Dorcas Dene, Detective
Her adventures
by George R. Sims
Table of Contents
I. THE COUNCIL OF FOUR
II. THE HELSHAM MYSTERY
III. THE MAN WITH THE WILD EYES
IV. THE SECRET OF THE LAKE
V. THE DIAMOND LIZARD
VI. THE PRICK OF A PIN
VII. THE MYSTERIOUS MILLIONAIRE
VIII. THE EMPTY HOUSE
IX. THE CLOTHES IN THE CUPBOARD
X. THE HAVERSTOCK HILL MURDER
XI. THE BROWN BEAR LAMP
-----
_I. THE COUNCIL OF FOUR_
When I first knew Dorcas Dene she was Dorcas Lester. She came to me
with a letter from a theatrical agent, and wanted one of the small
parts in a play we were then rehearsing at a West End theatre.
She was quite unknown in the profession. She told me that she wanted
to act, and would I give her a chance? She was engaged for a
maid-servant who had about two lines to speak. She spoke them
exceedingly well, and remained at the theatre for nearly twelve
months, never getting beyond "small parts," but always playing them
exceedingly well.
The last part she had played was that of an old hag. We were all
astonished when she asked to be allowed to play it, as she was a
young and handsome woman, and handsome young women on the stage
generally like to make the most of their appearance.
As the hag, Dorcas Lester was a distinct success. Although she was
only on the stage for about ten minutes in one act and five minutes
in another, everybody talked about her realistic and well-studied
impersonation.
In the middle of the run of the play she left, and I understood that
she had married and quitted the profession.
It was eight years before I met her again. I had business with a
well-known West End solicitor. The clerk, thinking his employer
alone, ushered me at once into his room. Mr. ---- was engaged in
earnest conversation with a lady. I apologised. "It's all right,"
said Mr. ----, "the lady is just going." The lady, taking the hint,
rose, and went out.
I saw her features as she passed me, for she had not then lowered
her veil, and they seemed familiar to me.
"Who do you think that was?" said Mr. ---- mysteriously, as the
door closed behind his visitor.
"I don't know," I said; "but I think I've seen her before somewhere.
Who is she?"
"That, my dear fellow, is Dorcas Dene, the famous lady detective.
_You_ may not have heard of her; but with our profession and with
the police, she has a great reputation."
"Oh! Is she a private inquiry agent, or a female member of the
Criminal Investigation Department?"
"She holds no official position," replied my friend, "but works
entirely on her own account. She has been mixed up in some of the
most remarkable cases of the day--cases that sometimes come into
court, but which are far more frequently settled in a solicitor's
office."
"If it isn't an indiscreet question, what is she doing for you? You
are not in the criminal business."
"No, I am only an old-fashioned, humdrum family solicitor, but I
have a very peculiar case in hand just now for one of my clients. I
am not revealing a professional secret when I tell you that young
Lord Helsham, who has recently come of age, has mysteriously
disappeared. The matter has already been guardedly referred to in
the gossip column of the society papers. His mother, Lady Helsham,
who is a client of mine, has been to me in the greatest distress of
mind. She is satisfied that her boy is alive and well. The poor lady
is convinced that it is a case of cherchez la femme, and she is
desperately afraid that her son, perhaps in the toils of some
unprincipled woman, may be induced to contract a disastrous
mésalliance. That is the only reason she can suggest to me for his
extraordinary conduct."
"And the famous lady detective who has just left your office is to
unravel the mystery--is that it?"
"Yes. All our own inquiries having failed, I yesterday decided to
place the case in her hands, as it was Lady Helsham's earnest desire
that no communication should be made to the police. She is most
anxious that the scandal shall not be made a public one. To-day
Dorcas Dene has all the facts in her possession, and she has just
gone to see Lady Helsham. And now, my dear fellow, what can I do
for you?"
My business was a very trifling matter. It was soon discussed and
settled, and then Mr. ---- invited me to lunch with him at a
neighbouring restaurant. After lunch I strolled back with him as far
as his office. As we approached, a hansom cab drove up to the door
and a lady alighted.
"By Jove! it's your lady detective again," I exclaimed.
The lady detective saw us, and came towards us.
"Excuse me," she said to Mr. ----, "I want just a word or two
with you."
Something in her voice struck me then, and suddenly I remembered
where I had seen her before.
"I beg your pardon," I said, "but are we not old friends?"
"Oh, yes," replied the lady detective with a smile; "I knew you
at once, but thought you had forgotten me. I have changed a good
deal since I left the theatre."
"You have changed your name and your profession, but hardly your
appearance--I ought to have known you at once. May I wait for you
here while you discuss your business with Mr. ----? I should like
to have a few minutes' chat with you about old times."
Dorcas Lester--or rather Dorcas Dene, as I must call her now--
gave a little nod of assent, and I walked up and down the street
smoking my cigar for fully a quarter of an hour before she
reappeared.
"I'm afraid I've kept you waiting a long time," she said pleasantly,
"and now if you want to talk to me you will have to come home with
me. I'll introduce you to my husband. You needn't hesitate or think
you'll be in the way, because, as a matter of fact, directly I saw
you I made up my mind you could be exceedingly useful to me."
She raised her umbrella and stopped a hansom, and before I quite
appreciated the situation, we were making our way to St. John's Wood
as fast as a very bad horse could take us.
On the journey Dorcas Dene was confidential. She told me that she
had taken to the stage because her father, an artist, had died
suddenly and left her and her mother nothing but a few unmarketable
pictures and the unpaid tradesmen's bills to settle.
"Poor dad!" she said. "He was very clever, and he loved us very
dearly, but he was only a great big boy to the last. When he was
doing well he spent everything he made and enjoyed life--and when
he was doing badly he did bills and pawned things, and thought it
was rather fun. At one time he would be treating us to dinner at
the Café Royal and the theatre afterwards, and at another time he
would be showing us how to live as cheaply as he used to do in his
old Paris days in the Quartier Latin, and cooking our meals himself
at the studio fire.
"Well, when he died I got on to the stage, and at last--as
I daresay you remember--I was earning two guineas a week. On
that I and my mother lived in two rooms in St. Paul's-road,
Camden Town.
"Then a young artist, a Mr. Paul Dene, who had been our friend and
constant visitor in my father's lifetime, fell in love with me. He
had risen rapidly in his profession, and was making money. He had no
relations, and his income was seven or eight hundred a year, and
promised to be much larger. Paul proposed to me, and I accepted him.
He insisted that I should leave the stage, and he would take a
pretty little house, and mother should come and live with us, and
we could all be happy together.
"We took the house we are going to now--a sweet little place
with a lovely garden in Oak Tree-road, St. John's Wood--and for
two years we were very happy. Then a terrible misfortune happened.
Paul had an illness and became blind. He would never be able to
paint again.
"When I had nursed him back to health I found that the interest
of what we had saved would barely pay the rent of our house. I did
not want to break up our home--what was to be done? I thought
of the stage again, and I had just made up my mind to see if I
could not get an engagement, when chance settled my future for me
and gave me a start in a very different profession.
"In the next house to us there lived a gentleman, a Mr. Johnson,
who was a retired superintendent of police. Since his retirement
he had been conducting a high-class private inquiry business, and
was employed in many delicate family matters by a well-known firm
of solicitors who are supposed to have the secrets of half the
aristocracy locked away in their strong room.
"Mr. Johnson had been a frequent visitor of ours, and there was
nothing which delighted Paul more in our quiet evenings than a chat
and a pipe with the genial, good-hearted ex-superintendent of
police. Many a time have I and my husband sat till the small hours
by our cosy fireside listening to the strange tales of crime, and
the unravelling of mysteries which our kind neighbour had to tell.
There was something fascinating to us in following the slow and
cautious steps with which our kindly neighbour--who looked more
like a jolly sea captain than a detective--had threaded his way
through the Hampton Court maze in the centre of which lay the
truth which it was his business to discover.
"He must have thought a good deal of Paul's opinion, for after a
time he would come in and talk over cases which he had in hand--
without mentioning names when the business was confidential--and
the view which Paul took of the mystery more than once turned out
to be the correct one. From this constant association with a
private detective we began to take a kind of interest in his work,
and when there was a great case in the papers which seemed to defy
the efforts of Scotland Yard, Paul and I would talk it over
together, and discuss it and build up our own theories around it.
"After my poor Paul lost his sight Mr. Johnson, who was a widower,
would come in whenever he was at home--many of his cases took him
out of London for weeks together--and help to cheer my poor boy up
by telling him all about the latest romance or scandal in which he
had been engaged.
"On these occasions my mother, who is a dear, old-fashioned,
simple-minded woman, would soon make an excuse to leave us. She
declared that to listen to Mr. Johnson's stories made her nervous.
She would soon begin to believe that every man and woman she met
had a guilty secret, and the world was one great Chamber of Horrors
with living figures instead of waxwork ones like those of Madame
Tussaud's.
"I had told Mr. Johnson of our position when I found that it would
be necessary for me to do something to supplement the hundred a
year which was all that Paul's money would bring us in, and he had
agreed with me that the stage afforded the best opening.
"One morning I made up my mind to go to the agent's. I had dressed
myself in my best and had anxiously consulted my looking-glass. I
was afraid that my worries and the long strain of my husband's
illness might have left their mark upon my features and spoilt my
'market value' in the managerial eye.
"I had taken such pains with myself, and my mind was so concentrated
upon the object I had in view, that when I was quite satisfied with
my appearance I ran into our little sitting-room, and, without
thinking, said to my husband, 'Now I'm off! How do you think I
look, dear?"
"My poor Paul turned his sightless eyes towards me, and his lip
quivered. Instantly I saw what my thoughtlessness had done. I flung
my arms round him and kissed him, and then, the tears in my eyes,
I ran out of the room and went down the little front garden. When
I opened the door Mr. Johnson was outside with his hand on the bell.
"'Where are you going?' he said.
"'To the agent, to see about an engagement.'
"'Come back; I want to talk to you.'
"I led the way back to the house, and we went into the dining-room
which was empty.
"'What do you think you could get on the stage?' he said.
"'Oh, if I'm lucky I may get what I had before--two guineas
a week. You see, I've never played anything but small parts.'
"'Well then, put off the stage for a little and I can give you
something that will pay you a great deal better. I've just got a
case in which I must have the assistance of a lady. The lady who
had worked for me for the last two years has been idiot enough to
get married, with the usual consequences, and I'm in a fix.'
"'You--you want me to be a lady detective--to watch
people?' I gasped. 'Oh, I couldn't!'
"'My dear Mrs. Dene,' Mr. Johnson said gently, 'I have too much
respect for you and your husband to offer you anything that you
need be afraid of accepting. I want you to help me to rescue an
unhappy man who is being so brutally blackmailed that he has run
away from his broken-hearted wife and his sorrowing children. That
is surely a business transaction in which an angel could engage
without soiling its wings.'
"'But I'm not clever at--at that sort of thing!'
"'You are cleverer than you think. I have formed a very high opinion
of your qualifications for our business. You have plenty of shrewd
common sense, you are a keen observer, and you have been an actress.
Come, the wife's family are rich, and I am to have a good round sum
if I save the poor fellow and get him home again. I can give you
a guinea a day and your expenses, and you have only to do what I
tell you.'
"I thought everything over, and then I accepted--on one condition.
I was to see how I got on before Paul was told anything about it.
If I found that being a lady detective was repugnant to me--if I
found that it involved any sacrifice of my womanly instincts--
I should resign, and my husband would never know that I had done
anything of the sort.
"Mr. Johnson agreed, and we left together for his office.
"That was how I first became a lady detective. I found that the work
interested me, and that I was not so awkward as I had expected to
be. I was successful in my first undertaking, and Mr. Johnson
insisted on my remaining with him and eventually we became partners.
A year ago he retired, strongly recommending me to all his clients,
and that is how you find me to-day a professional lady detective."
"And one of the best in England," I said, with a bow. "My friend
Mr. -- has told me of your great reputation."
Dorcas Dene smiled.
"Never mind about my reputation," she said. "Here we are at my
house--now you've got to come in and be introduced to my husband
and to my mother and to Toddlekins."
"Toddlekins--I beg pardon--that's the baby, I suppose?"
A shade crossed Dorcas Dene's pretty womanly face, and I thought
I saw her soft grey eyes grow moist.
"No--we have no family. Toddlekins is a dog."
* * * * * * *
It was difficult for me to imagine, as I glanced around the
delightful little drawing-room and noted everywhere the evidences
of artistic simplicity and refinement, that I was in the house of
the famous lady detective. I had not been introduced to the blind
husband many minutes before I felt that we were old friends. Paul
Dene, the blind artist, interested me at once. A handsome man, well
above the medium height, with a mass of fair waving hair; there was
something in the blind, gentle face that riveted your attention and
claimed your sympathy at once. He rose as his wife entered the room,
a questioning look upon his face, for my footstep was unfamiliar to
him. Dorcas Dene took his hand and led him towards me. "Paul, dear,"
she said, "this is an old friend of mine. This is the gentleman who
gave me my first chance as an actress."
We chatted together for a few minutes, and then a buxom, grey-haired
lady came bustling into the room, followed by a big brindle bulldog,
wagging the whole of his body. He ran to his mistress with a little
snort of joy, stood up on his hind-legs, and licked her hands
affectionately, and then turned and looked at me inquiringly.
"Friends, Toddlekins," said his mistress. Then turning to me, she
added with a smile, "You can pat him quite safely now I have
introduced you."
"He would come in, Dorcas," exclaimed the middle-aged lady, "and I
didn't know you had company."
"This is Mr. Saxon, the dramatist, mother."
The old lady gave me a rather distant bow, and eyed me somewhat
suspiciously. "I've heard of you, sir," she said, "and I know how
good you were to my daughter years ago, but I don't hold with
melodramas, and I never shall; and how Christian people can pay
money to see their fellow-creatures blown up with dynamite, and
murdered, and condemned to death for what they never did, and
turned out of house and home to die in the snow, is what I shall
never understand."
I suppose I looked slightly uncomfortable, for Dorcas Dene broke in
with a merry little laugh. "Mother doesn't mean any harm, Mr. Saxon,
it's only her funny little way; she puts us all right here--don't
you mother dear?"
"I always say what I think," replied the old lady. "It's
old-fashioned I dare say, but I'm one of the old-fashioned sort.
But I'd better take the dog out--Mr. Saxon's afraid of him."
"No, no, I assure you," I exclaimed, reddening, "I--I _love_ dogs,"
and I stooped down and timidly patted Toddlekins, who was sniffing
suspiciously at my calves.
"You needn't be ashamed of being afraid of Toddlekins," the old
lady exclaimed, with evident disbelief in my disclaimer. "Most
people are at first. He hates strangers coming to the place."
I saw a shade of annoyance pass over the blind artist's gentle
face. "An old friend of my wife's won't be a stranger here very
long," he said quietly, then gave a little whistle, and the bulldog
ran quickly across the room and laid his great head on his
master's knee.
"Well, I suppose I'm wrong as usual!" exclaimed the old lady,
tossing her head, "but all the same, Mr. Saxon may just as well
know that the dog nearly killed a man once, and I'm as certain as I
am that I'm alive that one day he'll kill another if he's ever left
alone with that young man that comes to wind up the clocks. He's
taken a dislike to that young man, has Toddlekins, and, Dorcas, my
dear, don't say I haven't warned you. When it does happen, don't
expect me to interfere; I was never brought up to bite bulldogs'
tails to make them leave go, and it's not the sort of thing you can
ask a respectable servant to do." And with that, the old lady turned
upon her heel and sailed out of the room, and her daughter followed
her, evidently to pacify her.
"You mustn't mind Mrs. Lester," said Paul Dene, as the door closed
behind them. "She's a dear, good soul, really, and I don't know what
we should do without her; but she has an idea that she is the only
person in the house who has any sense, and she has a mania for
speaking what she calls 'her mind.' The dog's as gentle as a lamb,
but he _did_ once nearly kill a man, and that is how my wife came by
him. He was reared from a puppy by a rough at the East End. This man
was constantly ill-using his wife, to whom the dog was devotedly
attached. One day the man, in a drunken frenzy, knocked his wife
down. As she lay on the floor, he bent over her, and was about to
strike her with a poker, when the dog suddenly sprang at him, and
seized him by the throat, and held him till the neighbours rushed
in. The dog had saved the woman's life, but the man was terribly
injured, and it was a question with the police of having the dog
killed, when my wife, who had heard the story, asked the officer in
charge of the case to let her have him; and Toddlekins has been our
faithful friend and guardian ever since."
I looked at Toddlekins, who had curled himself up at his master's
feet and was sleeping with one eye open, and I made up my mind that
when I said "Good-bye" to Dorcas Dene, I would put out my hand in a
manner that should not admit of the slightest misinterpretation,
and I was rather relieved when Paul Dene turned the conversation on
to another topic.
He presumed I was aware of his wife's present profession. I
explained how I had met her at the solicitor's, and that she had
told me I might be of use to her in the case on which she was
present engaged. Had he heard the particulars?
He said he had not, as his wife had only received her instructions
that day, but in all business matters she invariably consulted him.
"You see," he said, "my blindness is a very valuable quality. Seeing
nothing physically, my mental vision is intensified. I can think a
problem out undisturbed by the surroundings which distract people
who have their eyesight. When people want 'a good think,' as they
call it, they often shut themselves in a room and close their eyes.
I am a man who is always thinking with closed eyes. In all her
difficulties my wife comes to me, and generally we hold a council
of four."
"Of four?"
"Yes, the council consists of myself, Dorcas, her mother, and
Toddlekins."
I was obliged to give a little laugh. "I should hardly have thought
that Mrs. Lester could have been of much service in unravelling
a mystery."
"That is where you are wrong. Mrs. Lester often hits the right nail
on the head before either of us. We are building up an elaborate
theory, and she takes a plain, straightforward, matter-of-fact,
common-sense view, and it turns out to be the right one. Detectives
are only human, you know, and, like the rest of the world, they
frequently go looking about in every direction for something that
lies close to their hand all the time."
At that moment the door opened, and I started up in astonishment. A
dark-skinned old gipsy woman, such as one meets on the racecourses,
had come into the room.
I gave a nervous look at the bulldog, expecting him to spring at the
intruder. But he only opened his eyes and wagged his tail, and then
the truth suddenly flashed upon me.
It was Dorcas Dene. "Mr. Saxon," she said, "they are playing a gipsy
play at the theatre; I want you to go with me to the manager, and get
him to let me go on with the gipsy crowd at the end of the third
act." And then she added with a little laugh, "I told you you would
be useful to me."
"But I thought you were going to investigate the mysterious
disappearance of young Lord Helsham?" I stammered.
"Exactly--that's why I want to get behind the scenes of the
------ Theatre. Unless I am very much mistaken, that is where
'the lady in the case' is most likely to be found."
"But we can't go together through the street with
you--ahem!--like that."
Dorcas Dene laughed. "No, I want you to meet me outside the theatre
at eight o'clock, and get me engaged at once as a real gipsy super.
I'm sure you can manage that for me. I thought, before you left, you
had better see me exactly as I shall meet you to-night. And now, good
afternoon and au revoir."
"You think you will find Lord Helsham, then? You have a clue to the
mystery already?"
"I may find Lord Helsham to-night if you get me behind the scenes,
but as to the clue to the mystery of his disappearance, that is
quite another matter. And now I rely upon you. Until eight o'clock
this evening, au revoir."
I shook hands cordially with Dorcas Dene and her blind husband, and
patted Toddlekins respectfully. A minute afterwards, I was out in
the quiet little road trying to think out the mystery for myself.
Here was a young nobleman, his own master, and free to do as he
chose, and yet he had deliberately left his mother a prey to the
greatest anxiety as to his whereabouts. There was no necessity for
him to "disappear," to carry on an intrigue, or even to contract an
undesirable marriage.
Not even in the days of my youthful romance had I waited so eagerly
for the hour and the lady, as I waited that evening for eight
o'clock and Dorcas Dene.
_II. THE HELSHAM MYSTERY_
I sat in the stalls watching the third act of the great gipsy drama,
which had drawn all London to the ------ Theatre. I had persuaded the
manager, with whom I was on friendly terms, to allow Dorcas Dene, the
famous lady detective, to have the use of his stage for her own
purposes, disguised as a gipsy super.
But she had so far refused to tell me the name of the actress through
whom she expected to run young Lord Helsham to earth that evening,
or at least to be able to learn why he had disappeared.
It had been agreed between us that after the third act was over I
should go behind, and she would then be able to communicate with me.
Directly the curtain was down the manager joined me, and took me
through the private door and left me on the stage. The old gipsy
woman was waiting about for me in a quiet corner.
"What success?" I asked eagerly.
Without replying to my question, Dorcas Dene gripped me excitedly
by the arm.
"Get a hansom to the stage-door," she said. "I want you to come with
me somewhere."
I glanced hesitatingly at her costume.
"Don't be afraid," she said. "The cloak I brought with me will cover
all this, and I have a thick veil in my pocket."
I went out to get a hansom, and it was barely at the door before
Dorcas Dene was by my side. She sprang lightly in and motioned me to
follow, telling the cabman to drive to Grosvenor Square.
"You are going to see Lady Helsham?" I said.
"Yes, I must. Lord Helsham is on the point of committing suicide."
"How on earth have you found that out?" I gasped.
"By a very simple process. Lady Helsham, in our interview this
morning, gave me a photograph which she had found among her son's
papers. It was the photograph of a very beautiful girl taken in stage
costume. On the back of it was written, 'To dearest Bertie, from
Nella.' The photographer was Alfred Ellis, of Baker Street, who--it
being a theatrical photograph taken for public sale--had printed
beneath it, 'Miss Nella Dalroy, in "The Gipsy Wife."'"
"Ah, now I understand why you wanted to get behind the scenes
to-night. You wanted to see Nella Dalroy."
"Exactly. Lord Helsham's name is Bertie. Now a girl who puts 'To
dearest Bertie, from Nella,' is either engaged to him, or, for the
sake of her morals, ought to be. You understand?"
"Yes--I begin to understand."
"To-night I was able to watch Miss Dalroy narrowly. I could see that
she was prey to some great anxiety. Once she nearly broke down, and
went on with her part with the greatest difficulty. I was sure then
that young Lord Helsham's disappearance was not to the advantage of
Nella Dalroy.
"During the second act she had to wait, and she stood at the wings.
One of the young ladies of the company, evidently her friend, came
and talked to her, and I managed to overhear a little of the
conversation.
"'Haven't you heard anything more?' said her friend.
"'Yes--to-night just as I left home--a letter telling me that he sees
no way out of his trouble, and that I must forget him, and that we
shall never meet again--and--and'--here her voice quivered--'he says
he has left me all that he has a right to leave me. Oh, what can he
mean by that?'
"At that moment Miss Dalroy's cue came, and she went on the stage.
It was fortunate for her that it was a tearful scene she was playing,
or her agitation must have been noticeable."
Dorcas Dene leant back in the hansom, lost in thought.
After a moment's silence I ventured to ask her how she arrived at
the conclusion that Lord Helsham contemplated suicide.
"What else can it mean?" she answered, half speaking to herself.
"'I have left you all I have a right to leave.' If he thought of
himself in the future as a _living_ man, he would have said, 'I
will _give_ you all.'"
I shook my head, and murmured that I really couldn't see any possible
reason why a wealthy young nobleman who was his own master should put
an end to his life after making a will in favour of a pretty actress
who was deeply in love with him.
"Nor I," replied Dorcas Dene. "But I am engaged to restore her son to
Lady Helsham, and it is my duty to restore him alive if possible. But
here we are at Grosvenor Square."
I got out and assisted Dorcas Dene to alight. "May I wait for you?"
I said.
"Not here. But you will do me a great service if you will take the
cab and go on to Oak Tree Road, and tell my husband I shall be home
some time to-night."
* * * * * * *
It was past midnight when Dorcas Dene joined the little family circle
at Oak Tree Road. Paul Dene, the blind artist, had invited me to
stay and keep him company until his wife returned.
A few minutes later, the lady detective, divested of her war-paint,
was leaning back in the arm-chair and "stating her case," in order
that she might have the opinion of her husband and her mother
upon it.