Wanted!: A Detective’s Strange Adventures

By Dick Donovan

„Wanted! A Detective’s Strange Adventures”, by James Edward Muddock (Dick Donovan), is a collection of 22 short stories. For a time his detective stories were as popular as those of Arthur Conan Doyle. Between 1889 and 1922 he published nearly 300 detective and mystery stories. Donovan investigates crime in all its forms, recovering priceless jewels, exposing villainous conspiracies and solving dastardly murders!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ktoczyta.pl
• Release date: Mar 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9788382925548

Book preview

2. A DYING CONFESSION

FOR many years Dr. William Albert Simson resided in a somewhat isolated house in the Stretford Road, near Old Trafford, Manchester, where he practised and carried on his profession. It was before Stretford Road had become one long monotonous street as it is now. At that period the houses did not extend much above the junction of the Chorlton Road, or, at any rate, what houses there were, were detached or semi-detached; and the country on either side was open and wooded. Manchester has the unenviable notoriety of being one of the most hideously ugly cities in the kingdom; but, on the other hand, it has the advantage over many other cities that rank in the same category of being possessed of most charming suburbs. The speculative builder, however, has long been doing his best to destroy all the beauty that the suburbs possessed, and the Stretford Road, as I knew it in the days of my youth, no longer exists. Its picturesqueness has been quite destroyed; the wide open stretches of fields are now covered with miles and miles of monotonous, squalid, ugly rows of houses, devoid of all architectural beauty, and maddening in their similarity to each other. The trees have all been cut down, and the hedgerows swept away, while the grimy, overgrown, dirty town has pushed its way far beyond Old Trafford itself, which was formerly a delightful bit of country. However, this is by the way, and the recollection of what Stretford Road am about to relate, and what it is now, is responsible for my remarks.

Dr. Simson was a man whom nature had peculiarly favoured, for he was a fine, handsome-looking fellow, with an exceedingly good appearance and commanding presence. Physically, it might be said, he lacked nothing that could possibly make him attractive. In this case, however, this was rather a misfortune than otherwise, for he was young–a little over thirty–and somewhat wanting in that stability of character and purpose which are indispensable to a professional man who is desirous of living beyond the reach of scandal. Simson was a married man with two young children, a girl and boy; but notwithstanding this, it was said that he was much given to flirtation, and stories were rife that female patients of his had fallen desperately in love with him, and that he had been too weak to resist their blandishments. I merely mention this for what it is worth. But it is pretty certain that he owed his subsequent troubles in a large measure to the crystallized belief that his matrimonial bonds were irksome to him, and that he sighed to be a free lance. As he was accounted clever, his practice was large, larger perhaps than that of any of his local brethren, and this in itself made him an object of a good deal of envy and jealousy, for alas unhappily, human nature is incapable of being generous when it considers itself neglected. In Simson’s case some very hard things were said about him, and there is little doubt that there was a tacit cabal amongst his local colleagues to ruin him. But he seemed to be indifferent to all this, for while his pleasant, gentlemanly manner, to say nothing of his good looks, made him a favourite with ladies, his acknowledged ability as a medical man caused a large general demand for his services.

It would seem, therefore, as if this young medico hell at that time fortune and fame at his disposal. Within certain limits this was true, but there were causes at work which were surely tending to do that which his detractors were incapable of doing, namely, to blast his reputation and ruin his prospects.

As there is no fruit so fair but it may have a worm at its core, so there is no home, however well it may seem to be ordered, but has its skeleton; and Dr. Simson’s home was no exception. Indeed, it may be said that his skeleton was a very grim thing indeed, for its name was the green-eyed monster.

His wife was older than he was, and was accounted plain- looking even by her best friends. Perhaps, when all the circumstances and conditions are considered, it was natural–having regard to the constitution of human nature–that the lady should be jealous of her husband. But had she been a wise woman, she would have refrained from constantly nagging at him, as it was said she did, and from making his home-life unbearable. Whatever his faults were, it may be doubted if they were so heinous as to justify his wife in destroying his peace and happiness, and of surrounding her children with an atmosphere of discord and jealousy. But when once the demon jealousy takes possession of a woman’s breast, common sense flies away. Mrs. Simson evidently considered herself an ill-used creature, and that being so, she was resolved that her husband’s life should be rendered as uncomfortable as it was in her power to make it.

In the interest of this narrative it is necessary that the constitution of the doctor’s household should be referred to in detail. Besides his wife and two children, there were a cook, two housemaids, a general servant, a page boy, a coachman, a stableman, and a dispensary assistant; and last, though not least, a nursery governess. The house was a large one, and no doubt his income was equal to the calls that such a household would make upon it. At any rate, he lived well, and was reputed to be coining money. There was one very strong and disturbing element, however, in the person of the nursery governess, a Miss Phoebe Muirhead, who hailed from Glasgow. This young woman, who was possessed of considerable attractions in the shape of good looks and figure, was the cause of much heart-burning and bitterness between the doctor and his wife. Of course, it was a very old story, and a very vulgar one, and afforded one more item of painful evidence of the inherent weakness of human nature. It appeared that Mrs. Simson detested Phoebe, and wished to have her out of the house; but the doctor, with high-handed authority, declared that he was and would be master of his own household; and that, as his wife’s jealousy was as stupid as it was ill- founded, he would not concede anything to her, and that Phoebe should remain. And remain she did, with the result that violent discord reigned for two years in the doctor’s establishment. No prophet was needed to predict that such a state of matters could not last for any great length of time, and the culmination could hardly fail to be exceedingly disagreeable. The quarrels between the doctor and his wife grew more frequent and more violent, and they mutually separated from bed and board though living under the same roof. The culminating stage was reached at last, when one day a quarrel more violent than usual occurred between the doctor and his wife. It arose from some very unguarded and foolish remark made by Mrs. Simson about Phoebe Muirhead; and this being resented by the doctor, an explosion resulted. It was said that he so far forgot himself as to strike his wife; but on this point there was a conflict of evidence. The doctor visited his patients as usual, returning home soon after midday, when the quarrel was renewed. It was his custom to see patients at his house from two to four, after which he again went out visiting, usually returning home between six and seven, when he dined, and if his services were not in demand he spent the evening from home. The routine was necessarily an arbitrary one, and subject to many alterations by the exigencies of his calling; but on the day I instanced it was pretty closely followed.

When he had had his dinner he went to his wife’s room for the purpose, as he himself avowed, of trying to appease her wrath. But in this he was not successful, and they parted in stormy anger. He left the house saying he would be back about ten; it was then a little after eight. An hour later Mrs. Simson was seized with illness, which in a short time presented such alarming symptoms that a neighbouring doctor named Reynolds was summoned. Recognizing the urgency of the ease, and yet finding a difficulty in diagnosing it, he called in the assistance of a colleague, and after a consultation they decided that the unfortunate lady was suffering from the effects of a violent irritant poison. She had already passed into a stage of delirium–collapse ensued, and in spite of everything they tried, she gradually sank and died.

An hour later Dr. Simson returned home, and it was averred that when he heard of his wife’s death he seemed glad.

Of course the circumstances and suddenness of the poor woman’s decease rendered a post-mortemexamination indispensable, with the result that it was proved beyond doubt that death was due to the administration of cherry laurel water, a very powerful and irritant poison, the effects of which on the human system are extremely rapid.

In Dr. Simson’s surgery there was found a bottle, not quite full, of the cherry laurel water, and critical examination proved that the bottle had recently been disturbed, and a portion of its contents taken out, while a basin that had contained soup of which Mrs. Simson had partaken gave unmistakable evidence that the soup had been poisoned, for the few drops remaining in the basin were found by analysis to be impregnated with the deadly liquid.

On the face of it it seemed clearly a case of murder or suicide, but murder being the most probable, Dr. Simson was arrested and charged with having caused the death of his wife. The unhappy life that he had led with his wife and the causes that produced that unhappiness certainly militated strongly against him, and there was a very generally expressed belief that he would be convicted. His preliminary examination resulted in his being committed for trial, which subsequently took place at the Assizes, and the whole of the pitiable story as I have related it was duly unfolded. The evidence that was tendered by the prosecution was of the most superficial, circumstantial character, and from the very first it was seen to be so weak as to render a conviction highly improbable.

Not a soul was brought forward who could swear that Simson had ever been heard to threaten his wife, who was described as an excitable and violent-tempered woman. But the prosecution urged that her excitability and violence of temper were due to her husband’s conduct. On the other hand, one witness swore that the doctor was most kind to his wife, and she had heard her on more than one occasion threaten to take her own life. This witness was Phoebe Muir-head, and though she was subjected to a long and merciless examination at the hands of one of the ablest counsel of the day, who conducted the prosecution, her evidence was not shaken in the least. Of course Phoebe became an object of great interest, not only on account of her good looks, but from her self-possessed manner and her extreme coolness under the legal fire.

Indeed, it was said that she was one of the most remarkable witnesses ever examined in a murder trial. Of course, the prosecution did everything they possibly could to discredit her, and an attempt was made to prove that there had been a liaisonbetween her and her master, and that he had murdered his wife in order that he might marry Phoebe. This attempt, however, was quite a failure, for it was not backed up by one jot of evidence, and all the servants of the household spoke to the doctor being an exceedingly kind and good-natured man. The trial extended over three days, and resulted in the acquittal of the accused, who was most skilfully defended, and the theory set up by the defence was that of suicide. So plausible indeed was this made to appear that public opinion, which at first in its general drift had been against the doctor, completely turned in his favour, and the theory of suicide was considered by the people as being clearly