Legendary Women Detectives Read online

  “How can you fix the day, Daph?”

  “It was a brilliantly fine day, Martin, and the people at the Inn remember it as strange because two other men staying there had had big catches.”

  “And the trains? How do they fit in?”

  “The nine-eleven gets to town at one-fifty-six. A taxi would take him to Bloomsbury at 2:15 P.M.; would get him to the bank at two-thirty – the time we know he was there. While another one would give him the three-sixteen to land him at Tavistock at eight-forty-one.”

  “If you could only find the taxi man who drove him–” began Sylvester, but Daphne cut him short.

  “Oh, I have, Allan! He remembers it well. Described his fare as tall and thin, wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Drove him to Unwin Street and waited a few minutes. Then to the bank, where he was given a ten-shilling note and dismissed.”

  “Seems to me,” said Lord Trevitter, “that you’ve proved it up to the hilt.”

  But Everest shook his head.

  “Circumstantially, Jim,” he said, “it’s excellent. But it’s not a good case to go to a jury with. Brief me for Gorleston and I’ll find a hundred flaws.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that, Martin,” said Daphne, a little ruefully.

  “I don’t want to say it, dear, but I must. Mind you, I haven’t the slightest doubt from all you’ve told me that John Elwes has never existed, but I’m equally certain that even with the evidence you’ve got, it’s going to be hard to establish. You see, who’s going to prove that the taxi man’s passenger was Gorleston from Tavistock? It might have been John Elwes from, say, Surbiton! Frankly, it’s a very clever fraud that has got home and looks like staying home. He’s got overwhelming evidence that he was at Tavistock, and all that we can produce is a ticket collector who’s only seen him once or twice. While he, Gorleston, can produce a hundred intimate pals who will swear that he has never worn spectacles, and a thousand or two checks all bearing his accurate and original signature. No, no, it won’t do!”

  “Of course there is another way,” murmured Daphne thoughtfully, “but the question is, will you agree to it?”

  The four men exchanged glances.

  “It’s one of Peter Pan’s very choicest, right off the ice!” smiled Sylvester. “Now I’ll lay any one a quid–”

  “Oh, Allan–” laughing and blushing– “don’t be a beast! All right, I’ll tell you then. You can laugh at me afterwards.”

  But there was little laughter in their faces as she talked.

  When she had finished, Lord Trevitter threw back his head and laughed like a schoolboy.

  “Daphne, you’re a marvel!” he exclaimed. “my dear, how do you think of these things?”

  “Is it good, Jim?”

  “Good?” echoed Everest. “It’s glorious, magnificent! Of course, he may not fall for it, but if he’s guilty I believe he will. If, on the other hand, he’s innocent, well – we’re no worse off than we were before.”

  “I’m in this, mind!” exclaimed Williamson.

  “We’re all in it, the four of us!” answered Lord Trevitter, with his boyish laugh. “Another success for the Adjusters!”

  “Oh, I’m so glad you like my ideal” exclaimed the girl. “Let’s thrash it out!”

  Richard Henry Gorleston was entirely pleased with himself. As he sat in a West End restaurant eating his dinner he smiled complacently to himself. Twenty-five thousand pounds for nothing, he told himself, was the finest day’s work he had ever done. His solicitors, furthermore, had hinted to him that the bank, rather than court publicity, would settle with him. He signed to his waiter and ordered himself another bottle of champagne and a Corona.

  “Have you any objection to my sitting here?”

  A suave, smiling, elderly gentleman with white hair and gold-rimmed pince-nez was standing at the table, hesitating, but Gorleston answered his smile cheerfully.

  “Not a bit in the world. Crowded here tonight.”

  “Somewhat. I don’t know my London well. I’m from the country – North Wales. My annual trip to London. I come up once a year, I see all the sights. And–” with a smile “–I have a little opportunity to indulge my pet hobby – billiards.”

  Gorleston was interested in a moment.

  “Funny that,” he said. “It’s a particular hobby of mine.” And they were hard at it in a moment. Finally, when the stranger, who volunteered his name as Professor Lucas, called for his bill, Gorleston ventured to suggest that he and his new friend should adjourn for a game.

  They played several games. The professor was charmed with his new acquaintance and pressed him to dine with him the following evening. Gorleston accepted with alacrity.

  The following evening they met again, but soon after the meal had started the professor was claimed by three friends of his. He expressed extraordinary surprise at seeing them, introduced them to Gorleston, and insisted on their dining with him. It was a merry dinner, and a considerable amount of wine was consumed. Later on the quintet adjourned – this time it was to a pet place of the professor’s. They had a private room there, and Gorleston trounced the professor soundly. Then, in boisterous mood, he took on his three friends and administered severe hidings to each of them. So pleased was he that he sent for two magnums of champagne and after trying ineffectually to play with the rest, which he had previously chalked, he subsided gracefully onto the couch. Eventually Gorleston, hopelessly drunk, was assisted into a taxi. The professor gave the driver the address of 124, Unwin Street, Bloomsbury.

  Inside the taxi the behaviour of the four men was a little strange, for they proceeded to extract a good many things from the drunken man’s pockets. They also carefully placed a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles on his face.

  “Capital!” murmured the professor as he gazed at the unconscious man. “John Elwes, surely?”

  “We’ll hope so,” replied one of the others. “We’ll knock up his landlady and if she greets him as such we’re home.”

  “When will he wake up?”

  “About eleven tomorrow,” replied the other. “I got that drug from the natives on the West Coast, and I know it backwards. Still, we’ll be on the safe side and turn up at ten o’clock tomorrow.”

  One hour later the landlady, profuse in her thanks for bringing Mr. Elwes home, showed the four men out of 124, Unwin Street. In a quiet street they proceeded to remove beards, moustaches and wigs – the professor becoming Allan Sylvester and his three companions – Martin Everest, Sir Hugh Williamson and Lord Trevitter!

  “It was a brain-wave of Daphne’s!” chuckled Everest as he lit a cigarette. “We know he’s Gorleston, he knows he’s Gorleston, but his landlady and Adwinter are prepared to swear he’s John Elwes. Besides, he’s in Elwes’s rooms in Elwes’s bed, all his clothes are marked with Elwes’s name, and even his cards are in the name of John Elwes. If I were on the bench,” thoughtfully, “I should have to come to the conclusion that he was Elwes.”

  “Of course, the amusing thing to me,” said Williamson, “is that we’ve done it so carefully that even if he can prove he’s Gorleston, he’s in a worse mess. For that establishes definitely that he’s been runnin” a dual personality in order to defraud the bank.“

  “Ali, but his attitude tomorrow morning will decide that. If he refuses to give in, we may be wrong. But he won’t. He’ll throw up the sponge. You see if he doesn’t.”

  When Richard Henry Gorleston awoke the next morning he stared dazedly round the room. Then with a startled cry he leapt out of bed. But he stopped short, for at that moment the door opened and two men, complete strangers to him, came into the room, and locked the door.

  “Well, John Elwes – the game’s up!”

  “Wh – wh – what d’you mean? My name’s not John Elwes!

  “Really! Then may I ask what you’re doing in John Elwes’s room, sleeping in John Elwes’s bed?” He took a quick step forward, picked up a coat which lay on a chair, glanced at it. “And how come you to be wearing John Elwes’s cloth
es?”

  The other gasped.

  “John Elwes’s – clothes?”

  “See for yourself! Name in coat – name on the shirt – name on the collar – card-case here on the dressing-table–” he took it up and examined it, “–with John Elwes’s cards in it! If you’re not John Elwes perhaps you’ll not only tell us how you come to be in possession of all his things, but who you are and how you are here.”

  For a space of seconds Gorleston glared at him like a rat caught in a trap.

  “My name’s Gorleston,” he blurted out desperately. “Richard Henry Gorleston. How I got here I don’t know.”

  The taller of the two men smiled pityingly.

  “Come again, sonnie,” he answered. “We’re acting on behalf of the Universal Banking Corporation who are rather interested in getting hold of John Elwes for forging Gorleston’s signature to a twenty-five-thousand-pound check. Adwinter, of Queen Anne Street, will swear to you anywhere, and so will your landlady.”

  Gorleston moistened his dry lips.

  “It’s going to trouble you to prove I’m Elwes,” he said.

  “It’s going to trouble you to prove you’re not,” laughed the other easily. “We’ve got your four pals of last night who swear that while you were drunk you let out the whole story.”

  “It’s a plant!” Gorleston muttered at length. “A frame-up! You know!”

  “Try that on the magistrate,” smiled the other. “Of course, it’s always open to you, when you get to Bow Street, to subpoena Gorleston himself. If there is such a strong likeness between the two of you, you might get off that way.”

  “My dear Allan,” chimed in his friend sarcastically, “do think of what he’s told us! He is Gorleston. Though if he can prove it, then Heaven help him, because we can quite easily establish that he is Elwes as well. So all the bank does is to charge him with trying to obtain twenty-five thou” by means of a trick.“

  “Well, hop it and call a policeman,” replied his friend. “I’m sick of all this cackle.”

  But as the other moved over to the door Gorleston sprang up trembling.

  “Can’t we – can’t we settle this?” he exclaimed desperately.

  The man at the door smiled.

  “There’s Gorleston to be considered,” he replied.

  “I tell you I am Gorleston.”

  The other strode back, his hands clenched.

  “Yes,” he snapped, his voice like a whiplash, “and John Elwes as well! Don’t you dare to interrupt me–” as Gorleston made as if to speak. “What about the nine-eleven up to London from Tavistock on the day the forgery was committed? What about the chauffeur who drove you here the moment you arrived so that your landlady could prove that John Elwes was in town that day? What about your telling her that you were in a hurry to get to the Universal Bank to cash a check? Excellent corroborative evidence, eh, that John Elwes was a real live person? And then you drove on to the bank, gave the chauffeur ten shillings and walked in as Richard Henry Gorleston – and caught the three-sixteen back to Tavistock, picked up your fishing rod en route to Portworth and walked into the hotel and said you’d had a blank day. Want any more, you lying devil?”

  But evidently Gorleston didn’t. He fell back in his chair the picture of absolute rage and despair.

  “I – don’t know – who on earth you are–”

  “And you won’t!” interrupted the other. “Now, then, which is it to be – the police, or a confession?”

  “A con – con – confession!” stammered Richard Henry Gorleston.

  Once more Sir John Colston sat opposite Daphne Wrayne in her private room.

  “You will probably agree with me, Sir John,” she began in her cool little voice, “that if Richard Henry Gorleston decided to drop his action, gave you a written undertaking to that effect, agreed furthermore to accept the loss and never proceed against you on the same count – you would then, I think, be quite satisfied? In other words, you would sooner let the matter drop – providing your bank didn’t suffer – rather than he should get, say, seven years, and the public should know that although you had been swindled, you had been just a little careless?”

  “Why, of course, my dear young lady. Publicity is the thing we’re most anxious to avoid. But you don’t mean to say that Gorleston will do that?”

  Daphne Wrayne unlocked a drawer in her table and drew out a paper.

  “Please listen to this, Sir John,” she said:

  “I, Richard Henry Gorleston, of 849, The Albany, London, W., being of sound mind, do declare as follows that the check for twenty-five thousand pounds, cashed under my signature at the Universal Banking Corporation, of 99, Lombard Street, in the City of London, on June 15th, 1927, was written by me, and that the error in the signature was made wilfully by me with intent to deceive. Furthermore, that the name of John Elwes was invented by me, and the person and identity of John Elwes was no other than myself.”

  “Great Heavens! May I – may I see it?”

  “Sir John!” Daphne Wrayne leant forward in her chair and her hazel eyes were earnest on his. “You have perhaps a right to ask to see this paper, but I am going to ask you as a gentleman not to exercise that right. This paper bears the signatures, as witnesses, of two men whose names are household words for uprightness, and integrity, throughout England – two of my colleagues – the Adjusters!”

  Just for a moment silence, while he gazed at her spellbound. Then she went on:

  “In asking you not to insist on seeing this paper. I know that I am asking you a favour. But so that there shall be no uneasiness in your mind, I will give you a letter which will no doubt satisfy you equally.”

  Daphne took out of her drawer a sealed envelope and handed it to him. He slit it open. Then:

  “Do you know what is in this letter, Miss Wrayne?”

  “Well, I think I do,” with a smile.

  “It is from Gorleston’s solicitors! In it they say that he has discontinued his action against us, that he exonerates us from all liability, and that no further proceedings will be taken over this matter.”

  “And you can go on cashing his checks, Sir John,” she added sweetly, “and can henceforward reckon him the most scrupulously honourable client – so far as you’re concerned – whom you have on your books. You see, he knows that if he tries such a thing again well, we produce this paper!”

  For some moments he gazed at her, too bewildered to speak.

  “Miss Wrayne,” he said at length, “words simply fail me. How on earth have you managed this?”

  For answer she lay back in her chair, merriment dancing in her hazel eyes.

  “Ever play poker, Sir John?”

  “Why, certainly, Miss Wrayne–” surprised.

  “Ever been bluffed out and induced to chuck in a good hand?”

  “Afraid I have once or twice,” he admitted, “and been a bit mad afterwards.”

  Smiling she put out a slim hand to him.

  “Oh, Sir John,” she exclaimed merrily, “if Richard Henry Gorleston ever knows what a good hand he threw in on, he’ll be a million times madder than you’ve ever been!”

  * * *

  THE TEA-LEAF

  EDGAR JEPSON AND ROBERT EUSTACE

  (Sleuth: Ruth Kelstern)

  Ruth Kelstern is one of the few women ranked among the scientific detectives like Craig Kennedy, Dr. Thorndike, and Luther Trent. Her creators, Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustace, were both prolific. Eustace collaborated with Dorothy L. Sayers on The Documents in the Case, and with L. T. Meade dozens of stories and novels, including Bell: Master of Mysteries (1898); Jepson, famous in his day for the “Lady Noggs” and “Poolyooly” wrote more than seventy-five books. Jepson’s son, Selwyn, a successful mystery author in his own right, also created one of the legendary women detectives, Eve Gill, who brings criminals to justice in such novels as The Golden Dart (1949) and The Hungry Spider (1950).

  Arthur Kelstern and George Willoughton met in the Turkish bath in Duke Street
, St. James’s, and rather more than a year later in that Turkish bath they parted. Both of them were bad-tempered men, Kelstern cantankerous and Willoughton violent. It was indeed difficult to decide which was the worse-tempered; and when I found that they had suddenly become friends, I gave that friendship three months. It lasted nearly a year.

  When they did quarrel they quarrelled about Kelstern’s daughter Ruth. Willoughton fell in love with her and she with him and they became engaged to be married. Six months later, in spite of the fact that they were plainly very much in love with one another, the engagement was broken off. Neither of them gave any reason for breaking it off. My belief was that Willoughton had given Ruth a taste of his infernal temper and got as good as he gave.

  Not that Ruth was at all a Kelstern to look at. Like the members of most of the old Lincolnshire families, descendants of the Vikings and the followers of Canute, one Kelstern is very like another Kelstern, fair-haired, clear-skinned, with light blue eyes and a good bridge to the nose. But Ruth had taken after her mother: she was dark with a straight nose, dark-brown eyes of the kind often described as liquid, dark-brown hair, and as kissable lips as ever I saw. She was a proud, rather self-sufficing, high-spirited girl, with a temper of her own. She needed it to live with that cantankerous old brute Kelstern. Oddly enough in spite of the fact that he always would try to bully her, she was fond of him; and I will say for him that he was very fond of her. Probably she was the only creature in the world of whom he was really fond. He was an expert in the application of scientific discoveries to industry; and she worked with him in his laboratory. He paid her five hundred a year, so that she must have been uncommonly good.