The clue of the new pin

by Edgar Wallace

He leapt to his feet.

“What?” he gasped.

“I killed Jesse Trasmere,” she repeated, “not directly, with my own hands, but I am responsible for his death, almost as assuredly as if I had shot him.” She caught his hand and held it. “How white you are! I was a brute to put it that way. In our profession we love these dramatic—no I don’t mean that, Tab.”

“Will you tell me what you do mean?”

She signalled him to sit on the foot-rest of the chair.

“I’ll tell you something, but I don’t think I’ll tell you any more about the murder,” she said, “and this is the something which you ought to know, and which I intended you should know. I had not the slightest intention of saying what I did. The spirit of tragedy seems to haunt me,” she said, staring straight ahead, “I was cradled in that atmosphere of violence and wickedness. I once told you, Tab, that I had been in service as a tweeny maid and I think you were startled. I went there from a public orphan’s home, an institution where little children are taught to be born old. Tab—my mother was murdered, my father was hanged for her murder!”

There was no pain in her eyes, just a little hardness. He took both her hands in his and held them.

“I don’t remember anything about it,” she went on, “my earliest recollections was the long dormitory where about forty little girls used to sleep, a very fat matron, and two iron-faced nurses, and the why and wherefore of my being at Parkingtons Institute only came to me late in life. One of the little girls had heard the matron tell the nurse, and I had to piece together the fact that I was an orphan by the act of my father and that after his trial and execution I had been sent to this home to be brought up and educated for the profession which all good little girls follow, and which had, as its supreme reward, an appointment as undercook. I was not so fortunate. I am afraid my cooking was rather vile, for when I came out of the Institute, it was to take a place as under-housemaid and general help in the kitchen of a great society leader, who spent thousands of pounds upon charity, but weighed the very bread that her servants ate. I had only been in this place for three months when Mr. Trasmere made his appearance. It was on a cold windy afternoon, I remember it as distinctly as though it were yesterday, when one of the parlour-maids came and said I was to go up into the drawing-room. I found Mr. Trasmere alone and I was rather frightened at the sight of him, for he did not speak, but sat with a little scowl on his face, taking me in from head to foot.

“I was between twelve and thirteen then, a sensitive child, to whom life, as it came to me, was a veritable hell. He asked me what my age was, and whether I was happy and I told him the truth. Apparently he had seen the authorities at the Institute, for I was allowed to go away with him, and he took me to a poor apartment house and placed me under the care of a woman who either owned or rented the house, and sub-let the rooms furnished to the queerest lot of people I have ever seen congregated under one roof. Knowing him now much better, I am inclined to think that Mr. Trasmere owned the house himself and that the woman was his nominee. I did not see him again for nearly two months. I had a room to myself and he sent me school books to read and study and it was whilst I was here that I first met Yeh Ling, who, as I have told you, was a poor waiter at a Chinese restaurant.

“At the end of the two months, Mr. Trasmere came for me, and his coming was heralded by the arrival of a huge box of clothes, the like of which I had never seen, let alone worn. He left a message that I was to be dressed and ready to go with him, and that afternoon he called and took me down into the country, to a preparatory school which, after the Institute, was a heaven upon earth. On the way down, he told me he had heard about me from some friends of his, and he wanted to give me an education which would fit me to take the position which he had for me, and I was so overcome by his kindness that I cried all the way to our destination.