Read Ebook: The adventures of Dora Bell detective by Corbett George Mrs

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Ebook has 443 lines and 28085 words, and 9 pages

Mr White elicited several more particulars from the troubled baronet, and then set about performing the mission entrusted to him. The fact that Miss Gerhardt transacted all her business through a London agent made it seem probable that she herself resided in London, and for several weeks we kept a strict watch upon the lawyer's premises, but without result.

The lady evidently knew better than to show herself in that quarter, and we might have failed to rescue our client from his insatiate blackmailer had not a very unforeseen occurrence taken place.

"When thieves fall out, honest men get their own," and this was a case in point.

One hot July afternoon a lady came to our office to invoke our aid in bringing back to her an individual who had absconded with a large sum of money belonging to her. The gentleman she described and named was Hulbert Brackett, Sir Arthur Brackett's ne'er-do-weel younger brother, and our would-be new client bore such a strong resemblance to the photograph of Bertha Gerhardt, that we believed this to be that lady herself.

But she gave the name of Madame Rose Gringoire, and professed to be a French widow, who had entrusted Mr Brackett with all her fortune to invest for her, and the onus of proof of her identity with the German schemer whom we were seeking rested with us. She certainly spoke and comported herself as Frenchified as if to the manner born, but we soon discovered that she understood German equally well.

Mr Henniker, got up in very Teutonic fashion called in to the office and bungled so much in his efforts to pass himself off as a needy German, who couldn't speak English, that madame was highly amused, and I, who was an unsuspected witness of the scene, was an unsuspected witness of the scene, could see that she understood every word that was said.

This discovery helped to convince us that we were indeed on the right track, even if the sum of which this adventuress complained of having been robbed had not tallied exactly with the amount extorted from Sir Arthur only a week before her visit to us.

"I am afraid the thief has too great a start, but we will do all we can in the matter," said Mr Bell. "I hope your entire resources are not exhausted?"

"Then you will pardon me, I hope, if I inquire whether you would care to have the matter made public, or not? Most of our clients prefer us to conduct all their affairs with the utmost secrecy."

The next day our firm received a note from Madame Gringoire, stating that she was too ill to keep an appointment she had made to call again at the office, and asking us to let her know at once if we heard anything about her absconding friend, who was, we afterwards discovered, actually married to her.

That note proved very useful to us, as we were anxious to call at her house, and the usually so ultra-cautious woman had given her present address upon it. She had been followed home the night before, and we knew her address already. But having received it from herself in the way of business simplified matters for us.

That afternoon, armed with an introduction from our firm, I called upon Madame Gringoire. I found her suffering from a bilious headache, and she was none too pleased to see me.

"How did you know where to find me?" she asked suspiciously.

"Why, Madame," I exclaimed, in deprecative surprise; "you gave us your address in the note you sent this morning, and as we have already traced your fugitive from London to Liverpool, we thought it better to consult you at once about him, as we did not know what further course to take without definite instructions from you."

In an instant madame was all eagerness and attention, and I was so well armed with details, thanks to Sir Arthur's circumstantial explanations, that I succeeded in convincing her of the plausibility of my story.

Henceforth all was plain sailing.

The next Atlantic liner would leave Liverpool in two days. There was time for madame to overtake the fugitive, or rather, it suited us to persuade her that such was the case.

It was arranged that on the following morning at nine o'clock, madame was to be at our office, ready to start at once with Mr Bell and myself to Liverpool. We were to be paid for our services out of the money recovered from the absconding accomplice.

The lady was all excitement, and rang the bell violently for her maid.

"Bring some tea upstairs," she commanded, "and set about packing my things. I am going to Liverpool in the morning with this lady, and will be away a few days."

"With that headache?"

"No, you stupid, not with that headache. I am going to leave the headache at home for you to take care of while I am away. Now, go on with your work."

The next morning at a quarter past nine, while madame was in our office, I presented myself at her house in a great state of fluster. "Your mistress has forgotten some papers which she must have with her. She has other business to do, and has no time to come back for them. Here is a note from her. Be as quick as you can, please.

Such was the message to Sophie, and she never doubted my bona-fides, seeing that I was armed with a letter, apparently in her mistress's handwriting, authorising me to hunt for a packet of papers of which the appearance was accurately described.

Sophie had seen her mistress looking at such a packet as was described, and at once took me to the bureau in which they were kept. Oddly enough, I had forgotten to bring the key with me, and there was no time to go back for it, so, rather to Sophie's horror, I broke the drawer lock open. Then, having found the great prize I sought, I hurried to the street, jumped into the hansom waiting for me, and was soon in the presence of the lady whose schemes I had circumvented.

She was already impatient at the long delay, and started up in alarm when she saw me enter the office smiling triumphantly, and holding in my hands the papers upon which hung the destiny of the Bracketts. She sprang forward, and would have snatched them out of my hand. But I was too quick for her. I was also protected by my colleagues, and Sir Arthur, who had been telegraphed for, arrived at the same moment.

For awhile the baffled woman shrieked out rage and threats, and swore that all the world should know the disreputable secret connected with Sir Arthur's parents.

But the latter had now the upper hand, and meant to keep it. Taking the packet from my hand, and opening it to see that all the papers were there, he promptly threw it into the empty fireplace, set a match to it, and watched it burn to the last atom.

"You have filched ten thousand pounds out of me because I dreaded to have my family name disgraced. You will get no more. Every proof of these past events is now destroyed, and any assertions you might make would not be believed. I saw the man who claims to be my brother last night. He tells me that he is married to you. You will find him in our village if you want him. But he understands as fully as you must do that any further injury he may attempt to do me will recoil on his own head."

Mrs Hulbert Brackett seemed to comprehend the situation thoroughly. She left the office without another word, and we have never heard of her since.

Is it usual to record one's failures? I believe not. And yet many of them are perforce as interesting to the public as one's most brilliant successes.

Here is a case in point.

A young lady, whom we will call Ada Calmour, had had the misfortune to displease her wealthy father to so great an extent that he vowed never to forgive her. Her crime was a common one. She loved a handsome young fellow who was impulsive, unlucky, poor, and a cousin to boot, and steadfastly declined to give him up when ordered to do so by her father, from whom, by-the-by, she inherited the self-will which roused his ire.

Just about this time Mr Calmour fell under the spell of a lady whom his daughter did not hesitate to dub an adventuress of the most pronounced type, and it became evident to his friends that he was sickening for matrimony.

The ordinary judge of humanity would have imagined that Mr Calmour's own infatuation would have made him more tolerant of his daughter's love affair. But, to the tell the truth, he was perversity personified, and as his appreciation of Miss Reede's insidious advances increased, so did his depreciation of his nephew's qualities progress in inverse ratio.

At last matters reached a crisis. The adventuress's intrigues progressed successfully, and Miss Reede succeeded in transforming her impecunious self into the wife of a wealthy country magnate. She had evidently entered upon her new sphere of life with fixed ideas as to the fitness of things, for she had no sooner returned from her short honeymoon that she began to turn the house upside down, and coolly informed her step-daughter that she must vacate the bedroom she had always occupied, as it was to be transformed into a boudoir for the new mistress of the establishment. As there were at least two other rooms in the rambling old house that would have suited Mrs Calmour's purpose equally well, Ada recognised in the new arrangement a deliberate intention to insult her, and suspected that the ulterior motive was to drive her from the house.

A girl of meek and yielding spirit would have submitted to the indignity without audible complaint. Miss Calmour was too high-spirited for that, and declined to yield her treasured privileges without a struggle. Her father had always petted and indulged her until these unfortunate love differences arose. He had, in her opinion, shown strong signs of mental aberration in marrying a woman of whose antecedents he knew nothing beyond the fact that she owed money in all directions before she secured him for her husband, and that her very close intimacy with a man whom she represented to be her guardian provoked invidious comments.

Ada was therefore not greatly surprised when her father declined to put a veto upon Mrs Calmour's appropriation of her pet sanctum.

"I can't see that there is anything worth making a fuss about," he observed, carelessly. "If the room is wanted, you can easily find another that will be just as comfortable."

In fact, he dismissed the matter as too trivial to worry about. The mischief lay deeper than he either knew or cared, and one encroachment followed another until the daughter of the house decided that her room was preferable to her company. The immediate result of this conviction was action on her part. She quitted the home she idolised, and it was surmised by her father and his wife that she had eloped with Pearce Churchill. Mrs Calmour did her best to encourage this supposition, and to fan the already unreasonable anger of the man whose money she coveted for herself.

Her schemes prospered to perfection. Mr Calmour swore never to look upon his daughter again, or to allow her to touch a farthing of his money.

"Her good-for-nothing husband may keep her," he observed, callously. "She didn't know when she was well off, and as she has chosen to make her own bed, she may lie upon it."

But the poor girl had not married her cousin after all, although he was eager that she should become his wife, even though the fortune she once expected to inherit was probably alienated from her for ever. When Ada discovered that her lover's income was totally inadequate for even one, she declined to add to his responsibilities, and went into the world to earn her own living.

"And you must not write to me for twelve months," she said firmly but tearfully. "I love you dearly, Pearce; but you shall not sacrifice yourself to a penniless wife until time and absence have tested your affection. You need not fear for me. I shall get on well enough. And in twelve months I will write to you, and will gladly marry you if you still want me."

All Pearce Churchill's arguments in favour of an immediate marriage were in vain, and when Mr Calmour died quite suddenly, three months after his daughter's disappearance, none knew where to find her. Probably the misguided man had been visited by compunctious qualms of conscience concerning his treatment of his own child, for his will, as read at the funeral, savoured of a half-hearted attempt to saddle Fate with the responsibility of deciding whether his wife or his daughter should inherit his wealth. Said will was fantastic to a ridiculous degree, and provoked the indignation of all the old friends of the family, who estimated Mrs Calmour at her true value, and set her down as the unscrupulous, scheming adventuress she really was.

Some even went so far as to hint that Mr Calmour, who was in the prime of life, and had always been a healthy man, would have been alive still, if he had been further removed from his wife's influence. But hints and suspicions are more easily indulged in than open accusations, and many a tragedy remains unexposed because nobody likes to be the initiative accuser.

Thus, though many black glances were levelled at the newly made widow, she was allowed to pursue the even tenor of her way unmolested, in spite of the fact that her badly disguised rage at the gist of her husband's will increased the distrust with which she was already regarded.

Mr Calmour had been enlightened as to the true state of affairs with regard to his daughter, at least as far as his nephew could enlighten him, and had become aware that she was struggling unaided to earn a livelihood which he could have given her without missing the money.

"I am very anxious about Ada," Pearce had written. "I have written to the last address I had, and my letters have been returned, marked 'Not known.' I have now got a good appointment, and could I but find her Ada would marry me at once. She only refused me before because she was afraid of making me still poorer than I was. She is a noble girl, and has been shamefully treated. On your head be it, if she has come to grief in her fight with adversity. I wonder what my aunt, whom you used to pretend to love, would think if she could know that within two years of her death you have practically turned her only child into the streets, to make room for a professional adventuress, whom no one but you would have married?"

Pearce Churchill knew that his letter would enrage his uncle. But he also hoped that it might have a salutary effect. The will which he heard read convinced him that his hope had not been quite in vain.

Mr Calmour left all his property, subject to an annuity of one hundred per annum for his wife, to his nephew Pearce Churchill, on condition that he was married to Ada within three months of the testator's death. Should this marriage not take place within the stipulated period, Ada and Pearce were to have one hundred per annum each, and everything else was to go to his wife absolutely, no less than five thousand a year being involved altogether.

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