The Red Hill Sisterhood by C. L Pirkis they want you at Red Hill
now, said mister Dyer, taking a packet of papers from one of his
pigeon holes. The idea seems gaining ground in many quarters that in cases of
mere suspicion, women detectives are more satisfactory than men, for they are less
likely to attract attention. And this Red Hill affair, so far as I
can make out, is one of suspicion only. It was a dreary November
morning. Every gas jet in the Lynch Court office was alight, and a
yellow curtain of outside fog draped its narrow windows. Nevertheless, I suppose one
can't afford to leave it uninvestigated at this season of the year, with country
house robberies beginning in so many quarters, said Miss Brook. No, and
the circumstances in this case certainly seemed to point in the direction of the country
house burglar. Two days ago a somewhat curious application was made privately by a
man giving the name of John Murray to Inspector Gunning of the Reigate Police.
Redhill, I must tell you was in the Reigate Police district. Murray stated
that he had been a green grocer somewhere in South London, had sold his
business there and had, with the proceeds of the sale, bought two small
houses in Redhill, intending to let the one and live in the other.
These houses are situated in a blind alley known as Paved Court, a narrow
turning leading off the London and Brighton Coach Road. Paved Court has been known
to the sanitary authorities for the past ten years as a regular fever nest,
and as the houses which Murray bought, numbers seven and eight, stand at
the very end of the blind alley with no chance of thorough ventilation. I
dare say the man got them for next to nothing. He told the inspector
that he had had great difficulty in procuring a tenant for the house he wished
to let number eight, and that consequently, when about three weeks back,
a lady dressed as a nun made him an offer for it, he immediately
closed with her. The lady gave her name simply as Sister Monica, and
stated that she was a member of an undeenominational sisterhood that had recently been founded
by a wealthy lady who wished her name kept a secret sister Monica gave no
references, but instead paid a quarter's rent in advance, saying that she wished
to take possession of the house immediately and opened it as a home for crippled
orphans. Gave no references. Home for cripples, murmured Loveday, scribbling hard
and fast in her notebook. Murray made no objection to this, continued mister
Dyer, And accordingly, the next day sister Monica, accompanied by three other
sisters and some sickly children, took possession of the house, which they furnished
with the barest possible necessities from cheap shops in the neighborhood. For a time,
Murray said he thought he had secured most desirable tenants, but during the
last ten days suspicions as to their real character have entered his mind, and
these suspicions he thought it his duty to communicate to the police. Among their
possessions, it seems these sisters number an old donkey and a tiny cart,
and this they start daily on a sort of begging tour through the adjoining villages,
bringing back every evening a perfect horde of broken victuals and bundles of old
garments. Now comes the extraordinary fact on which Murray faces his suspicions. He
says, and Gunning verifies his statement, that in whatever direction these sisters turn
the wheels of their donkey cart, burglaries or attempts at burglaries are sure to
follow. A week ago they went along towards Horley, where at an outlying
house they receive much kindness from a wealthy gentleman. That very night an attempt
was made to break into that gentleman's house, an attempt, however, that
was happily frustrated by the barking of the house dog. And so go on
in other instances that I need not go into. Murray suggests that it might
be well to have the daily movements of these sisters closely watched, and that
extra vigilance should be exercised by the police in the districts that have had the
honor of a morning call from them. Gunning coincides with this idea, and
so has sent to me to secure your services. Loveday closed her notebook.
I suppose Gunning will meet me somewhere and tell me where I'm to take up
my quarters, She said, yes, he will get into your carriage at
merseam the station before Redhill, if you will put your hand out of window
with the morning paper in it by the way, he takes it for granted
that you will save the eleven to five train from Victoria Murray. It seems
has been good enough to place his little house at the disposal of the police.
But Gunning does not think espionage could be so well carried on there as
from other quarters. The presence of a stranger in an alley of that sort
is bound to attract attention. So he is hired a room for you in
a draper's shop that immediately faces the head of the court. There is a
private door to this shop, of which you will have the key and can
let yourself in and out as you please. You are supposed to be a
nursery governess on the lookout for a situation, and Gunning will keep you supplied
with letters to give color to the idea. He suggests that you need only
occupy the room during the day. At night you will find more comfortable quarters
at Lakers Hotel, just outside the town. This was about the sum total
of the instructions that mister Dyer had to give the eleven to five train for
Victoria that carried Loveday to her work among the Surrey Hills, did not get
clear of the London fog till well away on the other side of Purley,
when the train halted immerse them. In response to her signal, a tall
soldier like individual made for her carriage, and, jumping in, took the
seat facing her. He announced himself to her as Inspector. Gunning, recalled
to her memory a former occasion on which they had met, and then,
naturally enough, turned the talk upon the present suspicious circumstances they were bent upon
investigating. It won't do for you and me to be seen together, he
said, of course, I am well known for miles round, and anyone
seen in my company will at once be set down as my coadjutor and spied
upon. Accordingly, I walked from Red Hill to merse them, on purpose
to avoid recognition on the platform at Red Hill, and halfway here, to
my great annoyance, found that I was being followed by a man in a
workman's dress and carrying a basket of tools. I doubled, however, and
gave him the slip, taking a short cut down a lane which, if
he had been living in the place he would have known as well as I
did. By jove, this was added with a sudden start. There is
the fellow, I declare, he has weathered me after all, and has
no doubt taken good stock of us, both with a train going at this
snail's pace. It was unfortunate that your face should have been turned towards that
window, Miss Brook. My veil is something of a disguise, and I
will put on another cloak before he has a chance of seeing me again,
said Loveday. All she had seen in the brief glimpse that the train had
allowed was a tall, powerfully built man walking along a siding of the line.
His cap was drawn low over his eyes, and in his hand he
carried a workman's basket. Gunning seemed much annoyed at the circumstance. Instead of
landing at Red Hill, he said, we'll go on to three bridges and
wait there for a brighton train to bring us back. That will enable you
to get to your room somewhere between the lights. I don't want to have
you spotted before you so much as started your work. Then they went back
to their discussion of the Red Hill Sisterhood. They call themselves undenominational, whatever
that means, said Gunning. They say they are connected with no religious sect
whatever. They attend, sometimes one place of worship, sometimes another, sometimes
none at all. They refuse to give up the name of the founder of
their order, and really no one has any right to demand it of them,
for as no doubt you see, up to the present moment, the
case is one of mere suspicion, and it may be a pure coincidence that
attempts at burglary have followed their footsteps in this neighborhood. By the way,
I have heard of a man's face being enough to hang him, But until
I saw Sister Monica's, I never saw a woman's face that could perform the
same kind office for her. Of all the lowest criminal types of faces I
have ever seen, I think hers is about the lowest and most repulsive,
after the sisters. They passed in review the chief family's resident in the neighborhood.
This said Gunning, unfolding on paper, is a map I have specially
drawn up for you. It takes in the district for ten miles round Redhill,
and every country house of any importance is marked in it in red ink.
Here. In addition, is an index to those houses, with special
notes of my own to every house. Loveday studied the map for a minute
or so, then turned her attention to the index. These four houses you've
marked, I see are those that have already been attempted. I don't think
I'll run them through, but I'll mark them doubtful. You see the gang,
for of course it is a gang might follow our reasoning on the matter
and look upon those houses as our weak point. Here's one I'll run through.
House empty during winter months. That means plate and jewelry sent to the
bankers. Oh, and this one may as well be crossed off. Father
and four sons, all athletes and sportsmen, and that means firearms always handy.
I don't think burglars will be likely to trouble them. Ah, now
we come to something. Here's a house to be marked tempting in a burglar's
list. Wooton Hall lately changed hands and rebuilt, with complicated passages and quarters,
splendid family plate in daily use, and left entirely to the care of
the butler. I wonder does the master of the house trust to his complicated
passages to preserve his plate for him? He dismissed. A dishonest servant would
supply a dozen maps of the place for half a sovereign. What of these
initials E L against the next house in the list north cape stand for electric
lighted. I think you might almost cross that house off. Also, I
consider electric lighting one of the greatest safeguards against burglars that a man can give
his house. Yes, if he doesn't rely exclusively upon it, it might
be a nasty trap under certain circumstances. I see this gentleman also has a
magnificent presentation and other plate. Yes, mister Jamieson is a wealthy man and
very popular in the neighborhood. His cups and appearentages are worth looking at.
Is it the only house in the district that is lighted with electricity? Yes,
And begging your pardon, miss Brooke, I only wish it were not
so. If electric lighting were generally in vogue, it would save the police
a lot of trouble on those dark winter nights. The burglars would find some
way of meeting such a condition. Of things depend upon it. They have
reached a very high development in these days. They no longer stalk about as
they did fifty years ago with blunderbusts and bludgeon. They plot, plan,
contrive, and bring imagination and artistic resource to their aid. By the way,
it often occurs to me that the popular detective stories for which there seems
so large demand at the present day, must be at times uncommonly useful to
the criminal classes. At Three Bridges, they had to wait so long for
a return train that it was nearly dark when Loveday got back to Redhill.
Mister Gunning did not accompany her thither, having alighted at a previous station.
Loveday had directed her portmanteau to be sent in direct to Lakers Hotel, where
she had engaged a room by telegram from Victoria Station. So unburdened by law
luggage, she slipped quietly out of the Red Hill station and made her way
straight for the draper shop in the London Road. She had no difficulty in
finding it, thanks to the minute directions given her by the inspector. Street
lamps were being lighted in the sleepy little town as she went along, and
as she turned into the London Road, shopkeepers were lighting up their windows on
both sides of the way. A few yards down this road, a dark
patch between the lighted shops showed her where a paved court led off from the
thoroughfare. A side door of one of the shops that stood at the corner
of the court seemed to offer a post of observation. Whence she could see
without being seen. And here Loveday, shrinking into the shadows, ensconced herself
in order to take stock of the little alley and its inhabitants. She found
it much as it had been described to her, a collection of four roomed
houses, of which more than half were unlet. Numbers seven and eight at
the head of the court presented a slightly less neglect appearance then the other tenements.
Number seven stood in total darkness. But in the upper window of number
eight there showed what seemed to be a night light burning. So Loveday conjectured
that this possibly was the room set apart as a dormitory for the little cripples.
While she stood thus surveying the home of the suspected sisterhood, the sisters
themselves, to at least of them, came into view with their donkey cart
and their cripples in the main road. It was an odd little cortege one
sister, habited in a nun's dress of dark blue serge, led the donkey
by the bridle. Another sister similarly attired, walked alongside the low cart,
at which were seated two sickly looking children. They were evidently returning from one
of the long country circuits, and unless they had lost their way and had
been belated, it certainly seemed a late hour for the sickly little cripples to
be abroad. As they passed under the gas light at the corner of the
court, Loveday caught a glimpse of the faces of the sisters. It was
easy, with Inspector Gunning's description before her mind, to identify the older and
taller woman as sister Monica, and a more coarse featured and generally repellent face,
Loveday admitted to herself she had never before seen. In striking contrast to
this forbidding countenance was that of the younger sister. Loveday could only catch a
brief passing view of it, but that one brief view was enough to impress
it on her memory as of unusual sadness and beauty. As the donkey stopped
at the corner of the court, Loveday heard this sad looking young woman addressed
as sister Anna by one of the cripples, who asked plaintively when they were
going to have something to eat now? At once said sister Anna, lifting
the little one, as it seemed a Loveday tenderly out of the cart and
carrying him on her shoulder down the court to the door of number eight,
which opened to them at their approach. The other sister did the same with
the other child. Then both sisters returned a loaded the cart to sundry bundles
and baskets, and this dune led off the old donkey and trapped down the
road, possibly to a neighboring costermonger's stables. A man coming along on a
bicycle exchanged a word of greeting with the sisters as they passed, then swung
himself off his machine at the corner of the court and walked it along the
paved road to the door of number seven. This he opened with a key,
and then, pushing the machine before him, entered the house. Loveday
took it for granted that this man must be the John Murray of whom she
had heard she had closely scrutinized him as he had passed her, and had
seen that he was a dark, well featured man of about fifty years of
age. She congratulated herself on her good fortune in having seen so much in
a brief space of time, and, coming forth from her sheltered corner,
turned her steps in the direction of the draper shop on the other side of
the road. It was easy to find it. Go Lightly was the singular
name that figured above the shop front, in which were displayed of a riot
of goods calculated to meet the wants of servants and the poorer classes generally.
A tall, powerfully built man appeared to be looking in at this window.
Loveday's foot was on the doorstep of the draper's private entrance, her hand on
the door knocker, when this individual, suddenly turning, convinced her of his
identity with the journeyman workman who had so disturbed mister Gunning's equanimity. It was
true he wore a bowler instead of a journeyman's cap, and he no longer
carried a basket of tools. But there was no possibility for any one with
so good an eye for an outline as Loveday possessed not to recognize the carriage
of the head and shoulders as that of the man she had seen walking along
the railway siding. He gave her no time to make minute observations of his
appearance, but turned quickly away and disappeared down a by street. Loveday's work
seemed to bristle with difficulties. Now Here was she, as it were,
unearthed in her own ambush, For there could be but little doubt that during
the whole time she had stood watching those sisters, that man from a safe
vantage point had been watching her. She found missus Golightly, a civil and
obliging person. She showed Loveday to her room above the shop, brought her
the letters which inspect her gunning had been careful to have posted to her during
the day. Then she supplied her with pen and ink, and, in
response to Loveday's request, with some strong coffee that, she said, with
a little attempt at a joke, would keep a dormouse awake all through the
winter without winking. While the obliging landlady busied herself about the room, Loveday
had a few questions to ask about the sisterhood who lived down the court opposite
on this head, However, missus Golightly could tell her no more than she
already knew, beyond the fact that they started every morning on the rounds at
eleven o'clock punctually, and that before that hour they were never to be seen
outside their door. Loveday's watch that night was to be a fruitless one.
Although she, with her lamp turned out and safely screened from observation until close
upon midnight, with eyes fixed upon numbers seven and eight, paved court,
not so much as the door opening or shutting at either house rewarded her vigil.
The lights flitted from the lower to the upper floors in both houses,
and then disappeared somewhere between nine and ten in the evening. And after that
not a sign of life did either tenement show, And all through the long
hours of that watch, backwards and forwards there seemed to flit before her mind's
eye, as if in some sort it were fixed upon its retina, the
sweet sad face of sister Anna. Why it was this face should so haunt
her? She found it hard to say. It has a mournful past and
a mournful future written upon it. As a hopeless hole. She said to
herself. It is the face of an andromeda. Here I am, it
seemed to say, tied to my stake, helpless and hopeless. The church
clocks were sounding the midnight hour as love Day made her way through the dark
streets to her hotel outside the town. As she passed under the railway archs
that ended in the open country road, the echo of not very distant footsteps
caught her ear. When she stopped, they stopped, and when she went
on, they went on, And she knew that once more she was being
followed and watched, although the darkness of the arch prevented her seeing even the
shadow of the man who was thus dogging her steps. The next morning,
broke keen and frosty. Loveday studied her map and her country house index over
a seven o'clock breakfast, and then set off for a brisk walk along the
country road. No doubt, in London, the streets were walled in and
roofed with yellow fog. Here, however, bright sunshine played in and out
of the bare tree boughs and leafless hedges onto a thousand frost spangles, turning
a prosaic matchamized road into a gangway fit for a Queen Titania, herself and
her ferry train. Loveday turned her back on the town and set herself to
follow the road as it wound away over the hill in the direction of a
village called Northfield. Early as she was, she was not to have that
road to herself. A team of strong horses trudged on their way to their
work in the full earth's pits. A young fellow on a bicycle flashed past
at a tremendous pace. Considering the upward slant of the road, he looked
hard at her as he passed, then slackened paste dismounted, and awaited her
coming on the brow of the hill. Good morning, miss Brooke, he
said, lifting his cap, as she came alongside of him. May I
have five minutes talk with you? The young man who thus accosted her had
not the appearance of a gentleman. He was a handsome, bright faced young
fellow of about two and twenty, and was dressed in ordinary cyclist's dress.
His cap was pushed back from his brow over thick, curly fair hair,
and Loveday, as she looked at him, could not repress the thought how
well he would look at the head of a troop of cavalry, giving the
order to charge the enemy. He led his machine to the side of the
footpath. You have the advantage of me, said Loveday. I haven't the
remotest notion who you are. No, he said, although I know you,
you cannot possibly know me. I am a North countryman, and I
was present about a month ago at the trial of old mister Craven of Troits
Hill. In fact, I acted as reporter for one of the local papers.
I watched your face so closely as you gave your evidence that I should
know it anywhere among a thousand and Your name is George White of Grenfell.
My father is part proprietor of one of the Newcastle papers. I am a
bit of a literary man myself, and sometimes figure as a reporter, sometimes
as leader writer to the paper. Here he gave a glance toward his side
pocket, from which protruded a small volume of Tennyson's poems. The facts he
had stated did not seem to invite comment and love. They ejaculated merely.
Indeed, the young man went back to the subject that was evidently filling his
thoughts. I have special reasons for being glad to have met you this morning,
Miss Brooke, He went on, making his footsteps keep pace with hers.
I am in great trouble, and I believe you are the only person
in the whole world that can help me out of that trouble. I am
rather doubtful as to my power of helping any one out of trouble, said
Loveday. So far as my experience goes, our troubles are as much a
part of ourselves as our skins are of our bodies. Ah, but not
such trouble as mine, said White eagerly. He broke off for a moment,
then, with a sudden rush of words, told her what the trouble
was. For the past year, he had been engaged to be married to
a young girl who until quite recently had been fulfilling the duties of a nursery
governess in a large house in the neighborhood of Redhill. Will you kindly give
me the name of that house, interrupted Loveday. Certainly, Wooton Hall.
The place is called, and Annie Lee is my sweetheart's name. I don't
care who knows it. He threw his head back as he said this,
as if he would be delighted to denounce the fact to the whole world.
Annie's mother, he went on, died when she was a baby, and
we both thought her father was dead also, when suddenly, about a fortnight
ago, it came to her knowledge that instead of being dead, he was
serving his time at Portland for some offense committed years ago. Do you know
how this came to Annie's knowledge? Not the least in the world. I
only know that I suddenly got a letter from her announcing the fact and at
the same time breaking off her engagement with me. I tore the letter into
a thousand pieces and wrote back saying I would not allow the engagement to be
broken off, but would marry her tomorrow if she would have me. To
this letter, she did not reply. There came instead a few lines from
Missus Copeland, the lady at Wooton Hall, saying that Annie had thrown up
her engagement and joined some sisterhood, and that she, Missus Copeland, had
pledged her word to Annie to reveal to no one the name and whereabouts of
that sisterhood. And I suppose you imagine I am able to do what Missus
Copeland is pledged not to do. That's just it. Miss Brooke, cried
the young man enthusiastically. You do such wonderful things. Everyone knows you do.
It seems as if when anything is wanted to be found out, you
just walk into a place, look round you, and in a moment everything
becomes clear as noonday. I can't quite lay claim to such wonderful powers as
that as it happens. However, in the present instance, no particular skill
is needed to find out what you wish to know. For I fancy I
have already come upon the traces of Miss Annie Lee, Miss Brooke. Of
course I cannot say for certain, but it is a matter you can easily
settle for yourself. Settle too, in a way that will confer a great
obligation on me. I shall be only too delighted to be of any the
slightest service to you, cried White enthusiastically. As before, thank you.
I will explain. I came down here specially to watch the movements of a
certain sisterhood who have somehow aroused the suspicions of the police. Well, I
find that instead of being able to do this, I am myself so closely
watched, possibly by confederates of these sisters, that unless I can do my
work by deputy, I may as well go back to town at once.
Ah, I see you want me to be that deputy. Precisely, I
want you to go to the room in Redhill that I have hired, take
your place at the window, screened of course from observation, at which I
ought to be seated, Watch as closely as possible the movements of these sisters,
and report them to me at the hotel, where I shall remain shut
in from morning till night. It is the only way in which I can
throw my persistent spies off the scent. Now, in doing this for me,
you will also be doing yourself a good turn. For I have little
doubt but what under the blue surgeonhood of one of the sisters you will discover
the pretty face of miss Annie Lee. As they had talked, they had
walked and now stood on the top of the hill at the head of the
one little street that constituted the whole of the village of Northfield, on their
left hands to the village schools and the master's house, nearly facing these on
the opposite side of the road, beneath a clump of elms, to the
village pound beyond this pound. On either side of the way were two rows
of small cottages with tiny squares of garden in front, and in the midst
of these small cottages, a swinging sign beneath a lamp announced a postal and
telegraph office. Now that we have come into the land of habitations, again,
said Loveday, it would be best for us to part. It will
not do for you and me to be seen together, or my spies will
be transferring their attentions from me to you, and I shall have to find
another deputy. You had better start on your bicycle for Redhill at once,
and I will walk back at leisurely speed. Come to me at my hotel
without fail at one o'clock and report proceedings. I do not say anything definite
about remuneration, but I assure you, if you carry out my instructions to
the letter, your services will be amply rewarded by me and by my employers.
There were yet a few more details to arrange. White had been He
said, only a day and night in the neighborhood, and special directions as
to the locality had to be given to him. Love They advised him not
to attract attention by going to the draper's private door, but to enter the
shop as if he were a customer, and then explain matters to missus Golightly,
who no doubt would be in her place behind the counter. Tell her
that he was the brother of the miss Smith who had hired her room,
and asked permission to go through the shop to that room, as he had
been commissioned by his sister to read an abid answer any letters that might have
arrived there for her. Show her the key of the side door here it
is, said Loveday. It will be your credentials, and tell her you
did not like to make use of it without acquainting her with the fact.
The young man took the key, endeavored to put it in his waistcoat pocket,
found the space there occupied, and so transverred it to the keeping of
a side pocket in his tunic. All this time Loveday stood watching him.
You have a capital machine there, she said, as the young man mounted
his bicycle once more, and I hope you will turn it to account in
following the movements of these sisters about the neighborhood. I feel confident you will
have something definite to tell me when you bring me your first report at one
o'clock, White once more broke into a profusion of thanks, and then lifting
his cap to the lady, started his machine at a fairly good pace.
Loveday watched him out of sight down the slope of the hill. Then,
instead of following him as she had said she would, at a leisurely pace,
she turned her steps in the opposite direction. Along the village street.
It was an altogether ideal country village. Neatly dressed, chubby faced children now
on their way to the schools, dropped quaint little curtseys or tugged at curly
forelocks. As Loveday passed, Every cottage looked a picture of cleanliness and trimness,
and although so late in the year, the gardens were full of late
flowering chrysanthemums and early flowering Christmas roses. At the end of the village,
Loveday came suddenly into view of a large, handsome, red brick mansion.
It presented a wide frontage to the road from which it lay back amid extensive
pleasure grounds. On the right hand, and a little in the rear of
the house stood what seemed to be large and commodious stables, and immediately Adjoining
these stables was a low cut red brick shed that had evidently been recently erected.
That low built red brick shed excited Loveday's curiosity. Is this house called
North Cape? She asked of a man who chanced at that moment to be
passing with a pickaxe and shovel. The man answered in the affirmative, and
Loveday then asked another question. Could he tell her what was that small shed
so close to the house. It looked like a glorified cow shed. Now,
what could be its use? The man's face lighted up, as if
it were a subject on which he liked to be questioned. He explained that
that small shed was the engine house where the electricity that lighted North Cape was
made and stored. Then he dwelt with pride upon the fact, as if
he held a personal interest in it, that North Cape was the only house
far or near that was thus lighted. I suppose the wires are carried under
ground to the house, said Loveday, looking in vain for signs of them
anywhere. The man was delighted to go into details on the matter. He
had helped delay those wires. He said they were two in number one for
supply and one for return, and were laid three feet below ground in boxes
filled with pitch. These wires were switched on to jars in the engine house
where the electricity was stored, and after passing underground, entered the family mansion
under its flooring at its western end. Loveday listened attentively to these details,
and then took a minute and leisurely survey of the house and its surroundings.
This done, she retraced her steps to the village, pausing, however,
at the postal and Telegraph office to dispatch a telegram to inspect her gunning.
It was one to send the inspector to his cipher book. It ran,
as followed, relies solely on chemist and coal merchant throughout the day. L
b after this she quickened her pace and in something over three quarters of an
hour was back again at her hotel. There she found more of life stirring
than when she had quitted it. In the early morning, there was to
be a meeting of the Surrey Stags about a couple of miles off, and
a good many hunting men were hanging about the entrance to the house discussing the
chances of after last night's frost, Loveday made her way through the throng in
leisurely fashion, and not a man but wanted keen scrutiny from her sharp eyes.
No, there was no cause for suspicion. There they were, evidently
one in all, just what they seemed to be, loud voiced, hard
riding men bent on a day's sport. But and here Loveday's eyes traveled beyond
the hotel courtyard to the other side of the road. Who was that man
with a bill hook hacking at the hedge? There a thin featured, round
shouldered old fellow with a bent about hat. It might be as well not
to take it too rashly, for granted that her spies was drawn and had
left her free to do her work in her own fashion, she went upstairs
to her room, it was situated on the first floor in the front of
the house, and consequently commanded a good view of the high road. She
stood well back from the window and in an angle when she could see and
not be seen, took a long, steady survey of the hedger. Longer
she looked, the more convinced she was that the man's real work was something
other than the bill hook seemed to apply. He worked so to speak with
his head over his shoulder, and when Loveday supplemented her eyesight with a strong
field glass, she could see more than one stealthy glance shot from beneath his
bent about hat in the direction of her window. There could be little doubt
about it. Her movements were to be as closely watched today as they had
been yesterday. Now it was of first importance that she should communicate with Inspector
Gunning in the course of the afternoon. The question to solve was how it
was to be done To all appearance. Loveday answered the question in extraordinary fashion.
She pulled up her blind, she drew back her curtain, and seated
herself in full view at a small table in the window recess. Then she
took a pocket inkstand from her pocket, a packet of correspondence cards from her
letter case, and with a rapid pen, set to work on them.
About an hour and a half afterwards, White, coming in according to his
promise to report proceedings, found her still seated at the window, not however,
with writing materials before her, but with needle and thread in her hand,
with which she was mending her gloves. I returned to town by the
first train tomorrow morning, she said, as he entered, and I find
these wretched things want no end of stitches. Now for your report. White
appeared to be in an elated frame of mind. I've seen her, he
cried, my auntie. They've got her, those confounded sisters, but they
shan't keep her. No, not if I have to pull the house down
about their ears to get her out. Well, now you know where she
is, you can take your time about getting her out, said Loveday.
I hope, however, you haven't broken faith with me and betrayed yourself by
trying to speak with her, because if so, I shall have to look
for another deputy, honor, Miss Brooke, answered White and dignantly. I
stuck to my duty, though it cost me something to see her hanging over
those kids and tucking them into the cart, and never say a word to
her, never so much as wave my hand. Did she go out with
a donkey cart today? No? She only tucked the kids into the cart
with a blanket, and then went back in the house. Two old sisters,
ugliest sin went out with them. I watched them from the window.
J jolt round the corner out of sight, and then I whipped down the
stairs onto my machine and was after them in a trice, and managed to
keep them well in sight for over an hour and a half. And their
destination today was Wooton hall Ah, just as I expected, Just as you
expected, echoed White. I forgot. You do not know the nature of
the suspicions that are attached to this sisterhood, and the reasons I have for
thinking that wooton hall at this season of the year might have an especial for
them. White continued, staring at her, Miss Brooke. He said,
presently, in an altered tone, what of her suspicions may attach to the
sisterhood? I'll stake my life on it. My auntie has had no share
in any wickedness of any sort. Oh quite so. It is most likely
that your Annie has in some way been inveigled into adjoining these sisters, has
been taken possession of by them, in fact, just as they have taken
possession of the little cripples. That's it, that's it, he cried.
That was the idea that occurred to me when you spoke to me on the
hill about them. Otherwise, you may be sure did they get relief of
any sort at the hall, interrupted loveday? Yes, one of the two
ugly old women stopped outside the lodge gates with the donkey cart, and the
other beauty went up to the house alone. She stayed there, I should
think about a quarter of an hour, and when she came back, was
followed by a servant carrying a bundle and a basket. Ah, I've no
doubt they brought away with them something else besides old garments and broken victuals.
White stood in front of her, fixing a hard, steady gaze upon her,
Miss Brooke. He said, presently, in a voice that matched the
look on his face. What do you suppose was the real object of these
women in going to Wooton Hall this morning? Mister White? If I wish
to help a gang of thieves break into Wooton Hall tonight, don't you think
I should be greatly interested in procuring for them the information that the master of
the house was away from home, that two of the men servants who slept
in the house had recently been dismissed and their places had not yet been filled.
Also that the dogs were never unchained at night, and that their kennels
were at the side of the house at which the butler's pantry is not situated.
These are particulars I have gathered in this house without stirring from my chair,
and I am satisfied that they are likely to be true. At the
same time, if I were a professed burglar, I should not be content
with information that was likely to be true, but would be careful to procure
such that was certain to be true, and so had set accomplices to work
at the fountain head. Now do you understand, White folded his arms and
looked down on her. What are you going to do, he asked in
short, brusque tones. Loveday looked him full in the face. Communicate with
the police immediately, she answered. And I should feel greatly obliged if you
would at once take a note from me to inspect her gunning at Reigate and
what becomes of Annie. I don't think that you need have any anxiety on
that head. I have no doubt that when the circumstances of her admission to
the Sisterhood are investigated, it will be proved that she has been as much
deceived and imposed upon as the man John Murray who so foolishly led his house
to these women. Remember Annie, he has missus Copeland's good word to support
her integrity. White stood silent for a while. What sort of note do
you wish me to take to the inspector? He presently asked. You shall
read it as I write it, if you like, answered Loveday. She
took a correspondence card from her letter case, and with an indelible pencil,
wrote as follows, mooton hall is threatened tonight. Concentrate attention there. L
B. White read the words as she wrote them, with a curious expression
passing over his handsome features. Yes, he said curtly, as before,
I'll deliver that. I give you my word, but I'll bring back no
answer to you. I'll do no more spying for you. It's a trade
that doesn't suit me. There's a straightforward way of doing straightforward work, and
I'll take that way no other to get my Annie out of that den.
He took the note, which she sealed and handed to him, and strode
out of the room. Loveday, from the the window watched him mount his
bicycle. Was it her fancy or did there pass a swift, furtive glance
of recognition between him and the hedger on the other side of the way.
As he rode out of the courtyard, Loveday seemed determined to make that hedger's
work easy for him. The short winter's day was closing in now, and
her room must consequently have been growing dim to outside observation. She lighted the
gas chandelier, which hung from the ceiling, and still with blinds and curtains
Undrawn, took her old place at the window, spread riding materials before her,
and commenced a long and elaborate report to her chief at Lynch Court.
About half an hour afterwards, as she threw a casual glance across the road,
she saw that the hedger had disappeared, but that two ill looking tramps
sat munching bread and cheese under the hedge to which his bill hook had done
so little service. Evidently the intention was, one way or another, not
to lose sight of her so long as she remained in Red Hill. Meantime,
Whitey delivered Loveday's note to the inspector at Ryegate, and had disappeared on
his bicycle once more. Gunning read it without a change of expression. Then
he crossed the room to the fireplace and held the card as close to the
bars as he could without scorching it. I had a telegram from her this
morning, he explained to his confidential man, telling me to lie upon chemicals
and coals throughout the day, and that of course meant that she would write
to me an invisible ink. No doubt this message about Wooton Hall means nothing.
He broke off, abruptly, exclaiming, Ay, what's this As having
withdrawn the card from the fire, Loveday's real message stood out in bold,
clear characters between the lines of the false one. Thus it ran, North
Cape will be attacked tonight. A desperate gang be prepared for a struggle.
Above all guard the electrical engine house. On no account attempt to communicate with
me. I am so closely watched that any endeavor to do so may frustrate
your chance of trapping the scoundrels. L B. That night, when the
moon went down behind Reigate Hill, an exciting scene was enacted at North Cape.
The Surrey Gazette, in its issue the following day, gave the subjoined
account of it under the heading desperate encounter with burglars last night, North Cape.
The residence of mister Jamieson was a scene of an affray between the police
and a desperate gang of burglars. North Cape is delighted throughout by electricity,
and the burglars, four in number to fight it in half, two being
told to enter and to rob the house, and two to remain at the
engine shed where the electricity is stored, so that at a given signal should
need arise, the wires might be unswitched. The inmates of the house thrown
into sudden darkness and confusion, and the escape of the marauders thereby facilitated.
Mister Jamieson, however, had received timely warning from the police of the intended
attack, and he, with his two sons, all well armed, sat
in darkness in the inner hall, awaiting the coming of the thieves. The
police were stationed, some in the stables, some in out buildings nearer to
the house, and others in more distant parts of the grounds. The burglars
affected their entrance by means of a ladder placed to a window of the servants
staircase, which leads straight down to the butler's pantry and to the safe where
the silver is kept. The fellows, however, had no sooner got into
the house than the police, issuing from their hiding place outside, mounted the
ladder after them, and thus cut off their retreat. Mister Jamison and his
two sons at the same moment attacked them in front, and thus, overwhelmed
by numbers, the scoundrels were easily secured. It was at the engine house
outside that the sharpest struggle took place. The thieves had forced open the door
of this engine shed with their jimmies immediately on their arrival, under the very
eyes of the police, who lay in ambush in the stable. And when
one of the men captured in the house contrived the sound and alarm on his
whistle, these outside watchers made a rush for the electrical jars in order to
unswitch the wires. Upon this the police closed with them, and a hand
to hand struggled followed. And if it had not been for the timely assistance
of mister Jamieson and his sons, who had fortunately conjectured that their presence here
might be useful, it is more than likely that one of the burglars,
a powerfully built man, would have escaped, the names of the captured men
are John Murray, Arthur and George Lee, father and son, and a
man with so many aliases that it is difficult to know which is his real
name. The whole thing had been most cunningly and carefully planned. The elder
Lee, lately released from penal servitude for a similar offense, appears to have
been prime mover in the affair. This man had, it seems, a
son and a daughter, who, through the kindness of friends, have been
fairly well placed in life. The son and electrical engineers in London, the
daughter as nursery governess at Wooton Hall. Directly this man was released from Portland.
He seems to have found out his children and done his best to ruin
them both. He was constantly at Wooton Hall, endeavoring to induce his daughter
to act as an accomplice to a robbery of the house. This so worried
the girl that she threw up her situation and joined a sisterhood that had recently
been established in the neighborhood. Upon this Lee's thoughts turned in another direction.
He induced his son, who had saved the little money, to throw up
his work in London and join him in his disreputable career. The boy is
a handsome young fellow, but appears to have in him the makings of a
first class criminal. In his work as an electrical engineer, he had made
the acquaintance of the man John Murray, who it is said has been rapidly
going downhill of late. Murray was the owner of the house rented by the
sisterhood that miss Lee had joined. The idea evidently struck the brains of these
three scoundrels that this sisterhood, whose annecenes were a little mysterious, might be
utilized to draw off the attention of the police from themselves and from the especial
house in the neighborhood that they had planned to attack. With this end in
view, Murray made an application to the police to have the sisters watched,
and, still further, to give color to the suspicions he had endeavored to
set afloat concerning them, he and his confederates made feeble attempts at burglaries upon
the houses at which the sisters had called begging for scraps. It is a
matter for congratulation that the plot, from beginning to end, has thus been
successfully unearthed, and it is felt on all sides that great credit is due
to inspect her Gunning and his skilled coadjutors for the vigilance and promptitude they have
displayed throughout the affair. Loveday read aloud this report with their feet on the
fender of the lynch Court office. Accurate as far as it goes, she
said, as she laid down the paper. But we want to know a
little more, said mister Dyer. In the first place, I would like
to know what it was that diverted your suspicions from the unfortunate sisters. The
way in which they handled the children, answered Loveday promptly. I have seen
female criminals of all kinds handling children, and I have noticed that, although
they may occasionally even this is rare, treat them with a certain rough sort
of kindness, of tenderness. They are utterly incapable. Now, Sister Monica,
I must admit, is not pleasant to look at. At the same
time, there was something absolutely beautiful in the way in which she lifted the
little cripple out of the cart, put his tiny thin hand round her neck,
and carried him into the house. By the way, I would like
to ask some rabid physiognomist how he would account for sister Monica's repulsiveness of feature,
as contrasted with young Lee's undoubted good looks heredity in this case throws no
light on the matter. Another question, said mister Dyer, not paying much
heed to Loveday's digression, how was it you transferred your suspicions to John Murray.
I did not do so immediately, although at the very first it had
struck me as odd that he should be so anxious to do the work of
the police for them. The chief thing I noticed concerning Murray on the first
and only occasion on which I saw him, was that he had an accident
with his bicycle. For in the right hand corner of his lamp glass there
was a tiny star, and the lamp itself had a dent on the same
side, had also lost its hook, and was fastened to the machine by
a bit of electric fuse. The next morning, as I was walking up
the hill towards Northfield, I was accosted by a young man mounted on that
self same bicycle, not a doubt of it, starring, glass, dent,
fuse all three. Ah. That sounded an important keynote and led you
to connect Murray and the younger Lee immediately. It did and of course also
at once gave the lie to his statement that he was a stranger in the
place, and confirmed my opinion that there was nothing of the North countryman in
his accent. Other details in his manner and appearance gave rise to other suspicions.
For instance, he called himself a press reporter by profession, and his
hands were coarse and grimy, as only a mechanics could be. He said
he was a bit of a literary man. But the Tennyson that showed so
obtrusively from his pocket was new, and in parts uncut, and totally unlike
the well thumbed volume of the literary Student. Finally, when he tried and
failed to put my latch key into his waistcoat pocket, I saw the reason
lay in the fact that the pocket was already accompanied by a soft coil of
electric fuse, the end of which protruded. Now. An electric fuse is
what an electrical engineer might almost unconsciously carry about with him, it is so
essential a part of his working tools. But it is a thing that a
literary man or a press reporter could have no possible use for exactly exactly,
And it was no doubt that bit of electric fuse that turned your thoughts to
the one house in the neighborhood lighted by electricity, and suggested to your mind
the possibility of electrical engineers turning your talents to account in that direction. Now,
will you tell me what, at that stage of your day's work induced
you to wired to gunning that you would bring your invisible ink bottle into use.
That was simply a matter of precaution. It did not compel me to
the use of invisible ink if I saw other safe methods of communication. I
felt myself being hemmed in all sides with spies, and I could not tell
what emergency might arise. I don't think I have ever had a more difficult
game to play. As I walked and talked with a young fellow up the
hill, it became clear to me that if I wished to do my work,
I must lull the suspicions of the gang, and seemed to walk into
their trap. I saw by the persistent way in which Wooton Hall was forced
on my notice, that it was wished to fix my suspicions. There,
I, accordingly to all appearance, did so, and allowed the fellows to
think they were making a fool of me. Ha ha capital that the biter
bit with a vengeance splendid idea to make that young rascal himself deliver the letter
that was to land him and his pals in jail, and all the time
laughing in his sleeve and thinking what a fool he was making of you.
Ha ha ha, And mister Dyer made the office ring again with his merriment.
The only person one is at all sorry for in this affair is poor
little sister Anna, said Loveday pityingly. And yet perhaps all things considered,
after her sorry experience of life, she may not be so badly placed in
a sisterhood where practical Christianity, not religious hysterics, is the one and only
rule of the order. End of the Red Hill Sisterhood.