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The Redhill Sisterhood (1894) by C. L. Pirkis
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THE EXPERIENCES OF LOVEDAY BROOKE,
LADY DETECTIVE (1894)
by
C. L. PIRKIS
from THE LUDGATE MONTHLY
THE REDHILL SISTERHOOD
"T HEY want you at Redhill, now,"
said Mr. Dyer, taking a
packet of papers from one of his pigeon-holes. "The idea
seems gaining ground in many quarters that in cases of mere
suspicion, women detectives are more satisfactory than men,
for they are less likely to attract attention. And this
Redhill affair, so far as I can make out, is one of
suspicion only."
It was a dreary November morning; every gas jet in the
Lynch Court office was alight, and a yellow curtain of
outside fog draped its narrow windows.
"Nevertheless, I suppose one can't afford to leave it
uninvestigated at this season of the year, with
country-house robberies beginning in so many quarters," said
Miss Brooke.
"No; and the circumstances in this case certainly seem to
point in the direction of the country-house burglar. Two
days ago a somewhat curious application was made privately,
by a man giving the name of John Murray, to Inspector
Gunning, of the Reigate police — Redhill, I must tell you,
is in the Reigate police district. Murray stated that he
had been a greengrocer in South London, had sold his
business there, and had, with the proceeds of the sale,
bought two small houses in Redhill, intending to let the one
and live in the other. These houses are situated in a blind
alley, known as Paved Court, a narrow turning leading off
the London and Brighton coach road. Paved Court has been
known to the sanitary authorities for the past ten years as
a regular fever nest, and as the houses which Murray bought
— numbers 7 and 8 — stand at the very end of the blind alley,
with no chance of thorough ventilation, I dare say the man
got them for next to nothing. He told the Inspector that he
had had great difficulty in procuring a tenant for the house
he wished to let, number 8, and that consequently when,
about three weeks back, a lady, dressed as a nun, made him
an offer for it, he immediately closed with her. The lady
gave her name simply as 'Sister Monica', and stated that she
was a member of an undenominational Sisterhood that had
recently been founded by a wealthy lady, who wished her name
kept a secret. Sister Monica gave no references, but,
instead, paid a quarter's rent in advance, saying that she
wished to take possession of the house immediately, and open
it as a home for crippled orphans."
"Gave no references — home for cripples," murmured
Loveday, scribbling hard and fast in her note-book.
"Murray made no objection to this," continued Mr. Dyer,
"and, accordingly, the next day, Sister Monica, accompanied
by three other Sisters and some sickly children, took
possession of the house, which they furnished with the
barest possible necessaries from cheap shops in the
neighbourhood. For a time, Murray said, he thought he had
secured most desirable tenants, but during the last ten days
suspicions as to their real character have entered his mind,
and these suspicions he thought it his duty to communicate
to the police. Among their possessions, it seems, these
Sisters number an old donkey and a tiny cart, and this they
start daily on a sort of begging tour through the adjoining
villages, bringing back every evening a perfect hoard of
broken victuals and bundles of old garments. Now comes the
extraordinary fact on which Murray bases his suspicions. He
says, and Gunning verifies his statement, that in whatever
direction those Sisters turn the wheels of their
donkey-cart, burglaries, or attempts at burglaries, are sure
to follow. A week ago they went along towards Horely,
where, at an outlying house, they received such kindness
from a wealthy gentleman. That very night an attempt was
made to break into that gentleman's house — an attempt,
however, that was happily frustrated by the barking of the
house-dog. And so on in other instances that I need not go
into. Murray suggests that it might be as well to have the
daily movements of these Sisters closely watched, and that
extra vigilance should be exercised by the police in the
districts that have had the honour of a morning call from
them. Gunning coincides with this idea, and so has sent to
me to secure your services."
Loveday closed her note-book. "I suppose Gunning will
meet me somewhere and tell me where I'm to take up my
quarters?" she said.
"Yes; he will get into your carriage at Merstham — the
station before Redhill — if you will put your hand out of the
window, with the morning paper in it. By the way, he takes
it for granted that you will take the 11.5 train from
Victoria. Murray, it seems, has been good enough to place
his little house at the disposal of the police, but Gunning
does not think espionage could be so well carried on there
as from other quarters. The presence of a stranger in an
alley of that sort is bound to attract attention. So he has
hired a room for you in a draper's shop that immediately
faces the head of the court. There is a private door to
this shop of which you will have the key, and can let
yourself in and out as you please. You are supposed to be a
nursery governess on the lookout for a situation, and
Gunning will keep you supplied with letters to give colour
to the idea. He suggests that you need only occupy the room
during the day, at night you will find far more comfortable
quarters at Laker's Hotel, just outside the town."
This was about the sum total of the instructions that Mr.
Dyer had to give.
The 11.5 train from Victoria, that carried Loveday to her
work among the Surrey Hills, did not get clear of the London
fog till well away on the other side of Purley. When the
train halted at Merstham, in response to her signal, a tall,
soldier-like individual made for her carriage, and, jumping
in, took the seat facing her. He introduced himself to her
as Inspector Gunning, recalled to her memory a former
occasion on which they had met, and then, naturally enough,
turned the talk upon the present suspicious circumstances
they were bent upon investigating.
"It won't do for you and me to be seen together," he said;
"of course I am known for miles round, and any one seen in
my company will be at once set down as my coadjutor, and
spied upon accordingly. I walked from Redhill to Merstham
on purpose to avoid recognition on the platform at Redhill,
and half-way here, to my great annoyance, found that I was
being followed by a man in a workman's dress and carrying a
basket of tools. I doubled, however, and gave him the slip,
taking a short cut down a lane which, if he had been living
in the place, he would have known as well as I did. By
Jove!" this was added with a sudden start, "there is the
fellow, I declare; he has weathered me after all, and has no
doubt taken good stock of us both, with the train going at
this snail's pace. It was unfortunate that your face should
have been turned towards that window, Miss Brooke."
"My veil is something of a disguise, and I will put on
another cloak before he has a chance of seeing me again,"
said Loveday.
All she had seen in the brief glimpse that the train had
allowed, was a tall, powerfully-built man walking along the
siding of the line. His cap was drawn low over his eyes,
and in his hand he carried a workman's basket.
Gunning seemed much annoyed at the circumstance. "Instead
of landing at Redhill," he said, "we'll go on to Three
Bridges, and wait there for a Brighton train to bring us
back, that will enable you to get to your room somewhere
between the lights; I don't want to have you spotted before
you've so much as started your work."
Then they went back to their discussion of the Redhill
Sisterhood.
"They call themselves 'undenominational', whatever that
means," said Gunning, "they say they are connected with no
religious sect whatever, they attend sometimes one place of
worship, sometimes another, sometimes none at all. They
refuse to give up the name of the founder of their order,
and really no one has any right to demand it of them, for,
as no doubt you see, up to the present moment the case is
one of mere suspicion, and it may be a pure coincidence that
attempts at burglary have followed their footsteps in this
neighbourhood. By the way, I have heard of a man's face
being enough to hang him, but until I saw Sister Monica's, I
never saw a woman's face that could perform the same kind of
office for her. Of all the lowest criminal types of faces I
have ever seen, I think hers is about the lowest and most
repulsive."
After the Sisters, they passed in review the chief
families resident in the neighbourhood.
"This," said Gunning, unfolding a paper, "is a map I have
specially drawn up for you — it takes in the district for
ten miles round Redhill, and every country house of any
importance is marked on it in red ink. Here, in addition,
is an index of those houses, with special notes of my own to
every house."
Loveday studied the map for a minute or so, then turned
her attention to the index.
"Those four houses you've marked, I see, are those that
have been already attempted. I don't think I'll run them
through, but I'll mark them 'doubtful'; you see the gang —
for, of course, it is a gang — might follow our reasoning on
the matter, and look upon those houses as our weak point.
Here's one I'll run through, 'house empty during winter
months', — that means plate and jewellery sent to the
bankers. Oh! and this one may as well be crossed off,
'father and four sons all athletes and sportsmen', that
means fire-arms always handy — I don't think burglars will
be likely to trouble them. Ah! now we come to something!
Here's a house to be marked 'tempting' in a burglar's list.
'Wootton Hall, lately changed hands and rebuilt, with
complicated passages and corridors. Splendid family plate
in daily use and left entirely in the care of the butler.'
I wonder does the master of that house trust to his
'complicated passages' to preserve his plate for him? A
dismissed dishonest servant would supply a dozen maps of the
place for half a sovereign. What do these initials, 'E.
L.' against the next house in the list, North Cape, stand
for?"
"Electric lighted. I think you might almost cross that
house off also. I consider electric lighting one of the
greatest safe-guards against burglars that a man can give
his house."
"Yes, if he doesn't rely exclusively upon it; it might be
a nasty trap under certain circumstances. I see this
gentleman also has magnificent presentation and other
plate."
"Yes . . . Mr. Jameson is a wealthy man and very
popular in the neighbourhood; his cups and epergnes are
worth looking at."
"Is it the only house in the district that is lighted with
electricity?"
"Yes; and, begging your pardon, Miss Brooke, I only wish
it were not so. If electric lighting were generally in
vogue it would save the police a lot of trouble on these
dark winter nights."
"The burglars would find some way of meeting such a
condition of things, depend upon it; they have reached a
very high development in these days. They no longer stalk
about as they did fifty years ago with blunderbuss and
bludgeon; they plot, plan, contrive, and bring imagination
and artistic resource to their aid. By the way, it often
occurs to me that the popular detective stories, for which
there seems so large a demand at the present day, must be,
at times, uncommonly useful to the criminal classes."
At Three Bridges they had to wait so long for a return
train that it was nearly dark when Loveday got back to
Redhill. Mr. Gunning did not accompany her thither, having
alighted at a previous station. Loveday had directed her
portmanteau to be sent direct to Laker's Hotel, where she
had engaged a room by telegram from Victoria Station. So,
enburthened by luggage, she slipped quietly out of the
Redhill Station and made her way straight for the draper's
shop in the London Road. She had no difficulty in finding
it, thanks to the minute directions given her by the
Inspector.
Street lamps were being lighted in the sleepy little town
as she went along, and as she turned into the London Road,
shopkeepers were lighting up their windows on both sides of
the way. A few yards down this road, a dark patch between
the lighted shops showed her where Paved Court led off from
the thoroughfare. A side door of one of the shops that
stood at the corner of the court seemed to offer a post of
observation whence she could see without being seen, and
here Loveday, shrinking into the shadows, ensconced herself
in order to take stock of the little alley and its
inhabitants. She found it much as it had been described to
her — a collection of four-roomed houses of which more than
half were unlet. Numbers 7 and 8 at the head of the court
presented a slightly less neglected appearance than the
other tenements. Number 7 stood in total darkness, but in
the upper window of number 8 there showed what seemed to be
a night-light burning, so Loveday conjectured that this
possibly was the room set apart as a dormitory for the
little cripples.
While she stood thus surveying the home of the suspected
Sisterhood, the Sisters themselves — two, at least, of them
— came into view, with their donkey-cart and their cripples,
in the main road. It was an odd little cortege. One Sister
habited in a nun's dress of dark blue serge, led the donkey
by the bridle; another Sister, similarly attired, walked
alongside the low cart, in which were seated two
sickly-looking children. They were evidently returning from
one of their long country circuits, and, unless they had
lost their way and been belated, it certainly seemed a late
hour for the sickly little cripples to be abroad.
As they passed under the gas lamp at the corner of the
court, Loveday caught a glimpse of the faces of the Sisters.
It was easy, with Inspector Gunning's description before her
mind, to identify the older and taller woman as Sister
Monica, and a more coarse-featured and generally repellent
face Loveday admitted to herself she had never before seen.
In striking contrast to this forbidding countenance was that
of the younger Sister. Loveday could only catch a brief
passing view of it, but that one brief view was enough to
impress it on her memory as of unusual sadness and beauty.
As the donkey stopped at the corner of the court, Loveday
heard this sad-looking young woman addressed as "Sister
Anna" by one of the cripples, who asked plaintively when
they were going to have something to eat.
"Now, at once," said Sister Anna, lifting the little one,
as it seemed to Loveday, tenderly out of the cart, and
carrying him on her shoulder down the court to the door of
number 8, which opened to them at their approach. The other
Sister did the same with the other child; then both Sisters
returned, unloaded the cart of sundry bundles and baskets,
and, this done, led off the old donkey and trap down the
road, possibly to a neighbouring costermonger's stables.
A man, coming along on a bicycle, exchanged a word of
greeting with the Sisters as they passed, then swung himself
off his machine at the corner of the court, and walked it
along the paved way to the door of number 7. This he opened
with a key, and then, pushing the machine before him,
entered the house.
Loveday took it for granted that this man must be the John
Murray of whom she had heard. She had closely scrutinized
him as he had passed her, and had seen that he was a dark,
well-featured man of about fifty years of age.
She congratulated herself on her good fortune in having
seen so much in such a brief space of time, and, coming
forth from her sheltered corner, turned her steps in the
direction of the draper's shop on the other side of the
road.
It was easy to find. "Golightly" was the singular name
that figured above the shop-front, in which were displayed a
variety of goods calculated to meet the wants of servants
and the poorer classes generally. A tall, powerfully-built
man appeared to be looking in at the window. Loveday's boot
was on the doorstep of the draper's private entrance, her
hand on the door-knocker, when this individual, suddenly
turning, convinced her of his identity with the journeyman
workman who had so disturbed Mr. Gunning's equanimity. It
was true he wore a bowler instead of a journeyman's cap, and
he no longer carried a basket of tools, but there was no
possibility for any one, with so good an eye for an outline
as Loveday possessed, not to recognize the carriage of the
head and shoulders as that of the man she had seen walking
along the railway siding. He gave her no time to make
minute observation of his appearance, but turned quickly
away, and disappeared down a by-street.
Loveday's work seemed to bristle with difficulties now.
here was she, as it were, unearthed in her own ambush; for
there could be but little doubt that during the whole time
she had stood watching those Sisters, that man, from a safe
vantage-point, had been watching her.
She found Mrs Golightly a civil and obliging person. She
showed Loveday to her room above the shop, brought her the
letters which Inspector Gunning had been careful to have
posted to her during the day. Then she supplied her with
pen and ink and, in response to Loveday's request, with some
strong coffee that she said, with a little attempt at a
joke, would "keep a dormouse awake all through the winter
without winking".
While the obliging landlady busied herself about the room,
Loveday had a few questions to ask about the Sisterhood who
lived down the court opposite. On this head, however, Mrs
Golightly could tell her no more than she already knew,
beyond the fact that they started every morning on their
rounds at eleven o'clock punctually, and that before that
hour they were never to be seen outside their door.
Loveday's watch that night was to be a fruitless one.
although she sat, with her lamp turned out and safely
screened from observation, until close upon midnight, with
eyes fixed upon numbers 7 and 8, Paved Court, not so much as
a door opening or shutting at either house rewarded her
vigil. The lights flitted from the lower to the upper
floors in both houses, and then disappeared, somewhere
between nine and ten in the evening; and after that, not a
sign of life did either tenement show.
And all through the long hours of that watch, again and
again there seemed to flit before her mind's eye, as if in
some sort it were fixed upon its retina, the sweet, sad face
of Sister Anna.
Why it was this face should so haunt her, she found it
hard to say.
"It has a mournful past and a mournful future written upon
it as a hopeless whole," she said to herself. "It is the
face of an Andromeda! 'Here am I', it seems to say, 'tied
to my stake, helpless and hopeless'."
The church clocks were sounding the midnight hour as
Loveday made her way through the dark streets to her hotel
outside the town. As she passed under the railway arch that
ended in the open country road, the echo of not very distant
footsteps caught her ear. When she stopped they stopped,
when she went on they went on, and she knew that once more
she was being followed and watched, although the darkness of
the arch prevented her seeing even the shadow of the man who
was thus dogging her steps.
The next morning broke keen and frosty. Loveday studied
her map and her country-house index over a seven o'clock
breakfast, and then set off for a brisk walk along the
country road. No doubt in London the streets were walled in
and roofed with yellow fog; here, however, bright sunshine
playing in and out of the bare tree-boughs and leafless
hedges on #to a thousand frost spangles, turned the prosaic
macadamized road into a gangway fit for Queen Titania
herself and her fairy train.
Loveday turned her back on the town and set herself to
follow the road as it wound away over the hill in the
direction of a village called Northfield. Early as she was,
she was not to have that road to herself. A team of strong
horses trudged by on their way to their work in the
fuller's-earth pits. A young fellow on a bicycle flashed
past at a tremendous pace, considering the upward slant of
the road. He looked hard at her as he passed, then
slackened speed, dismounted, and awaited her coming on the
brow of the hill.
"Good-morning, Miss Brooke," he said, lifting his cap as
she came alongside of him. "May I have five minutes' talk
with you?"
The young man who thus accosted her had not the appearance
of a gentleman. He was a handsome, bright-faced young
fellow of about two-and-twenty, and was dressed in ordinary
cyclist's dress; his cap was pushed back from his brow over
thick, curly, fair hair, and Loveday, as she looked at him,
could not repress the thought how well he would look at the
head of a troop of cavalry, giving the order to charge the
enemy.
He led his machine to the side of the footpath.
"You have the advantage of me," said Loveday; "I haven't
the remotest notion who you are."
"No," he said; "although I know you, you cannot possibly
know me. I am a north-country man, and I was present, about
a month ago, at the trial of old Mr. Craven, of Troyte's
Hill — in fact, I acted as reporter for one of the local papers.
I watched your face so closely as you gave your evidence
that I should know it anywhere, among a thousand."
"And your name is...?"
"George White, of Grenfell. My father is part proprietor
of one of the Newcastle papers. I am a bit of a literary
man myself, and sometimes figure as a reporter, sometimes as
reader-writer, to that paper." Here he gave a glance
towards his side pocket, from which protruded a small volume
of Tennyson's poems.
The facts he had stated did not seem to invite comment,
and Loveday ejaculated merely: "Indeed!"
The young man went back to the subject that was evidently
filling his thoughts. "I have special reasons for being
glad to have met you this morning, Miss Brooke," he went on,
making his footsteps keep pace with hers. "I am in great
trouble, and I believe you are the only person in the whole
world who can help me out of that trouble."
"I am rather doubtful as to my power of helping any one
out of trouble," said Loveday; "so far as my experience
goes, our troubles are as much a part of ourselves as our
skins are of our bodies."
"Ah, but not such trouble as mine," said White eagerly. He
broke off for a moment, then, with a sudden rush of words
told her what that trouble was. For the past year he had
been engaged to be married to a young girl, who, until quite
recently, had been fulfilling the duties of a nursery
governess in a large house in the neighbourhood of Redhill.
"Will you kindly give me the name of that house?"
interrupted Loveday.
"Certainly; Wootton Hall, the place is called, and Annie
Lee is my sweetheart's name. I don't care who knows it!"
He threw his head back as he said this, as if he would be
delighted to announce the fact to the whole world. "Annie's
mother," he went on, "died when she was a baby, and we both
thought her father was dead also, when suddenly, about a
fortnight ago, it came to her knowledge that, instead of
being dead, he was serving his time at Portland for some
offence committed years ago."
"Do you know how this came to Annie's knowledge?"
"Not the least in the world; I only know that I suddenly
got a letter from her announcing the fact, andy, at the same
time, breaking off her engagement with me. I tore the
letter into a thousand pieces, and wrote back saying I would
not allow the engagement to be broken off, but would marry
her if she would have me. To this letter she did not reply;
there came instead a few lines from Mrs Copeland, the lady
at Wootton Hall, saying that Annie had thrown up her
engagement, and joined some Sisterhood, and that she, Mrs
Copeland, had pledged her word to Annie to reveal to no one
the name and whereabouts of that Sisterhood."
"And I suppose you imagine I am able to do what Mrs
Copeland is pledged not to do?"
"That's just it, Miss Brooke!" cried the young man
enthusiastically. "You do such wonderful things; everyone
knows you do. It seems as if, when anything is wanting to
be found out, you just walk into a place, look round you,
and, in a moment, everything becomes clear as noonday."
"I can't quite lay claim to such wonderful powers as that.
as it happens, however, in the present instance, no
particular skill is needed to find out what you wish to
know, for I fancy I have already come upon the traces of
Miss Annie Lee."
"Miss Brooke!"
"Of course, I cannot say for certain, but it is a matter
you can easily settle for yourself — settle, too, in a way
that will confer a great obligation on me."
"I shall be only too delighted to be of any, the
slightest, service to you!" cried White, enthusiastically as
before.
"Thank you. I will explain. I came down here specially
to watch the movements of a certain Sisterhood who have
somehow aroused the suspicions of the police. Well, I find
that instead of being able to do this, I am myself so
closely watched — possibly by confederates of these Sisters
— that unless I can do my work by deputy I may as well go
back to town at once."
"Ah! I see — you want me to be that deputy."
"Precisely. I want you to go to the room in Redhill that
I have hired, take your place at the window — screened, of
course, from observation — at which I ought to be seated —
watch as closely as possible the movements of these Sisters,
and report them to me at the hotel, where I shall remain
shut in from morning till night — it is the only way in which
I can throw my persistent spies off the scent. Now, in
doing this for me, you will be doing yourself a good turn,
for I have little doubt but what under the blue serge hood
of one of the Sisters you will discover the pretty face of
Miss Annie Lee."
As they talked they had walked, and now stood on the top
of the hill at the head of the one little street that
constituted the whole of the village of Northfield.
On their left hand stood the village school and the
master's house; nearly facing these, on the opposite side of
the road, beneath a clump of elms, stood the village pound.
Beyond this pound, on either side of the way, were two rows
of small cottages with tiny squares of garden in front, and
in the midst of these small cottages a swinging sign beneath
a lamp announced a "Postal and Telegraph Office".
"Now that we have come into the land of habitations
again," said Loveday, "it will be best for us to part. It
will not do for you and me to be seen together, or my spies
will be transferring their attentions from me to you, and I
shall have to find another deputy. You had better start on
your bicycle for Redhill at once, and I will walk back at
leisurely speed. Come to me at my hotel without fail at one
o'clock and report proceedings. I do not say anything
definite about remuneration, but I assure you, if you carry
out my instructions to the letter, your services will be
amply rewarded by me and by my employers."
There were yet a few more details to arrange. White had
been, he said, only a day and night in the neighbourhood,
and special directions as to the locality had to be given to
him. Loveday advised him not to attract attention by going
to the draper's private door, but to enter the shop as if he
were a customer, and then explain matters to Mrs Golightly,
who, no doubt, would be in her place behind the counter;
tell her he was the brother of the Miss Smith who had hired
her room, and ask permission to go through the shop to that
room, as he had been commissioned by his sister to read and
answer any letters that might have arrived there for her.
"Show her the key of the side door — here it is," said
Loveday; "it will be your credentials, and tell her you did
not like to make use of it without acquainting her with the
fact."
The young man took the key, endeavouring to put it in his
waistcoat pocket, found the space there occupied, and so
transferred it to the keeping of a side pocket in his tunic.
All this time Loveday stood watching him.
"You have a capital machine there," she said, as the young
man mounted his bicycle once more, "and I hope you will turn
it to account in following the movements of these Sisters
about the neighbourhood. I feel confident you will have
something definite to tell me when you bring me your first
report at one o'clock."
White once more broke into a profusion of thanks, and
then, lifting his cap to the lady, started his machine at a
fairly good pace.
Loveday watched him out of sight down the slope of the
hill, then, instead of following him as she had said she
would "at a leisurely pace", she turned her steps in the
opposite direction along the village street.
It was an altogether ideal country village.
Neatly-dressed, chubby-faced children, now on their way to
the school, dropped quaint little curtseys, or tugged at
curly locks as Loveday passed; every cottage looked the
picture of cleanliness and trimness, and, although so late
in the year, the gardens were full of late flowering
chrysanthemums and early flowering Christmas roses.
At the end of the village, Loveday came suddenly into view
of a large, handsome, red-brick mansion. It presented a
wide frontage to the road, from which it lay back amid
extensive pleasure grounds. On the right hand, and a little
on the rear of the house, stood what seemed to be large and
commodious stables, and immediately adjoining these stables
was a low-built, red-brick shed, that had evidently been
recently erected.
That low-built, red-brick shed excited Loveday's
curiosity.
"Is this house called North Cape?" she asked of a man, who
chanced at that moment to be passing with a pickaxe and
shovel.
The man answered in the affirmative, and Loveday then
asked another question: Could he tell her what was that
small shed so close to the house — it looked like a glorified
cowhouse — now what could be its use?
The man's face lighted up as if it were a subject on which
he liked to be questioned. He explained that that small
shed was the engine-house where the electricity that lighted
North Cape was made and stored. Then he dwelt with pride
upon the fact, as if he held a personal interest in it, that
North Cape was the only house, far or near, that was thus
lighted.
"I suppose the wires are carried underground to the
house," said Loveday, looking in vain for signs of them
anywhere.
The man was delighted to go into details on the matter. He
had helped to lay those wires, he said: they were two in
number, one for supply and one for return, and were laid
three feet below ground, in boxes filled with pitch. They
were switched on to jars in the engine-house, where the
electricity was stored, and, after passing underground,
entered the family mansion under the flooring at its western
end.
Loveday listened attentively to these details, and then
took a minute and leisurely survey of the house and its
surroundings. This done, she retraced her steps through the
village, pausing, however, at the "Postal and Telegraph
Office" to despatch a telegram to Inspector Gunning.
It was one to send the Inspector to his cipher-book. It
ran as follows:
Rely solely on chemist and coal-merchant throughout the
day.
L.B.
After this, she quickened her pace, and in something over
three-quarters of an hour was back again at her hotel.
There she found more of life stirring than when she had
quitted it in the early morning. There was to be a meeting
of the "Surrey Stags" about a couple of miles off, and a
good many hunting men were hanging about the entrance of the
house, discussing the chances of sport after last night's
frost. Loveday made her way through the throng in leisurely
fashion, and not a man but what had keen scrutiny from her
sharp eyes. No, there was no cause for suspicion there;
they were evidently one and all just what they seemed to be
loud-voiced, hard-riding men, bent on a day's sport; but and
here Loveday's eyes travelled beyond the hotel courtyard to
the other side of the road — who was that man with a
bill-hook hacking at the hedge there — a thin-featured,
round-shouldered old fellow, with a bent-about hat? It
might be as well not to take it too rashly for granted that
her spies had withdrawn, and had left her free to do her
work in her own fashion.
She went upstairs to her room. It was situated on the
first floor in the front of the house, and consequently
commanded a good view of the high road. She stood well back
from the window, and at an angle whence she could see and
not be seen, took a long, steady survey of the hedger. And
the longer she looked the more convinced she was that the
man's real work was something other than the bill-hook
seemed to imply. He worked, so to speak, with his head over
his shoulder, and when Loveday supplemented her eyesight
with a strong field-glass, she could see more than one
stealthy glance shot from beneath his bent-about hat in the
direction of her window.
There could be little doubt about it: her movements were
to be as closely watched today as they had been yesterday.
Now it was of first importance that she should communicate
with Inspector Gunning in the course of the afternoon: the
question to solve was how it was to be done?
To all appearance Loveday answered the question in
extraordinary fashion. She pulled up her blind, she drew
back her curtain, and seated herself, in full view, at a
small table in the window recess. Then she took a pocket
inkstand from her pocket, a packet of correspondence cards
from her letter-case, and with rapid pen set to work on
them.
About an hour and a half afterwards, White, coming in,
according to his promise, to report proceedings, found her
still seated at the window, not, however, with writing
materials before her, but with needle and thread in her
hand, with which she was mending her gloves.
"I return to town by the first train tomorrow morning,"
she said as he entered, "and I find these wretched things
want no end of stitches. Now for your report."
White appeared to be in an elated frame of mind. "I've
seen her!" he cried, "my Annie — they've got her, those
confounded Sisters; but they sha'n't keep her — no, not if I
have to pull the house down about their ears to get her
out!"
"Well, now you know where she is, you can take your time
about getting her out," said Loveday. "I hope, however, you
haven't broken faith with me, and betrayed yourself by
trying to speak with her, because, if so, I shall have to
look for another deputy."
"Honour, Miss Brooke!" answered White indignantly. "I
stuck to my duty, though it cost me something to see her
hanging over those kids and tucking them into the cart, and
never say a word to her, never so much as wave my hand."
"Did she go out with the donkey-cart today?"
"No, she only tucked the kids into the cart with a
blanket, and then went back to the house. Two old Sisters,
ugly as sin, went out with them. I watched them from the
window, jolt, jolt, jolt, round the corner, out of sight,
and then I whipped down the stairs, and on to my machine,
and was after them in a trice, and managed to keep them well
in sight for over an hour and a half."
"And their destination today was?"
"Wootton Hall."
"Ah, just as I expected."
"Just as you expected?" echoed White.
"I forgot. You do not know the nature of the suspicions
that are attached to this Sisterhood, and the reasons I have
for thinking that Wootton Hall, at this season of the year,
might have an especial attraction for them."
White continued staring at her. "Miss Brooke," he said
presently, in an altered tone, "whatever suspicions may
attach to the Sisterhood, I'll stake my life on it, my Annie
has had no share in any wickedness of any sort."
"Oh, quite so; it is most likely that your Annie has, in
some way, been inveigled into joining these Sisters — has
been taken possession of by them, in fact, just as they have
taken possession of the little cripples."
"That's it! that's it!" he cried excitedly; "that was the
idea that occurred to me when you spoke to me on the hill
about them, otherwise you may be sure . . . "
"Did they get relief of any sort at the Hall?" interrupted
Loveday.
"Yes; one of the two ugly old women stopped outside the
lodge gates with the donkey-cart, and the other beauty went
up to the house alone. She stayed there, I should think,
about a quarter of an hour, and when she came back was
followed by a servant, carrying a bundle and a basket."
"Ah! I've no doubt they brought away with them something
else beside old garments and broken victuals."
White stood in front of her, fixing a hard, steady gaze
upon her.
"Miss Brooke," he said presently, in a voice that matched
the look on his face, "what do you suppose was the real
object of these women in going to Wootton Hall this
morning?"
"Mr. White, if I wished to help a gang of thieves break
into Wootton Hall tonight, don't you think I should be
greatly interested in procuring for them the information
that the master of the house was away from home; that two of
the menservants, who slept in the house, had recently been
dismissed and their places had not yet been filled; also
that the dogs were never unchained at night, and that their
kennels were at the side of the house at which the butler's
pantry is not situated? These are particulars I have
gathered in this house without stirring from my chair, and I
am satisfied that they are likely to be true. At the same
time, if I were a professional burglar, I should not be
content with information that was likely to be true, but
would be careful to procure such that was certain to be
true, and so would set accomplices to work at the fountain
head. Now do you understand?"
White folded his arms and looked down on her.
"What are you going to do?" he asked, in short, brusque
tones.
Loveday looked him full in the face. "Communicate with
the police immediately," she answered; "and I should feel
greatly obliged if you would at once take a note from me to
Inspector Gunning at Reigate."
"And what becomes of Annie?"
"I don't think you need have any anxiety on that head. I
have no doubt that when the circumstances of her admission
to the Sisterhood are investigated, it will be proved that
she has been as much deceived and imposed upon as the man,
John Murray, who so foolishly let his house to these women.
Remember, Annie has Mrs Copeland's good word to support her
integrity."
White stood silent for awhile.
"What sort of a note do you wish me to take to the
Inspector?" he presently asked.
"You shall read it as I write it, if you like," answered
Loveday. She took a correspondence card from her
lettercase, and, with an indelible pencil, wrote as follows:
Wootton Hall is threatened tonight — concentrate
attention there.
L.B.
White read the words as she wrote them with a curious
expression passing over his handsome features.
"Yes," he said, curtly as before; "I'll deliver that, I
give you my word, but I'll bring back no answer to you.
I'll do no more spying for you — it's a trade that doesn't
suit me. There's a straightforward way of doing
straightforward work, and I'll take that way — no other — to
get my Annie out of that den."
He took the note, which she sealed and handed to him, and
strode out of the room.
Loveday, from the window, watched him mount his bicycle.
Was it her fancy, or did there pass a swift, furtive glance
of recognition between him and the hedger on the other side
of the way as he rode out of the courtyard?
She seemed determined to make that hedger's work easy for
him. The short winter's day was closing in now, and her
room must consequently have been growing dim to outside
observation. She lighted the gas chandelier which hung from
the ceiling, and, still with blinds and curtains undrawn,
took her old place at the window, spread writing materials
before her, and commenced a long and elaborate report to her
chief at Lynch Court.
About half an hour afterwards, she threw a casual glance
across the road, and saw that the hedger had disappeared,
but that two ill-looking tramps sat munching bread and
cheese under the hedge to which his bill-hook had done so
little service. Evidently the intention was, one way or
another, not to lose sight of her so long as she remained in
Redhill.
Meantime, White had delivered Loveday's note to the
Inspector at Reigate, and had disappeared on his bicycle
once more.
Gunning read it without a change of expression. Then he
crossed the room to the fireplace and held the card as close
to the bars as he could without scorching it.
"I had a telegram from her this morning," he explained to
his confidential man, "telling me to rely upon chemicals and
coals throughout the day, and that, of course, meant that
she would write to me in invisible ink. No doubt this
message about Wootton Hall means nothing . . . "
He broke off abruptly, exclaiming: "Eh! what's this!" as,
having withdrawn the card from the fire, Loveday's real
message stood out in bold, clear characters between the
lines of the false one.
Thus it ran:
North Cape will be attacked tonight — a desperate gang —
be prepared for a struggle. Above all, guard the
electrical enginehouse. On no account attempt to
communicate with me — I am so closely watched that any
endeavour to do so may frustrate your chance of
trapping the scoundrels.
L.B.
That night when the moon went down behind Reigate Hill an
exciting scene was enacted at North ape. The Surrey
Gazette, in its issue the following day, gave the subjoined
account of it under the heading, "Desperate Encounter with
Burglars".
"Last night, 'North Cape', the residence of Mr.
Jameson, was the scene of an affray between the police
and a desperate gang of burglars. 'North Cape' is
lighted throughout by electricity, and the burglars,
four in number, divided in half — two being told off to
enter and rob the house, and two to remain at the
engine-shed, where the electricity is stored, so that,
at a given signal, should need arise, the wires might
be unswitched, the inmates of the house thrown into
sudden darkness and confusion, and the escape of the
marauders thereby facilitated. Mr. Jameson, however,
had received timely warning from the police of the
intended attack, and he, with his two sons, all
well-armed, sat in darkness in the inner hall awaiting
the coming of the thieves. The police were stationed,
some in the stables, some in out-buildings nearer to
the house, and others in more distant parts of the
grounds. The burglars effected their entrance by means
of a ladder placed to a window of the servants'
staircase, which leads straight down to the butler's
pantry and to the safe where the silver is kept. The
fellows, however, had no sooner got into the house than
two policemen, issuing from their hiding-place outside,
mounted the ladder after them and thus cut off their
retreat. Mr. Jameson and his two sons, at the same
moment, attacked them in front, and thus overwhelmed by
numbers the scoundrels were easily secured. It was at
the engine-house outside that the sharpest struggle
took place. The thieves had forced open the door of
this engine-shed with their jemmies immediately on
their arrival, under the very eyes of the police, who
lay in ambush in the stables, and when one of the men,
captured in the house, contrived to sound an alarm on
his whistle, these outside watchers made a rush for the
electrical jars, in order to unswitch the wires. Upon
this the police closed upon them, and a hand-to-hand
struggle followed, and if it had not been for the
timely assistance of Mr. Jameson and his sons, who had
fortunately conjectured that their presence here might
be useful, it is more than likely that one of the
burglars, a powerfully-built man, would have escaped.
"The names of the captured men are John Murray,
Arthur and George Lee (father and son), and a man with
so many aliases that it is difficult to know which is
his real name. The whole thing had been most cunningly
and carefully planned. The elder Lee, lately released
from penal servitude for a similar offence, appears to
have been prime mover in the affair. This man had, it
seems, a son and a daughter, who, through the kindness
of friends, had been fairly well placed in life; the
son at an electrical engineer's in London, the daughter
as nursery governess at Wootton Hall. Directly this
man was released from Portland, he seems to have found
out his children and done his best to ruin them both.
He was constantly at Wootton Hall endeavouring to
induce his daughter to act as an accomplice to a
robbery of the house. This so worried the girl that
she threw up her situation and joined a Sisterhood that
had recently been established in the neighbourhood.
Upon this, Lee's thoughts turned in another direction.
He induced his son, who had saved a little money, to
throw up his work in London, and join him in his
disreputable career. The boy is a handsome young
fellow, but appears to have in him the makings of a
first-class criminal. In his work as an electrical
engineer he had made the acquaintance of the man John
Murray, who, it is said, has been rapidly going
downhill of late. Murray was the owner of the house
rented by the Sisterhood that Miss Lee had joined, and
the idea evidently struck the brains of these three
scoundrels that this Sisterhood, whose antecedents were
not generally known, might be utilized to draw off the
attention of the police from themselves and — from the
especial house in the neighbourhood that they had
planned to attack. With this end in view, Murray made
an application to the police to have the Sisters
watched, and still further to give colour to the
suspicions he had endeavoured to set afloat concerning
them, he and his confederates made feeble attempts at
burglary upon the houses at which the Sisters had
called, begging for scraps. It is a matter for
congratulation that the plot, from beginning to end,
has been thus successfully unearthed, and it is felt on
all sides that great credit is due to Inspector Gunning
and his skilled coadjutors for the vigilance and
promptitude they have displayed throughout the affair."
Loveday read aloud this report, with her feet on the
fender of the Lynch Court office.
"Accurate, so far as it goes," she said, as she laid down
the paper.
"But we want to know a little more," said Mr. Dyer. "In
the first place, I would like to know what it was that
diverted your suspicions from the unfortunate Sisters?"
"The way in which they handled the children," answered
Loveday promptly. "I have seen female criminals of all
kinds handling children, and I have noticed that although
they may occasionally — even this is rare — treat them with a
certain rough sort of kindness, of tenderness they are
utterly incapable. Now Sister Monica, I must admit, is not
pleasant to look at; at the same time, there was something
absolutely beautiful in the way in which she lifted the
little cripple out of the cart, put his tiny thin hand round
her neck, and carried him into the house. By the way, I
would like to ask some rabid physiognomist how he would
account for Sister Monica's repulsiveness of features as
contrasted with young Lee's undoubted good looks — heredity,
in this case, throws no light on the matter."
"Another question," said Mr. Dyer, not paying heed to
Loveday's digression; "how was it you transferred your
suspicions to John Murray?"
"I did not do so immediately, although at the very first
it had struck me as odd that he should be so anxious to do
the work of the police for them. The chief thing I noticed
concerning Murray, on the first and only occasion on which I
saw him, was that he had had an accident with his bicycle,
for in the right-hand corner of his lamp-glass there was a
tiny star, and the lamp itself had a dent on the same side
had also lost its hook, and was fastened to the machine by
bit of electric fuse. The next morning, as I was walking
the hill towards Northfield, I was accosted by a young man
mounted on that selfsame bicycle — not a doubt of it — star in
glass, dent, fuse, all there."
"Ah, that sounded an important key-note, and led you to
connect Murray and the younger Lee immediately."
"It did, and, of course, also at once gave the lie to his
statement that he was a stranger in the place, and confirmed
my opinion that there was nothing of the north-countryman in
his accent. Other details in his manner and appearance gave
rise to other suspicions. For instance, he called himself a
press reporter by profession, and his hands were coarse and
grimy, as only a mechanic's could be. He said he was a bit
of a literary man, but the Tennyson that showed so
obtrusively from his pocket was new, and in parts uncut, and
totally unlike the well-thumbed volume of the literary
student. Finally, when he tried and failed to put my
latchkey into his waistcoat pocket, I saw the reason lay in
the fact that the pocket was already occupied by a soft coil
of electric fuse, the end of which protruded. Now, an
electric fuse is what an electrical engineer might almost
unconsciously carry about with him, it is so essential a
part of his working tools, but it is a thing that a literary
man or a press reporter could have no possible use for."
"Exactly, exactly. And it was, no doubt, that bit of
electric fuse that turned your thoughts to the one house in
the neighbourhood lighted by electricity, and suggested to
your mind the possibility of electrical engineers turning
their talents to account in that direction. Now, will you
tell me what, at that stage of your day's work, induced you
to wire to Gunning that you would bring your invisible ink
bottle into use?"
"That was simply a matter of precaution; it did not compel
me to the use of invisible ink, if I saw other safe methods
of communication. I felt myself being hemmed in on all
sides with spies, and I could not tell what emergency might
arise. I don't think I have ever had a more difficult game
to play. As I walked and talked with the young fellow up
the hill, it became clear to me that if I wished to do my
work I must lull the suspicions of the gang, and seem to
walk into their trap. I saw by the persistent way in which
Wootton Hall was forced on my notice that it was wished to
fix my suspicions there. I accordingly, to all appearance,
did so, and allowed the fellows to think they were making a
fool of me."
"Ha! ha! Capital, that — the biter bit, with a vengeance!
Splendid idea to make that young rascal himself deliver the
letter that was to land him and his pals in jail. And he
all the time laughing in his sleeve and thinking what a fool
he was making of you! Ha, ha, ha!" And Mr. Dyer made the
office ring again with his merriment.
"The only person one is at all sorry for in this affair is
poor little Sister Anna," said Loveday pityingly; "and yet,
perhaps, all things considered, after her sorry experience
of life, she may not be so badly placed in a Sisterhood
where practical Christianity — not religious hysterics — is the
one and only rule of the order."
(End.)
Back to C.L. Pirkis' Loveday Brooke page
The Redhill Sisterhood (1894) by C. L. Pirkis
Back to C.L. Pirkis' Loveday Brooke page
THE EXPERIENCES OF LOVEDAY BROOKE,
LADY DETECTIVE (1894)
by
C. L. PIRKIS
from THE LUDGATE MONTHLY
THE REDHILL SISTERHOOD
"T HEY want you at Redhill, now,"
said Mr. Dyer, taking a
packet of papers from one of his pigeon-holes. "The idea
seems gaining ground in many quarters that in cases of mere
suspicion, women detectives are more satisfactory than men,
for they are less likely to attract attention. And this
Redhill affair, so far as I can make out, is one of
suspicion only."
It was a dreary November morning; every gas jet in the
Lynch Court office was alight, and a yellow curtain of
outside fog draped its narrow windows.
"Nevertheless, I suppose one can't afford to leave it
uninvestigated at this season of the year, with
country-house robberies beginning in so many quarters," said
Miss Brooke.
"No; and the circumstances in this case certainly seem to
point in the direction of the country-house burglar. Two
days ago a somewhat curious application was made privately,
by a man giving the name of John Murray, to Inspector
Gunning, of the Reigate police — Redhill, I must tell you,
is in the Reigate police district. Murray stated that he
had been a greengrocer in South London, had sold his
business there, and had, with the proceeds of the sale,
bought two small houses in Redhill, intending to let the one
and live in the other. These houses are situated in a blind
alley, known as Paved Court, a narrow turning leading off
the London and Brighton coach road. Paved Court has been
known to the sanitary authorities for the past ten years as
a regular fever nest, and as the houses which Murray bought
— numbers 7 and 8 — stand at the very end of the blind alley,
with no chance of thorough ventilation, I dare say the man
got them for next to nothing. He told the Inspector that he
had had great difficulty in procuring a tenant for the house
he wished to let, number 8, and that consequently when,
about three weeks back, a lady, dressed as a nun, made him
an offer for it, he immediately closed with her. The lady
gave her name simply as 'Sister Monica', and stated that she
was a member of an undenominational Sisterhood that had
recently been founded by a wealthy lady, who wished her name
kept a secret. Sister Monica gave no references, but,
instead, paid a quarter's rent in advance, saying that she
wished to take possession of the house immediately, and open
it as a home for crippled orphans."
"Gave no references — home for cripples," murmured
Loveday, scribbling hard and fast in her note-book.
"Murray made no objection to this," continued Mr. Dyer,
"and, accordingly, the next day, Sister Monica, accompanied
by three other Sisters and some sickly children, took
possession of the house, which they furnished with the
barest possible necessaries from cheap shops in the
neighbourhood. For a time, Murray said, he thought he had
secured most desirable tenants, but during the last ten days
suspicions as to their real character have entered his mind,
and these suspicions he thought it his duty to communicate
to the police. Among their possessions, it seems, these
Sisters number an old donkey and a tiny cart, and this they
start daily on a sort of begging tour through the adjoining
villages, bringing back every evening a perfect hoard of
broken victuals and bundles of old garments. Now comes the
extraordinary fact on which Murray bases his suspicions. He
says, and Gunning verifies his statement, that in whatever
direction those Sisters turn the wheels of their
donkey-cart, burglaries, or attempts at burglaries, are sure
to follow. A week ago they went along towards Horely,
where, at an outlying house, they received such kindness
from a wealthy gentleman. That very night an attempt was
made to break into that gentleman's house — an attempt,
however, that was happily frustrated by the barking of the
house-dog. And so on in other instances that I need not go
into. Murray suggests that it might be as well to have the
daily movements of these Sisters closely watched, and that
extra vigilance should be exercised by the police in the
districts that have had the honour of a morning call from
them. Gunning coincides with this idea, and so has sent to
me to secure your services."
Loveday closed her note-book. "I suppose Gunning will
meet me somewhere and tell me where I'm to take up my
quarters?" she said.
"Yes; he will get into your carriage at Merstham — the
station before Redhill — if you will put your hand out of the
window, with the morning paper in it. By the way, he takes
it for granted that you will take the 11.5 train from
Victoria. Murray, it seems, has been good enough to place
his little house at the disposal of the police, but Gunning
does not think espionage could be so well carried on there
as from other quarters. The presence of a stranger in an
alley of that sort is bound to attract attention. So he has
hired a room for you in a draper's shop that immediately
faces the head of the court. There is a private door to
this shop of which you will have the key, and can let
yourself in and out as you please. You are supposed to be a
nursery governess on the lookout for a situation, and
Gunning will keep you supplied with letters to give colour
to the idea. He suggests that you need only occupy the room
during the day, at night you will find far more comfortable
quarters at Laker's Hotel, just outside the town."
This was about the sum total of the instructions that Mr.
Dyer had to give.
The 11.5 train from Victoria, that carried Loveday to her
work among the Surrey Hills, did not get clear of the London
fog till well away on the other side of Purley. When the
train halted at Merstham, in response to her signal, a tall,
soldier-like individual made for her carriage, and, jumping
in, took the seat facing her. He introduced himself to her
as Inspector Gunning, recalled to her memory a former
occasion on which they had met, and then, naturally enough,
turned the talk upon the present suspicious circumstances
they were bent upon investigating.
"It won't do for you and me to be seen together," he said;
"of course I am known for miles round, and any one seen in
my company will be at once set down as my coadjutor, and
spied upon accordingly. I walked from Redhill to Merstham
on purpose to avoid recognition on the platform at Redhill,
and half-way here, to my great annoyance, found that I was
being followed by a man in a workman's dress and carrying a
basket of tools. I doubled, however, and gave him the slip,
taking a short cut down a lane which, if he had been living
in the place, he would have known as well as I did. By
Jove!" this was added with a sudden start, "there is the
fellow, I declare; he has weathered me after all, and has no
doubt taken good stock of us both, with the train going at
this snail's pace. It was unfortunate that your face should
have been turned towards that window, Miss Brooke."
"My veil is something of a disguise, and I will put on
another cloak before he has a chance of seeing me again,"
said Loveday.
All she had seen in the brief glimpse that the train had
allowed, was a tall, powerfully-built man walking along the
siding of the line. His cap was drawn low over his eyes,
and in his hand he carried a workman's basket.
Gunning seemed much annoyed at the circumstance. "Instead
of landing at Redhill," he said, "we'll go on to Three
Bridges, and wait there for a Brighton train to bring us
back, that will enable you to get to your room somewhere
between the lights; I don't want to have you spotted before
you've so much as started your work."
Then they went back to their discussion of the Redhill
Sisterhood.
"They call themselves 'undenominational', whatever that
means," said Gunning, "they say they are connected with no
religious sect whatever, they attend sometimes one place of
worship, sometimes another, sometimes none at all. They
refuse to give up the name of the founder of their order,
and really no one has any right to demand it of them, for,
as no doubt you see, up to the present moment the case is
one of mere suspicion, and it may be a pure coincidence that
attempts at burglary have followed their footsteps in this
neighbourhood. By the way, I have heard of a man's face
being enough to hang him, but until I saw Sister Monica's, I
never saw a woman's face that could perform the same kind of
office for her. Of all the lowest criminal types of faces I
have ever seen, I think hers is about the lowest and most
repulsive."
After the Sisters, they passed in review the chief
families resident in the neighbourhood.
"This," said Gunning, unfolding a paper, "is a map I have
specially drawn up for you — it takes in the district for
ten miles round Redhill, and every country house of any
importance is marked on it in red ink. Here, in addition,
is an index of those houses, with special notes of my own to
every house."
Loveday studied the map for a minute or so, then turned
her attention to the index.
"Those four houses you've marked, I see, are those that
have been already attempted. I don't think I'll run them
through, but I'll mark them 'doubtful'; you see the gang —
for, of course, it is a gang — might follow our reasoning on
the matter, and look upon those houses as our weak point.
Here's one I'll run through, 'house empty during winter
months', — that means plate and jewellery sent to the
bankers. Oh! and this one may as well be crossed off,
'father and four sons all athletes and sportsmen', that
means fire-arms always handy — I don't think burglars will
be likely to trouble them. Ah! now we come to something!
Here's a house to be marked 'tempting' in a burglar's list.
'Wootton Hall, lately changed hands and rebuilt, with
complicated passages and corridors. Splendid family plate
in daily use and left entirely in the care of the butler.'
I wonder does the master of that house trust to his
'complicated passages' to preserve his plate for him? A
dismissed dishonest servant would supply a dozen maps of the
place for half a sovereign. What do these initials, 'E.
L.' against the next house in the list, North Cape, stand
for?"
"Electric lighted. I think you might almost cross that
house off also. I consider electric lighting one of the
greatest safe-guards against burglars that a man can give
his house."
"Yes, if he doesn't rely exclusively upon it; it might be
a nasty trap under certain circumstances. I see this
gentleman also has magnificent presentation and other
plate."
"Yes . . . Mr. Jameson is a wealthy man and very
popular in the neighbourhood; his cups and epergnes are
worth looking at."
"Is it the only house in the district that is lighted with
electricity?"
"Yes; and, begging your pardon, Miss Brooke, I only wish
it were not so. If electric lighting were generally in
vogue it would save the police a lot of trouble on these
dark winter nights."
"The burglars would find some way of meeting such a
condition of things, depend upon it; they have reached a
very high development in these days. They no longer stalk
about as they did fifty years ago with blunderbuss and
bludgeon; they plot, plan, contrive, and bring imagination
and artistic resource to their aid. By the way, it often
occurs to me that the popular detective stories, for which
there seems so large a demand at the present day, must be,
at times, uncommonly useful to the criminal classes."
At Three Bridges they had to wait so long for a return
train that it was nearly dark when Loveday got back to
Redhill. Mr. Gunning did not accompany her thither, having
alighted at a previous station. Loveday had directed her
portmanteau to be sent direct to Laker's Hotel, where she
had engaged a room by telegram from Victoria Station. So,
enburthened by luggage, she slipped quietly out of the
Redhill Station and made her way straight for the draper's
shop in the London Road. She had no difficulty in finding
it, thanks to the minute directions given her by the
Inspector.
Street lamps were being lighted in the sleepy little town
as she went along, and as she turned into the London Road,
shopkeepers were lighting up their windows on both sides of
the way. A few yards down this road, a dark patch between
the lighted shops showed her where Paved Court led off from
the thoroughfare. A side door of one of the shops that
stood at the corner of the court seemed to offer a post of
observation whence she could see without being seen, and
here Loveday, shrinking into the shadows, ensconced herself
in order to take stock of the little alley and its
inhabitants. She found it much as it had been described to
her — a collection of four-roomed houses of which more than
half were unlet. Numbers 7 and 8 at the head of the court
presented a slightly less neglected appearance than the
other tenements. Number 7 stood in total darkness, but in
the upper window of number 8 there showed what seemed to be
a night-light burning, so Loveday conjectured that this
possibly was the room set apart as a dormitory for the
little cripples.
While she stood thus surveying the home of the suspected
Sisterhood, the Sisters themselves — two, at least, of them
— came into view, with their donkey-cart and their cripples,
in the main road. It was an odd little cortege. One Sister
habited in a nun's dress of dark blue serge, led the donkey
by the bridle; another Sister, similarly attired, walked
alongside the low cart, in which were seated two
sickly-looking children. They were evidently returning from
one of their long country circuits, and, unless they had
lost their way and been belated, it certainly seemed a late
hour for the sickly little cripples to be abroad.
As they passed under the gas lamp at the corner of the
court, Loveday caught a glimpse of the faces of the Sisters.
It was easy, with Inspector Gunning's description before her
mind, to identify the older and taller woman as Sister
Monica, and a more coarse-featured and generally repellent
face Loveday admitted to herself she had never before seen.
In striking contrast to this forbidding countenance was that
of the younger Sister. Loveday could only catch a brief
passing view of it, but that one brief view was enough to
impress it on her memory as of unusual sadness and beauty.
As the donkey stopped at the corner of the court, Loveday
heard this sad-looking young woman addressed as "Sister
Anna" by one of the cripples, who asked plaintively when
they were going to have something to eat.
"Now, at once," said Sister Anna, lifting the little one,
as it seemed to Loveday, tenderly out of the cart, and
carrying him on her shoulder down the court to the door of
number 8, which opened to them at their approach. The other
Sister did the same with the other child; then both Sisters
returned, unloaded the cart of sundry bundles and baskets,
and, this done, led off the old donkey and trap down the
road, possibly to a neighbouring costermonger's stables.
A man, coming along on a bicycle, exchanged a word of
greeting with the Sisters as they passed, then swung himself
off his machine at the corner of the court, and walked it
along the paved way to the door of number 7. This he opened
with a key, and then, pushing the machine before him,
entered the house.
Loveday took it for granted that this man must be the John
Murray of whom she had heard. She had closely scrutinized
him as he had passed her, and had seen that he was a dark,
well-featured man of about fifty years of age.
She congratulated herself on her good fortune in having
seen so much in such a brief space of time, and, coming
forth from her sheltered corner, turned her steps in the
direction of the draper's shop on the other side of the
road.
It was easy to find. "Golightly" was the singular name
that figured above the shop-front, in which were displayed a
variety of goods calculated to meet the wants of servants
and the poorer classes generally. A tall, powerfully-built
man appeared to be looking in at the window. Loveday's boot
was on the doorstep of the draper's private entrance, her
hand on the door-knocker, when this individual, suddenly
turning, convinced her of his identity with the journeyman
workman who had so disturbed Mr. Gunning's equanimity. It
was true he wore a bowler instead of a journeyman's cap, and
he no longer carried a basket of tools, but there was no
possibility for any one, with so good an eye for an outline
as Loveday possessed, not to recognize the carriage of the
head and shoulders as that of the man she had seen walking
along the railway siding. He gave her no time to make
minute observation of his appearance, but turned quickly
away, and disappeared down a by-street.
Loveday's work seemed to bristle with difficulties now.
here was she, as it were, unearthed in her own ambush; for
there could be but little doubt that during the whole time
she had stood watching those Sisters, that man, from a safe
vantage-point, had been watching her.
She found Mrs Golightly a civil and obliging person. She
showed Loveday to her room above the shop, brought her the
letters which Inspector Gunning had been careful to have
posted to her during the day. Then she supplied her with
pen and ink and, in response to Loveday's request, with some
strong coffee that she said, with a little attempt at a
joke, would "keep a dormouse awake all through the winter
without winking".
While the obliging landlady busied herself about the room,
Loveday had a few questions to ask about the Sisterhood who
lived down the court opposite. On this head, however, Mrs
Golightly could tell her no more than she already knew,
beyond the fact that they started every morning on their
rounds at eleven o'clock punctually, and that before that
hour they were never to be seen outside their door.
Loveday's watch that night was to be a fruitless one.
although she sat, with her lamp turned out and safely
screened from observation, until close upon midnight, with
eyes fixed upon numbers 7 and 8, Paved Court, not so much as
a door opening or shutting at either house rewarded her
vigil. The lights flitted from the lower to the upper
floors in both houses, and then disappeared, somewhere
between nine and ten in the evening; and after that, not a
sign of life did either tenement show.
And all through the long hours of that watch, again and
again there seemed to flit before her mind's eye, as if in
some sort it were fixed upon its retina, the sweet, sad face
of Sister Anna.
Why it was this face should so haunt her, she found it
hard to say.
"It has a mournful past and a mournful future written upon
it as a hopeless whole," she said to herself. "It is the
face of an Andromeda! 'Here am I', it seems to say, 'tied
to my stake, helpless and hopeless'."
The church clocks were sounding the midnight hour as
Loveday made her way through the dark streets to her hotel
outside the town. As she passed under the railway arch that
ended in the open country road, the echo of not very distant
footsteps caught her ear. When she stopped they stopped,
when she went on they went on, and she knew that once more
she was being followed and watched, although the darkness of
the arch prevented her seeing even the shadow of the man who
was thus dogging her steps.
The next morning broke keen and frosty. Loveday studied
her map and her country-house index over a seven o'clock
breakfast, and then set off for a brisk walk along the
country road. No doubt in London the streets were walled in
and roofed with yellow fog; here, however, bright sunshine
playing in and out of the bare tree-boughs and leafless
hedges on #to a thousand frost spangles, turned the prosaic
macadamized road into a gangway fit for Queen Titania
herself and her fairy train.
Loveday turned her back on the town and set herself to
follow the road as it wound away over the hill in the
direction of a village called Northfield. Early as she was,
she was not to have that road to herself. A team of strong
horses trudged by on their way to their work in the
fuller's-earth pits. A young fellow on a bicycle flashed
past at a tremendous pace, considering the upward slant of
the road. He looked hard at her as he passed, then
slackened speed, dismounted, and awaited her coming on the
brow of the hill.
"Good-morning, Miss Brooke," he said, lifting his cap as
she came alongside of him. "May I have five minutes' talk
with you?"
The young man who thus accosted her had not the appearance
of a gentleman. He was a handsome, bright-faced young
fellow of about two-and-twenty, and was dressed in ordinary
cyclist's dress; his cap was pushed back from his brow over
thick, curly, fair hair, and Loveday, as she looked at him,
could not repress the thought how well he would look at the
head of a troop of cavalry, giving the order to charge the
enemy.
He led his machine to the side of the footpath.
"You have the advantage of me," said Loveday; "I haven't
the remotest notion who you are."
"No," he said; "although I know you, you cannot possibly
know me. I am a north-country man, and I was present, about
a month ago, at the trial of old Mr. Craven, of Troyte's
Hill — in fact, I acted as reporter for one of the local papers.
I watched your face so closely as you gave your evidence
that I should know it anywhere, among a thousand."
"And your name is...?"
"George White, of Grenfell. My father is part proprietor
of one of the Newcastle papers. I am a bit of a literary
man myself, and sometimes figure as a reporter, sometimes as
reader-writer, to that paper." Here he gave a glance
towards his side pocket, from which protruded a small volume
of Tennyson's poems.
The facts he had stated did not seem to invite comment,
and Loveday ejaculated merely: "Indeed!"
The young man went back to the subject that was evidently
filling his thoughts. "I have special reasons for being
glad to have met you this morning, Miss Brooke," he went on,
making his footsteps keep pace with hers. "I am in great
trouble, and I believe you are the only person in the whole
world who can help me out of that trouble."
"I am rather doubtful as to my power of helping any one
out of trouble," said Loveday; "so far as my experience
goes, our troubles are as much a part of ourselves as our
skins are of our bodies."
"Ah, but not such trouble as mine," said White eagerly. He
broke off for a moment, then, with a sudden rush of words
told her what that trouble was. For the past year he had
been engaged to be married to a young girl, who, until quite
recently, had been fulfilling the duties of a nursery
governess in a large house in the neighbourhood of Redhill.
"Will you kindly give me the name of that house?"
interrupted Loveday.
"Certainly; Wootton Hall, the place is called, and Annie
Lee is my sweetheart's name. I don't care who knows it!"
He threw his head back as he said this, as if he would be
delighted to announce the fact to the whole world. "Annie's
mother," he went on, "died when she was a baby, and we both
thought her father was dead also, when suddenly, about a
fortnight ago, it came to her knowledge that, instead of
being dead, he was serving his time at Portland for some
offence committed years ago."
"Do you know how this came to Annie's knowledge?"
"Not the least in the world; I only know that I suddenly
got a letter from her announcing the fact, andy, at the same
time, breaking off her engagement with me. I tore the
letter into a thousand pieces, and wrote back saying I would
not allow the engagement to be broken off, but would marry
her if she would have me. To this letter she did not reply;
there came instead a few lines from Mrs Copeland, the lady
at Wootton Hall, saying that Annie had thrown up her
engagement, and joined some Sisterhood, and that she, Mrs
Copeland, had pledged her word to Annie to reveal to no one
the name and whereabouts of that Sisterhood."
"And I suppose you imagine I am able to do what Mrs
Copeland is pledged not to do?"
"That's just it, Miss Brooke!" cried the young man
enthusiastically. "You do such wonderful things; everyone
knows you do. It seems as if, when anything is wanting to
be found out, you just walk into a place, look round you,
and, in a moment, everything becomes clear as noonday."
"I can't quite lay claim to such wonderful powers as that.
as it happens, however, in the present instance, no
particular skill is needed to find out what you wish to
know, for I fancy I have already come upon the traces of
Miss Annie Lee."
"Miss Brooke!"
"Of course, I cannot say for certain, but it is a matter
you can easily settle for yourself — settle, too, in a way
that will confer a great obligation on me."
"I shall be only too delighted to be of any, the
slightest, service to you!" cried White, enthusiastically as
before.
"Thank you. I will explain. I came down here specially
to watch the movements of a certain Sisterhood who have
somehow aroused the suspicions of the police. Well, I find
that instead of being able to do this, I am myself so
closely watched — possibly by confederates of these Sisters
— that unless I can do my work by deputy I may as well go
back to town at once."
"Ah! I see — you want me to be that deputy."
"Precisely. I want you to go to the room in Redhill that
I have hired, take your place at the window — screened, of
course, from observation — at which I ought to be seated —
watch as closely as possible the movements of these Sisters,
and report them to me at the hotel, where I shall remain
shut in from morning till night — it is the only way in which
I can throw my persistent spies off the scent. Now, in
doing this for me, you will be doing yourself a good turn,
for I have little doubt but what under the blue serge hood
of one of the Sisters you will discover the pretty face of
Miss Annie Lee."
As they talked they had walked, and now stood on the top
of the hill at the head of the one little street that
constituted the whole of the village of Northfield.
On their left hand stood the village school and the
master's house; nearly facing these, on the opposite side of
the road, beneath a clump of elms, stood the village pound.
Beyond this pound, on either side of the way, were two rows
of small cottages with tiny squares of garden in front, and
in the midst of these small cottages a swinging sign beneath
a lamp announced a "Postal and Telegraph Office".
"Now that we have come into the land of habitations
again," said Loveday, "it will be best for us to part. It
will not do for you and me to be seen together, or my spies
will be transferring their attentions from me to you, and I
shall have to find another deputy. You had better start on
your bicycle for Redhill at once, and I will walk back at
leisurely speed. Come to me at my hotel without fail at one
o'clock and report proceedings. I do not say anything
definite about remuneration, but I assure you, if you carry
out my instructions to the letter, your services will be
amply rewarded by me and by my employers."
There were yet a few more details to arrange. White had
been, he said, only a day and night in the neighbourhood,
and special directions as to the locality had to be given to
him. Loveday advised him not to attract attention by going
to the draper's private door, but to enter the shop as if he
were a customer, and then explain matters to Mrs Golightly,
who, no doubt, would be in her place behind the counter;
tell her he was the brother of the Miss Smith who had hired
her room, and ask permission to go through the shop to that
room, as he had been commissioned by his sister to read and
answer any letters that might have arrived there for her.
"Show her the key of the side door — here it is," said
Loveday; "it will be your credentials, and tell her you did
not like to make use of it without acquainting her with the
fact."
The young man took the key, endeavouring to put it in his
waistcoat pocket, found the space there occupied, and so
transferred it to the keeping of a side pocket in his tunic.
All this time Loveday stood watching him.
"You have a capital machine there," she said, as the young
man mounted his bicycle once more, "and I hope you will turn
it to account in following the movements of these Sisters
about the neighbourhood. I feel confident you will have
something definite to tell me when you bring me your first
report at one o'clock."
White once more broke into a profusion of thanks, and
then, lifting his cap to the lady, started his machine at a
fairly good pace.
Loveday watched him out of sight down the slope of the
hill, then, instead of following him as she had said she
would "at a leisurely pace", she turned her steps in the
opposite direction along the village street.
It was an altogether ideal country village.
Neatly-dressed, chubby-faced children, now on their way to
the school, dropped quaint little curtseys, or tugged at
curly locks as Loveday passed; every cottage looked the
picture of cleanliness and trimness, and, although so late
in the year, the gardens were full of late flowering
chrysanthemums and early flowering Christmas roses.
At the end of the village, Loveday came suddenly into view
of a large, handsome, red-brick mansion. It presented a
wide frontage to the road, from which it lay back amid
extensive pleasure grounds. On the right hand, and a little
on the rear of the house, stood what seemed to be large and
commodious stables, and immediately adjoining these stables
was a low-built, red-brick shed, that had evidently been
recently erected.
That low-built, red-brick shed excited Loveday's
curiosity.
"Is this house called North Cape?" she asked of a man, who
chanced at that moment to be passing with a pickaxe and
shovel.
The man answered in the affirmative, and Loveday then
asked another question: Could he tell her what was that
small shed so close to the house — it looked like a glorified
cowhouse — now what could be its use?
The man's face lighted up as if it were a subject on which
he liked to be questioned. He explained that that small
shed was the engine-house where the electricity that lighted
North Cape was made and stored. Then he dwelt with pride
upon the fact, as if he held a personal interest in it, that
North Cape was the only house, far or near, that was thus
lighted.
"I suppose the wires are carried underground to the
house," said Loveday, looking in vain for signs of them
anywhere.
The man was delighted to go into details on the matter. He
had helped to lay those wires, he said: they were two in
number, one for supply and one for return, and were laid
three feet below ground, in boxes filled with pitch. They
were switched on to jars in the engine-house, where the
electricity was stored, and, after passing underground,
entered the family mansion under the flooring at its western
end.
Loveday listened attentively to these details, and then
took a minute and leisurely survey of the house and its
surroundings. This done, she retraced her steps through the
village, pausing, however, at the "Postal and Telegraph
Office" to despatch a telegram to Inspector Gunning.
It was one to send the Inspector to his cipher-book. It
ran as follows:
Rely solely on chemist and coal-merchant throughout the
day.
L.B.
After this, she quickened her pace, and in something over
three-quarters of an hour was back again at her hotel.
There she found more of life stirring than when she had
quitted it in the early morning. There was to be a meeting
of the "Surrey Stags" about a couple of miles off, and a
good many hunting men were hanging about the entrance of the
house, discussing the chances of sport after last night's
frost. Loveday made her way through the throng in leisurely
fashion, and not a man but what had keen scrutiny from her
sharp eyes. No, there was no cause for suspicion there;
they were evidently one and all just what they seemed to be
loud-voiced, hard-riding men, bent on a day's sport; but and
here Loveday's eyes travelled beyond the hotel courtyard to
the other side of the road — who was that man with a
bill-hook hacking at the hedge there — a thin-featured,
round-shouldered old fellow, with a bent-about hat? It
might be as well not to take it too rashly for granted that
her spies had withdrawn, and had left her free to do her
work in her own fashion.
She went upstairs to her room. It was situated on the
first floor in the front of the house, and consequently
commanded a good view of the high road. She stood well back
from the window, and at an angle whence she could see and
not be seen, took a long, steady survey of the hedger. And
the longer she looked the more convinced she was that the
man's real work was something other than the bill-hook
seemed to imply. He worked, so to speak, with his head over
his shoulder, and when Loveday supplemented her eyesight
with a strong field-glass, she could see more than one
stealthy glance shot from beneath his bent-about hat in the
direction of her window.
There could be little doubt about it: her movements were
to be as closely watched today as they had been yesterday.
Now it was of first importance that she should communicate
with Inspector Gunning in the course of the afternoon: the
question to solve was how it was to be done?
To all appearance Loveday answered the question in
extraordinary fashion. She pulled up her blind, she drew
back her curtain, and seated herself, in full view, at a
small table in the window recess. Then she took a pocket
inkstand from her pocket, a packet of correspondence cards
from her letter-case, and with rapid pen set to work on
them.
About an hour and a half afterwards, White, coming in,
according to his promise, to report proceedings, found her
still seated at the window, not, however, with writing
materials before her, but with needle and thread in her
hand, with which she was mending her gloves.
"I return to town by the first train tomorrow morning,"
she said as he entered, "and I find these wretched things
want no end of stitches. Now for your report."
White appeared to be in an elated frame of mind. "I've
seen her!" he cried, "my Annie — they've got her, those
confounded Sisters; but they sha'n't keep her — no, not if I
have to pull the house down about their ears to get her
out!"
"Well, now you know where she is, you can take your time
about getting her out," said Loveday. "I hope, however, you
haven't broken faith with me, and betrayed yourself by
trying to speak with her, because, if so, I shall have to
look for another deputy."
"Honour, Miss Brooke!" answered White indignantly. "I
stuck to my duty, though it cost me something to see her
hanging over those kids and tucking them into the cart, and
never say a word to her, never so much as wave my hand."
"Did she go out with the donkey-cart today?"
"No, she only tucked the kids into the cart with a
blanket, and then went back to the house. Two old Sisters,
ugly as sin, went out with them. I watched them from the
window, jolt, jolt, jolt, round the corner, out of sight,
and then I whipped down the stairs, and on to my machine,
and was after them in a trice, and managed to keep them well
in sight for over an hour and a half."
"And their destination today was?"
"Wootton Hall."
"Ah, just as I expected."
"Just as you expected?" echoed White.
"I forgot. You do not know the nature of the suspicions
that are attached to this Sisterhood, and the reasons I have
for thinking that Wootton Hall, at this season of the year,
might have an especial attraction for them."
White continued staring at her. "Miss Brooke," he said
presently, in an altered tone, "whatever suspicions may
attach to the Sisterhood, I'll stake my life on it, my Annie
has had no share in any wickedness of any sort."
"Oh, quite so; it is most likely that your Annie has, in
some way, been inveigled into joining these Sisters — has
been taken possession of by them, in fact, just as they have
taken possession of the little cripples."
"That's it! that's it!" he cried excitedly; "that was the
idea that occurred to me when you spoke to me on the hill
about them, otherwise you may be sure . . . "
"Did they get relief of any sort at the Hall?" interrupted
Loveday.
"Yes; one of the two ugly old women stopped outside the
lodge gates with the donkey-cart, and the other beauty went
up to the house alone. She stayed there, I should think,
about a quarter of an hour, and when she came back was
followed by a servant, carrying a bundle and a basket."
"Ah! I've no doubt they brought away with them something
else beside old garments and broken victuals."
White stood in front of her, fixing a hard, steady gaze
upon her.
"Miss Brooke," he said presently, in a voice that matched
the look on his face, "what do you suppose was the real
object of these women in going to Wootton Hall this
morning?"
"Mr. White, if I wished to help a gang of thieves break
into Wootton Hall tonight, don't you think I should be
greatly interested in procuring for them the information
that the master of the house was away from home; that two of
the menservants, who slept in the house, had recently been
dismissed and their places had not yet been filled; also
that the dogs were never unchained at night, and that their
kennels were at the side of the house at which the butler's
pantry is not situated? These are particulars I have
gathered in this house without stirring from my chair, and I
am satisfied that they are likely to be true. At the same
time, if I were a professional burglar, I should not be
content with information that was likely to be true, but
would be careful to procure such that was certain to be
true, and so would set accomplices to work at the fountain
head. Now do you understand?"
White folded his arms and looked down on her.
"What are you going to do?" he asked, in short, brusque
tones.
Loveday looked him full in the face. "Communicate with
the police immediately," she answered; "and I should feel
greatly obliged if you would at once take a note from me to
Inspector Gunning at Reigate."
"And what becomes of Annie?"
"I don't think you need have any anxiety on that head. I
have no doubt that when the circumstances of her admission
to the Sisterhood are investigated, it will be proved that
she has been as much deceived and imposed upon as the man,
John Murray, who so foolishly let his house to these women.
Remember, Annie has Mrs Copeland's good word to support her
integrity."
White stood silent for awhile.
"What sort of a note do you wish me to take to the
Inspector?" he presently asked.
"You shall read it as I write it, if you like," answered
Loveday. She took a correspondence card from her
lettercase, and, with an indelible pencil, wrote as follows:
Wootton Hall is threatened tonight — concentrate
attention there.
L.B.
White read the words as she wrote them with a curious
expression passing over his handsome features.
"Yes," he said, curtly as before; "I'll deliver that, I
give you my word, but I'll bring back no answer to you.
I'll do no more spying for you — it's a trade that doesn't
suit me. There's a straightforward way of doing
straightforward work, and I'll take that way — no other — to
get my Annie out of that den."
He took the note, which she sealed and handed to him, and
strode out of the room.
Loveday, from the window, watched him mount his bicycle.
Was it her fancy, or did there pass a swift, furtive glance
of recognition between him and the hedger on the other side
of the way as he rode out of the courtyard?
She seemed determined to make that hedger's work easy for
him. The short winter's day was closing in now, and her
room must consequently have been growing dim to outside
observation. She lighted the gas chandelier which hung from
the ceiling, and, still with blinds and curtains undrawn,
took her old place at the window, spread writing materials
before her, and commenced a long and elaborate report to her
chief at Lynch Court.
About half an hour afterwards, she threw a casual glance
across the road, and saw that the hedger had disappeared,
but that two ill-looking tramps sat munching bread and
cheese under the hedge to which his bill-hook had done so
little service. Evidently the intention was, one way or
another, not to lose sight of her so long as she remained in
Redhill.
Meantime, White had delivered Loveday's note to the
Inspector at Reigate, and had disappeared on his bicycle
once more.
Gunning read it without a change of expression. Then he
crossed the room to the fireplace and held the card as close
to the bars as he could without scorching it.
"I had a telegram from her this morning," he explained to
his confidential man, "telling me to rely upon chemicals and
coals throughout the day, and that, of course, meant that
she would write to me in invisible ink. No doubt this
message about Wootton Hall means nothing . . . "
He broke off abruptly, exclaiming: "Eh! what's this!" as,
having withdrawn the card from the fire, Loveday's real
message stood out in bold, clear characters between the
lines of the false one.
Thus it ran:
North Cape will be attacked tonight — a desperate gang —
be prepared for a struggle. Above all, guard the
electrical enginehouse. On no account attempt to
communicate with me — I am so closely watched that any
endeavour to do so may frustrate your chance of
trapping the scoundrels.
L.B.
That night when the moon went down behind Reigate Hill an
exciting scene was enacted at North ape. The Surrey
Gazette, in its issue the following day, gave the subjoined
account of it under the heading, "Desperate Encounter with
Burglars".
"Last night, 'North Cape', the residence of Mr.
Jameson, was the scene of an affray between the police
and a desperate gang of burglars. 'North Cape' is
lighted throughout by electricity, and the burglars,
four in number, divided in half — two being told off to
enter and rob the house, and two to remain at the
engine-shed, where the electricity is stored, so that,
at a given signal, should need arise, the wires might
be unswitched, the inmates of the house thrown into
sudden darkness and confusion, and the escape of the
marauders thereby facilitated. Mr. Jameson, however,
had received timely warning from the police of the
intended attack, and he, with his two sons, all
well-armed, sat in darkness in the inner hall awaiting
the coming of the thieves. The police were stationed,
some in the stables, some in out-buildings nearer to
the house, and others in more distant parts of the
grounds. The burglars effected their entrance by means
of a ladder placed to a window of the servants'
staircase, which leads straight down to the butler's
pantry and to the safe where the silver is kept. The
fellows, however, had no sooner got into the house than
two policemen, issuing from their hiding-place outside,
mounted the ladder after them and thus cut off their
retreat. Mr. Jameson and his two sons, at the same
moment, attacked them in front, and thus overwhelmed by
numbers the scoundrels were easily secured. It was at
the engine-house outside that the sharpest struggle
took place. The thieves had forced open the door of
this engine-shed with their jemmies immediately on
their arrival, under the very eyes of the police, who
lay in ambush in the stables, and when one of the men,
captured in the house, contrived to sound an alarm on
his whistle, these outside watchers made a rush for the
electrical jars, in order to unswitch the wires. Upon
this the police closed upon them, and a hand-to-hand
struggle followed, and if it had not been for the
timely assistance of Mr. Jameson and his sons, who had
fortunately conjectured that their presence here might
be useful, it is more than likely that one of the
burglars, a powerfully-built man, would have escaped.
"The names of the captured men are John Murray,
Arthur and George Lee (father and son), and a man with
so many aliases that it is difficult to know which is
his real name. The whole thing had been most cunningly
and carefully planned. The elder Lee, lately released
from penal servitude for a similar offence, appears to
have been prime mover in the affair. This man had, it
seems, a son and a daughter, who, through the kindness
of friends, had been fairly well placed in life; the
son at an electrical engineer's in London, the daughter
as nursery governess at Wootton Hall. Directly this
man was released from Portland, he seems to have found
out his children and done his best to ruin them both.
He was constantly at Wootton Hall endeavouring to
induce his daughter to act as an accomplice to a
robbery of the house. This so worried the girl that
she threw up her situation and joined a Sisterhood that
had recently been established in the neighbourhood.
Upon this, Lee's thoughts turned in another direction.
He induced his son, who had saved a little money, to
throw up his work in London, and join him in his
disreputable career. The boy is a handsome young
fellow, but appears to have in him the makings of a
first-class criminal. In his work as an electrical
engineer he had made the acquaintance of the man John
Murray, who, it is said, has been rapidly going
downhill of late. Murray was the owner of the house
rented by the Sisterhood that Miss Lee had joined, and
the idea evidently struck the brains of these three
scoundrels that this Sisterhood, whose antecedents were
not generally known, might be utilized to draw off the
attention of the police from themselves and — from the
especial house in the neighbourhood that they had
planned to attack. With this end in view, Murray made
an application to the police to have the Sisters
watched, and still further to give colour to the
suspicions he had endeavoured to set afloat concerning
them, he and his confederates made feeble attempts at
burglary upon the houses at which the Sisters had
called, begging for scraps. It is a matter for
congratulation that the plot, from beginning to end,
has been thus successfully unearthed, and it is felt on
all sides that great credit is due to Inspector Gunning
and his skilled coadjutors for the vigilance and
promptitude they have displayed throughout the affair."
Loveday read aloud this report, with her feet on the
fender of the Lynch Court office.
"Accurate, so far as it goes," she said, as she laid down
the paper.
"But we want to know a little more," said Mr. Dyer. "In
the first place, I would like to know what it was that
diverted your suspicions from the unfortunate Sisters?"
"The way in which they handled the children," answered
Loveday promptly. "I have seen female criminals of all
kinds handling children, and I have noticed that although
they may occasionally — even this is rare — treat them with a
certain rough sort of kindness, of tenderness they are
utterly incapable. Now Sister Monica, I must admit, is not
pleasant to look at; at the same time, there was something
absolutely beautiful in the way in which she lifted the
little cripple out of the cart, put his tiny thin hand round
her neck, and carried him into the house. By the way, I
would like to ask some rabid physiognomist how he would
account for Sister Monica's repulsiveness of features as
contrasted with young Lee's undoubted good looks — heredity,
in this case, throws no light on the matter."
"Another question," said Mr. Dyer, not paying heed to
Loveday's digression; "how was it you transferred your
suspicions to John Murray?"
"I did not do so immediately, although at the very first
it had struck me as odd that he should be so anxious to do
the work of the police for them. The chief thing I noticed
concerning Murray, on the first and only occasion on which I
saw him, was that he had had an accident with his bicycle,
for in the right-hand corner of his lamp-glass there was a
tiny star, and the lamp itself had a dent on the same side
had also lost its hook, and was fastened to the machine by
bit of electric fuse. The next morning, as I was walking
the hill towards Northfield, I was accosted by a young man
mounted on that selfsame bicycle — not a doubt of it — star in
glass, dent, fuse, all there."
"Ah, that sounded an important key-note, and led you to
connect Murray and the younger Lee immediately."
"It did, and, of course, also at once gave the lie to his
statement that he was a stranger in the place, and confirmed
my opinion that there was nothing of the north-countryman in
his accent. Other details in his manner and appearance gave
rise to other suspicions. For instance, he called himself a
press reporter by profession, and his hands were coarse and
grimy, as only a mechanic's could be. He said he was a bit
of a literary man, but the Tennyson that showed so
obtrusively from his pocket was new, and in parts uncut, and
totally unlike the well-thumbed volume of the literary
student. Finally, when he tried and failed to put my
latchkey into his waistcoat pocket, I saw the reason lay in
the fact that the pocket was already occupied by a soft coil
of electric fuse, the end of which protruded. Now, an
electric fuse is what an electrical engineer might almost
unconsciously carry about with him, it is so essential a
part of his working tools, but it is a thing that a literary
man or a press reporter could have no possible use for."
"Exactly, exactly. And it was, no doubt, that bit of
electric fuse that turned your thoughts to the one house in
the neighbourhood lighted by electricity, and suggested to
your mind the possibility of electrical engineers turning
their talents to account in that direction. Now, will you
tell me what, at that stage of your day's work, induced you
to wire to Gunning that you would bring your invisible ink
bottle into use?"
"That was simply a matter of precaution; it did not compel
me to the use of invisible ink, if I saw other safe methods
of communication. I felt myself being hemmed in on all
sides with spies, and I could not tell what emergency might
arise. I don't think I have ever had a more difficult game
to play. As I walked and talked with the young fellow up
the hill, it became clear to me that if I wished to do my
work I must lull the suspicions of the gang, and seem to
walk into their trap. I saw by the persistent way in which
Wootton Hall was forced on my notice that it was wished to
fix my suspicions there. I accordingly, to all appearance,
did so, and allowed the fellows to think they were making a
fool of me."
"Ha! ha! Capital, that — the biter bit, with a vengeance!
Splendid idea to make that young rascal himself deliver the
letter that was to land him and his pals in jail. And he
all the time laughing in his sleeve and thinking what a fool
he was making of you! Ha, ha, ha!" And Mr. Dyer made the
office ring again with his merriment.
"The only person one is at all sorry for in this affair is
poor little Sister Anna," said Loveday pityingly; "and yet,
perhaps, all things considered, after her sorry experience
of life, she may not be so badly placed in a Sisterhood
where practical Christianity — not religious hysterics — is the
one and only rule of the order."
(End.)
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