Legendary Women Detectives

One day I heard her giving vague hints to the landlady that her husband, Mr. Marcus Stone, had had a little trouble with the police about a small hotel which he had kept somewhere near Fitzroy Square, and where “young gentlemen used to come and play cards of a night.” The landlady was also made to understand that the wordily Mr. Stone was now living temporarily at His Majesty’s expense, whilst Mrs. Stone had to live a somewhat secluded life, away from her fashionable friends.

The misfortunes of the pseudo Mrs. Stone in no way marred the amiability of Mrs. Tredwen, our landlady. The inhabitants of Findlater Terrace care very little about the antecedents of their lodgers, so long as they pay their week’s rent in advance, and settle their “extras” without much murmur.

This Lady Molly did, with a generosity characteristic of an ex-lady of means. She never grumbled at the quantity of jam and marmalade which we were supposed to have consumed every week, and which anon reached titanic proportions. She tolerated Mrs. Tredwen’s cat, tipped Ermyntrude – the tousled lodging-house slavey – lavishly, and lent the upstairs lodger her spirit-lamp and curling-tongs when Miss Rosie Campbell’s got out of order.

A certain degree of intimacy followed the loan of those curling tongs. Miss Campbell, reserved and demure, greatly sympathized with the lady who was not on the best of terms with the police. I kept steadily in the background. The two ladies did not visit each other’s rooms, but they held long and confidential conversations on the landings, and I gathered, presently, that the pseudo Mrs. Stone had succeeded in persuading Rosie Campbell that, if the police were watching No. 34, Findlater Terrace, at all, it was undoubtedly on account of the unfortunate Mr. Stone’s faithful wife.

I found it a little difficult to fathom Lady Molly’s intentions. We had been in the house over three weeks, and nothing whatever had happened. Once I ventured on a discreet query as to whether we were to expect the sudden re-appearance of Mr. Leonard Marvell.

“For if that’s what it’s about,” I argued, “then surely the men from the Yard could have kept the house in view, without all this inconvenience and masquerading on our part.”

But to this tirade my dear lady vouchsafed no reply.

She and her newly acquired friend were, about this time, deeply interested in the case known as the “West End Shop Robberies,” which no doubt you recollect, since they occurred such a very little while ago. Ladies who were shopping in the large drapers’ emporiums during the crowded and busy sale time lost reticules, purses, and valuable parcels without any trace of the clever thief being found.

The drapers, during sale time, invariably employ detectives in plain clothes to look after their goods, but in this case it was the customers who were robbed, and the detectives, attentive to every attempt at “shop-lifting,” had had no eyes for the more subtle thief.

I had already noticed Miss Rosie Campbell’s keen look of excitement whenever the pseudo Mrs. Stone discussed these cases with her. I was not a bit surprised, therefore, when, one afternoon at about tea-time, my dear lady came home from her habitual walk, and, at the top of her shrill voice, called out to me from the hall:

“Mary! Mary! They’ve got the man of the shop robberies. He’s given the silly police the slip this time, but they know who he is now, and I suppose they’ll get him presently. ”Tisn’t anybody I know,“ she added, with that harsh, common laugh which she had adopted for her part.

I had come out of the room in response to her call, and was standing just outside our own sitting-room door. Mrs. Tredwen, too, bedraggled and unkempt, as usual, had sneaked up the area steps, closely followed by Ermyntrude.

But on the half-landing just above us the trembling figure of Rosie Campbell, with scared white face and dilated eyes, looked on the verge of a sudden fall.

Still talking shrilly and volubly, Lady Molly ran up to her, but Campbell met her half-way, and the pseudo Mrs. Stone, taking vigorous hold of her wrist, dragged her into our own sitting-room.

“Pull yourself together, now,” she said with rough kindness. “That owl Tredwen is listening, and you needn’t let her know too much. Shut the door, Mary. Lor” bless you, m’dear, I’ve gone through worse scares than these. There! You just lie down on this sofa a bit. My niece’ll make you a cup o‘ tea; and I’ll go and get an evening paper, and see what’s going on. I suppose you are very interested in the shop-robbery man, or you wouldn’t have took on so.“

Without waiting for Campbell’s contradiction to this statement, Lady Molly flounced out of the house.

Miss Campbell hardly spoke during the next ten minutes that she and I were left alone together. She lay on the sofa with eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling, evidently still in a great state of fear.