chin. That's why I wanted to put that nice spiky carnation into his
button-hole. When a man has a flower like that fixed you will notice
that he instinctively raises his chin and stretches his neck. I've
seen them frequently in the flower-shops. It was noticing that that
made me hit on the flower-woman idea last night in town. I came down
this morning with my witness by an early train, and travelled
third-class in my 'make-up,' basket and all."
"And how did you get rid of it?"
"Oh, that was easy enough. I went to a friend's house, and it didn't
take me five minutes."
"Well, my dear Dorcas," I said, "I've no doubt you've done something
very clever, but I'm a little in the dark. You left Brighton some
days ago to upset the evidence of half a dozen witnesses in a divorce
case, with a handkerchief sachet, and here you are in Brighton going
through an elaborate performance in order to make the co-respondent
hold up his chin. I suppose the sachet told you nothing, and you've
started on entirely new lines."
"That is just where you are wrong, my clever gentleman," replied
Dorcas, with a malicious little smile. "If it had not been for the
handkerchief sachet I should never have thought of playing the
little trick I did this morning."
"Then, as they say in the story books, 'Let us begin at the
beginning.' You went to town to examine a handkerchief sachet, the
property of the divorced woman, which after the trial was over was
found to contain a photograph of the co-respondent, with a
compromising inscription."
"Exactly. I called on my client immediately after my arrival in town.
I had wired her to have the sachet in her possession, and I
proceeded at once to inquire into its story.
"She had purchased for her daughter, who was at school, six pretty
handkerchiefs. Going to her drawer one day she found the old sachet.
She thought it would be a pretty present for the girl, who had often
admired it. Taking her own handkerchiefs out she put in the six others
for the child.
"While the drawer was open, the maid came in and asked her to look
at some dresses which she had laid out in the opposite room and say
which of them she--the maid--might have. The lady went into the
adjoining room. The maid stayed behind a moment to pick up some
hair-pins which had fallen on the floor, and then joined her mistress.
"When her mistress returned to the room she locked the drawer she had
been examining and did not open it until the next day, when she took
out the handkerchief sachet, put it in a cardboard box, and sent it
to her daughter.
"That was about a month before the trial came on.
"The photograph of the Count, which only came into the lady's
possession the day she wrote me to Brighton, was found in an inner
pocket of the sachet. This is why the child did not find it in taking
out the handkerchiefs. It was quite by chance that she discovered the
pocket, and feeling in it, drew out the photograph of Phalsdorf,
which, on her first meeting with her mother, she handed to her.
"Having ascertained the facts, and accepting the lady's denial of
any previous knowledge of the photograph, I examined the sachet
carefully. The reason I attached so much importance to this discovery
I will tell you. The thing for which a lady is most likely to send
her maid to her room is a pocket-handkerchief. 'Fetch me another
handkerchief,' is what I frequently say to my own servant. Now, no
woman of my client's position carrying on an intrigue would be likely
to place a portrait of her lover in a drawer to which she would in the
ordinary course of events frequently send her maid. To place a
portrait with an incriminating inscription in a handkerchief sachet
would be absolutely to court detection.
"I felt that I was in possession of at least one piece of what I
suspected to be manufactured evidence. What I wanted to arrive at, if
possible, was, 'Who put that portrait in the handkerchief-sachet?'"
"But, Dorcas," I exclaimed, interrupting, "neither the sachet nor
the portrait were ever referred to at the trial. They were not part
of the evidence you have to disprove."
"No; but they were _intended_ to be. Remember what happened. The
lady sent the sachet to her child. That was not an anticipated event.
By an accident the manufactured evidence had been sent out of the
house. If it had not been, I have not the slightest doubt it would
have found its way into the possession of the husband's detectives,
just as the letter in the escritoire did."
"And that letter--that damning letter----"
"Was, I expect, placed in the escritoire by the same person who
placed the photograph in the handkerchief sachet."
"And--and you found out who that was?"
"I think I have."
"But--you mustn't be cross with me for not quite following your line
of argument--the photograph was written on by Count von Phalsdorf--
the letter was in his handwriting."
"Undoubtedly."
"They were both intended for the lady. How is it they failed to reach
her hands and fell into someone else's?"
"That you will see more clearly when I have told you what I have
learnt from the sachet."
"Go on then--I shall be very glad to know."
"I examined the sachet carefully," continued Dorcas, "and found that,
with half a dozen handkerchiefs in it, if I slipped the photograph
in in a hurry, it slipped into the pocket. I then turned the pocket
inside out and examined the lining, which was of a light blue satin.
Just at the edge of the lining was a slight black ink smear."
"From the photograph--_the ink was wet!_" I exclaimed.
"No, the photograph was inscribed with a violet lead pencil--the
ink smear was from the finger of the person who thrust the photograph
into the sachet in a hurry. The lining must have rubbed the side of
the finger. Directly I noticed that I asked the lady if she remembered
what her maid was doing at the time she--the maid--asked her to step
into the next room and examine the dresses.
"'She was making out a list of things I wanted put into my trunks--I
was going away for a few days with my mother.'
"'What was she writing with?'
"'A pen and ink.'
"'Was she a good writer?'
"'No,' replied the lady, 'a clumsy one--she generally inked the side
of her fingers. I remember when she came into the inner room telling
her not to touch the dresses--her fingers were inky.'"
"Good gracious, Dorcas!" I exclaimed, "then if the maid was conspiring
to ruin her mistress, half the evidence that appears so damning can
be accounted for."
"Of course it can. I am sure that the maid put that photograph into
the sachet, intending it to be found as evidence. The presumption is
that she also found an opportunity of slipping the Count's
compromising letter into the escritoire. It is certain that she gave
the escritoire up to the man who pretended to come for it from a
furniture firm. Now, see how easily the other evidence can be
accounted for, if we accept a plot in which the maid was concerned.
She lets the Count in late at night. She gives the orders, her
mistress having retired to her own apartments, to the servants to go
to bed. She arranges to let the Count in and let him out just as she
hears the footman clanging the area gate."
"But Nice--the servant's evidence there?"
"The servants never saw the lady with the Count in the locked
sitting-room. If the lady had gone to bed, what was easier than for
the maid to admit the Count, lock the door, chat with him in an
undertone, and then let him go out and cross the corridor to be seen
by the servants who were about? As to the handkerchief, well, he
would only have to put it on the sofa for her to find it."
"But presuming, Dorcas, that such an infamous conspiracy as this
has been worked against the honour of an innocent woman, there must
have been another party to it--the Count himself."
"That is what I said to myself directly the handkerchief sachet had
incriminated the maid. If the maid worked this, she must have been
_employed_ to do so--instructed what to do by someone cleverer than
herself, and the Count must have been one of her fellow-conspirators.
He must have set himself deliberately to make everything appear
conclusive of the lady's guilt."
"One can hardly believe that of a man in the Count's position."
"It is difficult--and I felt that my next step must be to find out
if the Count could under any circumstances have lent himself to such
an infamy. I had already, as you know, obtained certain information
concerning him before I commenced my inquiries. Inquiring in a
neighbourhood which he was known to have frequented before he
suddenly appeared in Nice, elegantly dressed, and with money at his
command, I discovered that from the house he lodged in--it is in
Soho--he had suddenly moved. He came in one evening quite jolly,
and a few minutes afterwards he sent for the landlady and said, 'I'm
going. Send my things to Victoria Station--here's what I owe you.'
He paid and went away that instant. I inquired and found that on the
evening of his sudden desire to leave, the rooms above him had been
let to a young German, an artist. All the landlady could think was
that perhaps the Count didn't like to have fellow lodgers who were
Germans.
"The artist was still living there. I interviewed him. He had heard
of Count von Phalsdorf having lived there, but he did not know him by
sight. There could be no possible reason why the Count should move
because of him.
"Then I asked him if he knew of anyone, a German, who might wish to
avoid him.
"'Yes,' he said, 'there is one fellow. A year or two ago I was very
hard up, and I was living in a very poor place. Below me was a young
German fellow who said he was a gentleman and certainly talked like
one. One night we were talking over our troubles, and he said that he
was desperate. He didn't know what he should do. I said I was the
same. Then he asked me if I was particular. I said I didn't know what
he meant. Then he told me that at a cheap restaurant he had been to
he had met an Italian who had offered to introduce him to a firm of
private inquiry agents--people who got up evidence in divorce cases.
They wanted young good-looking men of gentlemanly manners and
appearance.'
"'What for,' I said. 'To be detectives?'
"'No,' he said, 'to compromise women. The Italian told me that a
good-looking clever fellow might make a big haul at that game.'
"'I felt dreadfully indignant at the bare idea, and I said to him,
"Well, I'd sooner starve than lend myself to such infamy as that,
wouldn't you?"
"'He said, "Oh, I don't know--I think if the firm made it worth my
while I'd sooner do that than starve."
"'I was so shocked by such a brutal speech that I called him an
insulting name, and he struck me--as a matter of fact he gave me a
sound hiding, and said if we were in Germany he'd kill me. I was a
bit afraid after that, for he was a strong fellow, and the next day
I left.
"'That's the only German I know who perhaps might feel ashamed of
himself, and not want to meet me again.'
"'What was this German's name?'
"'Well, he called himself Carl Hansen.'
"'Should you know him again if you saw him?'
"If I met him I could always identify him by one thing.'
"'What is that?'
"'He had a curious scar under his chin. I noticed it when he knocked
me down and stood over me that night threatening to kill me.'
"That young artist was the man I brought down to Brighton to-day,"
said Dorcas. "He, too, has changed his appearance by growing a beard,
and I don't think the Count recognised him, but he recognised the
Count _by the scar under his chin._"
When Dorcas had finished her narrative I could scarcely speak. That
such an infamous business could be carried on in the nineteenth
century here in England seemed to me inconceivable.
"Do you really think," I said, presently, "that Count von Phalsdorf
has been deliberately employed to enable the husband of the lady to
get a divorce?"
"I am sure of it," said Dorcas. "The firm of inquiry agents he
employed are entirely unscrupulous. I believe that they found the
Count and bribed the lady's maid, and worked the whole thing.
Probably this handsome Adonis who left his own country in disgrace,
and was at his wits' end for money, has had a couple of thousand
pounds for his services."
"But why should the husband be so eager for a divorce?"
"My dear fellow--directly the decree is made absolute he intends to
marry the lady who is really the cause of his first separation from
his wife."
* * * * * *
The decree was never made absolute. The information that Dorcas
had been able to gather was communicated to the Queen's Proctor, and
the lady's maid was arrested on a charge of perjury. The Count, who
had scented danger, disappeared, and was fortunately for himself
nowhere to be found when the police began to make anxious inquiries
for him. The private inquiry agent, who had been the prime mover in
the infamous conspiracy, was criminally prosecuted, and was with the
lady's maid sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.
The husband protested that he had accepted the evidence tendered
as genuine, and that all he had done was to promise a large sum to
the firm in the event of their services obtaining him a divorce.
Being a man of high position, the more merciful view of his conduct
was taken. It was agreed that he had been deceived by the people to
whom he had entrusted the inquiry, which he was led to make by the
information which they assured him they already had of his wife's
unfaithfulness.
* * * * * *
While everything had appeared to point to the guilt of the unhappy
lady, Dorcas Dene had triumphantly vindicated her honour, and
restored to her her good name, and the right to claim the love and
respect of her children.
"And I think," said Paul, when we were talking the case over
afterwards over our pipes in the little garden at Oak Tree Road,
"that if I had ever had any compunction about my good little wife
turning private detective, the last vestige of it would have vanished
with the result of this case. No soldier on the field of battle, no
missionary in a heathen land, no gentlewoman at the bedside of the
sick ever did a nobler deed than my little wife when she saved the
honour of this poor lady from the wretches who had so vilely plotted
against her."
_VI. A BANK HOLIDAY MYSTERY_
I had been away for a holiday trip to Switzerland, and had been
staying for some time at Lucerne. I like Lucerne, because there you
can have a great deal of Swiss scenery without going through any
great exertion to enjoy it. I am quite content to take everything
that I am told about the joys of Alpine climbing in good faith,
without trying the experience for myself. I am very fond of the top
of a mountain, and if there is a railway all the way up and a decent
restaurant within easy distance of the summit, nothing delights me
more than to be a mountaineer for one day only. But I object strongly
to melodramatic adventures with guides and ropes, and crevasses and
ice axes. From Lucerne you can ascend Pilatus--by rail. From the
neighbourhood of Lucerne you can make a pleasant trip up the
Righi--by rail. And when you don't want mountains you can have
quiet trips on the Lake, and come back in the evening to a big hotel,
decent cooking, the electric light, a railway station, the English
newspapers, and civilisation.
I had spent a lazy fortnight in Lucerne, and it had done me an
immense amount of good. When I returned to town I felt inclined for
a little excitement.
Sitting alone in my study one beautiful September afternoon a day
or two after my return, I had a sudden inspiration. "I will go and
call on the Denes," I said to myself. Dorcas told me before I went
away that they were going to Scotland for their holiday, but they
expected to be back by the end of August.
Eight o'clock that evening found me in front of the familiar
wooden door. I rang the bell, and the servant who answered it
informed me that Mrs. Dene was out, but that Mr. Dene was in the
drawing-room with Mrs. Lester.
Paul, who had heard my voice in the hall, stood at the open door,
"Come in, my dear fellow," he said. "Dorcas is out, but I don't think
she'll be very long. We were to expect her at nine."
Mrs. Lester was not in a particularly good humour. Soon after I
came in she picked up her work and retired to her own apartment.
"What's the matter with the old lady, Paul?" I said. "She doesn't
seem very amiable to-night."
"No," replied Paul, picking up Toddlekins, the bulldog, who had put
his paws upon his master's knee as a gentle hint that he wanted to
be nursed; "Mrs. Lester is cross with Dorcas."
"What about?"
"Oh, it's really nothing--only Dorcas isn't very well. Our holiday
in Scotland was interrupted, and Dorcas had to return to town to
take up a case that worried her a great dal, and left her quite
knocked over; and just as she was through with it and we had made up
our minds to try a little sea trip, another case came along, and
Dorcas is now engaged on it."
"But why should Mrs. Lester be disagreeable about that? She, I
presume, wouldn't want to go on the sea trip with you, and business
is business."
"Yes. But this case isn't business. Dorcas has taken it up to oblige
a poor woman who cannot even afford to pay expenses out of pocket."
"Ah, I see--that is why Mrs. Lester objects."
"Yes; she says it is idiotic of Dorcas to ruin her health and lose
her much-needed holiday worrying about other people's affairs, when
there isn't anything to be made by it."
"She has reason on her side. After all, her daughter's health is her
first consideration."
"Yes; and unfortunately the old lady considers that in this instance
Dorcas is doubly foolish to work for nothing. I'll tell you the
facts, and then you'll understand my mother-in-law's attitude better."
Paul was smoking a cigarette, so I asked his permission to light my
pipe, which he granted with a pleasant smile. I can always follow
the plot of a story better when I have a pipe in my mouth.
"Ten days ago," said Paul, "just as we were packing to go away,
there was a ring at the bell, and the servant came in and said that
an old lady wished to see Mrs. Dene. The 'consulting room,' as we
call it, was being 'turned out,' so the old lady was shown into the
drawing-room.
"I knew by the voice and the manner in which she introduced
herself that she was not a very promising client. She began by
apologising for the liberty she had taken, and seemed so confused
and nervous that Dorcas invited her to sit down and 'collect
herself.'
"'You're very kind, ma'am,' said the old lady, 'but I'm taking a
liberty, I'm sure.'
"'Never mind about the liberty,' said Dorcas. 'Sit down and tell
me why you've come to see me.'
"The old lady, after a good deal of gasping and a few tears,
eventually became composed enough to tell her story.
"She had read in the papers about the famous lady detective, Dorcas
Dene, and what wonderful things she had done, and, being in great
distress of mind about an only daughter who had disappeared, and
being unable to get any information through the police, she had
determined to come and bring her case before Mrs. Dene.
"'You want me to take it up professionally,' said my wife.
"'Well, ma'am, that's where I feel that I'm taking a liberty. I'm
only a poor woman. My daughter, who was in a West End house of
business, was my right hand. It was she who kept the home, and a good
girl she was, and the best of daughters. I am a widow, and let part
of my house in lodgings, but my daughter earned good money, and now
she's left me in such a sudden and mysterious way I don't know what
to do. I know, of course, that you are paid a great deal of money for
what you do, and you deserve it--but--you see--I--I am not in a
position----'
"'I understand,' said my wife. 'You can't afford to pay for my
services.'
"'No, ma'am--I'm sorry to say I can't, not at once--but for my dear
girl's sake I'll sell everything I have in the world, and if perhaps
you could make the terms easy for me, and take a little at a time
--oh, dear--oh, dear--of course it's a liberty to ask such a thing--
but I'm nearly distracted with grief and--and you must forgive me.'
"The old lady broke down, and there was no doubt in my mind that
her grief was genuine. I did not _see_ it, but I _heard_ it. Every
tone of her voice rang true.
"'Well,' said my wife, soothingly, 'tell me all about your daughter
first, and we can discuss my terms afterwards.'
"Briefly this is what the old lady had to tell:
"Her name was Edwards. Her daughter Miriam, who was eight-and-twenty,
was a 'tryer-on' at one of the West End drapery houses. She was a
tall, graceful, lady-like young woman, and, as the old lady observed
parenthetically, 'everything looked well on her.' She put the mantles
on for ladies to see how they looked. She came home every evening.
Some six months ago Miriam Edwards had informed her mother that she
had made the acquaintance of a gentleman--a Mr. John Carlton--who
was in a good position, so she understood, in the City. She had met
him accidentally one evening in the street when she was being annoyed
by a man who was following her. He had interfered, and, seeing she
was upset, had asked and obtained the privilege of seeing her as far
as her door. The next evening she encountered him again. He explained
that he left his office at the same time every evening, and walked
home, which accounted for their meeting. He walked a little way with
her. In that way the acquaintance commenced and gradually ripened
into affection on her part, and presumably on Mr. Carlton's, for he
made her an offer of marriage, and begged that he might be introduced
to her mother. Miriam told her mother everything, and Mr. Carlton
became a constant visitor. He was most gentlemanly, seemed to have
plenty of money, made the girl one or two handsome presents, and the
marriage was arranged to take place in September. Mr. Carlton
explained that he would not allow his wife to remain in business--he
could afford to keep her. He took Miriam and her mother about to look
for a little house, and early in August he said he had taken one and
would furnish it and give up his present lodgings, move into it, and
get everything ready for his wife. At the end of July he asked Miriam
to leave her situation, and handed her twenty pounds in gold. 'This,'
he said, 'will enable you to buy certain things, and will compensate
your mother for the loss of your salary. He did the whole thing in a
very nice and gentlemanly way, and explained that Mrs. Edwards, if she
found that the lodging-house did not pay sufficiently well, could
sell off and come to live with them.
"On the August Bank Holiday Miriam left home to meet her lover. They
were going to see the house he had taken. From that hour Mrs. Edwards
had never seen her daughter again, or heard a single word from her or
from Mr. Carlton. She had gone to a magistrate and to the police, but
nothing had been discovered, and now, as her last hope, she came to
my wife.
"When she had finished her narrative, which was, of course, far more
disjointed than I have given it to you," said Paul, "my wife commenced
to cross-examine her.
"'Your daughter was engaged with your consent to this Mr. Carlton.
Did they write to each other?'
"'No,' said the lady, 'I don't think so--you see they met almost
every evening.'
"'But sometimes he might not be able to keep the appointment. Try
and think--did he never send a message by anyone?'
"'Yes, I remember now,' said the old lady. 'Twice when she had
missed him there was a telegram for her the next morning.'
"'The next morning,' said my wife. 'Ah, he telegraphed and spent
sixpence when he could have written for a penny. He didn't want her
to have any of his handwriting in her possession!'
"'You think, then,' said the old lady, nervously, 'that Mr. Carlton's
at the bottom of my poor girl's disappearance--that he never intended
to marry her, but has 'ticed her away, the villain!'
"'I don't say _that_,' said my wife. 'I really haven't any right to
form an opinion at all as yet, but the fact that he never _wrote_
during the whole of his courtship is a point I must bear in mind.
Now, another question. Did your daughter ever write to him?'
"'Yes, I think so--I'm sure so--I have seen her write and go out and
post the letter.'
"'Did you see the address?'
"'No.'
"'Where did he tell you he lived?'
"'He was in lodgings, I understood; it was a house in the Hampstead
Road, I remember.'
"'Did you ever go there?'
"'No ma'am, I never went out with them; I had the house to look after,
and a young man doesn't want his sweetheart's mother with him.'
"'Quite so. Did your daughter ever go to his lodgings?'
"'Oh no, she wouldn't do that. I have young men lodgers; I shouldn't
like them to bring young women to their rooms.'
"'Then you only think he lived in Hampstead Road because----.'
"'Well, ma'am, I remember his saying so; and I suppose that's where
my daughter wrote to him.'