The Piccadilly Puzzle

The Piccadilly Puzzle by Fergus Hume

Fergus Hume's "The Piccadilly Puzzle" opens at a Park Lane ball, where Spenser Ellersby, newly returned to England after years abroad, learns from the gossip-monger Horace Marton (nicknamed "The Town-crier") that Sir Rupert Balscombe's low-born wife is entangled with Lord Calliston, even as Calliston is loved by his own ward, May Penfold, who in turn loves Calliston's cousin and secretary, Myles Desmond. Walking home through thick fog, Ellersby meets an agitated Desmond in St. James's Street, then stumbles on the body of a fashionably dressed woman lying dead on a doorstep in Jermyn Street. A policeman is summoned; the body is taken to hospital, where Dr. Fanton finds no wound beyond a small scratch on the neck over the jugular vein, and concludes she was poisoned by a dagger or similar weapon. The sensational weekly paper "Hash" dubs the case "The Piccadilly Puzzle" and speculates that a cultured, poison-knowledgeable assassin is responsible. Detective Dowker takes the case. Tracing the victim's hat to milliner Madame Rêne, he learns it was sold to Lydia Fenny of Cleopatra Villa, St. John's Wood — the home Lord Calliston keeps for his mistress, Lena Sarschine. Visiting the villa, Dowker finds Lydia alive; she reveals her mistress borrowed the hat and dress that night to confront Calliston about his elopement plans with Lady Balscombe, and identifies a photograph of the corpse as Lena Sarschine. Dowker also notices a Malay kriss missing from a wall display of weapons and secretly takes its match, later confirming on Ellersby's bulldog Pickles (who dies from a scratch) that the daggers are poisoned. Investigating further, Dowker learns from Calliston's housekeeper, Mrs. Povy ("Totty"), that a woman answering Lena Sarschine's description visited Calliston's Piccadilly chambers on the night of the murder and quarreled with Myles Desmond, who had been left there to manage papers while Calliston supposedly departed for his yacht. Desmond is arrested, but questioning by Dowker, and later by lawyer Norwood and May Penfold, reveals Desmond is protecting a woman's honor by silence, refusing to name whom he actually saw that night, though he insists it wasn't Lena Sarschine. Dowker's inquiries deepen the mystery: Lady Balscombe's maid, Anne Lifford, describes a visitor in Lena Sarschine's clothes calling on Lady Balscombe the night of the murder, and both maids mistake each other's mistress's photograph — because, Dowker eventually discovers via ransacked papers and a trip to Folkestone, Lena Sarschine (born Helena Dicksfall) and Lady Balscombe (born Amelia Dicksfall) are twin sisters, daughters of the invalid Captain Michael Dicksfall. Calliston had seduced Helena under the false name "Carrill" years earlier; her sister Amelia later married Balscombe, then began an affair with Calliston. Dowker and Sir Rupert Balscombe travel to Calliston's yacht, the Seamew, at Brighton, expecting to find Lady Balscombe — but instead find Lena Sarschine, now Calliston's wife. She explains that on the fatal night the sisters met, exchanged clothes so Amelia could safely visit Calliston's chambers, and that Amelia never returned; Lena then went to the yacht in her sister's place, and Calliston, discovering the switch at sea, married her in France. This clarifies that it was Lady Balscombe, not Lena Sarschine, who died in Jermyn Street, and that it was Lady Balscombe whom Desmond saw and tried to protect. Dowker confronts Calliston, who admits following a fleeing woman in the fog that night and believing the pursuing man was Sir Rupert Balscombe. Meanwhile, at the prison, Desmond—learning the victim's true identity—finally discloses that he saw Sir Rupert accost Lady Balscombe under a gas lamp, wrench something from her neck, and chase her toward St. James's Street. Dowker, now suspecting Balscombe, searches for the wrenched-off locket. At the Balscombe house, May Penfold reveals a secret compartment in a desk given to Balscombe by Captain Dicksfall; inside are the locket (containing intertwined hair and a young man's portrait), its chain, and a poisoned arrow-head. Before Dowker can act, Ellersby arrives to press Sir Rupert into consenting to marry May Penfold, using letters proving he was Amelia's lover before her marriage, then threatens to accuse Balscombe of the murder using the very locket and arrow-head hidden in the secret drawer — evidence Ellersby himself planted after learning the drawer's location from Amelia. Balscombe accuses Ellersby of the murder; Dowker, Norwood, and May Penfold, having overheard everything from a concealed room, emerge as witnesses. Ellersby is accidentally wounded by the poisoned arrow-head during the ensuing struggle with Balscombe and, dying within minutes, dictates and signs a full confession: raised partly by a West Indian nurse who gave him a poisoned arrow-head as a child, he had loved Amelia Dicksfall for years; spurned by her marriage and enraged by her involvement with Calliston, he followed her from Calliston's chambers on the fog-bound night, persuaded her to walk with him, and fatally scratched her with the poisoned arrow-head while embracing her, then planted the weapon in Balscombe's desk to frame him should suspicion ever fall that way. He dies as the confession is completed. In the epilogue, Myles Desmond is released and marries May Penfold, later publishing a successful novel; Lord Calliston and Lena Sarschine (now Lady Calliston) sail off in the Seamew for the South Seas; Sir Rupert Balscombe retires alone to the country, disillusioned; the street boy Flip, Dowker's young informant, is placed in school with a view to becoming his successor; and Dowker reflects that the case was the most extraordinary of his career.

By Fergus Hume · First published 1891 · Genre: Mystery, Crime, Thriller · 20 chapters · 52,265 words

First lines

At two o'clock in the morning during the month of August sounds of music could be heard proceeding from a brilliantly lighted house in Park Lane, where a ball was being given by the Countess of Kerstoke. True, the season was long since over, and though the greater part of London Society had migrated swallow-like to the South of Europe in search of warm weather, still there were enough people in town to justify the ball being given, and a number of celebrities were present.

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Mystery · Crime Fiction · Detective Novel · Victorian Era · London Setting · Murder Mystery · Whodunit · Suspenseful · Thrilling · Classic Detective Story · Gumshoe Detective · Amateur Sleuth

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