Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 19, November 1944

“I’ve got too much sense to stay,” she corrected me. “Your crutch is broken, and you’re lame. You can’t catch me by running after me, then. You pretend you’ll shoot me, but I don’t believe you. You’d shoot me if I attacked you, of course, but I shan’t do that. I shall simply walk out, and you know you won’t shoot me for that. You’ll wish you could, but you won’t. You’ll see.”

Her face turned over her shoulder, her dark eyes twinkling at me, she took a step toward the door.

“Better not count on that!” I threatened.

For answer to that she gave me a cooing laugh. And took another step.

“Stop, you idiot!” I bawled at her.

Her face laughed over her shoulder at me. She walked without haste to the door, her short skirt of grey flannel shaping itself to the calf of each grey wool-stockinged leg as its mate stepped forward.

Sweat greased the gun in my hand.

When her right foot was on the doorsill, a little chuckling sound came from her throat.

“Adieu!” she said softly.

And I put a bullet in the calf of her left leg.

She sat down — plump! Utter surprise stretched her white face. It was too soon for pain.

I had never shot a woman before. I felt queer about it.

“You ought to have known I’d do it!” My voice sounded harsh and savage and like a stranger’s in my ears. “Didn’t I steal a crutch from a cripple?”

The Meanest Man in Europe by Roy Vickers

The first story to be offered to the American public about Fidelity Dove, Lady Larcenist Extraordinary, was “The Great Kabul Diamond” which your Editor included in his feminology, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES. In this story the saint-faced and ethereal Fidelity invented a new way of stealing a world-famous diamond — by buying a house!

In “The Meanest Man in Europe” (B. H. — Before Hitler) our modem Miss Robin Hood invents a new way of forcing an old Scrooge to pay a hospital bill — by buying £50,000 worth of pearls!

Did we tell you about that amazing exploit in which Fidelity stole the entire landscape of Swallowsbath — complete with woods, hills, river, meadows, quarry, saw-mill and village? Yes, the whole countryside — and we don’t mean a painting! One of these issues we’ll bring you that one...

* * *

The case of Mr. Jabez Crewde gives us another reason to believe that Fidelity Dove was at this time developing a conscience. She did not make very much money out of Jabez Crewde. True, she cleared her expenses, which were, as usual, on the grand scale, and she paid herself and her staff well for their time. It was the Grey Friars Hospital which benefited chiefly by this exploit. You, if you are of those who refuse to believe that she had a spark of goodness in her, you may say that she simply indulged her sense of humour in making the meanest man in Europe subscribe twenty thousand pounds to a hospital.

Jabez Crewde deserved his title. He was worth close upon two hundred thousand pounds, which he had made as a financier — for which you can read moneylender, though he never took ordinary moneylenders’ risks. Moneylender’s interest — banker’s risk — that was the formula on which he had grown rich. He lived in a small, drab house in a drab quarter of Islington.

Fidelity would never have heard of him if he had not had a very mild attack of appendicitis. Feeling unwell one day, he had gone in his shabbiest clothes to the surgery of a struggling slum doctor. The doctor diagnosed appendicitis, and recommended an operation. Jabez was no physical coward, but he expressed the utmost horror. An operation would ruin him. So the doctor, having been persuaded to accept half a crown instead of his usual fee of five shillings, recommended the meanest man in Europe for free treatment at the Grey Friars Hospital.

It was a simple operation — the convalescence was short. It was during the latter period that Gorse, more or less by chance, got to know about it and related it to Fidelity. Fidelity crossed her hands across the bosom of her dream-grey gown and sadly shook her head.

“Avarice is the very leprosy of the soul,” she said. “I am revolted, Cuthbert.”

“For once I feel myself able to echo your sentiments,” said Gorse. “He’s worth about a couple of hundred thousand.”