Scarcely any other subject was spoken of either in the drawing-room, or, as I heard from Tom afterwards, in the dining-room that evening.
Many were the surmises as to the perpetrator of the joke, or the theft, that had made such a sensation, but neither Tom nor I betrayed our knowledge.
When we managed to have a few quiet words together just before I left, I explained to him the suggestion I had made, and which he had adopted by saying that I had heard of it being done, and with the same successful result on a very similar occasion.
But I did not acknowledge to him, either then or later, that I knew Gerard Beverley to be a thief, for I felt that to do so might lead eventually to the discovery of the club, and that I should then have broken faith with my kind little ‘Countess’.
Nevertheless, I cannot doubt that Tom guessed the real state of affairs for himself; he told me that he saw Gerard home that night, and took the opportunity of having a serious talk with him.
The wretched young fellow completely broke down, confessed he was in worse trouble than anyone imagined, and, only after immense persuasion, consented to make a clean breast of it to his father.
Poor old Admiral Beverley collected all his son’s debts, settled them up, got him a berth as overseer in one of the new South African settlements, and told Tom, the last time they met, that Gerard was writing more hopefully and reasonably than he had ever done before, and that they hoped to make a decent fellow of him yet.
The ruffled complacency of the dinner guests of that evening was restored when they heard that both the butler and footman had given indignant warning to the Somers-Brands the very next day.
‘You may be quite sure,’ said Sir Charles Merivale to me subsequently, ‘that the butler and footman were in league, and it was one of them who took it. They got frightened when Tom suggested his experiment, and were afraid of a search coming next; so they decided to put it back. It was a clever idea of Tom’s – saved any disturbance, and restored to Nellie her ring without any more fuss!’
I smiled demurely. For the ‘clever idea’ was a happy inspiration that I have often congratulated myself upon since then.
DORCAS DENE
Created by George R Sims (1847-1922)
A journalist, novelist, dramatist and bohemian man-about-town, George Robert Sims enjoyed a literary career that lasted nearly fifty years. Many of his plays and musical burlesques, often adapted from French sources, were successes on the London stage. His verse, collected in an 1881 volume entitled The Dragonet Ballads, included one poem, ‘Christmas Day in the Workhouse’, a biting critique of the Victorian poor laws, which was familiar enough to inspire parodies and re-workings into the twenty-first century. Both his fiction and his non-fiction, particularly his 1917 autobiography, continue to offer interesting perspectives on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century London. Sims was fascinated by crime and criminals – he reported extensively on Jack the Ripper – and he wrote his own detective fiction. His most interesting character in the genre is Dorcas Dene who appeared in twenty short stories gathered together in two volumes published in 1897 and 1898. Like other women detectives of the period, Dorcas has been driven into the business of combating crime by the need to earn money. A former actress (which helps when, as she frequently does, she adopts a disguise), she marries a painter who goes blind and can no longer work. She is then invited by their next-door neighbour, who runs a detective agency, to join him in his enterprise. The man later dies and leaves his firm to Dorcas. In the course of her varied investigations, she becomes an experienced sleuth, much admired by Scotland Yard. Sims was a skilled writer and the Dorcas Dene stories, narrated by her ‘Watson’, Mr Saxon, are all neatly plotted and well told.
THE HAVERSTOCK HILL MURDER
The blinds had been down at the house in Elm Tree Road and the house shut for nearly six weeks. I had received a note from Dorcas saying that she was engaged on a case which would take her away for some little time, and that as Paul had not been very well lately she had arranged that he and her mother should accompany her. She would advise me as soon as they returned. I called once at Elm Tree Road and found it was in charge of the two servants and Toddlekins, the bulldog. The housemaid informed me that Mrs Dene had not written, so that she did not know where she was or when she would be back, but that letters which arrived for her were forwarded by her instructions to Mr Jackson of Penton Street, King’s Cross.
Mr Jackson, I remembered, was the ex-police sergeant who was generally employed by Dorcas when she wanted a house watched or certain inquiries made among tradespeople. I felt that it would be unfair to go to Jackson. Had Dorcas wanted me to know where she was she would have told me in her letter.
The departure had been a hurried one. I had gone to the North in connection with a business matter of my own on a Thursday evening, leaving Dorcas at Elm Tree Road, and when I returned on Monday afternoon I found Dorcas’s letter at my chambers. It was written on the Saturday, and evidently on the eve of departure.
But something that Dorcas did not tell me I learned quite accidentally
