The Female Detective (7 page)

With the knowledge I gained I knew that I had the proof of Miss Shedleigh's guilt in my own hands. An examination of the remains of the late body would set the question at rest, and the cabman, if he could identify her, as I had no doubt he could, would bring home the guilt to her if she denied it.

What should I do?

My actual duty was at once to inform the legal heir, Sir Nathaniel Shirley, of my discovery. But where was he?

This I could most readily find out, in all probability, by returning to Shirley House and making further inquiries.

Upon reaching the mansion early on the following morning I could not help looking upon it with a kind of awe, the knowledge being strong within me that only a short previous time it had been to me only as other houses.

The housekeeper welcomed me with a cheerfulness which went to my heart, but I told myself I was to remember that I had to deal with justice not pity. The end of the detective's work is justice, and if he knows his place he must not look beyond that end.

What I was thoroughly to understand in this business of a “tenant for life” was this—that by a fraud people were enjoying property to which they had no claim. This was a state of things which I, as a detective, had a right to set right, and this was the work I intended to complete.

I little thought how sincerely I was to wish I had never moved in this business—that I had never questioned the cabman's wife, and never followed up these inquiries.

It appeared I had given great satisfaction by the work I had completed, and Miss Shedleigh had pleasantly said to the housekeeper that I was a “needle and thread treasure.”

I presume it was this success which paved the way to the housekeeper's familiarity. Let that be as it may, it is certain this morning she answered most of my questions—questions which resulted so absolutely out of her own remarks that she could have no suspicion I was cross-examining her, poor dear old lady.

I learnt very much during that long day's work as I sat in the housekeeper's room.

To begin with the master of the house—the housekeeper said he was a most “welcome” master, but “crotchetty, my dear;” and a question or so put me in possession of his crotchettiness, which took no other shape than the endeavour to reap double as much wheat to the acre as had ever been raised by the most advanced farmers.

“Miss Shedleigh says,” continued the housekeeper, “that her devoted brother hopes if he succeeds to annihilate starvation—which our miss very truly says must be the case if he doubles the quantity of wheat in the land; seeing that then it will be so plentiful that people will not want bread, as they do now.”

I own that this statement touched me; for though I may be a detective, I am still a woman. It struck me as good and beautiful that a man should work all his life for the benefit of his fellow-men; and this the master of Shirley House certainly did, if the housekeeper's statement were truthful. I saw no reason to doubt her words.

Every day throughout the year, I learnt, he was hard at work making experiments either on the land or in a kind of chemist's shop which it appeared he had in the mansion.

He took no pleasure, dressed plainly, ate sparingly, and slept little.

Was he happy? I asked.

“How can he be off being happy,” said the old housekeeper, wise in her simple experience, “when all his life is spent in trying to help in the happiness of others?”

I changed the subject. Was he fond of his daughter? I asked.

It appeared he was devoted to his daughter in a plain, simple way; but that he had given her up almost wholly to the care of his sister.

Had he loved his wife very much? I asked.

For a moment the old housekeeper looked as about to assert her dignity again, but apparently she thought better of it, for she smiled and said—

“Yes, my dear; but she was fonder of him.”

“Indeed!” I said.

“Yes; though he was almost old enough to be her father. She was but twenty when she died, my dear; and very beautiful she looked, I do assure you, and like a woman who had done her duty. She loved him, my dear, because he was trying to do good to the world; and though she was so much younger than her husband, it made not the least difference, my dear—it made not the least difference, I assure you. And when my lady was dead, she looked like a woman who had done her duty.”

“Did her family approve of the match, ma'am?” I said, “if I may make so bold as to ask the question?”

“My lady had only her father to consult, my dear; for the only other relation to the family was Sir Thomas's brother, now Sir Nathaniel, who was far away at the time, and who was no welcome visitor down in Rutlandshire, where we come from Mr. Shedleigh lives near London to attend the societies, and to be amongst gentlemen of science.”

“Do you ever see Sir Nathaniel, now?” I asked, going on with my stitching.

“Oh, no, we never see him; Mr. Shedleigh and he are not getting on well together, though it's my impression our gentleman allows him an income, and a larger one than Sir Thomas paid him.”

“But—though perhaps you will think I am impudent in asking questions?”

“Not at all,” the housekeeper said; “by no means. You have done that last piece beautifully.”

“Then I was going to ask, how is it that Sir Nathaniel did not get the estates with the title, for I thought estates and titles generally went together?”

Said the housekeeper, “So they do, my dear, but in
our
case it was different. Sir Thomas did not inherit the estates from his father, but made the money which purchased them by banking, for he was a banker, and the greater part of the money he began with he had from a first wife, for they were poor as a family, the sixth baronet having spent everything he could spend, and that is the reason Sir Thomas left all the estates to his daughter, for which I know Sir Nathaniel never forgave him—never.”

“Where is Sir Nathaniel?” I asked.

“He lives, my dear, though I must say you are very curious about him, for the best part at Brighton; for he has been a terrible man, and his health is not what it ought to be—but for all that he looks a gentleman, and to speak to, he is one.”

“What has he done amiss?” I asked.

But here the housekeeper failed in her reply. She could only adduce very vague and faint rumours, all of which tended to prejudice me in favour of the man to whom I knew it was my duty to submit a history of my discoveries.

“That there must be something bad about Sir Nathaniel is certain,” said the housekeeper, “or surely he would be welcome here; and he is not welcome here, though from here, I am pretty well sure, he gets what enables him to live as he does—the life of a gentleman.”

There was then a pause. I broke it by saying—

“Was Mr. Shedleigh rich when he married your young lady?”

“As compared with my lady, my dear—
no
, but as not compared with her he was well to do—very well to do. People down in our parts, of course, said my young lady, a heiress, and beautiful, had thrown herself away; but that was nonsense, my dear, for never was woman happier.”

And so the morning wore away. Each moment I picked up some new little fact that might be useful to me; but this is certain, that by the time the housekeeper's dinner arrived, my opinion of the brother and sister Shedleigh was much softened, and I began to look with some doubt in the direction of Sir Nathaniel; for there never was a truer remark than the observation that every grain of scandal helps to weigh down a character.

I may say at once that I remained working more than a week at Shirley House, and by the seventh day my opinion of the Shedleighs was very much altered for the better.

For you must note that we police officers see so much of the worst side of humanity, that, instead of following out a Christian principle, and believing all men to be honest till we find them out to be thieves, we believe all men to be thieves till we are certain they are honest people. Hence, when I dropped upon what I call my great changeling case, I supposed, quite as a matter of course, that I had to do with a crime—as undoubtedly I had; but it should be added at once that I found the crime tinged with a character of almost nobleness. It was crime, nevertheless.

However much I might find my opinion of the Shedleighs improved, I never once wavered in my determination of ultimately informing Sir Nathaniel of the means by which he had been defrauded. This was but justice, and justice, I have already said, is the true end of the detective's work.

For a week I worked in that house, and during that time I had ample opportunities of convincing myself of the characters of the people in it, and of obtaining all particulars which might be useful to me, and about which the housekeeper was able to yield me any information.

It will perhaps be well to condense at this point the work of that week.

In the first place, I think I have said that Sir Nathaniel only inherited the title; the property left by Sir Thomas Shirley to his daughter being made by himself in his capacity of banker. That property consisted of no less than four large landed estates, the income from which was accumulating at what may be called compound interest.

And it was during this week that, by a suggestion from my attorney, the case appeared in another light from that in which it had previously stood. The existence of the little girl and heiress kept the father from the enjoyment of the full income yielded by his late wife's property, which he would have possessed had the child died. It was, therefore, clear that in substituting a living child for the dead infant, and caring for that child, something more was meant than fraud. It was clear that if the desire to obtain the life-possession of the property, and this desire alone, had been the motive for fraud, a person or persons who could commit such an act would not be very delicate in removing the substituted child, or, at all events, in turning her to the best possible advantage. Yet this latter benefit had not been taken, for the supposed father actually made no claim upon his supposed daughter's estate, but left the whole of the yearly income to accumulate. (This fact we learnt with some difficulty.)

This discovery, into the particulars of which I need not go, as they are not necessary to the elucidation of my case nor very creditable to myself, tended still more to stagger me in my first conviction that the motive for the substitution of the living for the dead child arose in the desire to keep possession of the property.

During that week, I saw Miss Shedleigh twice. Each time I was working at some kind of needlework.

“Good morning,” she said. (She was going out.) “Does not working so many hours make your head ache?”

“No, thank you,” I replied.

“The garden is quite open to you when you wish to walk,” she said.

And this was how I came to see Mr. Shedleigh; for taking advantage of that permission to use the garden, and grounds (detectives must take all the advantages offered them and all they can otherwise obtain), I came upon him examining several patches of wheat of various kinds, and with which produce it appeared to me the garden was half filled.

He was a wonderfully pleasant, open-faced man, with dark, deep eyes, and an extraordinarily sweet, loving expression of countenance—something like that of a very young and high-class Jewess.

As detectives are always asking questions about everything which they see and cannot understand, it may be readily guessed that I asked what was meant by growing wheat in a garden.

The answer I obtained made me still more desirous of clearing away that first conviction of mine, to the effect that the substitution of the one child for the other was a crime of greed.

It was from my general informant, the housekeeper, then, I learnt Mr. Shedleigh passed his whole time (in winter in the laboratory, in spring, summer, and autumn in his garden and various trial-fields on the various estates) in making experiments with wheat and other cereals, with a view to increasing the average yield of wheat per acre.—I see I have here indulged in a repetition.

It is not often that criminals try to be so good to their fellow-men—if they did, or could, they would be happier—and, therefore, the probability of Mr. Shedleigh being a criminal became still more faint as I learnt this good trait of his character. My experience is this, that a man or woman who tries to benefit society is rarely bad at bottom—if either were, he or she would not think of any other than him or herself.

Mr. Shedleigh spoke very pleasantly to me, asking me what I thought of this and that, and taking his garden-glove off in order to pull me some strawberries.

I think I went back to the house a little ashamed of myself, and possibly had I come upon an unexpected looking-glass, I might have blushed for Miss Gladden and for her work.

But I never wavered for one minute in my determination to deal out justice, to see Sir Nathaniel and let him know all. I should not have been fitted to my trade had I allowed myself at any time to be turned from my duty by pity, or any argument based on expediency.

The second time I saw Miss Shedleigh I was going home to my small lodging for the night. Said she,—“There is a person living near you—a Mrs. Blenham, I think she is called—who, I believe, is in very poor circumstances, but who hides her poverty out of respect for the better days she has passed through. I wish you would find out the true state of her case. You could perhaps manage it much better than myself.”

I did manage it, and I had the pleasure and the pain of seeing Miss Shedleigh doing that best of woman's work, an act of necessary charity.

I had previously learnt from the housekeeper that Miss Shedleigh passed almost all her time in looking after the wants and the children of the parish.

To be plain—these Shedleighs appeared to be about as good folk as any I had ever come across.

And it was I who was to throw down the house!

I was sick of my work by the end of the week, and perhaps, without being sentimental, I may admit that I had made up my mind that I would make no money by it. My legitimate expenses, a return of what I had laid out, and no more. This was my determination with reference to money matters, and one in which I meant to be resolute when dealing with Sir Nathaniel. For I assure you we detectives are able to have consciences, and to deal in points of honour.