Three "Detective" Anecdotes

by Charles Dickens

I. The Pair of Gloves

“It’s a singular story, sir,” said Inspector Wield of the detective police, who in company with Sergeants Dorton and Mith, paid me another twilight visit, one July evening; “and I’ve been thinking you might like to know it.”

“It’s concerning the murder of the young woman, Eliza Grimwood, some years ago, near the Waterloo road. She was commonly called the countess, because of her handsome appearance and her proud way of carrying herself; and when I saw the poor countess, (I had known her well to speak to,) lying dead, with her throat cut, on the floor of her bedroom, you’ll believe me that a variety of reflections calculated to make a man rather low in his spirits came into my head.

“That’s neither here nor there. I went the morning after the murder, and examined the body, and made a general observation of the bedroom where it was. Turning down the pillow of the bed with my hand, I found underneath it a pair of gloves. A pair of gentleman’s dress gloves, very dirty; and inside the lining the letters TR, and a cross.

“Well, sir, I took them gloves away, and I showed ’em to the magistrate, over at Union Hall, before whom the case was. He says, ‘Wield,’ he says, ‘there’s no doubt this is a discovery that may lead to something very important; and what you have got to do, Wield, is to find out the owner of these gloves.’

“I was of the same opinion of course, and I went at it immediately. I looked at the gloves pretty narrowly, and it was my opinion that they had been cleaned. There was a smell of sulpher and rosin about ’em, you know, which cleaned gloves usually have, more or less. I took ’em over to a friend of mine at Kennington, who was in that line, and I put it to him—‘What do you say now? Have… Read More