Parsons closed up the panel in silence, locked it, and turned to go. But as he passed her he held out his hand.
‘What is this?’ asked Marion, smiling.
‘My gift to you – my marriage gift – the copper key which has brought you a husband and a fortune.’
JUDITH LEE
Created by Richard Marsh (1857-1915)
Judith Lee is one of the most original characters to be found in the crime stories of the Edwardian era. When she made her first appearance in The Strand Magazine in 1911 the editor of that periodical, Herbert Greenhough-Smith, described her as ‘the fortunate possessor of a gift which gives her a place apart in detective fiction’. Judith Lee has the ability to read lips and, it sometimes seems, she can go nowhere without seeing people discussing wicked plots and outrageous crimes, blithely unaware that their words have been understood by the young woman on the far side of the room. The story I have chosen for this volume is taken from early in her career when her peculiar talent is all that saves her from an unfounded accusation that she is herself a thief. Judith Lee was the creation of Richard Marsh, one of the most interesting and prolific writers of genre fiction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Marsh is best known for The Beetle, a tale of supernatural horror. First published in 1897, the same year as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this is an account of a shape-shifting devotee of ancient Egyptian gods who stalks the fog-shrouded streets of late Victorian London. It was a great commercial success, outselling Stoker’s work, and was made into a silent film in 1919, two years before Count Dracula made his debut on a cinema screen. Other horror novels followed, as well as crime fiction (Philip Bennion’s Death, The Datchet Diamonds) and collections of uncanny short stories with titles like The Seen and the Unseen and Both Sides of the Veil. Marsh’s work appeared in most of the well-known periodicals of the day.
EAVESDROPPING AT INTERLAKEN
I have sometimes thought that this gift of mine for reading words as they issue from people’s lips places me, with or without my will, in the position of the eavesdropper. There have been occasions on which, before I knew it, I have been made cognisant of conversations, of confidences, which were meant to be sacred; and, though such knowledge has been acquired through no fault of mine, I have felt ashamed, just as if I had been listening at a key-hole, and I have almost wished that the power which Nature gave me, and which years of practice have made perfect, was not mine at all. On the other hand, there have been times when I was very glad indeed that I was able to play the part of eavesdropper. As, to very strict purists, this may not sound a pleasant confession to make, I will give an instance of the kind of thing I mean.
I suppose I was about seventeen; I know I had just put my hair up, which had grown to something like a decent length since it had come in contact with the edge of that doughty Scottish chieftain’s – MacGregor’s – knife. My mother was not very well. My father was reluctant to leave her. It looked as if the summer holiday which had been promised me was in peril, when two acquaintances, Mr and Mrs Travers, rather than that I should lose it altogether, offered to take me under their wing. They were going for a little tour in Switzerland, proposing to spend most of their time at Interlaken, and my parents, feeling that I should be perfectly safe with them, accepted their proffered chaperonage.
Everything went well until we got to Interlaken. There they met some friends who were going on a climbing expedition, and, as Mr and Mrs Travers were both keen mountaineers, they were very eager to join them. I was the only difficulty in their way. They could not say exactly how long they would be absent, but probably a week; and what was to become of me in that great hotel there all alone? They protested that it would be quite impossible to leave me; they would have to give up that climb; and I believe they would have done so if what seemed to be a solution of the difficulty had not turned up.
The people in the hotel were for the most part very sociable folk, as people in such places are apt to be. Among other persons whose acquaintance we had made was a middle-aged widow, a Mrs Hawthorne. When she heard of what Mr and Mrs Travers wanted to do, and how they could not do it because of me, she volunteered, during their absence, to occupy their place as my chaperon, assuring them that every possible care should be taken of me.
In the hotel were stopping a brother and sister, a Mr and Miss Sterndale. With them I had grown quite friendly. Mr Sterndale I should have set down as twenty-five or twenty-six, and his sister as a year or two younger. From the day on which I had first seen them they had shown an inclination for my society; and, to speak quite frankly, on different occasions Mr Sterndale had paid me what seemed to me to be delicate little attentions which were very dear to my maiden heart. I had some difficulty in inducing people to treat me as if I were grown up. After a few minutes’ conversation even perfect strangers would ask me how old I was, and when I told them they were apt to assume an attitude towards me as if I were the merest child, of which I disapproved.
What attracted me to Mr Sterndale was that, from the very first, he treated me with deference, as if I were at least
