The Female Detective Read online

  “And which way did she go?”

  “Why a co’rse as I met her, my dear, and as she was coming from somewhere to foller the young woman with the kid, she backed to’ards London, and I ’ad to pass ’er afore I left her behind, an’ she never so much as looked at me.”

  I did not ask any more questions.

  I suppose I grew silent; and especially so when we got in the cab and were driving once more home.

  Indeed, Mrs. Flemps said she had no doubt that he had quite upset me with their tale of Little Fourpenny.

  When we reached the milestone, however, Mrs. F. was as full of the subject as ever; and I need not say that—though perhaps I said little—I was very hard at work putting this and that together.

  After we had passed the milestone, every house on each side of the way had a strange fascination for me. I hungred after every house as it was left behind me, fancying each might be the one which sheltered the infant.

  That I would work it out I determined.

  So far I had these facts:—

  1. The woman must have lived near the road, or she would not have seen the beggar and her child, provided these latter had been on the high road when seen by the former.

  2. The time which had elapsed between seeing the woman and meeting the cabman could not have been very great, or she never would have hoped to find the mother and child.

  3. The occurrence had only taken place five years previously, and therefore the woman might not have moved out of the neighbourhood.

  4. The purchase of the child in such a manner suggested it was to be used for the purpose of deception—in all probability to replace another.

  5. Therefore, deception being practised somebody was injured—in all probability an heir.

  6. The woman was not needy, or she could not have offered thirty pounds in gold to a stranger, and evidently at a very short notice, for it was clear there could have been no demand for the child when she saw it with the mother.

  7. Whoever she was, she had the far from ordinary failure of speech which consists of an inability to utter the sound of “th.”

  8. Finally, and most importantly, I had dates.

  Poor Flemps and his wife—they little thought what a serpent of detection they had been nourishing in their cab. I believe they thought I was a person living on my small property, and helping my income out by a little light millinery.

  With the information I had already obtained, I determined to try and sift the matter to the bottom; and I may as well state that, not having anything on my hands at that time, I set to work on the Monday morning, telling Mrs. Flemps that I had some business to look after, and being wished luck from the very bottom of her heart by that cajoled woman.

  I took a lodging in the first place as near that milestone as I could find one—it was a sweet little country room, with honeysuckle round each window.

  I may at once say that the first part of my work was very easy.

  Within two days of my arrival at my little lodging at the honeysuckle cottage, I had found out enough to justify me in continuing the search.

  As I have said, I could have no reason to doubt the cabman, because he could have no object in deceiving me. But evidence is what detectives live upon.

  The first thing I did was to find traces, if possible, of the mother.

  It will be remembered that the mother showed great sorrow at losing the child, and that yet she never knocked at the cabman’s door. The inference I took was this, that as she had shown love for the child, and as she had never sought to see it after parting with it, that she had been prevented by one of two catastrophes—either she had gone mad, or she had died.

  Where was I to make inquiries?

  Clearly of the first relieving officer who lived past the milestone, at which she had parted with the child, and in the opposite direction to that which the cab had taken—for I know much of these poor mothers—they always flee from their children when they have parted from them, whether this parting be by the road of murder, or by desertion, or by the coming of some good Samaritan (like the cabman) who, having no children of his own, is willing to accept a child who to its maternal mother is a burden.

  I went past the milestone, made inquiries, and in time found the relieving officer’s house. I was answered in double quick time. I think the man supposed I was a relation, and that perhaps I would gain him some credit by reimbursing the parish, through his activity, its miserable outlay in burying the poor woman.

  For she was dead.

  Circumstances pointed so absolutely to her as the woman who had parted with her child, that I had no reasonable doubt about my conclusion.

  In that month of July, on the night of the 15th, a woman was brought in a cart to the officer’s door. The man who drove stated that he found the woman lying in the road, and that had not his horse known she was there before he did, she must have been run over.

  The woman was taken to the union infirmary, and that place she only left for the grave.

  She never recovered her senses while at the union hospital. She was found, upon her regaining half consciousness, to be suffering from fever, and as she had but very recently become a mother (not more than a fortnight) the loss of her child made the attempt to overcome that fever quite futile.

  She died on the tenth day it appeared, and she had not spoken at her death for three.

  [I should perhaps here remark that I am condensing in this page the statements of the relieving officer and a pauper woman who was nurse in the workhouse hospital.]

  I was at no loss to understand that this speechlessness was due to opium, which my experience had already taught me is given in all cases where a fever-patient has no chance of life, and in order to still those ravings which would only make the death more terrible.

  But during the preceding week she had said enough to convince me, upon hearing it reported, that she was the mother of the child. She had called out for her baby, pressing her poor breasts as she did so, and frequently she had shrieked that she heard the cab far, far away in the distance.

  I returned to my little cottage lodging not over and above pleased. If there is one thing which foils us detectives more certainly than another, it is death. Here we have no power. Distance is to us nothing—but we cannot get to the other side of the tomb. Time we care little for, seeing that during life memory more or less holds good. Secresy we laugh at in all shapes but that of the grave.

  It is death which foils us and frequently stops a case when it is so nearly complete as to induce the inexperienced to suppose that it is perfect.

  I saw at once that I had lost my chief witness—the mother.

  Now came the question—was the child itself alive?

  If dead, there was an end of my inquiry.

  However detectives never give up cases; it is the cases which give up the detectives.

  It now became necessary to ascertain what children were born in the milestone district in the month of July, 1858, for I have already shown that the purchaser of the child must have come from somewhere in the neighbourhood of her purchase, and I have hinted that a child purchased under such circumstances as those set about the sale of the child in question, presupposes that the infant is to be used in a surreptitious manner, and in a mode therefore, primâ facie, as the lawyers say, which is in all probability, illegal, by acting detrimentally upon some one who benefits by the child’s death.

  To ascertain what children had been born in the district during that month of July, was as easy a task as to convince myself that the child in question had been registered as a new birth by the woman who had purchased him of the cabman.

  The reader has in all probability made out such a suppositive case as I did, and to the following effect:—

  The woman-purchaser saw the mother and child an hour or more before she met the cabman, and had some convers
ation with her.

  This supposition was confirmed by the knowledge I obtained that this woman, found in the road, had a couple of half-crowns in the pocket of her dress. It will be remembered that she refused Flemps’s money.

  Between the time of seeing the woman and bargaining with the cabman, it may readily be supposed that a pressing demand for a newly born child had become manifest, when the woman recalled to her mind the beggar and child she had seen, hoped the poor creature’s poverty would be her temptress’s opportunity, and so set out to find her; when a chain of circumstances, which the ordinary reader would call romantic, but which I, as a detective, am enabled to say is equalled daily in any one of many shapes, led to her possession of the infant.

  I searched two registers, and made such inquiries as I thought would be useful. Happily in both cases I had to deal not with the registrar, but with his deputy, who is, as a rule, the more manageable man. We detectives have much to do with registrars in all of their three capacities.

  I knew that in all probability I had to deal with, what we call in my profession, family people. It was no tradesman’s wife or sister I had to deal with. The cabman had said she was a real lady, (your cabman is one who by his daily experience has a good eye at guessing the condition of a fare), and the immediate command of thirty pounds told me that money was easy with her.

  My readers know that the profession or trade of the father is always mentioned in the registration of birth; and therein I had a clue to the father or alleged father.

  The probability stood that he would be represented as “gentleman.”

  There were three births I found, after both registers were examined, in that month, in the registration of which the-father was set out as “gentleman.”

  The addresses in each case I copied—giving, I need not say, some very plausible excuse for so doing; my acts being of course illustrated with several silver portraits of her majesty the Queen.

  And here I would urge upon the reader that he need feel no tittle of respect for my work so far. To this point it had been the plainest and simplest operation in which a detective could be employed. Registers were invented for the use of detectives. They are a medicine in the prosecution of our cures of social disorder.

  Indeed it may be said the value of the detective lies not so much in discovering facts, as in putting them together, and finding out what they mean.

  Before the day was out I dropped two of my extracts from the registers as valueless. The third I kept, feeling pretty sure it related to the right business, because of two facts with which I made myself acquainted before the day was over. The first of these lay in the discovery that the house at which the birth in question had been alleged to take place was within nine hundred yards of the milestone, where this business had commenced; the second, that the mother of the child had died in giving it birth.

  I felt pretty certain that I was on the right road at last, but before I consulted my lawyer (most detectives of any standing necessarily have their attorneys, who of course are very useful to men and women of my calling), I determined to be quite certain I was not wasting my time, and to be well assured I was not about to waste my money; for it often happens that a detective, like any other trader, has to lay out money before he can see more.

  Learning that the household consisted of the infant—an heiress, then five years of age—the father, and his sister, I fixed my suspicions immediately upon the latter, as the woman who had purchased the child.

  If she were the woman, I knew I had the power of convicting her, in my own mind, by hearing her speak; for it will be remembered that I have said that imperfection of speech is one of the surest means of detection open to the use of a high-class detective.

  Of course I easily gained access to the house. It is the peculiar advantage of women detectives, and one which in many cases gives them an immeasurable value beyond that of their male friends, that they can get into houses outside which the ordinary men-detectives could barely stand without being suspected.

  Thoroughly do I remember my first excuse—we detectives have many—such as the character of a servant, an inquiry after some supposed mutual friend, or after needle-work, a reference from some poor person in the neighbourhood, a respectful inquiry concerning the neighbourhood to which the detective represents herself as a stranger. I introduced myself as a milliner and dressmaker who had just come to the neighbourhood, and, with the help of an effective card, which I always carry, and which is as good as a skeleton-key in opening big doors, soon I reached the lady’s presence.

  Before she spoke I recognised her by the large black eyes which the cabman had noted, even in the night-time.

  She had not spoken half-a-dozen words before she betrayed herself; she used the letter “f” or “v” where the sound “th” should properly have been pronounced as “Ve day is fine,” for “The day, &c.”

  This mal-pronunciation may read very marked in print, but in conversation it may be used for a long time without its being remarked. The hearer may feel that there is something wrong with the language he is hearing, but he will have to watch very attentively before he discovers where the fault lies, unless he has been previously put upon his guard.

  I had.

  I went away; and I remember as I left the room I was invited to return and make another visit.

  I did.

  Thus far all was clear.

  I had, I felt sure, found the house—the purchaser of the child—and the child herself, for the infant was a girl.

  What I had now to find out was the reason the child had been appropriated, and who if anybody had suffered by that appropriation.

  It was now time to consult with my attorney. Who he is and what name he goes by are matters of no consequence to the reader. Those who know him will recognise that gentleman-at-law by one bit of description—he has the smallest, softest, and whitest hand in his profession.

  I put the full case before him in a confidential way of business—names, dates, places, suspicions, conclusions, all set out in fair order.

  “I think I see it,” said he, “but I wont give an opinion to-day. Call in a week.”

  “Oh, dear me, no!” said I, “my dear M——, I can’t wait a week. I’ll call in three days.”

  I called on the third day—early in the morning.

  The attorney gave me a nod, said he was very busy, couldn’t wait a moment, and then chatted with me for twenty minutes. I should say rather he held forth, for I could barely get a word in edgeways; but what he says is generally worth listening to.

  He wanted further information; he desired to know the maiden name of the wife and the place of her marriage to Mr. Shedleigh—which I will suppose the name of the family concerned in his affair.

  I was to let him know these further particulars, and come again in three more days.

  At first sight this was a little difficult. Singularly enough, the road to this information I found to be very simple, for as a preliminary step, ascertaining from the turnpike-man in that neighbourhood where Mrs. Shedleigh had been buried, I visited her tomb, in the hope perhaps that her family name and place of settlement might appear on the stone, which often happens amongst the wives of gentry.

  In this lady’s case no mention was made either of her family name or place of residence, but nevertheless I did not leave the cemetery without the power of furnishing my lawyer with information quite as good as he required.

  The lady had been buried in a private vault at the commencement of the catacombs, and the coffin was to be seen through the gratings of a gateway, upon which was fixed a coat of arms in engraved brass.

  Of course as a detective, who has to be informed on a good many points, I knew that the arms must refer to the deceased, and therefore I surprised the catacomb keeper considerably when, later in the day, I spoke once more with him, and told him I wanted to take a rubbing of the brass plate in
question.

  The request being unusual, the usual difficulties of suspicion and prejudice were thrown in my way. But it is surprising how much suspicion and prejudice can be bought for five shillings, and to curtail this portion of my narrative I may at once say I took away with me an exact copy of the late lady’s coat-of-arms. I need not say how this was done. Any one knows how to take a fac-simile of an engraved surface by putting a sheet of paper on it, and rubbing a morsel of charcoal, or black chalk over the paper. The experiment can be tried on the next embossed cover, with a sheet of note-paper and a trifle of lead pencil.

  This rubbing I took to the lawyer, and then I waited three days.

  He had enough to tell me by the end of the second.

  In the simplest and most natural way in the world, he had discovered a reason for the appropriation of the child, and not only had that information been obtained, but the name of the man injured by the act, and his interest in the whole business was at the command of the attorney.

  We neither of us complimented the other on his discoveries, each being aware that the other had but put in force the principles and ordinary rules of his business.

  I had gained my knowledge by reference to registers, he his by first consulting a book of the landed gentry and their arms, and secondly by the outlay of a shilling and an inspection of a will in the keeping of the authorities at Doctors’ Commons.

  The lawyer had found the arms as copied by me from the tomb-gate in a book of landed gentry, had learnt an estate passed from the possession of Sir John Shirley in 1856, by death, and into the ownership of his daughter, an heiress, and wife of Newton Shedleigh, Esq. The entry further showed that the lady, Shirley Shedleigh, had died in 1857, and that by her marriage settlement the property descended upon her children. A child of this lady, named after her Shirley Shedleigh, was then the possessor of the estates, which were large, while the father, Newton Shedleigh, as sole surviving trustee, controlled the property.

  So the matter stood.

  “I can see it all,” said the lawyer, who, I am bound to say, passed over my industry in the business as though it had never existed. “I can see it all. The defendant, Newton Shedleigh, marries an heiress, who, by her marriage settlement, maintains possession of her estate through trustees. As in ordinary cases, these estates devolve upon her children, supposing her to have any, and that they outlive her. But here comes the nicety of the question. If she has children, and they all die before her—granted that her husband outlives her, he, by right of the birth of his and her children, becomes a tenant for life in her possessions, though by the settlement, in event of the wife dying without children to inherit her property, it passes to her father’s brother.”