The Purloined Curio: A Lizzie Borden, Girl Detective Mini-Mystery

By Richard Behrens

Introducing Miss Lizzie Borden of Fall River, Massachusetts, a most excellent girl detective and the most remarkable young woman ever to take on the criminal underworld. Many years before her infamous arrest and trial for the murders of her father and stepmother, Lizzie Borden pursued a career as a private consulting detective as chronicled in this clever and imaginative series of short stories. When Elizabeth Wingate, a fraudulent spiritualist, comes to Fall River to exploit the grief of a bereaved widow, Lizzie Borden the Girl Detective joins forces with her cousin Sarah Borden and Homer Thesinger the Boy Inventor to protect the widow and expose a dark secret. Is the Cabinet of Curiosities haunted by the spirit of Awashuncks, Squaw Sachem of the Sakonnet? Find out in The Purloined Curio, the third mystery in the Lizzie Borden Girl Detective Mini-Mystery series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Behrens
• Release date: Feb 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310613258

Richard Behrens

Richard Behrens is the co-founder of Nine Muses Books and author of the Lizzie Borden, Girl Detective series of mysteries. He is a contributor to The Hatchet: A Journal of Lizzie Borden and Victorian Studies as well as The Literary Hatchet, both available from PearTree Press. He is a regular lecturer on eccentric Victorian women and silent film comedy and often gets confused about what century he lives in. A native New Yorker, now living in New England, Richard is working on several more Lizzie Borden, Girl Detective mysteries including two novels: The Minuscule Monk (2015) and The Wilmarth Immovables (2016).

Book preview

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The Purloined Curio

A Lizzie Borden, Girl Detective

Mini-Mystery #3

Richard Behrens

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NINE MUSES BOOKS

Copyright © 2015

Smashwords Edition

Published by Nine Muses Books at Smashwords

Copyright © 2015 Richard Behrens

All Rights Reserved

A Lizzie Borden, Girl Detective Mini-Mystery #3

www.lizziebordengirldetective.com

www.ninemusesbooks.com

Cover illustration: Lizzie Cameo by Marc Reed

www.marcreed.com

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This story first appeared in The Hatchet: A Journal of Lizzie Borden & Victorian Studies.

Reprinted by permission of PearTree Press

Nine Muses Books

New England, USA

August 1875. Fall River, Massachusetts.

1. Voices From the Summerlands

Sarah Durfee Borden was growing weary of the pretense of mystery, of her mother’s face glowing in the kerosene light, of the twins’ cries of astonishment as each new trumpet blast sounded beyond the shadows in the far corner of the parlor. But what she was tired of the most was Elizabeth Wingate’s flabby jowls nodding and chortling in some pathetic act of spirit possession. All in all, Sarah was sick of the endless séances and dancing flames, of loud snapping table raps and candle light, of cold wisps blasted from over her shoulder to make her believe that her dead father was somehow in the room.

Young Sarah, not quite fifteen years of age, born and bred in the Fall River parlors that were more suited for salons than spirit rooms, knew a charlatan when she saw one, and Elizabeth Wingate, despite her aristocratic airs and altruistic demeanor, was a fraud of the first order, a hoax mistress, a traveling snake oil peddler. How much money had the Widow Borden, her mother, spent on these endless rituals of hocus-pocus and supposed spirit visitations? How many textile dividends had been liquidated in sacrifice to Wingate’s bank account? How many superstitions and weaknesses in her mother’s character had been exploited by this fraud—this silly woman who claimed that by using clairvoyant powers not only would she reunite Mrs. Borden with her dear departed husband, but would also locate his missing will?

Jonathan Borden is but a mere whisper, a glimmering cloud passing through the Summerlands, the corpulent Englishwoman said in a low rumbling voice. Mrs. Borden, you are the flame that is attracting him to our sphere of matter. He yearns only to be close again to your material manifestation.

Where is my Jon? Mrs. Borden cried, her face wet with her own burning sadness. I want to hear his voice once more!

The young twins cowered in their high chairs, small beings terrified by flickering lights and dark shadows that they could not understand. Papa! said the one on the left. They still could not comprehend his absence, and this farcical charade was only confusing them.

Sarah rolled her eyes and pressed her hands against the gilt tablecloth. "Don’t forget to ask him to empty his slops. There’s an awful

Reviews for The Purloined Curio

[majesdane-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nancy Drew meets Lizzie Borden. With loads and loads of self-awareness, tongue firmly in cheek. This was super cute and fun.