Jean Stine - Legendary Women Detectives

“Think,” she murmured, “think. Only so can all the facts be accounted for.”

“I will look into it; I will certainly look into it,” was his earnest reply. “If you are right – but never mind that. Go home and take a horseback ride in the Park. When I have news in regard to this I will let you know. Till then forget it all. Hear me, I charge you to forget everything but your balls and your parties.”

And Violet obeyed him.

Some few days after this, the following statement appeared in all the papers:

“Owing to some remarkable work done by the firm of – – , the well-known private detective agency, the claim made by Mrs. George Hammond against the Shuler Life Insurance Company is likely to be allowed without further litigation. As our readers will remember, the contestant has insisted from the first that the bullet causing her husband’s death came from another pistol than the one found clutched in his own hand. But while reasons were not lacking to substantiate this assertion, the failure to discover more than the disputed track of a second bullet led to a verdict of suicide, and a refusal of the company to pay.

“But now that bullet has been found. And where? In the most startling place in the world, viz.: in the larynx of the child found lying dead upon the floor beside his father, strangled as was supposed by the weight of that father’s arm. The theory is, and there seems to be none other, that the father, hearing a suspicious noise at the window, set down the child he was endeavouring to soothe and made for the bed and his own pistol, and, mistaking a reflection of the assassin for the assassin himself, sent his shot sidewise at a mirror just as the other let go the trigger which drove a similar bullet into his breast. The course of the one was straight and fatal and that of the other deflected. Striking the mirror at an oblique angle, the bullet fell to the floor where it was picked up by the crawling child, and, as was most natural, thrust at once into his mouth. Perhaps it felt hot to the little tongue; perhaps the child was simply frightened by some convulsive movement of the father who evidently spent his last moment in an endeavour to reach the child, but, whatever the cause, in the quick gasp it gave, the bullet was drawn into the larynx, strangling him.

“That the father’s arm, in his last struggle, should have fallen directly across the little throat is one of those anomalies which confounds reason and misleads justice by stopping investigation at the very point where truth lies and mystery disappears.

“Mrs. Hammond is to be congratulated that there are detectives who do not give too much credence to outward appearances.

“A spokesman for the police stated that they expect soon to capture the man who sped home the death-dealing bullet.”

THE SHOPLIFTERS

ARTHUR B. REEVE

(Sleuth: Constance Dunlap.)

Arthur B. Reeve carved out a niche all his own in the mystery hall of fame when he created the first scientific detective, Craig Kennedy, who applied newly emerging discoveries to crime fighting in the age of the horseless carriage. Unfortunately, the demand for Kennedy tales kept Reeve so busy that he only found time to write one volume of stories featuring his female sleuth, Constance Dunlap: Woman Detective (1916). This is a shame, for unlike most masculine detectives, whose interest in crime and criminals ends with its detection, Ms Dunlap remains concerned for fate of criminal and victim alike after the crime is solved, often effecting the reformation and rehabilitation of a former miscreant.

“Madam, would you mind going with me for a few moments to the office on the third floor?”

Constance Dunlap had been out on a shopping excursion. She had stopped at the jewellery counter of Stacy’s to have a ring repaired and had gone on to the leather goods department to purchase something else.

The woman who spoke to her was a quietly dressed young person, quite inconspicuous, with a keen eye that seemed to take in everything within a radius of a wide-angled lens at a glance.

She leaned over and before Constance could express even surprise, added in a whisper, “Look in your bag.”

Constance looked hastily, then realized what had happened. The ring was gone!

It gave her quite a shock, too, for the ring, a fine diamond, was a present from her husband, one of the few pieces of jewellery, treasured not only for its intrinsic value but also as a remembrance of Carlton and the supreme sacrifice he had made for her.

She had noticed nothing in the crowd, nothing more than she had noticed scores of times before. The woman watched her puzzled look.

“I’ve been following you,” she said. “By this time the other store detectives must have caught the shoplifter and bag-opener who touched you. You see, we don’t make any arrests in the store if we can help it, because we don’t like to make a scene. It’s bad for business. Besides, if she had anything else, we are safer when the case comes to court, if we have caught her actually leaving the store with it. Of course, when we make an arrest on the sidewalk, we bring the shoplifter back, but in a private, back elevator.”

Constance was following the young woman mechanically. At least there was a chance of recovering the ring.

“She was standing next to you at the jewellery counter,” she continued, “and if you will help identify her, the store management will appreciate it – and make it worth your while. Besides,” she urged, “It’s really your duty to do it, madam.”

Constance remembered now the rather simply but richly gowned young woman who had been standing next to her at the counter, seemingly unable to decide which of a number of beautiful rings she really wanted. She remembered because, with her own love of beauty, she had wanted one herself, in fact had thought at the time that she, too, might have difficulty in choosing.

With the added feeling of curiosity, Constance followed the woman detective up in the elevator.

In the office, apart in a little room curiously furnished with a camera, innumerable photographs, cabinets, and filing cases, was a young woman, perhaps twenty-six or seven. On a table before her lay a pile of laces and small trinkets. There, too, was the beautiful diamond ring which she had hidden in her muff. Constance fairly gasped at the sight.

The girl was sitting limply in a chair crying bitterly. She was not a hardened looking creature. In fact, her face bore evident traces of refinement, and her long, slender fingers hinted at a nervous, artistic temperament. It was rather a shock to see such a girl under such distressing circumstances.

“We’ve lost so much lately,” a small ferret-eyed man was saying, “that we must make an example of some one. It’s serious for us detectives, too. We’ll lose our jobs unless we can stop you boosters.”

“Oh – I – I didn’t mean to do it. I – I just couldn’t help it,” sobbed the girl over and over again.

“Yes,” drawled the man, “that’s what they all say. But you’ve been caught with the goods, this time, young lady.”

A woman entered, and the man turned to her quickly.

“Carr – Kitty Carr. Did you find anything under that name?”

“No, sir,” replied the woman store detective. “We’ve looked all through the records and the photographs. We don’t find her. And yet I don’t think it is an alias – at least, if it is, not an alias for any one we have any record of. I’ve a good eye for faces, and there isn’t one we have on file as – as good looking,” she added, perhaps with a little touch of wistfulness at her own plainness and this beauty gone wrong.

“This is the woman who lost the ring,” put in the other woman detective, motioning to Constance, who had accompanied her and was standing, a silent spectator.