder. I knew the leading features, but every detail of it had now a special interest to me, seeing that Dorcas Dene had taken the case up.

  These were the facts as reported in the Press:

  Early in the morning of January 5 a maid-servant rushed out of the house, standing in its own grounds on Haverstock Hill, calling “Murder!” Several people who were passing instantly came to her and inquired what was the matter, but all she could gasp was, “Fetch a policeman.” When the policeman arrived he followed the terrified girl into the house and was conducted to the drawing-room, where he found a lady lying in her nightdress in the centre of the room covered with blood, but: still alive. He sent one of the servants for a doctor, and another to the police-station to inform the superintendent. The doctor came immediately and declared that the woman was dying. He did everything that could be done for her, and presently she partially regained consciousness. The superintendent had by this time arrived, and in the presence of the doctor asked her who had injured her.

  She seemed anxious to say something, but the effort was too much for her, and presently she relapsed into unconsciousness. She died two hours later, without speaking.

  The woman’s injuries had been inflicted with some heavy instrument. On making a search of the room the poker was found lying between the fireplace and the body. The poker was found to have blood upon it, and some hair from the unfortunate lady’s head.

  The servants stated that
their master and mistress, Mr. and Mrs. Hannaford, had retired to rest at their usual time, shortly before midnight. The housemaid had seen them go up together. She had been working at a dress which she wanted for next Sunday, and sat up late, using her sewing-machine in the kitchen. It was one o‘clock in the morning when she passed her master and mistress’s door, and she judged by what she heard that they were quarrelling. Mr. Hannaford was not in the house when the murder was discovered. The house was searched thoroughly in every direction, the first idea of the police being that he had committed suicide. The telegraph was then set to work, and at ten o’clock a man answering Mr. Hannaford’s description was arrested at Paddington Station, where he was taking a ticket for Uxbridge.

  Taken to the police-station and informed that he would be charged with murdering his wife, he appeared to be horrified, and for some time was a prey to the most violent emotion. When he had recovered himself and was made aware of the serious position in which he stood, he volunteered a statement. He was warned, but he insisted on making it. He declared that he and his wife had quarrelled violently after they had retired to rest. Their quarrel was about a purely domestic matter, but he was in an irritable, nervous condition, owing to his health, and at last he had worked himself up into such a state, that he had risen, dressed himself, and gone out into the street. That would be about two in the morning. He had wandered about in a state of nervous excitement until daybreak. At seven he had gone into a coffee-house and had breakfast, and had then gone into the park and sat on a seat and fallen asleep. When he woke up it was nine o’clock. He had taken a cab to Paddington, and had intended to go to Uxbridge to see his mother, who resided there. Quarrels between himself and his wife had been frequent of late, and he was ill and wanted to get away, and he thought perhaps if he went to his mother for a day or two he might get calmer and feel better. He had been very much worried lately over business matters. He was a stock-jobber, and the market in the securities in which he had been speculating was against him.