The Female Detective Read online

  Meanwhile Mrs. Flemps, within the cab, was shaking her head dolefully; and I could see, by the wistful, far-away appearance of her eyes, that in thought she was a long way beyond me and the cab.

  When she woke up, which she did in a short time with an exclamation, and such a rough, cutting sentence as I have noticed the rougher sort of folk are in the habit of making the termination of any show of sentiment, I reminded her that she had promised to tell me the history of Little Fourpenny.

  “Wait, my dear, till we get to the gardings, and Jan himself will oblige. He tells the tale better nor I do.”

  Therefore I said no more till we had ended our plain dinner at the tea-gardens, which were our destination. The meal done, and Jan at his pipe, I reminded Mrs. F. once more of her promise; and she mentioning the matter to the cabman, it appeared to me that he was not at all disinclined to refresh himself with a recital of the history.

  It is necessary that I should give it, in order that the reader may appreciate how a detective can work out a case.

  “I were a going home in my cab one night, more nor a little time ago—”

  “It were in ’forty-eight, when the French were a fighting Louy Philippe,” said the cabman’s wife.

  “I was a goin’ home, not in the best o’ humours, when a comin’ across ’amstead ’eath I overtook a woman a staggerin’ under what I thought were a bundle.”

  “It were a child,” said Mrs. Flemps.

  “Yes, it were,” the cabman continued; “and it had on’y been in this precious world a fortnight. I pulled up, seein’ her staggerin’; and to cut it short hereabouts, I told her she might come up on the box along o’ me, for it were not likely I could let a tramp in on the cushions. She were werry weak, and the infant were the poorest lookin’ kid I ever seed—yet purty to look at as I sor by the gass.”

  “As he sord by the gass!” responded Jemima.

  “Well, arter some conversation with that young woman, I pulled up at a public, and treated her and your obedient; and which whether it were the rum put me up to it, or it were in me before and I knowed it not, no sooner had I swallowed that rum than the idea was plain and wisible afore me. ‘What are you a goin’ to do with it?’ I said, pointing to the young un. ‘I don’t know,’ says she, a lookin’ out towards London. ‘Father?’ says I. ‘No,’ says she. I then looks out, and points towards London, which she thereupon shook her head; but she didn’t turn on the water, being, I think, too far gone for that. ‘Which,’ said I, ‘if you can do nothin’ for her (knowin’ as she’d told me it was a girl) somebody else may—my old woman and me, you see, never havin’ had no family.’”

  “Never having had no family—more’s the pity,” responded Mrs. Flemps.

  “‘Why,’ says she, continued the cabman, ‘who’d be troubled with another woman’s child?—women have enough trouble with their own.’ ‘I would,’ says I, ‘my old woman never having had any, and not likely to mend matters.’ ‘Will you?’ says she, and such a hawful light came upon that young woman’s face as I never wish to see on another. ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘and it shall be all fair and above board, and I’ll give you my old woman’s address, and what money I’ve got for her’—which it came about she got called Little Fourpenny, being that sum I had in my pocket after payin’ for the rum, after a whole day out and only a shillin’ fare. Well, the longs and the shorts of it are that that there wretched young woman gave me up the baby, and I gived her the fourpence, and she got down off the cab and went down a turning, and blest if ever she looked back once, and blest if ever she called at our place once—p’r’aps she lost the address though, and if she did, why she were not so bad after all, and p’r’aps she died—anyhow, that’s how we came by Little Fourpenny.”

  “That’s how we came by Little Fourpenny,” responded Mrs. F., adding, as a kind of Amen, “blesser little ’art.”

  “Yes,” said I, “but what of Little Fourpenny Number Two?”

  “Ha, that’s on’y five year ago. My Jemmy—meanin’ Jemima, wasn’t best pleased when I brought that poor Little Fourpenny home, and I think she thought I knew’d more of it than I did till she growed so uncommon unlike me—but let my wife have thought as she might, I’m sure no mother was ever sorrier than her were when Little Fourpenny was took and changed for the better.”

  “Much for the better!” said Mrs. F., with two or three tears in her eyes, as I detected.

  “Lord, I see her now a comin’ with my dinner, bein’ not so much nor ten year old, and all the rank with a word for Little Fourpenny. All the fellers o’ the rank wanted to stand when Little Fourpenny went off the road, which it was but nat’ral. Yes, we missed her when she died at nine.”

  “At nine,” responded Mrs. F., adding, “five years ago.”

  “And it was but nat’ral we should think as our Fourpennurth was a good one, and as we was alone and might find another, which was the reason, as p’r’aps I began lookin’ after Little Fourpenny Number Two, and bless you, my dear, cabmen, and I dersay policemen, don’t have to look far any night o’ the week without finding a wand’rin’ woman as ’as got a little un she don’t know what on earth to do with.”

  “Little Fourpenny hadn’t been off the rank three months afore, sittin’ on that very milestone as I pointed out, and one evenin’ in this very month o’ July, there I saw her. My ’art was in my mouth, for it was as though all them years had never been, and jest as though Little Fourpenny’s mother was jest afore my hoss’s head agin. It was another on ’em. She was a woman with a little un as she didn’t know what on earth to do with. Which I spoke to her, and havin’ that experience of our gal, I soon made ’er understand me, though I do assure yer my ’art was in my mouth as I thought o’ the other. She didn’t understand me a’ fust, but she did at last, and I thought she were orf ’er ’ed abit by the way she went on, sayin’ as Providence ’ad interfered, when it were on’y me. And she took the address greedy-like, but when I offered her the five shillin’s, doin’ it pleasant like and callin’ her mate, she shrinks back she does, and calls out to Heaven if she can sell her child. Which then promisin’ to call and see my old woman, and kissin’ the child till it got into my throat agin’, she run orf with her arms wide out, and goin’ from side to side like a jibber—which she never come to see the old woman!”

  “Which she never come!” responded Mrs. F.; adding, “which if she had what could I ’a said, and which if she’d tore my eyes out I could not ha’ complained.”

  “For you see,” continued the cabman, “that there child and that there old woman o’ mine never met.”

  “Never met!” responded Mrs. Flemps.

  “For you must know,” continued the cabman, “I sold that there child o’ that there woman afore I’d left that there milestone a mile behind.”

  “A mile behind!” adds Mrs. Flemps, shaking her head.

  “Lord lead us not into temptation, but I could not rersist that there thutty poun’, bein’ at that identkle time werry hard up, owin’ to havin’ to pay damages for runnin’ down a hold man which was more frightened nor hurt, but the obstinest old party ever a man druv, and had to pay ’im that identkle sum o’ thutty poun’s, which it seemed to me a kind o’ providence when the woman offered that identkle sum, since it seemed to me as I was taken pity on acos of runnin’ down that obstnit hold gent while hard a thinkin’ o’ lost Little Fourpenny.”

  Now by this time my curiosity had been thoroughly roused. It was impossible to avoid comprehending that the child that the wretched mother had given up to the cabman had been literally sold by him within twenty minutes of the time when he came into the possession of her.

  And perhaps it is necessary that I should remark that I was not struck with the idea that it was at all unlikely that this cabman should have met a second woman in his life ready to part with her child. I am, detective as I live, almost as much ashamed as pained to admit that there is not a
night passes in this large city of London during which you are unable to find wretched mothers ready to part with their children. Perhaps I should add that my experience leads me to believe that these poor women are mothers for the first time—mothers of but a very short duration, and that therefore, while they have not been with their little ones long enough to be unable to separate from them, they are still under the influence of that horror of their position, and consequent fear or dread of the child, which is the result of their memory of a time when they were free and respected. These young women are mostly seduced servant and work girls. Poor things!—we detectives, especially us women detectives, know quite enough of such matters.

  Said I to the cabman—

  “Who was the woman who took the child?”

  “Why, ’ow should I know? I was a joggin’ on, with the little un on the floor o’ the cab, atween the two cushions to prevent co-lisons, when she calls ‘Cab!’ to me. ‘’Gaged,’ says I. ‘I’ll pay you anythink, says she. ‘Well,’ thinks I, ‘anyhow you’re a queer customer.’ She were about thirty—a wild looking party as ever I saw by the gas-lamp, under which she was standin’, but she were a real lady, and had dark eyes. ‘Can’t do it,’ says I. Then she says, ‘Have you come far down the road?’ ‘About three miles,’ says I. ‘Ha,’ says she, ‘’ave you seen a woman with a child?’ which, continued the cabman, you might ha’ knocked me orf my box when she made that there remark—‘a poor woman,’ says she, ‘with a very young child?’ And then as luck would have it—or ill luck—which sometimes I think it were one, and at other times I’m sure it were the other; as some luck would ’ave it, at this identkle moment, the child sets up a howlin’ fine. ‘What’s that?—oh, what’s that?’ she asks, a flyin’ at the cab-windy, and I can tell you I was nearly a tumblin’ orf my box, I was so took aback. ‘Heaven ’ave sent it!’ says she, lookin’ in the cab, and I s’pose seein’ on’y the child there at the bottom o’ the cab, ‘which,’ says I, ‘it’s that identkle young woman’s you was speakin’ of!’ Then she screals out she does; an’ if there’d been a p’leaceman about I should ha’ been in Queer Street, savin’ your presence, my dear, a talkin’ about the p’leace on a Sunday. Then I ups and tells her that me and my missus have lost our Little Fourpenny, and how I’ve got the kid; and then she calls out again that Heaven is at the bottom of it, and she says—‘My good man,’ says she, ‘here’s thutty poun’s,’ which there was, all in gold, ‘and take it, and give me the child;’ and then she says how that I can have no love for the child—not havin’ ever seen it afore, and ’ow by doin’ as she wished, I might do great good, and, to cut it short—after a time—I gived ’er the child, and I took the thutty poun’s; and that’s how it was my old woman never, never saw the little un, and how it was, as I hoped that there poor mother ud never call at our house. She never did; so p’r’aps them poor mothers are all alike, and don’t care to look them in the face as they once deserted, and can’t reasonubly ask back again, and that’s how it was that my old woman never saw Little Fourpenny Number Two.”

  “Never saw Little Fourpenny Number Two!” responded Mrs. Flemps.

  Now I may say at once that this tale, told in common English, by an ordinary man, smoking his common clay pipe in a plain tea-gardens in the suburbs of London—this tale called forth all the acumen and wits with which nature has endowed me. The detective was all alive as that extraordinary recital, told with no intention for effect, was slowly unfolded to me, with many stops and waves of the pipe, and repetitions with which I have not favoured the reader.

  It was a most remarkable history, that of the woman who had obtained the child, from beginning to end.

  The series of facts, accepting the cabman’s statements as honest, and as he had no purpose to serve in deceiving me, I was at once inclined to suppose he spoke the truth—as he did; the series of facts was wonderful from the beginning of the chapter to the end.

  The extraordinary list of unusual facts began with a woman, evidently belonging to a good class, being out late at night and hailing a cab. Then followed her inquiry concerning a woman with a very young child. To this succeeds the discovery of the child in the cab, and the ejaculation that Heaven has been good to her; and finally had to be considered the fact of her having thirty pounds in gold with her, and which she offers at once to the cabman for the child.

  Accustomed to weigh facts, and trace out clear meanings, something after the manner of lawyers, a habit common to all detectives, before I began in a loose, half-curious way to question Flemps upon the history he had betrayed to me, I had made out a tolerable case against the lady.

  As she knew that the woman had passed that way it appeared evident to me that she had seen her, guessing her to be a beggar, at some earlier period of the evening than that at which she addressed the cabman. And as after the cabman refused her for a fare she expressed great joy at hearing the crying of the infant, the inference stood that her despair at the cabman’s refusal was in some way connected with the child itself.

  Continuing out this reasoning—and custom was so ready within me that the process was finished before the cabman had—I came to the conclusion, after duly balancing the fact of her having with her thirty pounds in gold, and her bribing the cabman with it, that for some reason unknown she had pressing need for a child. I felt certain that she had seen the woman in an earlier part of the evening, that she had set out to overtake the woman, to purchase the child of her, if possible, and that meeting the cab, the driver of which could have no knowledge of her, she had hailed him in the hope of more speedily overtaking the woman and child.

  The questions, as a detective, I wished answered were these:—

  Who was she?

  Why did she act as she did?

  Where was she?

  At once I apprehended I should have little difficulty in ascertaining where she was, provided she still lived in the district, and provided the cabman could give me some clue by which to identify her.

  For I may tell you at once that I saw crime in the whole of this business. Children are not bought in the dark in the midst of fear and trembling, if all is clear and honest sailing.

  So pretending to be really interested in the story, which I was, I began putting questions.

  “Did you ever learn anything more?”

  “Nothink,” said he.

  And his wife, of course, responded and repeated.

  “You never saw the woman again?”

  “Never.”

  Echoed by Mrs. F. I will leave her repeats out from this time forth.

  “How long ago did it happen?—you interest me so much!”

  “Five years this blessed July.”

  “Then it was in the July of 1858.” I knew that by the date of Little Fourpenny’s death.

  “It was.”

  [I should here point out to the reader that though I put this singular case, “Tenant for Life,” as the leading narrative in my book, it is one of the later of my more remarkable cases.]

  “You are quite sure about the milestone?” I said.

  “Quite,” he replied.

  “What kind of a woman was she?”

  “Which,” the cabman continued, “I could no more say nor I could fly—save she was wildish-looking, and had large black eyes, and was an out-and-out lady.”

  “Did she—pardon my being so curious—did she have any peculiarity which you remarked?”

  “Any pecooliarity? No, not as I am aweer on.”

  “No mark—no way with her which was uncommon?”

  “None sumdever,” said the cabman. “Ha! I year ’er now. ‘Firty poun’s,’ says she, which I could hardly unnerstand ’er at fust; ‘firty poun’s for that child,’ says she, ‘firty poun’s.’ But what ’ave you started for, my dear?” he asked me.

  “Which,” here his wife added, “well she may start, pore dear, with you a tellin’ about Littl
e Fourpenny in a way to child ’er blood.”

  Now, the fact is, I had started because I thought I saw the end of a good clew. We detectives have quite a handbook of the science of our trade, and we know every line by heart. One of the chief chapters in that unwritten book is the one devoted to identification. The uninitiated would be surprised to learn how many ways we have of identification by certain marks, certain ways, certain personal peculiarities—but above all, by the unnumbered modes of speaking, the form of speaking, the subjects spoken of, and above all the impediments or peculiarities of speech. For instance, if we are told a party we are after always misplaces the “w” and “v,” we are inclined to let a suspected person pass who answers in all other ways to the description, except in this case of the “v” and “w.” We know that no cunning, no dexterity would enable the man we are seeking to prevent the exhibition of this imperfection, even if he were on his guard, which he never is. He may change dress, voice, look, appearance, but never his mode of speaking—never his pronunciation.

  Now, amongst our list of speech-imperfections is one where there is an impossibility to pronounce the troublesome “th,” and where this difficult sound is replaced by an “f,” or a “d,” or sometimes by one or the other, according to the construction of the word.

  This imperfection I hoped I had discovered to be distinguishable as belonging to the woman who had purchased the child.

  “Do you mean, Mr. Flemps,” I said,—“do you mean to say that the woman said firty instead of thirty? How odd.”

  “‘Firty,’ says she, and that were the reason why I could not comperend ’er at fust. ‘Firty,’ says she; an’ it was on’y when the gold chinked as I knowed what she meant.”

  “And you have never seen nor heard from her any more?”

  “It wasn’t likely as she would, if you’d a seen her go off as she did.”