The Doctor Who Held Hands by Hulbert Footner

Author:Hulbert Footner [Footner, Hulbert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: classics, detective, mystery, women sleuths
Google: l65EAAAAYAAJ
Amazon: B000BWP1GK
Publisher: Crime Club
Published: 1929-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

20.

I must interrupt the main thread of my tale for a moment in order to tell how we secured our first bit of direct evidence against Jacmer Touchon.

The Storey Murder Case, as the newspapers had always called it, though Mme. Storey was neither the murdered person nor the murderer, was now a closed chapter in the press. It had been settled to everybody's satisfaction and forgotten. Only poor Blondy's father and mother presumably nursed their grief and shame in obscurity. If Fay had left any relatives they were never known. Thus to have the case forgotten had the effect of freeing our hands. It was a relief not to have the reporters camping on our doorstep.

On the other hand, though the case was no longer talked about, the injurious effect of the dénouement engineered by Touchon persisted. There was no use trying to deny from ourselves that Mme. Storey's prestige had received a serious blow. Her popularity had declined. Her opinion was no longer sought on every question under the sun; her slightest actions had ceased to be Front Page Stuff. She herself accepted the situation philosophically. "It's a comfort to have the spotlight turned the other way," she said; "one can relax and indulge one's natural impulses." But for me it was a bad time. I never ceased to rage at every evidence of neglect that was offered to my employer, then at the very height of her powers.

New business was very slow in offering but the unexpected resurgence of an old case gave my employer a chance to stage a little comeback. Her real aim, I need hardly say, was very different from that which appeared on the surface. I refer to the case of Lear Caybourn. That intrepid young adventurer was caught running a cargo of arms into Guatemala. Mme. Storey set herself the task of saving his life and succeeded in the end though everything was against her.

It was not an important case but she made it one through the judicious use of publicity. Many columns of publicity were prepared in our office and most of it got across because it was so well done. It was always Lear Caybourn who was featured; Mme. Storey kept herself in the background. As I say, she saved the young man's life and incidentally she made him serve an end of her own. Her real object at this time was to persuade Jacmer Touchon that she was occupied with the case of Lear Caybourn to the exclusion of everything else. She talked about him in Touchon's presence until Touchon conceived a furious jealousy of the young fellow whom none of us was ever to see.

How far Touchon was deceived I could not say. Not completely deceived because he never removed his watch upon our movements, still it must have had the effect of partly lulling his suspicions. The detectives followed us wherever we went. Their reports to their master could not have contained much of interest, for at this

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