Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 19, November 1944

The Meanest Man in Europe by Roy Vickers

The first story to be offered to the American public about Fidelity Dove, Lady Larcenist Extraordinary, was “The Great Kabul Diamond” which your Editor included in his feminology, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES. In this story the saint-faced and ethereal Fidelity invented a new way of stealing a world-famous diamond — by buying a house!

In “The Meanest Man in Europe” (B. H. — Before Hitler) our modem Miss Robin Hood invents a new way of forcing an old Scrooge to pay a hospital bill — by buying £50,000 worth of pearls!

Did we tell you about that amazing exploit in which Fidelity stole the entire landscape of Swallowsbath — complete with woods, hills, river, meadows, quarry, saw-mill and village? Yes, the whole countryside — and we don’t mean a painting! One of these issues we’ll bring you that one...

The case of Mr. Jabez Crewde gives us another reason to believe that Fidelity Dove was at this time developing a conscience. She did not make very much money out of Jabez Crewde. True, she cleared her expenses, which were, as usual, on the grand scale, and she paid herself and her staff well for their time. It was the Grey Friars Hospital which benefited chiefly by this exploit. You, if you are of those who refuse to believe that she had a spark of goodness in her, you may say that she simply indulged her sense of humour in making the meanest man in Europe subscribe twenty thousand pounds to a hospital.

Jabez Crewde deserved his title. He was worth close upon two hundred thousand pounds, which he had made as a financier — for which you can read moneylender, though he never took ordinary moneylenders’ risks. Moneylender’s interest — banker’s risk — that was the formula on which he had grown rich. He lived in a small, drab house in a drab quarter of Islington.

Fidelity would never have heard of him if he had not had a very mild attack of appendicitis. Feeling unwell one day, he had gone in his shabbiest clothes to the surgery of a struggling slum doctor. The doctor diagnosed appendicitis, and recommended an operation. Jabez was no physical coward, but he expressed the utmost horror. An operation would ruin him. So the doctor, having been persuaded to accept half a crown instead of his usual fee of five shillings, recommended the meanest man in Europe for free treatment at the Grey Friars Hospital.

It was a simple operation — the convalescence was short. It was during the latter period that Gorse, more or less by chance, got to know about it and related it to Fidelity. Fidelity crossed her hands across the bosom of her dream-grey gown and sadly shook her head.

“Avarice is the very leprosy of the soul,” she said. “I am revolted, Cuthbert.”

“For once I feel myself able to echo your sentiments,” said Gorse. “He’s worth about a couple of hundred thousand.”

“Those poor, underpaid doctors!” said Fidelity. “And the overworked nurses! And the needy cases crying for admission — or is it perhaps a wealthy hospital?”

“There’s a notice up saying if they don’t get twenty thousand in three months they will have to close a wing,” said Gorse.

“They have given their skill unstintingly to a suffering fellow creature. They have but cast their bread upon the waters—”

“Fidelity!” groaned Gorse. He would have died for Fidelity, as would any other member of her gang, but he alone believed her to be an utter humbug.

“My friend, you are always cruel to me, though you love me,” sighed Fidelity. “And because I love you, I must please you. Listen, and tell me if this pleases you.”

“I’m listening,” grunted Gorse, and waited.

Fidelity’s voice, when she spoke again, held the low call of birds at dusk.

“Tell Varley, our jeweller, to buy fifty thousand pounds’ worth of pearls from the best firms he can,” she said.

Gorse brightened.

“I thought you’d get down to brass tacks sooner or later, Fidelity!” he said, and left the room to carry out her order.

Jabez Crewde had the usual handful of spare-time agents, and it took no more than a few days for Fidelity to contrive that one of them should approach her. Within a week of her conversation with Gorse, she was sitting timidly in a dingy room in the drab house in Islington, which served Mr. Crewde for an office as well as a living-room.

“I... I have heard that you were ill and I hope you are better,” said Fidelity in the tone of one who desires to placate a moneylender.

“I have to be better, Miss Dove,” answered Crewde. “In these hard times I cannot afford a long illness. What do you want me to do for you?”

“I... I understood you were a financier,” began Fidelity, “and I am in a difficulty which you will understand even better than I. A friend of mine, who knows all about stocks and shares, has told me that if I could invest five thousand pounds now it would be worth thirty-five thousand in a few days.”

Jabez Crewde had no difficulty in suppressing a smile. It was a part of his profession to listen to fantastic tales.

“Go on, Miss Dove,” said Crewde. “As long as you’re not going to suggest that I should lend you the five thousand.”

“Oh, but I was going to suggest just that,” said Fidelity. “You see, I have not the five thousand pounds, and it seems such an awful pity to miss this chance. I don’t know anything about money, but with thirty-five thousand pounds I need never think about it again. That is why I am so anxious to avail myself of this opportunity.”

Mr. Crewde’s eyes strayed to Fidelity’s bag. It was of grey brocade — a dainty, home-like affair that suggested knitting and mothers’ meetings and little rewards for good children.

“Are you offering any security?” he asked.

“You mean stocks and shares,” divined Fidelity. “I’m afraid I haven’t any. The only thing I have of any value is the jewellery my great-uncle left me. I must not sell it, and — in my sect we do not wear jewellery — so I thought that if I were to leave the jewellery with you and pay you back when I have the thirty-five thousand pounds—?”

“Have you any idea what the jewellery is worth?” asked Crewde, while Fidelity produced and opened a number of leather cases.

“It was valued at the time of my uncle’s death,” said Fidelity. “The assessor said it was worth a little over fifty thousand pounds. It seemed to me terrible that so much money should be spent upon adornments.”

Mr. Crewde began an expert scrutiny of the pearls. He was inclined to agree with the assessor as to their worth. He was inclined to think, now that he had taken stock of Fidelity’s perfect grey tailor-made and her little white hat, that she was an extravagant and helpless fool.

“They are good pearls, though they’re not worth anything like that at the present time,” he said presently. “And I don’t as a rule lend money upon jewellery. Have you no other securities?”

“None whatever, I fear,” said Fidelity in dejection.

That was what Mr. Crewde wanted to know. It is of little use to a moneylender to have a very valuable pledge on a small loan if the client has other securities, because the pledge can always be redeemed. But when the very valuable pledge represents the only security, it is reasonably certain to pass into the hands of the moneylender — especially when the loan is made for the purposes of a get-rich-quick scheme.

“Oh, well, I don’t know I’m sure!” Mr. Crewde was muttering with professional reluctance. “Everybody seems to be borrowing money just now. How soon do you expect your... er... your profits to come in, Miss Dove?”

“My friend said in six weeks’ time,” answered Fidelity.

“Six weeks! H’m! I might just be able to manage it.”

Fidelity began to thank him.

“You’re quite sure you can pay it back in the six weeks, mind?” challenged Mr. Crewde.

“Oh, perfectly sure,” exclaimed Fidelity. “My friend was most positive.”

“Very well, then,” said Mr. Crewde. “I’ll put that into writing and I shall ask you to sign it. If you will come here to-morrow at this time, I’ll have the agreement ready for you, together with the money.”

Fidelity barely glanced at the document on the following day. Its numerous clauses and penalties had no direct interest for her. She signed the document, gave a receipt for the cheque, took a receipt for her pearls, and left the dingy house in Islington.

She had borrowed five thousand pounds at sixty per cent, interest on a security of pearls worth fifty thousand pounds.

The meanest man in Europe was very pleased at his latest deal. Twenty years’ experience had taught him that Miss Fidelity Dove would return in six weeks with a tale of misfortune and beg a renewal of the loan. In a year, with careful manipulation, he would be able to sell the pledge for his own profit without advancing any more money. He was elaborating a scheme by which he could save excise stamps on the numerous documents that would be used in the transaction, when his clerk brought him a card.

“Mr. Abraham Behrein.” The address was in Hatton Garden.

He nodded, and the caller was shown in. Behrein was a well-dressed man of dignified appearance. He greeted Jabez with elaborate courtesy.

“I have come to ask a favour, Mr. Crewde,” he began. “I have reason to believe that you had a business transaction yesterday with a lady — a Miss Dove.”

“Well, what of it?” demanded Crewde. “She’s turned twenty-one.”

“Quite so!” said Behrein. “I simply wished to ask if you would allow me to look at the pearls she deposited with you. I am aware that the request is most irregular, but — I have reasons.”

“What reasons?”

“I do not care to name them.”

“Well, that’s an end of it. Certainly not!” snapped Jabez Crewde.

“You refuse?” asked Behrein with an air.

“Of course I do. Grant, this gentleman can’t find the door!”

Jabez Crewde was more than a little disturbed by the incident. Not so Behrein. Behrein got into the taxi that was waiting for him and drove to Scotland Yard.

Here he again presented his card, explained that he was a dealer in precious stones, and stated that he had been robbed. He wished to speak to a responsible official who would take up the case. There was a short delay, at the end of which he was shown into Detective-Inspector Rason’s rooms.

“A short time ago,” explained Behrein to the detective, “I bought a parcel of pearls of an approximate value of fifty thousand pounds. It is a big parcel, Mr. Rason, in these days, and my purchase attracted a certain amount of attention. I had many opportunities of unloading, but I was not in a hurry. A lady, not in the trade, was introduced to me in the belief that she might purchase the entire parcel for her personal use.

“The lady encouraged the belief. She came twice to my office to inspect the pearls and to discuss methods of purchase. Her last visit was on Monday of this week. She was a very pleasant, very well-bred lady, and when I was wanted on the telephone I had no hesitation in leaving her for a moment in possession of the pearls.”

Detective-Inspector Rason grunted. He knew well enough what was coming. An oft-told tale!

“My client,” continued Behrein, “renewed her expressions of approval, said that she had some final financial arrangements to make, and would call upon me in the following week. This morning I wished to show the pearls to another customer — I had not handled them since the visit of the lady — and I find — a parcel of pretty good imitations, worth possibly one hundred and fifty pounds. I cannot, of course, prove anything, but I am certain that the lady in the case made the substitution while I was answering the telephone.”

“Did she give you a name?” asked Rason.

“She gave me the name of Fidelity Dove,” said Behrein, “with an address in Bayswater, which I have no doubt is a false one.”

“The address is right enough,” Rason rapped out. “She’s probably waiting for us to call. She’s the coolest crook in London and then some. She never bothers to run away. I’ve been on her track a dozen times and she always manages so that you can’t prove anything. In a way, she’s a great woman.”

“That is not very consoling to one who looks like losing fifty thousand pounds as the result of her ingenuity,” said Behrein bitterly.

“We shall take the matter up, of course,” said Rason.

“Then perhaps I could help you,” said Behrein. “Chiefly by chance, I happen to know that this lady — if it be not absurd so to call her — borrowed money upon the security of pearls from a Mr. Jabez Crewde. I’m quite sure of my facts. Mr. Crewde underpays his staff, and... er—”

“Quite so,” said Rason.

“I was at his house in Islington half an hour ago,” continued Behrein. “I asked, with all civility I hope, to be allowed to look at the pearls. He received my request very ill-temperedly and refused it.”

Detective-Inspector Rason made a note.

“Did you tell him your suspicion?”

“I would have explained had he given me time,” said Behrein. “As it was, I was being shown out of the place before I could explain anything.

“I have here,” continued Behrein, “photographs of the pearls, together with an expert description. If you have means of forcing Mr. Crewde, these papers will dispose of any doubt.”

“Of course, we could get a search-warrant if necessary,” said Rason. “But we always avoid unpleasantness of that kind if we possibly can. I think it very likely that I could persuade Mr. Crewde to show me the pearls of his own accord.”

“Would it be possible for me to accompany you?” asked Behrein. “I could tell at a glance.”

The detective agreed to this readily enough, and in half an hour Behrein was again at the house in Islington, this time accompanied by Rason.

When Jabez Crewde found himself confronted with a police officer, he “saw the light” and made no further bones about producing the pearls.

He laid them out on the table, but before he had finished, Behrein intervened.

“These are my pearls, Mr. Crewde,” he said. “I could produce a round dozen experts at an hour’s notice to identify them. If you care to peruse these documents, you will be satisfied yourself. I... I am very sorry for you.”

“Your pearls! What the dickens do you mean?”

Behrein re-told the story of the substitution of the pearls. The end of the story left Crewde babbling incoherently.

“Given that Mr. Behrein can substantiate his account,” said Rason, “he will be able to obtain the pearls from you by an order of the Court, as they are stolen goods. Do you wish to take the matter up on your own account, Mr. Crewde?”

“Yes, of course I’ll take it up!” snapped Crewde. “No, I can’t afford to pay a lot of thieving lawyers. It’s a matter for the Public Prosecutor. I’ll give evidence if you’ll pay me for my time.”

“I take it, Mr. Behrein, that you will prosecute,” suggested Rason.

“I have no alternative,” replied Behrein. “If you will tell me how to proceed—”

Rason was about to speak, and checked himself.

“If I were you,” he said instead, “I’d proceed very carefully, Mr. Behrein. It looks a clear-cut case. But there have been one or two cases before against this particular lady that have looked just as clear-cut. If you like to charge her, of course I must take the charge, but I suggest that you wait till I’ve seen her.”

Mr. Behrein bowed.

“As you please,” he said. “You understand these things and I don’t. I would like to have a private word with Mr. Crewde if he will allow me.”

“Right!” said Rason. “I’ll get along to Miss Dove.”

“It looks,” said Mr. Behrein when the detective had left, “as though you and I, Mr. Crewde, are going to be let in for a great deal of expense and a great deal of wasted time. Are you at all willing to discuss an arrangement?”

“What arrangement can we make?” demanded Crewde. “You are on velvet. I’ve lent five thousand pounds on those pearls. You can get them from me for nothing by an order of the Court.”

“Well, Mr. Crewde,” said Behrein indulgently, “I feel that we business men must hang together when we’re up against this kind of thing. I have no desire to stand on my rights at your expense. I’ll be frank with you. I have a prospective purchaser for those pearls and time is of the utmost importance. If they are going to be held up three months as exhibits in a trial — to say nothing of a civil action between you and me, which I would profoundly regret — I shall lose my customer. I think... well, now, I won’t beat about the bush — I am content to carry the five thousand loss. If you like to hand those pearls to me, I’ll give you a proper receipt and five thousand pounds and take my risk of getting my money back.”

Jabez Crewde could scarcely believe his ears.

“Eh? What’s that? Haven’t quite got you,” he muttered, and Behrein repeated his offer.

“Of course,” said Behrein laboriously, “you will lose your profit on the transaction — but you will have lost that in any case — together with your principal of five thousand pounds. As you admit, I can get the pearls returned to me by an order of the Court. I had hoped that you would accept my offer—”

“I do accept it,” said Crewde in haste.

Behrein took out his wallet. “One has to carry large sums about one in my trade,” he explained, and counted out five thousand pounds in notes.

He added a formal receipt for the pearls and left the meanest man in Europe trembling with relief at being spared the loss of five thousand pounds and the necessity of appearing in Court.

It was nearly lunch-time when Detective-Inspector Rason arrived at Fidelity’s house in Bayswater. Fidelity, exquisite in grey taffetas, asked him to stay to lunch. Politely, he declined.

“You constantly refuse my invitations, Mr. Rason,” she told him, her violet eyes clear and shining as a child’s. “And you cannot have come on duty this time.”

Rason made a grimace.

“I have come on a clear-cut case against you for jewel-robbery, Miss Dove,” he said. “But I’m old enough now not to attach too much importance to that fact.”

Fidelity’s smile was seraphic.

“All the same,” continued Rason, “I’m taking a pretty keen professional interest in this particular case. I’ve been trying to guess how you’re going to keep out of prison this time, and I’ll admit I’ve clean failed.”

“There is an elusive suggestion of flattery in your words, Mr. Rason,” reproved Fidelity. “And flattery falls strangely on my ears. Let me confess I cannot in the least understand what you are saying.”

“Yesterday morning,” said Rason, with a sigh, “you pledged with Mr. Jabez Crewde pearls which on Monday you are alleged to have stolen by means of substituting false ones from a Mr. Abraham Behrein. Mr. Behrein has photographs of the pearls and expert descriptions. They have been identified as the pearls you pledged with Mr. Crewde.”

“Mr. — what is the name of the other gentleman — Berlein?”

“Behrein,” said Rason. “Are you going to deny knowledge of him, Miss Dove?”

“Yes,” said Fidelity. The word had all the sanctity of a vow.

For a moment there was silence. A look almost of fear flashed into Rason’s eyes.

“May I use your telephone?” he asked.

Fidelity’s little bow gave consent. Rason fluttered the leaves of the telephone book, looked for Behrein, and could not find him. He rang up the Holborn police.

He gave particulars of himself, and then:

“Abraham Behrein,” he said, and gave the address in Hatton Garden. “Send a man at once to verify name and address. ’Phone me here.” There followed Fidelity’s number.

In a quarter of an hour, in which Fidelity spoke gracefully and well of pearls as mentioned in the scriptures, there came the return message. Abraham Behrein was unknown in Hatton Garden.

“And now, Mr. Rason,” asked Fidelity, “are you going to apologize for doubting my word?”

“No,” said Rason. The emphasis of his refusal left Fidelity’s gravity undisturbed until he had left her drawing-room; but as he crossed the magnificent hall silvery laughter followed him and rang in his ears long after he had left the house.

On the next day Mr. Jabez Crewde was severely startled at being told that Fidelity Dove was on the doorstep and wished to see him.

“Show her in, and run for the police,” he whispered to the clerk.

Fidelity came in, gracefully as ever. She inclined her head in the soupçon of a bow.

“Oh, Mr. Crewde!” she said in clear tones. “I do not know how to thank you! The money that you lent me must veritably have been bewitched. The scheme was successful beyond my friend’s wildest dreams. So much money has been made that — is it the firm or his stockbroker? — has advanced on account of my profits all the money I borrowed from you, and I have come to repay you five thousand five hundred pounds.”

“Let’s have a look at it,” said Crewde coarsely.

“But of course I wish you not merely to look at it but to take it,” — and Fidelity laid the notes on the table.

Mr. Crewde counted the notes.

“You can leave those there,” he said, and glanced towards the door. Then, for safety, he picked them up and put them in his pocket. Fidelity looked offended.

“Will you give me a receipt and return my pearls?” she asked.

“We’ll see about that in a minute,” snapped Crewde.

“Against my inclination, I am driven to believe that your manner is intentionally offensive,” said Fidelity. “I will wait no longer. The receipt is of no importance, for my bankers have the numbers of the notes. You will please return the pearls to my private address.”

“Your private address! Yes, I know it — Aylesbury prison it’ll be in a week or two,” jeered Crewde. “As for the pearls, they are back with Mr. Abraham Behrein, whom you stole them from.”

“Oh! How can you—” Fidelity produced a handkerchief.

“Tell it all to the policeman,” invited Mr. Crewde as the clerk returned with a constable.

“What’s all this?” asked the constable.

“That’s the woman you want. Fidelity Dove, she calls herself,” shouted Crewde. “Scotland Yard knows all about her.”

The policeman looked embarrassed.

“Do you give the lady in charge, sir?” he asked.

“No, I don’t give her in charge,” said Crewde. “I’m not going to be mixed up with it. It’s a matter for the Public Prosecutor. Scotland Yard!”

“We’ve no orders to arrest anyone of that name as far as I know,” said the constable. “I can’t take the lady unless you charge her, sir.”

“There is my card, constable,” said Fidelity. “My car is outside if you care to take the number.”

In the car Fidelity drove home.

As soon as she had left, Jabez Crewde telephoned to Scotland Yard. He was put through to Rason, who informed him that all efforts to trace Abraham Behrein had failed.

“It was hoax of some kind, I’m afraid,” said Rason. “But you’re all right, Mr. Crewde. You have the pearls, I take it? It was apparently a swindle that didn’t come off.”

“But she’s paid me back the money I lent her, and wants the pearls back,” protested Crewde.

“Well, I can’t advise you,” said Rason. “But I should have thought the best thing to do would be to give them to her.”

“But I haven’t got them!” yelled Crewde. “I handed them to Behrein — they were his — and he gave me the five thousand I’d lent her.”

“O-o-oh!” said Rason. It was a long-drawn sound that held a world of meaning.

“What’s the good of saying ‘oh,’ ” raged Crewde. “You’re a pack of fools, that’s what you are,” he added, after he had replaced the receiver.

On the next morning Jabez Crewde received a letter from Fidelity Dove’s solicitor, Sir Frank Wrawton, demanding the immediate return of the pearls or their value in cash, which had been estimated by competent and unassailable experts at fifty thousand pounds.

By eleven o’clock Jabez Crewde had learned that Sir Frank Wrawton was empowered merely to give him a receipt for pearls or the cash equivalent.

By twelve o’clock he was at Fidelity’s house in Bayswater.

He was received by Fidelity in the morning-room.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” he shouted at Fidelity, “and I can see what’s happened. That Behrein, as he calls himself, is a confederate of yours. You two are in it together. I’ll show you the whole bag o’ tricks. You bought those pearls — they were genuine. Then you borrowed five thousand from me, and paid back five thousand five hundred. You dropped that five hundred. Then your confederate dropped another five thousand in getting the pearls from me. That’s five thousand five hundred you’ve dropped — and for that outlay you’ve landed me with a liability for fifty thousand pounds. Why, you probably had those pearls hidden away an hour after Behrein left me, and you’ll sell them again quietly later on—”

“Have you also been thinking, Mr. Crewde, how you are going to establish this terribly slanderous theory in a court of law?” asked Fidelity, nun-like and serene.

“Bah! The lawyers are robbers, like the police—”

“And the hospitals?” asked Fidelity.

Crewde looked very nearly startled.

“They call you the meanest man in Europe, Mr. Crewde,” said Fidelity. “I alone have maintained that that is a slander. I want you to prove my words. You owe me fifty thousand pounds. To dispute my claim would merely mean the loss of another thousand pounds or so in lawyers’ expenses. It is a pleasure to wring money from a mean man, but it is no pleasure if the man be not mean. The Grey Friars Hospital requires twenty thousand pounds, I understand.”

“Eh?” grunted Crewde. “I don’t get you. D’you want me to give them twenty thousand? What if I do?”

“If you will write a check for twenty thousand pounds to the Grey Friars Hospital,” said Fidelity, “I will withdraw one-fifth of my claim against you. Twenty thousand to the Grey Friars Hospital, twenty thousand to myself — and I will give you a receipt for fifty thousand pounds.”

“That’s close on fifteen thousand pounds clear profit to yourself,” said Crewde, a ghastly pallor spreading over his face.

“You may phrase it so,” said Fidelity. “Or you may say that I am offering you ten thousand pounds to remove from London the reproach of harbouring the meanest man in Europe... Ah, I see you have no fountain-pen. I beg you to use mine.”