‘A Classic Forgery’
ROY VICKERS

NAME: Fidelity Dove, Avenger 
PLACE: London and Swallowsbath 
TIME: 1924

CASES: ‘The Great Kabul Diamond’ (1923), ‘The St Jocasta Tapestries’ (1924), ‘The Exploits of Fidelity Dove’ (1935) etc.

DOSSIER: The petite, angelic-looking Fidelity Dove was the first female crook-turned-righter-of-wrongs. She was preceded only by the incorrigibly criminal Madame Koluchy, the mastermind in ‘The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings’ (1899), the sinister Madame Sara in ‘The Sorceress of the Strand’ (1903)-both novels by the Victorian authoress, Lillie Meade-and ‘Lady Mechante’ (1909), a confidence trickster who convinced the gullible of Boston that she was in contact with Martians and set up a fake cult in Gelett Burgess’s novel. Unlike these female villains, Fidelity has changed from master burglar to avenger of all those who have been cheated or robbed by unscrupulous businessmen and brutal criminals-usually enriching herself in the process. A woman of fragile beauty, with mesmerising violet eyes and a strict moral code, Fidelity has at her beck and call several talented admirers including a scientist, Appleby, and a lawyer, Sir Frank Wrawton. Often her exploits bring her into contact with Detective Inspector Rason of Scotland Yard, who once referred to her as ‘the coolest crook in London’, although he now admires her ability to outwit even the cleverest criminals. Fidelity moves easily through fashionable society-invariably dressed in grey to complement her eyes and to reinforce her almost puritanical attitude to life. She is unorthodox in her methods and well deserves the accolade that was given to her by Ellery Queen in 1947, that she ‘raised the gentle art of craft and cracksmanship to a new peak’.

CREATOR: Originally published as ‘by David Durham’, the stories of Fidelity Dove were actually written by Roy Vickers (1889-1965), a former court reporter, magazine editor and prolific writer of sensational, topical and crime fiction novels between the two world wars. He used the Durham pseudonym for a number of his early crime stories and it was not until almost a decade after the launching of the series about the ethereal girl avenger, that his real name appeared on a collected edition of the stories. As well as his pioneer Fidelity Dove exploits, Vickers also created a memorable aged criminal mastermind, Jabez Winterbourne, in ‘The Gold Game’ and ‘Hide Those Diamonds’, plus thirty-eight highly regarded cases about a fictional branch of Scotland Yard known as the Department of Dead Ends, whose sole purpose was to take on cases that other police detectives had failed to solve. Leading this group of painstaking crime-busters was the selfsame Inspector Rason who had learned his craft in the shadow of Fidelity Dove! Both the policeman and the angelic avenger feature in ‘A Classic Forgery’ in which a devious property speculator thinks he has got the better of Fidelity. Only thinks, that is...

THE STORY:

Fidelity Dove is the only thief in history-if thief we must call her-who can claim to have stolen a landscape. Incidentally, she provided our jurists with an illuminating essay on the jurisprudence of forgery.
The particular landscape she stole was that of Swallowsbath. If you have been there in recent years to admire the richly wooded slopes, the verdant meadows, the quaint old-world cottages, and, above all, the fairy glen where the river comes tumbling down a miniature mountain-know that you would have admired a quarry and a saw-mill if Fidelity hadn’t stolen the whole countryside-woods, hills, river, village and meadows.
Fidelity’s country seat was-and still is-at Swallowsbath. She has a house and some seven acres. The house is a reproduction of an old Tudor farmhouse. When Fidelity first owned it, it was a genuine Tudor farmhouse but-
It happened like this:
Fidelity had been feeling rather tired and had run down to Swallows-bath for a week’s holiday, taking only her aged aunt with her. In the four-mile drive from the station the aunt slept and Fidelity gazed out upon her beloved woods and fields. Her car swung up to the genuine Tudor door of ‘The Farm House’, and Fidelity helped her aunt tenderly out. As she did so, she saw from the faces of her servants that something was amiss. From their incoherent explanations she gathered that the trouble concerned Swallowsbath.
Fidelity rested, bathed and changed into a grey linen frock with a sunbonnet to match. Then she strolled into the village, which consists, as you know, of some dozen-odd cottages and two very nice hotels, built by architects who knew their job and loved Swallowsbath.
She encountered Mrs Jorman in tears.
‘Oh, haven’t you heard, missie? It’s this Mr Stranack. There’s the woods and the fairy glen and the ‘otels and the ‘ole village. He’s bought the ‘ole place from his poor lordship and we’ve all got to be out in three months and the ‘otels is to be shut-‘
‘My poor friend, your troubles oppress you so that they seem to you greater than they are.’ Fidelity’s wonderful violet eyes were lustrous with sympathy. ‘He cannot turn you out of your homes.’
‘That’s what his lordship’s agent said, but he can, all the same,’ said Mrs Jorman. ‘He’s employed every man that owns a house on his quarry over at Inchfield and ‘e’s found cottages of his own for them which he’s built a-purpose, so we’ve all got to go. I wonder you ‘aven’t ‘eard, miss, because, if George’s got it right, ‘e’s goin’ to run ‘is own railway through your grounds.’
‘I fear George, too, is overweighted with sorrow,’ said Fidelity. ‘I was not his lordship’s tenant. The house and the grounds are my own, and I promise you that no railway shall run through them, Mrs Jorman.’
‘Well, that’s a comfort, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Jorman, brightening somewhat. ‘I says to George, I says, “You wait till Miss Dove”-oh lawks, miss, ‘ere ‘e ‘is. No, I don’t mean George, missie, I mean-I-‘
A yellow sports car with a yellow-liveried chauffeur passed them. Mrs Jorman abjectly curtsied. Fidelity Dove studied the occupant from under the frills of her sunbonnet. The car passed on and half a mile further turned into the drive of Fidelity’s own house.
‘Mrs Jorman, he has gone to call upon me. Goodbye. I will not fail you-and Swallowsbath.’
Mr Stranack’s car was slowly emerging from the gates of the Farm House when Fidelity reached them. Mr Stranack leant over the edge of the tonneau. His hard eyes raked Fidelity’s slender grey form.
‘Say, d’you know where Miss Dove is?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Fidelity, dropping a curtsy.
‘Well, where is she? Speak up, I can’t hear.’
‘I am here, sir,’ said Fidelity more meekly than ever.
‘Eh, what? You Miss Dove? Beg pardon, I’m sure.’ Mr Stranack jerked at his hat and lurched out of the car. ‘I’ve come here in the hope of seeing you, Miss Dove. I’m the new owner of Swallowsbath, as I daresay you’ve heard by now, and I thought maybe you and I could have a chat with something hanging at the end of it for you.’
‘Something for me!’ echoed Fidelity wonderingly. ‘That is very generous of you, Mr Stranack. Will you come into my poor house?’
Mr Stranack came in. He knew so little of panellings and carvings and apostle spoons and primrose Wedgwood that he was able to go on taking it for granted that Fidelity was a dead farmer’s daughter and as simple as her sunbonnet.
‘I’m a man of few words, Miss Dove,’ he explained. ‘I’ve got the whole country hereabouts with the exception of your land and house. I’ve got it into my head I’d like to have this too. There, I’m not bluffing you. I’ve let slip I want it. And now I expect you’ll ask me a fancy price.’
Fidelity always thought in lightning flashes. During the dialogue in the drive she had decided upon Mr Stranack’s fate. Her face took on an expression almost ethereal in its innocence.
‘Fancy price!’ she repeated. ‘That means more than a thing is worth, does it not? Oh, I could never do such a thing! Do you really think that I would ask more money because you have so frankly revealed to me that your heart is set upon buying my property?’
Mr Stranack looked surprised, then wary, then-after a searching glance-extremely pleased.
‘Well-it’s very fair of you to take that attitude, I’m sure,’ he mumbled. ‘Well now, suppose we strike a medium. What do you say to five thousand pounds down for the title deeds?’
Lord Carronmere had sold it to Fidelity for just that sum-because he knew that she understood Swallowsbath. She could have resold it for double had she wished.
Fidelity’s sunbonnet had fallen back. Her pale-gold hair framed her face as though she were a haloed saint. Her voice was liltingly sweet.
‘Five thousand pounds! But that is surely too much. I will not take advantage of your generosity, Mr Stranack. You are deliberately offering a higher price because I am a woman. If you really wish to buy my property, the price is three thousand.’
Mr Stranack looked almost frightened. She could see him pinching himself to make sure he was awake. Then he pulled himself together.
‘Miss Dove, you’re the first lady I’ve met, or man either, come to that, who hasn’t tried to take advantage of me. It’s a deal. Well, what about the title deeds? May I send my solicitor round here this evening?’
‘Oh, please, no!’ begged Fidelity. ‘I am so frightened of solicitors-and this is a personal matter between you and me, Mr Stranack. Tomorrow evening, if you will call again, I will hand you the title deeds. Then you can let your solicitor do what is necessary and you yourself can bring the remaining papers to me to sign.’
Mr Stranack agreed. He would have agreed to anything. Fidelity knew that it would be quite unnecessary to caution him to say nothing of the deal until it was over. She spoke instead of the Swallowsbath Young Girls’ Guild, in which she was so deeply interested. Their meeting-room, it appeared, required a piano. Mr Stranack, to his own surprise, took out his chequebook and fountain pen and presented the Swallowsbath Young Girls’ Guild with fifty pounds for a piano. He made the cheque payable to Fidelity and told himself that he had never seen such eyes.
When he had gone, Fidelity called London, and in half an hour was speaking to Appleby, the scientist, perhaps the most remarkable member of that remarkable band which had given life and honour into her keeping.
‘Appleby, my friend, can you perform the marvel of throwing a light through parchment so that it becomes transparent as tissue paper?... Then you must come and do it. And bring three of our friends, who are to carry with them those unbeautiful crowbars and blowlamps used by burglars. You will arrive, with all secrecy, at midnight tomorrow.’
At half-past nine on the following evening, Mr Stranack left the Farm House with the title deeds in his pocket of the residence and the seven acres. He was to have them conveyanced and in three days return for Fidelity’s signature. Fidelity had been gently averse from undue haste.
At midnight, while Swallowsbath slept, Appleby and three of the gang arrived. Appleby brought with him a framework like a drawing-board and a high-power, portable electric lamp. Varley, Maines and Garfield wielded the unbeautiful implements of the burgling profession.
Fidelity welcomed them and opened to them the secret places of her heart.

On the following day Fidelity, once more alone in the house with her utterly insignificant relative, again called London. This time she rang Scotland Yard.
‘Good morning, Mr Rason. Fidelity Dove speaking. I want you to help me.’
There was an astounded silence. Then, ‘I’ve helped you about enough, Miss Dove, I should think,’ said Rason, who was great hearted enough to be able to make a joke at his own expense.
‘Oh, but this time it is something special!’ pleaded Fidelity. ‘I’m at my house at Swallowsbath. Last night the house was entered by burglars and my safe was broken. I have not said anything to the local police because I have no real confidence in them. There are only two, and their training-‘
‘I will come, Miss Dove,’ said Rason. He said it with a certain ominousness. Fidelity sighed, and closed her eyes as though in prayer.
Rason arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Fidelity met him at the station and drove him over. Fidelity looked lovely as an angel’s dream and Rason, in spite of himself, could not help being conscious of the fact. They spoke of the climate, the country, the crops, and in due course they arrived at the Farm House.
‘You will have tea before we begin?’ asked Fidelity.
‘No, thanks,’ said Rason, and Fidelity sighed again.
Fidelity took him to the study, showed him a crudely broken safe, bootprints on the cushions and the regulation paraphernalia of a cumbersome burglary. Rason took in the details in a few minutes. He nodded and grinned.
‘Just a little bit overdone, Miss Dove, if I may say so!’ he said in the height of good temper. ‘Ten years ago those bootmarks on the bow-window seat might have passed muster. But they always brush away that kind of thing nowadays.’
They were alone in the room together.
‘Don’t be insulted by that, Mr Rason,’ begged Fidelity, and her voice was tender as the call of birds in a silvery dusk.
‘I’m not insulted,’ said Rason, smiling still. ‘I take it as a compliment to me that you didn’t trouble to do it really well. You knew I’d guess it was a fake robbery, however you did it. The nights and nights I’ve lain awake thinking of your methods, Miss Dove, have taught me something. You know just how the Department compels me to work, and lay your plans accordingly. You know that the Regulations compel me to treat this as a burglary. That’s where you have the pull over us. We’re never fighting you brain for brain. We’re tied down by the laws of evidence and the rules of the Department. I used to think each time I’d got you. I’ve learnt something since then-including a proverb about a pitcher going to the well.’
‘And when the pitcher is broken, Mr Rason?’ The perfect voice lingered on the words.
Rason faltered. There was an odd catch in his own as he replied: ‘I don’t think of that, Miss Dove. It’s my duty to break it.’
‘Some tea,’ suggested Fidelity again, ‘and a taste of honey from my hives.’
‘Formalities first,’ said Rason. ‘I shall get into trouble if I don’t go through the whole programme.’ He spoke wearily. ‘Can you give me a list of the articles you’ve missed from the safe?’
‘Two gold candlesticks, the title deeds of this house and its grounds, an altar cloth worked three hundred years ago in Malines, worth even in worldly value a very great deal, my first copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress and two miniatures of my grandfather.’
Rason noted the items, a sardonic smile on his face. Then he accepted Fidelity’s invitation to tea. Again they talked of climate, cattle and countryside. He returned to London by the last train.
‘We shall let you know as soon as we have discovered anything,’ said Rason formally as he took his departure.
‘I feel sure you are already following an important clue,’ murmured Fidelity, and her pale-gold lashes swept her cheek.
Three days later Mr Stranack drove up to the Farm House with a deed of conveyance in his pocket. Fidelity was indisposed. He came again next day. Fidelity was out. He telephoned, and Fidelity answered him mildly.
‘I am so sorry!’ she crooned. ‘But I am afraid I cannot receive you tonight as the vicar is dining with me, and Mr Clarges, the agent. Will you send the documents to me and call for them tomorrow morning?... Oh, yes, I quite understand that. I will ask my guests to witness my signature.’
Fidelity had barely replaced the receiver before the vicar arrived. Over dinner the conversation inevitably turned to the imminent destruction of Swallowsbath.
‘They say,’ said the vicar gloomily, ‘that he cannot carry out this nefarious scheme unless he can obtain possession of your property, Miss Dove. I gather that it is required for the purposes of a-er-light railway.’
‘He asked me to sell him my home,’ said Fidelity. ‘And of course, I gave him the only answer one could give. It hurt me to disappoint him-he seemed so downcast-and yet his manner to me is most pleasant.’
‘The whole thing is an almost inconceivable catastrophe,’ said the agent. ‘The woods and the fairy glen!’ Words failed him.
‘Let us not dread misfortune before it comes,’ pleaded Fidelity. ‘If it should comfort you, my friends, I will not hesitate to say that deep within me is a feeling that this scourge shall pass and our beautiful countryside be preserved.’
The vicar and the agent, who knew nothing of Fidelity save that she was young and beautiful and loved Swallowsbath as they did, looked appropriately comforted, but wondered what Stranack wanted the light railway for.

At ten o’clock on the following morning Mr Stranack was ushered into the study of the Farm House. Spread out on the Queen Anne escritoire was the conveyance of Fidelity’s property to himself.
‘Good morning, Miss Dove. You have completed that little matter? Very-ah-very kind of you. Just let me run my eyes over it, will you?’
Mr Stranack ran his eye over the document. It was an expert eye. Fidelity Dove’s signature, witnessed by the vicar and the agent, gave a property worth ten thousand in the open market and fifty thousand to him, into his possession for a paltry three thousand. A bit of luck, that, stumbling on such astounding ignorance!
‘Ah! That’s all correct, I think. It only remains for me to ask you for your receipt for three thousand pounds. I have the money here in notes.’
‘I have already written the receipt,’ said Fidelity, and handed it to him. He examined the receipt, too, found it satisfactory, and then took out his wallet.
‘One, two, three, four of five hundred each-that’s two thousand-and one for a thousand. Grand total, three thousand. It’s a lot of money, Miss Dove, but there-you might have made me pay another five hundred if you hadn’t been a perfect lady.’
‘Ah, I have no claims to rank,’ said Fidelity with beautiful modesty. ‘I attempt only to set an example which I pray may be followed by others.’
‘So do I,’ said Mr Stranack. ‘So do I. Ah, there’s just one thing. I daresay you noticed in this little piece of paper here’-Mr Stranack tapped the conveyance-‘that you have given me immediate possession, and-er-have included your furniture and effects in the sale. Now, when would it suit you to move? I’ll not press you for a week or two, but I’m going to put my men in the grounds in fourteen days from now.’
‘My preparations are made,’ returned Fidelity. ‘I shall leave tomorrow.’
By the end of the week Mr Stranack had removed the furniture. By the end of the month the house had been destroyed with dynamite and preparations were in full swing for running a light railway through the estate.

About a month after Fidelity had left Swallowsbath with Mr Stranack’s notes for three thousand pounds in her deep, grey bag, she was sitting in the inner office of Sir Frank Wrawton, her solicitor, weeping bitterly. She had been weeping bitterly for two or three minutes. Sir Frank was just about to suggest sal volatile when Fidelity became coherent.
‘The Farm House!’ gasped Fidelity. ‘My beautiful house at Swallowsbath!’
‘Yes?’ asked Sir Frank, trying to see whether Fidelity’s eyes were wet; for, more than once lately, his fair client had given him furiously to think. ‘Yes? Your house-?’
‘It is destroyed-razed to the ground-men are cutting up my beautiful terraces!’
Sir Frank registered incredulity, then consternation. He pressed for more particulars, but it was no use.
Fidelity could not-or would not-go beyond the bare fact she had stated. Each time she was overcome with emotion. Sir Frank had to conduct her to her car and promise to make immediate investigations.
To say that Sir Frank Wrawton was Fidelity’s solicitor is to say that he was a highly competent man.
By lunchtime he was in possession of the fact that Fidelity had sold her property absolutely to Mr Stranack. He had had a conversation with the latter’s solicitor, had apologised profusely for his interference and wondered exactly why Fidelity had omitted to mention the trifling fact that she had sold the Farm House, with furniture, effects, and seven acres, all complete. He rang up Fidelity with a view to telling her so.
‘But it is untrue!’ gasped Fidelity. ‘I would not sell that property. I love it, if indeed it be not impious to love a property.’
Sir Frank made a noise that might have meant anything.
‘Oh, light breaks upon me!’ exclaimed Fidelity. ‘Do you remember I told you about that burglary? My title deeds were amongst the things stolen. Do you think it possible that that can be the explanation?’
Sir Frank did not think it possible.
‘The man who has bought the place is practically a millionaire,’ he explained. ‘He has a very large backing. It wouldn’t pay him to buy a property without making the fullest investigations as to the authority of the vendor. However, I’ll look into the matter. It’s certainly a point to take up.’
Sir Frank did not have to look very far in the first instance. Mr Stranack’s solicitor, severely puzzled by the turn of events, showed Sir Frank the conveyance of the title deeds and Fidelity’s receipt for three thousand pounds.
‘Three thousand pounds!’ exclaimed Sir Frank. ‘She gave five thousand for it, and it was worth ten any day. It’s preposterous-‘
‘That is hardly my affair, Sir Frank,’ said the other solicitor. The deal was conducted by Mr Stranack personally. I was merely instructed to draw up the conveyance. The-er-morality of the deal is outside my province. You and I both know that the legality is unimpeachable. The money, I understand, was paid in notes. Doubtless my client will have the numbers and I’ll ask him for them. Miss Dove must have passed them and that should simplify matters.’
It did not simplify matters. It complicated them. The notes, as far as could be ascertained from Fidelity’s bank, had never been passed. The numbers were circulated throughout the clearing houses. Nothing happened.
‘Well, in effect it amounts to this,’ said Sir Frank to Mr Stranack’s solicitor. ‘My client denies any knowledge of the deal. In other words, she declares that the signatures to these documents are forgeries. Will you allow her access to them? May I bring her here?’
Fidelity was timidly willing to be brought. When she arrived, a poem in grey and silver, Mr Stranack was discovered to be present also.
‘Oh, Mr Stranack!’ she cried at sight of him. ‘They told me it is you who have destroyed my house. Tell me that it is not true. I will never believe it of you.’
‘Never believe-What the-You sold the house and grounds to me. What have you got to complain of?’ raved Mr Stranack.
Fidelity turned to Sir Frank and clung to his arm.
‘He bewilders me,’ she faltered. ‘He declares that I sold him my property. Can it be that he really believes it?’
Sir Frank stroked his chin. Mr Stranack’s legal adviser induced Mr Stranack to resume his chair.
‘Look here,’ began Mr Stranack when he could speak. ‘I came to your house twice. I can prove that.’
‘You came on my invitation,’ said Fidelity, ‘because you were interested in the Swallowsbath Young Girls’ Guild. You kindly gave me a cheque on the first occasion-for a piano-and then you came to see-‘
‘Yes, and I’ve got that cheque in my pocket with your endorsement on the back of it,’ broke out Stranack. ‘And I’ve compared it with your signature on the document. You can’t repudiate that.’
Fidelity was shown her signature on the document. She glanced from the conveyance to the receipt. Again she turned to Sir Frank.
‘Oh, what can I do?’ she sobbed. ‘I cannot say that that is not my signature. It seems the same in every particular. Yet I did not sign it. I have never seen those documents before.’
‘Very well, then, Miss Dove, you declare them to be forgeries?’ asked Sir Frank.
‘I fear it must be so,’ said Fidelity, and gave a quivering sigh. ‘Please take me away.’
Events after that moved quickly. First there were the handwriting experts who photographed the signatures, made lantern slides of them, and examined them on the screen. There were five handwriting experts altogether, and they were unanimous in their verdict. The signature of Fidelity Dove on the deed of conveyance and upon the receipt had been traced. Further, as is common in cases of forgery by tracing, the signature had in each case been traced backwards, the tracer beginning with the V of Dove.
There was a further conclave, in which Fidelity’s bank manager figured. He examined Mr Stranack’s cheque for fifty pounds which had been endorsed by Fidelity, and gave it as his opinion that the tracing had been made on the endorsement. He supported this theory by pointing to a tiny flourish on the ‘y’ due, doubtless, to a slip of the pen. This flourish had been faithfully copied on the two documents. In the meantime the vicar of Swallowsbath and the agent had been interviewed and immediately denied ever having witnessed Miss Dove’s signature to anything. Weight was given to their denial by the fact that the signatures on the documents in no way resembled the signatures with which they provided the investigator.
Further, in a manner unknown to Mr Stranack and his solicitor, and only guessed at by Sir Frank Wrawton, the newspapers got hold of the full facts and made a sensation of it. The newspapers, of course, were very careful in the matter of libel, but-the facts were the facts. Mr Stranack’s open letter to the Press stating that he had paid Miss Dove three thousand pounds in notes for a property admittedly worth more than three times that amount, did not improve matters for him. Mr Stranack did not attempt to explain why, on the evidence of the bank, Miss Dove had never passed the notes he stated he had paid her.
‘Where are the missing notes?’ demanded the Evening Record, growing bolder than the rest. ‘Mr Stranack has favoured the Press with their numbers, together with the request for our assistance in finding them. Mr Stranack may have all the assistance he requires from ourselves if he will allow a Record man to search his London house.’
Mr Stranack, breathing actions for libel, allowed a Record man to search his London house. The Record man, acting, it must be admitted, on the strength of an anonymous telephone message, found the notes for three thousand, bearing the published numbers, behind the skirting-board in Mr Stranack’s dining-room.
When this was added to evidence provided by Scotland Yard that a burglary had been committed at Miss Dove’s house from which, amongst other things, her title deeds had been stolen, the case was now complete against Mr Stranack of having caused to be stolen the title deeds of the said property, of ordering an innocent solicitor to make a deed of conveyance in respect thereof, and of forging the signature of Miss Dove and two witnesses. No one would believe that he was interested in Swallowsbath Young Girls’ Guild, and the trifling cheque was taken as a trick for obtaining Fidelity’s signature.
After the discovery of the notes, Sir Frank Wrawton received a guarded intimation that while Mr Stranack refused to admit Miss Dove’s statement, he was in the circumstances prepared to discuss the question of compensating her, for the injury she believed herself to have suffered at his hands.

Fidelity was late for the conference which was to be held at Sir Frank Wrawton’s office. When she came in, Sir Frank, Stranack’s solicitor and Detective Inspector Rason simultaneously arose. Mr Stranack himself remained seated.
Mr Stranack’s solicitor opened the proceedings.
‘Madam, my client is of the opinion that the rumour that you intended to take criminal proceedings against him-‘
‘Pah!’ came in an explosion from Mr Stranack. ‘You can drop that punk. I’ve been done brown by a crook and she’s the one criminal proceedings ought to be taken against.’
The others protested, but Mr Stranack roared on.
‘Think I don’t know a plant when it’s built round me? Who robbed that safe? You yourself, you-Miss Dove-ask the detective. Who traced the signature on the receipt and the deed? You yourself-from the endorsement of my cheque for fifty pounds that you wheedled me into giving you for some tomfool guild. Who planted the notes in my house? One of your burglar pals. Ask the detective again.’
‘The place to ask the detective questions of that nature, Mr Stranack,’ put in Sir Frank, ‘is the witness box in the prosecution of Miss Dove for conspiracy.’
‘Mush! Think I don’t know that? Think she’d be here if she didn’t know she’d got me? That I’m dead certain to be convicted of forgery and arson and a few other trifles if I go into court? As for that detective-I don’t mean him no harm, he was the one to put me wise-but it’s all punk about a prosecution. I’ve simply got to listen here and find out how much I’ve got to pay to get out of it.’
Fidelity looked with the eyes of a pitying, forgiving saint at the man who had evicted the tenantry of Swallowsbath and proposed to scar the countryside for the purpose of gain. Then she touched her eyelids with a wisp of lace and spoke brokenly: ‘Sir Frank, you could have protected me from insult. Why did you allow me to come here? But oh! how I grieve for this unhappy man.’
‘Play-acting!’ shouted Stranack. Then, more hastily, as Fidelity moved towards the door: ‘What are you going to do, Miss Dove?’
‘I can do nothing. The police are here.’ She gave a little bow to Rason. ‘I know nothing of the law-but surely, Sir Frank, it is now impossible for me to arrest the hand of Justice?’
‘I think Sir Frank will bear me out,’ put in Mr Stranack’s solicitor, ‘when I say that the whole case turns upon your view of the matter, Miss Dove. If you are prepared to accept my client’s assurance that he knows nothing of all this-that some preposterous chain of accidents has enmeshed him-‘
‘Ah, but Mr Warne,’ returned Fidelity earnestly, ‘does he believe that in his heart?’
Sir Frank caught Rason’s eye. Both men looked away with shaking shoulders.
‘Well, then, I say this,’ sneered Stranack. ‘The whole thing is my fault. I was careless. I bought the title deeds from burglars who assured me that your signature was appended. I ought to have taken steps to verify your willingness to deal, but I did not. I gave orders for the demolition of your property. I am sincerely sorry and I beg you to allow me to compensate you.’
Mr Stranack spoke with a virulent irony which clearly proclaimed that he did not believe a word of what he was saying.
‘That alters the case, does it not, Sir Frank?’ asked Fidelity. ‘I would not like to be the means of any fellow creature going to prison. We must not turn our backs upon those who come to us in true penitence.’
‘My client offers ten thousand pounds,’ said the solicitor.
‘That is, roughly, the market value of the property,’ said Sir Frank, who had recovered his outward composure. ‘It is no offer of moral compensation.’
‘Moral compensation,’ said Fidelity with a soft upward look which Rason appeared to have seen before. ‘I had not thought of that. What moral compensation can there be for the destruction of a thing of beauty? Ah, you cannot pay for that with mere money, Mr Stranack. You can only replace a thing of beauty with another thing of beauty. Can you do this, think you?’
‘Oh, yes, I can do it. I’ll give you the whole of my title deeds for Swallowsbath-timber rights and the houses and hotels and everything, if you like!’ said Mr Stranack, emphasising his own ponderous irony with tremendously hollow laughter.
‘That would seem to me true repentance,’ said Fidelity with an exalted smile. ‘I accept your offer-‘
‘What! D’you think I was serious?’ bellowed Mr Stranack, precipitating himself out of his chair.
‘You were joking on such a subject?’ said Fidelity. There was a hushed reproof in every word.
‘Of course I was joking-if you call it a joke! Do you really think I would be such an imbecile-‘
‘You were joking,’ sighed Fidelity. ‘Your heart is hardened and you seek but to deceive me with talk of repentance. You have destroyed my power to help you. Detective Inspector Rason, do your duty.’
‘I was joking again,’ said Mr Stranack in weak falsetto. ‘I meant you to have-the whole-of-Swallowsbath.’
‘I do not understand your humour, Mr Stranack,’ said Fidelity. ‘But it is not for me to deride the mentality of a fellow creature. If you mean what you say, Sir Frank Wrawton will arrange the-er-conveyancing, as I think it is called.’
‘Oh, yes, that’s what it’s called,’ moaned Mr Stranack. Fidelity shook her head over him and left the room.
Mr Stranack unbuttoned his waistcoat. The others looked alarmed, but Mr Stranack, when he spoke, spoke mildly-one might almost say reverently.
‘I take off my hat to that woman,’ he said. ‘A thing of beauty-which no mere money can square. In mere money I paid thirty-five thousand for Swallowsbath. In mere money those two hotels, of which she’ll have complete possession, yield a net profit of eight thousand three hundred per annum. The rent roll-‘
Mr Stranack’s voice trailed off into nothingness.