X
IMPERSONATION
When I walk in a crowded London street my eyes are open and my ears are quick to hear. The man who seeks his opportunities sooner or later finds them. I should imagine that every day in Oxford Street and Regent Street alone chances representing a million of money are thrown away because people cannot see their opportunities. It is not scrupulousness that stops them, it is stupidity. It has always been a pleasure to me to feel that if I were put down in the middle of London without one acquaintance in the place and without one penny in my pocket, I should always be able to make enough to pay for my board and lodging. I should probably make very much more than that.
I was walking in Oxford Street at eleven o'clock one morning in the height of the season when a little old lady, quietly and expensively dressed, crossed the pavement from a book shop to her carriage. The carriage was a one-horse brougham, and one of the shop assistants opened the door for her. She directed him to tell the coachman to drive to Saronel's in Bond Street. The old lady had beautiful white hair. She carried in her hand a religious magazine that she had probably purchased in the shop. All these and other points I noted carefully, and principally among the other points I noted a certain strangeness in her appearance. Quiet though she was in her manner the possibility of some mental disorder occurred to me. I think it was the restless look in her eyes which gave me the idea.
When a woman who, if appearances may be trusted, may be insane, drives to the principal Bond Street jeweller's shop, it is worth while for a sane man, of my way of thinking, to follow. There may be nothing in it, but in these matters one must have patience. What was likely to be in it, and how I was to get at it, never even occurred to me at this juncture. Things had not developed far enough. All the same I took the next hansom, and told the man to drive to Taverner's. Traverner's, you will remember, is the big boot shop next to Saronel's.
My cab pulled up just behind the brougham, which was waiting for the old lady outside Saronel's. What was I to do next? The old lady's coachman looked very sleepy. I could have entered the brougham without making enough noise to attract his attention. When the old lady entered the carriage one strong hand over her mouth would keep her quiet until a few threats saved the necessity for any further violence. The idea had some points about it, but was quite unpractical. She would see me as soon as the door was opened, and she would not enter the brougham. If she did, and the rest of my plan was carried out, and I possessed myself of anything that she had purchased at Saronel's, I had still to find some way of escaping safely with my prize. Also it was quite possible, that the old lady was merely having her watch regulated or buying a three-and-sixpenny stamp box for a wedding present.
No, it was clearly better to see a little more what was happening before taking any action whatever. I walked into Saronel's and took a seat at the counter on the other side of the shop, and at some distance from the old lady. A mirror showed me everything that she did. I told the assistant that I wanted some interesting specimens of Labradorite, preferably in the form of carved heads mounted as rings or scarf pins. The order, as I had expected, took a couple of minutes to execute, and during that time I watched the old lady.
She sat upright and impassive, while two assistants showed her one thing after another. The counter in front of her was cumbered with trays and cases. Occasionally she shook her head. She was apparently hard to please.
However, by the time that the man who was waiting on me had discovered that they had not the exact thing that I wanted in stock, and that I would not trouble them to procure it for me, and that I would not buy anything else instead, the old lady had made her choice. It was a pearl necklace of great beauty and, I judged, of great value.
"No," she said to one of the assistants in rather a peevish voice, "you needn't send anybody with it at all. I shall be passing again this afternoon, and I will then have the cheque for you. You will see that the necklace is packed up ready for me."
She gave them her card, and wrote the name of her bankers, to whom they were to refer, upon it. Then she got up from her chair and dropped her pencil.
The assistant who had come round to open the door for her stooped to pick it up. She had just three moments in which she was perfectly safe, and she used these three moments well. She was as quick as light, and as unperturbed as a statue. There was no trace of hurry, no sign of embarrassment.
I followed her out, and, on the pavement touched her gently on the arm and raised my hat.
"You would save yourself the unpleasantness of a public disturbance, Lady Mardon," I said, "if you would act as if you knew me. I am from Scotland Yard, and I have had you under observation for a long time past. I was watching you in Saronel's just now, and I saw everything that happened."
She was frightened, but she smiled.
"You are really making some mistake," she said. "The only thing that happened in Saronel's was that I ordered a pearl necklace."
"In that case," I said, "perhaps you would oblige me by putting on your other glove. It is of no use to talk to me in that way, you see. I not only saw you take the diamond star, but I have now shown you that I know where you are hiding it at this moment."
"Don't take me to the police station," she said "I didn't know what I was doing. I take drugs. I can explain everything to you.
"I am afraid," I said, "that I must carry out my duty. As you know, this is not the first time by a long way."
"I have never been inside Saronel's in my life before."
"I can quite believe that you would not go to the same establishment twice."
"Listen," she said eagerly. "I have got every single thing that I took. They are all at my house. I can show them to you if you like. If you will come with me in my carriage, I will hand them over to you at once."
"Very well," I said, "it is quite immaterial to me. But I will come with you and collect the stolen property first; you will have to come on to the station with me afterwards."
This woman, like many women thieves, was extremely simple and ignorant. It was clear to me now that I ran not the slightest risk of discovery by her. We entered her brougham. All the way to South Kensington, where her house was, she sat with her head in her hands, hiding her face, not speaking a word, occasionally trembling violently.
The situation was an extremely promising one. All that she had stolen would be handed over to me. In addition I felt that the detective inspector should have some solatium for the remorse that he would feel at neglecting his duty and allowing this criminal to go scot-free. I had no intention of proposing anything of the kind myself: that would be certain to come from her.
I guessed the rent of her house at £350 per annum. It was most luxuriously furnished, and her servants were good, expensive servants. Clearly she had no necessity to steal at all. It was a bad case. I said as much when we were seated in the library together. She had regained her composure now.
"I am not going to discuss with you," she said, "whether it is a bad case or not. I am alone in the world, and I am accustomed to look after myself. I have foreseen for some time past the extreme probability that this would happen, and I have made ready for it. You must have noticed how little surprised I was when you arrested me. Now I've got just two things to say to you. The first is that you can take me to the police station if you like, but that you will never get me there alive. The second thing I will put in quite a plain and simple way. Every man has his price. What is yours?"
"Your threat of committing suicide, Lady Mardon, has but one effect upon me—to make it impossible for you to carry it out. I had hoped to spare you the handcuffs, but I see that I shall have to use them. You will have no chance whatever of committing suicide. Your attempt to bribe me will, I am afraid, make the case seem all the blacker against you. Now, please, if you will show me the rest of the property that you have stolen, that will tell to some extent in your favour, and then we can be getting on."
"Listen," she said. "You are a detective, an inspector, I suppose, or something of that kind. Are you a man as well?"
"What is the good of wasting time like this?" I said impatiently.
"I am going to tell you my story as briefly as possible. I don't want money, and have never wanted it. I have had great sufferings—bereavements that have left me alone in the world. I could not sleep when I had acute neuralgia. You know what that leads to; you know what this is." She took up a little leather case from the table, and opened it.
I nodded. "Yes," I said, "hypodermic syringe."
"Well, then, if you are a man as well as a police officer, it will be enough for you that justice is done. It is not detectives and magistrates that I want, it is doctors and nurses. Sometimes in a shop or in Society I see something sparkle in a particular way. It is impossible for me to describe it. When that happens, I have no more control over myself. I have to take the thing that sparkles like that. After I have got it, I do not want it I put it away where I cannot see it. I am wretched about it, and fly to the morphia again. I will show you all that I have taken."
She unlocked and opened a drawer in the escritoire. It contained twenty packets. Each one bore an address and a date. It was a marvel of method—of insane orderliness.
"There," she said, "you can take them all, please, and send them back. As long as these people recover their property they won't want to punish a poor old half-mad woman. Nor will you if you are a man at all."
I appeared to hesitate. "I hardly know what to say," I said. "If I had any choice in the matter I should undoubtedly do as you wish. I am not inhuman, and I admit that the story that you have told me has made some effect upon me. But look at the risk that I run if I do not do my duty. I may very possibly be discovered, and may lose my employment."
"How can you be discovered? You who are so clever in tracking others can find ways to hide your own actions. But I will pay you for the risk you run. I will pay you a hundred pounds. You shall return the stolen property yourself, and I promise you that I will put myself in the hands of a good doctor this afternoon. You needn't be afraid. I shall never take anything again. I've had my lesson."
I walked up and down the room. I was sorry to appear grasping, and I told her so, but I reminded her that I was risking a salary of four hundred pounds a year on account of her, and that I might possibly find myself in prison as well. If she would insure me half a years salary, I should, if dismissed, at any rate have the time to look about me and find some other employment. She saw the point of my arguments, and said that she would write me a cheque for two hundred pounds.
"No," I said, "that will not do. Cheques can be traced and notes can be traced; sovereigns cannot. I must have a cab to take away these parcels with me, and I will drive you to your bank. When you have handed over to me the two hundred sovereigns that you will obtain there, I will let you return again to your own house, and after that you will never hear from me or see me again."
I fastened the parcels together in one package. A four-wheeler was called, and we started off.
Really that woman was quaint beyond words. She sank back in the cab with a sigh of relief.
"Honestly," she said, "I am glad this has happened. It had to happen one day. I always knew it I might have fallen into the hands of a man with no humanity at all, a mere automaton carrying out prescribed duties regardless of everything else. It will be a turning point in my life too. I have not liked to recognise that I was ill. Anything wrong with one's mind or one's control over one's self always seems so disgraceful. But I shall recognise it now. Yes, to-day I shall put myself in the hands of the best specialist that I can find." She tapped the parcel significantly. "Nothing of this kind any more. Never again!"
I asked her about the transaction with the pearl necklace,
"Oh, that is quite all right," she said "I shall certainly go back to Saronel's and pay for it as I said I would. It is a wedding present to a near relation of mine."
"You will not be afraid that they will have missed the diamond star?"
"Of course they will have missed it. But they will never dream that I took it. A lady who can afford to buy a pearl necklace for eight hundred pounds, would not steal a little diamond star worth perhaps twenty-five. At any rate, that will be their argument."
There were certainly strange gleams of shrewdness about her. She brought me the money from the bank, and as we drove away I counted it and found it correct. I stowed it away in different pockets—two hundred sovereigns take up rather more space than most people suppose—tucked the big parcel under my arm, stopped the cab and got out. I walked for a few hundred yards, and then took another cab home.
Frankly, the parcel was a great disappointment. There was a great deal of silver rubbish in it. I suppose that a beam of light had fallen on it and made it sparkle, and given it that fascination that she described. There were three or four good rings, all set with sapphires, but nothing else of importance.
I took most of the stuff out with me next day on my motor-car, stopped in a lonely country road, and threw them over the hedge. It was not the kind of stuff that I could deal with, and it was dangerous to keep it.
Three days later Lady Mardon, who of course had not reformed—that kind never does reform—was caught by a real detective—one of those callous automata to which she had referred. She told a singularly wild story to the police, but they took very little notice of it. The scandal in high life helped to fill the newspapers for a few days, and then, on the medical evidence, she was acquitted.
Speaking calmly and judicially, I think that this was perhaps the most dastardly theft I ever committed.