First Published: 1864
Mrs Paschal is a woman with a peculiar profession.
She is a detective working for the department of investigation for the Metropolitan Police. Her boss, Colonel Warner, calls her about a case. He tells her about Countess Vervaine, whose husband died after having dilapidated his fortune. The thing is that the Countess seems to have a lot of money even though her husband left nothing, and she was a simple actress before marrying. What Warner wants Paschall to find out is where the woman gets her money.
Paschal manages to get a job as a maid for the countess. One night before leaving for the opera, the countess tells Paschal to wait for her. When she arrives around midnight, Paschal helps her undress and then the countess tells her that she can go. Yet, Paschal feels that tonight she will get the revelation, so she waits in a dark corner. Then the door to the Countess's room opens and a man walks out. When Paschal starts to follow the man, she realises from the size of the man that this is the countess in disguise, and when light falls on her, she sees that she is wearing a black mask. Paschal follows her to the servants' hall, and the countess opens a door that Paschal knows couldn't be opened, and through the keyhole, she sees the countess on her knees removing some floorboards, and she disappears down the hole. Pashall follows and she finds herself in some dark tunnels, and she follows the countess at a certain distance. Then the countess reaches an area where there is a trunk and she takes some gold ingots that she fills a bag with.
Paschall decides to retrace her steps and get out of here, but she gets lost, and she finds that the countess is already leaving and she replaces the boards that she had removed before. Paschall decides to go and see the area where the countess took the ingots. And when she gets there, she is assaulted and arrested by some policemen.
In the end Paschall is taken to her boss, and the revelation is that the countess was stealing from a bank's vault, and now the countess has disappeared. Warner tells her to find her, so she returns to the house and tells the housekeeper that she needs the address of the countess as she was assigned to take something to her. Paschall learns that the countess is in Blinton Abbey, so she and a colleague travel there in Yorkshire. They find the countess hiding some of her gold, and when the woman finds the two detectives and is about to be arrested, she brings her hadn to her mouth. From her ring she swallows some powder which is cyanide and the woman dies.
This was an entertaining piece of detective fiction.
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