The Secret Passage

The Secret Passage by Fergus Hume

The Secret Passage opens at Rose Cottage in Rexton, where the sharp, secretive Selina Loach, an elderly recluse who lives strangely in a basement room, engages Susan Grant as her new parlor-maid. Susan learns from Miss Loach's servants — the cook Mrs. Pill, the housemaid Geraldine, and the man-of-all-work Thomas — that Miss Loach lives obscurely despite wealth, that she once might have married Lord Caranby, and that she keeps a nightly whist circle of Mr. Hale (her lawyer), Mr. Clancy, and the veiled, perfumed Mrs. Herne. Susan also reveals that her real name is Maxwell, and that her carpenter father died of arsenic poisoning years earlier under mysterious circumstances after working on a nearby house and hinting he would soon be rich. That very night, after the guests depart, Susan finds Miss Loach stabbed dead in her chair, cards still in her lap, the house locked and a policeman having seen no one leave. The scene shifts to Miss Loach's sister, Mrs. Octagon, a self-important literary hostess married to the meek Peter Octagon, and mother to Basil and Juliet Saxon. On hearing of the murder, Mrs. Octagon abruptly declares that Juliet cannot marry her fiancé, Cuthbert Mallow, nephew and heir of Lord Caranby, though she will not explain why. Juliet and Cuthbert are baffled, since Mrs. Octagon had approved the match before. Cuthbert visits his uncle Caranby, who reveals his old romance: he loved Selina Loach, but out of pique became engaged instead to Emilia Saul, a singer of low, criminal (coining) family background, after Isabella (now Mrs. Octagon) worked to separate him from Selina. Emilia later fell to her death from a plank in the very house Caranby was building for Selina at Rexton — witnessed only by Isabella and Selina — after which Selina shut herself away for life and Caranby abandoned and walled up the unfinished mansion, which still stands behind Rose Cottage. Newspaper accounts detail the murder's central puzzle: Miss Loach died instantly between ten and eleven o'clock, yet the sitting-room bell rang at eleven, summoning Susan to find the body, though no exit was possible without passing the watching policeman. Cuthbert's friend, detective Miles Jennings, takes the case and learns Cuthbert secretly explored Caranby's overgrown grounds that very night hunting a rumored "ghost," making him a hidden suspect. Jennings also discovers a photograph of Cuthbert, tenderly inscribed, in the possession of both Susan Grant and the invalid gambling-house owner "Maraquito" (Senora Gredos), who is infatuated with Cuthbert; Susan confesses she stole it from Maraquito's dressing room. Jennings suspects Mrs. Herne may be Maraquito's mother, based on their shared distinctive perfume, Hikui, also worn by Hale, Clancy, and even the servant Thomas. Juliet inherits Miss Loach's large fortune but still refuses to marry Cuthbert, cryptically warning him to stop the police investigation for his own sake, and appearing to protect her volatile, debt-ridden brother Basil, who quarreled with their aunt shortly before her death and left the theatre with Juliet on the murder night under unexplained circumstances. Lord Caranby, questioning Maraquito himself, becomes convinced she is not Spanish at all but Bathsheba Saul, Emilia's niece — tying the gambling house to the old Saul coining scandal. He also spots Mrs. Octagon secretly visiting Maraquito, deepening suspicion that Mrs. Octagon may have killed Emilia Saul years before and is now being manipulated by Maraquito's knowledge of it. Jennings, searching Rose Cottage, secretly discovers a bloodstained bowie knife hidden by Juliet, confirming she is shielding someone — presumably Basil — while failing to find any secret passage explaining the killer's escape. The chapter closes with Jennings resolving to investigate why so many figures connected to the case share the same rare perfume, suspecting a hidden link — possibly a resurrected coining operation — binding Hale, Clancy, Mrs. Herne, Maraquito, and Thomas together.

By Fergus Hume · First published 1905 · Genre: Mystery, Drama, Literary Fiction · 26 chapters · 109,650 words

First lines

"What IS your name?"

"Susan Grant, Miss Loach."

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The Secret Passage is listed on Textopian as a novel by Fergus Hume, dated 1905 CE.

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Mystery · Thriller · Suspense · Detective Fiction · Crime · Murder · Investigation · London · Victorian Era · Gothic · Dark · Atmospheric

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