Detectives Victorianas - El hombre de los ojos feroces (That Man with the Wild Eyes) by George R Sims

 

First Published: 1897

RATING: VERY GOOD

SPOILERS!!!

The narrator of this story is Mr Saxon, a theatrical director, and he met Dorcas when she was an actress. Then he ran into her again, and she told him that he had married. Her neigbour was Mr Johnson, a superintendent of the police, and they often talked, and the man shared his cases with her and her husbaand, Paul. When her husband lost his sight, she considered returning to the theatre, but the superintendent suggested she become a detective.

The case that Dorcas and Saxon have in this story is very interesting. Colonel Hargreaves comes to see Dorcas to tell him how his daughter, Maud, was found half drowned in the lake on his property when someone attacked him. Now Maud is nervous and very afraid, and the colonel wants Dorcas to find out who attacked his daughter.

Dorcas goes to Hargreaves's property, pretending to be a nurse that the colonel has hired to look after Maud. Saxon settles in a cottage with the excuse that he wants to paint the landscape. The two of them work together, and the lodge porter tells them about an unknown man that was seen on the property. Dorcas thinks that the clue is found in Norwood where Maud grew up in the care of her aunt while her father was in India. Dorcas discovers a name by calling Maud while sleeping, and Maud wakes up, uttering the name Victor, and then Dorcas searches through a photo album, and she finds the photograph of a man which has a tie pin with the letter V. Saxon goes to the photograph studio, and he is told that the man is called Victor Dubois, and when he goes to inquire after the man in Norwood, he is told that his father was sent to a lunatic asylum.

Dorcas has the suspicion that Dorcas married Victor, who was her tutor in Norwood, and she sends Saxon to Somerset House, and he confirms that Victor and Maud were married, and he telegraphs the information to her. When he returns to the house, he learns that Dorcas has found a drowned man while rowing on a boat. The drowned man is Victor, and Dorcas says that Victor must have committed suicide, thinking that he had killed Maud.

When Dorcas tells the Colonel, they go to Maud, and now the woman reveals everything. She says that she and Victor fell in love, and she was stupid to agree to marry him. Victor had to leave because his father had fallen ill and had to be taken to a lunatic asylum. Maud didn't hear from him again, but she learnt that he had had an accident, injuring his head and becoming insane, and that is why he had been sent to an asylum too. Then while walking around the lake, Maud saw him trying to climb down the wall, and at first he was kind, but when he tried to kiss him and she refused, he pushed her into the lake. Thankfully, she managed to get out of the lake, but she was worried that he would come for her again.

Dorcas advises the colonel to tell the police but he could keep quiet about the fact that he had been married to Maud. Now everything solved, Dorcas returns to her husband, and the colonel and his daughter decided to go travelling. I found the story intriguing, and I think Dorcas is a great detective.