Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/ladyfromnowhere00humegoog
(Princeton University)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
THE
LADY FROM NOWHERE
A DETECTIVE STORY
BY
FERGUS HUME
AUTHOR OF "The MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB," ETC.
BRENTANO'S
31 UNION SQUARE, NEW YORK
1900
CONTENTS
I. The Tragedy of the Strange Room
II. The Death-card
III. A Woman without a Past
IV. The Five Landladies
V. A Friend in Need
VI. The Crime of Kirkstone Hall
VII. Comments on the Crime
VIII. Mr. Prain, Solicitor
IX. Kirkstone Hall
X. Strange Behaviour
XI. The Mad Gardener
XII. The Diamond Necklace
XIII. Arthur Ferris
XIV. A Surprising Discovery ...
XV. The Revelation of Mr. Prain
XVI. Miss Wedderburn
XVII. An Explanation
XVIII. What Mrs. Presk found
XIX. The Unexpected occurs
XX. A Needle in a Haystack
XXI. Found at Last
XXII. A Secret Hoard
XXIII. The Convict's Defence
XXIV. Proof Positive
XXV. How the Deed was done
XXVI. The End of it All
THE LADY FROM NOWHERE
CHAPTER I
THE TRAGEDY OF THE STRANGE ROOM
On the night of July 24th, in the year 1896, between the hours of
eleven and twelve, Grangebury, a little-known suburb of London, was
wrapped in slumber, as became a respectable neighbourhood whose
inhabitants retired regularly shortly after sunset. Not that they had
done so on this particular night, for the unusual excitement of a
lecture on Dickens, delivered in the tiny Town Hall, had kept them
from their beds later than was customary. At a quarter to eleven, a
stream of instructed pleasure-seekers, discussing lecture and
lecturer, filled the narrow streets; but gradually the crowd
diminished until highways and byways were left deserted, save by
watchful policemen and vagrant cats. The lamps were then extinguished
by order of an economical municipality, the few lights still twinkling
from the upper windows of various houses disappeared, and the little
town lay under moon and stars as silent and almost as lonely as the
spell-bound cities in eastern fables.
Every now and then the footsteps of policemen making their rounds,
could be heard echoing along the streets, and sometimes an official
lantern would be flashed into dark corners to search out possible
burglars or homeless beggars. But no thieves or vagabonds could be
discovered; for, on the whole, Grangebury, being a comparatively new
suburb, was free from such criminal pests, and the police force there,
under the command of Mr. Inspector Lackland had a very easy time.
There was nothing on this night to indicate any ending to this
Arcadian Age of security and innocence; yet, shortly after eleven
o'clock a yawning policeman, leaning against a convenient wall, heard
a word cried aloud which told him of crime and danger. The word was
"Murder!"
"Murder!" repeated the constable, looking up and down the street.
"Murder!" shrieked the voice again; and then there came the sound of
running feet, cries for help, and the quick panting of an exhausted
creature. Before the policeman could decide in which direction to
move, a dishevelled woman, screaming and gesticulating, came at full
speed round the corner, and almost fell into his arms. Her face was
pearly white in the moonlight, her eyes were filled with terror, and
an almost continuous cry issued from her open mouth without any motion
of the lips.
"'Ere! 'ere, wot's this?" said the policeman, seizing the flying
creature by the arm. "Wot d'ye mean, screeching out murder like a
loonatic? Come now!"
Trembling violently, the woman grappled with the policeman, shrieking
the while, and evidently beside herself with terror. Not being gifted
with brains, the officer of the law shook her vigorously to brighten
her intellect; and she wavered limply in his grasp like a dummy
figure.
"Murder!" she whimpered, clawing and clutching at the man. "Lord! it's
awful! Ugh! Ugh! I've seen her dead!"
"Seen 'oo dead?" demanded the policeman, stolidly.
"My lodger! Dead! Strangled! Ugh! Ugh!" cried the woman, breathlessly,
raising her voice higher at each word. "A corpse in the Yellow Room!
Paradise Row! Come and see--come and---- Oh, poor soul!" and she fell
to wringing her hands again, quivering and panting.
"Wait a bit!" said the jack-in-office, bound by red-tapeism, "the
police station is just roun' th' corner. Kim up an' see th'
Inspector!"
"I--I--I am innocent!" gasped the woman, hanging back. "Neither 'Tilda
nor I laid a finger on her."
"'Oo said y' did?" retorted the man, suspiciously; and, for his own
protection he recited an official formula, "Wot y' say now 'ull be
used in hevidence agin y'. Kim up, I tell y'." And, grasping her arm,
he hurried her fighting and crying round the near corner, and into a
red-brick building, over the door of which was a lamp inscribed
"Police Station."
In a stuffy room, rendered almost unbearable by the heat of the
flaring gas, two men were talking earnestly together, notwithstanding
the lateness of the hour. The one in uniform was a burly, red-faced
martinet known in Grangebury as Inspector Lackland. He was too
completely hemmed in by red tapeism to count for much; but the other
in plain clothes was Absolom Gebb, well known in Scotland Yard as a
capable detective, but not so infallible as the miracle-monger of
fiction. It was Gebb who brought home the theft of Lady Daleshire's
diamonds to herself; who proved Dr. Marner to be guilty of poisoning
his wife, in spite of strong evidence to the contrary; who solved nine
out of every ten criminal problems submitted to him, and who was the
terror of all evil-doers. This tall, lean man with his clean-shaven
face and black, observant eyes was an enthusiast in his profession,
and loved to ponder over and follow out the intricacies of criminal
mysteries. At the present moment he was conversing with Lackland about
a recent Anarchist conspiracy, and therefore happened to be in the
Grangebury Police Office when the zealous policeman appeared with his
terrified prisoner. She cried out when she was thrust into the room,
and, confronted by inspector and detective, covered her face with her
hands.
"Hey! What!" said Lackland, in his rasping voice. "What's all this
about?"
"Case of murder, sir," jerked out the policeman, pushing forward the
prisoner. "Paradise Row! Woman strangled!"
"Murder?" cried Gebb, pricking up his ears at the ominous word.
"Murder!" screeched the woman, and fell into a chair. Evidently she
had received a shock and was on the verge of hysterics, for she began
to babble and weep copiously. Accustomed to deal with this sort of
emotion, Lackland seized a jug of water standing near his desk, and
dashed the contents into her face. The remedy was efficacious, for
with a gasp and a shiver the woman recovered her self-control and
tongue, also her inherent feminine vanity. "You brute!" she screamed,
jumping up wrathfully. "My best bonnet's spoilt."
"Attention!" roared the inspector in his sternest military manner;
"none of this nonsense here. What about this murder in----"
"I didn't kill her!" interrupted the woman, wiping her face. "'Tilda
and me knew nothing about it till we found her strangled when we came
back from the lecture."
"Did you attend the lecture on Dickens in the Town Hall?" asked Gebb.
"Yes, I did, sir; both me and 'Tilda, who is my servant, went."
"What is your name?" asked the detective, with professional sharpness.
"Maria Presk."
"Married or single?"
"Married once, single now," sighed the woman. "I am what you call a
widow, sir; and I let lodgings in Paradise Row."
"Was this dead woman a lodger of yours?"
"Miss Ligram, you mean? Yes. Miss Ligram was in the first floor
front."
"And who killed Miss Ligram?" asked Gebb, looking keenly at Mrs.
Presk.
The good lady turned ever paler than before.
"I--I don't know, sir," she stammered, with a scared look. "I can take
my stand in any court of----"
"Face this way, ma'am!" interrupted Lackland, who was indignant at the
way in which Gebb was usurping his authority. "I'm in charge of this
office. I'm the officer to take your evidence. Mr. Gebb! Discipline!"
"Alright! Go ahead!" replied the detective, inwardly cursing the too
methodical procedure of his superior, "I don't want to interfere.
But," he added with emphasis, "I think we should go at once and look
at the corpse."
"All in good time, Mr. Gebb. More haste, less speed!" said Lackland,
crisply.
"And the more delay, the less chance of getting at the truth,"
retorted Gebb.
The fact was that Gebb's sporting instincts were roused, and he wanted
to be off on the trail while it was yet fresh. Every moment was of
importance. Yet, as he was not in charge of the case, he was forced to
stand idly by and hear the blundering inspector putting a lot of
irrelevant questions--good for nothing, but wasting time. However,
Gebb managed to extract some grains of wheat out of a vast quantity of
chaff, and in a roundabout way--thanks to the inspector's method of
questioning--learned the following facts, which were sufficient to
inform him how matters stood at present.
Miss Ligram was--or rather, had been, since she no longer existed--a
lodger in the house of Mrs. Presk, No. 13, Paradise Row. She was a
quiet, inoffensive old lady, who gave little trouble, and who remained
by preference in her own room. On the night of the 24th July, Mrs.
Presk and her servant, Matilda Crane, had attended a lecture delivered
in the Town Hall. The lecture--an amusing one on Charles Dickens and
his works--had afforded them much pleasure, and they returned at
eleven o'clock to Paradise Row in a state of high spirits. On passing
round to the back entrance they saw that a light was still burning in
Miss Ligram's sitting-room, and, wondering at the sight--for the
lodger usually retired early--Mrs. Presk, on entering the house, had
gone upstairs to see if anything was wrong. To her horror she found
Miss Ligram dead, with a cord round her neck. Terrified by the sight,
she had called up Matilda Crane, who, more impressionable and less
hardened, had promptly fainted away. Mrs. Presk, a woman of energy and
resource, had immediately sought the aid of the police, and now
insisted that Lackland and his subordinates should remove the corpse
and capture the murderer.
"That last is easier said than done," was Gebb's comment on this
demand. "By this time the assassin is far enough away. However,
there's no time to be lost in looking at the scene of the crime, as I
suggested."
"Quite so," said Lackland, gruffly. "No time to waste, ma'am"--to Mrs.
Presk. "March! Gebb, come with me and catch the murderer!"
This proposition recommending itself to Mrs. Presk, she left the
police-office with inspector and detective, and led the pair to her
house, which was situated down a side street no great distance away.
As the front door was closed, she conducted the men round the back
way, through the kitchen, and up the stairs into Miss Ligram's
sitting-room. On the mat in the passage, 'Tilda, the servant, lay
still insensible, so Mrs. Presk lifted her in her strong arms and
carried her to the kitchen to be revived as speedily as possible, in
case, as was almost certain, her evidence might be wanted. In the mean
time Lackland and Gebb had entered the room wherein the crime had been
committed, and were amazed at the splendour of the apartment. For
colouring and evidence of wealth it was like a scene out of the
Arabian Nights.
The room was of no great size, with a window looking out on to the
street, and two doors, one leading in from a narrow passage, the other
giving admittance into an inner apartment, evidently a bedroom. The
walls were draped with rich hangings of satin, yellow as a buttercup
in hue, and a tent-like roof of the same tint and material was drawn
in many folds to a dome-like centre, whence depended by a brass chain
an Arabian lantern studded with knobs of yellow glass, which,
illuminated from within, shone like pale topaz stones. Tables, chairs,
and couches were framed of gilded cane, with coverlets and quilts of
yellow silk, and the ground of the carpet was of the same colour,
embroidered with bunches of primrose flowers. Also there were tall
narrow mirrors framed in yellow satin, clusters of daffodils in
grotesque Chinese vases of a deep yellow shade, and numerous
candles--all lighted--in candelabra silver gilt. Near the window, from
a brass chafing-dish standing on a tripod of the same metal, curled up
a thin white vapour diffusing a heavy rich perfume, and everywhere lay
nicknacks of gold and silver more or less costly; fur mats and rugs
dyed yellow, and many books covered in a homely fashion with yellow
paper. The prevailing colour of the room was a violent yellow; and
this, with the glare of the candles, the glitter of the mirrors, the
scent of the flowers, and the strong perfume of the incense, made the
heads of the onlookers reel. Even the matter-of-fact inspector was
impressed by the uncanny magnificence of the place.
"By George, sir!" said he to Gebb, with the instincts of an old
soldier, "it's like a Mandalay Pagoda. If t'was in Burmah, now,
shouldn't mind looting it."
Gebb was rubbing his hands, with sparkling eyes.
"By the sight of it," he said joyfully, "this is going to be a
romantic case. I only hope I'll be lucky enough to get charge of it.
Did you furnish this room, ma'am?" he asked, turning sharply to Mrs.
Presk, whose pale grey face appeared over the shoulder of the burly,
staring inspector.
"No, I didn't," retorted the landlady. "Miss Ligram furnished it
herself, and called it her Yellow Boudoir."