Legendary Women Detectives

Very lovely she looked as she came forward, and her eyes were for all of them. But it was Lord Trevitter who, as if by tacit understanding, helped her off with her cloak and put her into her chair. Very naturally, yet quite openly too, she slipped her hand into his and let it stay there. But the other three only smiled indulgently though their smiles spoke volumes. You felt, somehow, that they had known her from childhood – looked on her now almost as a beloved child. That even if she had singled out Trevitter – as indeed she had – she loved none of them less dearly for that.

“Oh, it’s great to be here!” she exclaimed with shining eyes. “I can still hardly believe it’s true.”

“It’s a wonderful stunt,” murmured Everest thoughtfully.

“We’ve been lucky, Martin,” answered the girl. “If it hadn’t been for the Duchess’s pearls–”

“And then you giving an interview to the Monitor,” chimed in Lord Trevitter. “That was the master stroke, Daph.”

“Well, it was just the right moment, Jim. Having had a big success it seemed to me to be the very wisest thing to do.”

“By Jove, it was, my dear,” chuckled Sylvester. “It couldn’t have come at a better time. If you’d given it before, the public would only have scoffed. But as we had recovered that necklace they couldn’t afford to scoff.”

“Incidentally,” remarked the girl, “the Duchess sent us a check for five hundred pounds.”

“Good for her,” said Lord Trevitter. “I suppose you’ve – oh, of course, Jim! Anonymously, needless to say.”

“Quite right,” murmured Everest. “Well, what’s the big idea this evening?”

“How do you know I’ve got one?”

“Listen to her!” exclaimed Williamson. “Breaking off a dance at twelve o’clock and keeping us out of our beds–

“But it’s rather a puzzling one, Hugh–” interrupting him. “We shall want all our ingenuity to get home this time.”

“Splendid! Let’s have it, my dear.”

Leaning forward in her chair, slim hands clasped, Daphne Wrayne outlined the story to them. Then, as she came to the end:

“But I can add a good deal to this. It seemed obvious to me from the start that there was no double at all – it was just a ruse, carefully planned.”

“Particularly why, Daph?” queried Lord Trevitter.

“The signature, Jim, alone. In a forgery of this size your forger never makes a mistake with the signature. It’s miles too risky. Besides, assuming that it was Gorleston himself, look at all there is to support the idea. If they detect the flaw in the signature they can’t collar him – it’s merely a slip. But if it gets by, what happens then? Why the bank’s in the cart and they’re liable for carelessness.”

“You’re a true woman, my dear,” smiled Everest. “Jump to a conclusion first and fit your facts to it afterwards.”

Daphne pouted adorably.

“I hate you, Martin,” she said. “Still, I was right.”

“You’re sure?” demanded Williamson.

“Absolutely. All the same, as my legal friend here will tell you – laying her hand on Everest’s arm with a smile – ”it’s going to be very difficult to prove. However, let me first give you all the facts I have.“

She paused for a moment to light a cigarette, and they all waited eagerly.

“I sent Rayte up to interview Adwinter,” she went on, “and established pretty satisfactorily that a man wearing glasses and answering in all other descriptions to Gorleston called there recently in the name of John Elwes, of 124, Unwin Street, Bloomsbury. He wanted new glasses and got them. So to Unwin Street, where apparently John Elwes has had a bedroom and sitting-room for over a year. Now, according to his landlady he is a man of no occupation who used to come once or twice a week and stay the night there. He turned up there, on the day the forgery was committed, at two-fifteen in the afternoon – note the time – stayed a few minutes, during which he told his landlady he was going to the bank, got into his taxi saying he’d look in in a few days’ time. He has never been near there since.”

She paused a moment to relight her cigarette which had gone out. Then she went on.

“Now as regards Gorleston. Gorleston’s been stopping, as he declared, at the Golden Crown, Portworth, two miles out of Tavistock. Every morning he’s breakfasted at eight and gone out, with his lunch, till ten o’clock at night. Now on the day that this forgery is supposed to have been committed, Gorleston swears he was fishing all day. But the curious fact turns up that a ticket collector at Tavistock – who is a fisherman himself, and who had apparently seen Gorleston fishing there that week – swears that he saw him on that particular day going up to London on the nine-eleven. The booking clerk can’t help us, but it’s funny that there was only one return ticket to London issued that day. Funnier still that the return half should have been given up that evening, and funniest of all that Gorleston should have come in on that night – the only one – to say that he had had a blank day.”

“How can you fix the day, Daph?”