The adventures of a woman detective

In 1907, Antonia Moser wrote a 'thrilling' series for the Weekly Despatch about her work as a private detective - but was some artistic licence used?

Antonia Moser remains less well-known than her British female counterparts, such as Kate Easton and Maud West, despite the fact that all three utilised the press as fully as possible to get publicity for their work. Antonia was both aided and hindered by her association with Maurice Moser - former Metropolitan police detective turned private detective, as well as being Antonia's former employer and lover, whose name she adopted. She also had less longevity as a private detective, partly, perhaps, due to her growing interest in the suffrage cause and in helping other women with financial and emotional advice. However, she remains one of my favourite female detectives, and one I recently wrote about for PBS in America as part of a feature on these ground-breaking women.

In the Edwardian era, she was seen as newsworthy enough to be employed to write a series of articles for the Weekly Despatch. Each one would focus on a case she had allegedly worked on (I say allegedly, as some of the cases purporting to come from private detectives were either fictional or certainly sprinkled with a bit of exaggeration). These were never going to be the run-of-the-mill divorce cases that many private detectives relied on for their income; instead, newspapers commissioning private detectives wanted to hear about the glamorous cases, or the more unusual ones.

Therefore, Antonia's first article focused on the case of the 'foreign nobleman'. A British peer's widow had become involved with a dodgy foreigner (Antonia described him as 'oily') - becoming 'foolish' with him, implying that they had had a sexual relationship. He then was able to try and blackmail her. Antonia made clear that when the woman approached her for help, there was no sisterly solidarity - in fact, Antonia had little sympathy for her, regarding the woman as being old enough to have recognised the value of discretion.

Instead, the woman had sent numerous love letters to the foreigner - who posed as a count - and giving him family heirlooms as presents. He then obtained a large sum of money from the lady, and fled, before starting to send letters to her demanding more money. She admitted to a relative what had happened, and a family meeting was convened, which decided that the man needed to be tracked down. Antonia was duly commissioned, and ordered to carry out the case with no publicity (something she of course was able to do the opposite of once the case was concluded and the Weekly Despatch came knocking).

How Antonia tracked down the man is difficult to ascertain. There were no photographs or portraits of him. He falsely claimed to be the Count Vicchino of Padua. All Antonia had was a description of him, a couple of letters he had sent his victim, and knowledge that he enjoyed the 'gayness' of life in European capital cities. She duly travelled from Switzerland to Germany, Russia, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary in search of him, and it appeared the police in every city she visited were already looking for him in connection with various swindles.

She did learn more about him from her travels; that he was friends with a Paduan Count, who she interviewed to get information about him - including another name, Giovanni Bielbe, and a home near Padua. She found his parents, who told her he was married with a young child, and showed her a photo of him. He had been educated in America, which Antonia said was the reason why he was such a 'captivating conversationalist and a charming companion'. Of course, now hearing about his American links, Antonia lost no time in crossing the Atlantic in the hope of finding him. She travelled from Chicago to Winnipeg, a trip involving a ride on a 'tough Indian pony'. The trip was worth it, for it was in Winnipeg that she finally found Giovanni Bielbe.

Winnipeg a decade after Antonia’s visit to catch an Italian ‘nobleman’

Having tracked him down to his hotel - following him back from his trip to the post office to collect his letter - Antonia was at first laughed at; presumably, Bielbe could not believe that this female Londoner had come all the way to Canada to bring him to book. Antonia, though, understood his psyche. He was, despite his crimes, in love with his wife, and dreaded her hearing about his attempts to gain a fortune through blackmailing other women. He duly gave Antonia all the letters, jewels and money he had taken from the peer's widow, and she promptly returned to England, her job done.

Antonia claimed that this was her first big job. Whether it actually happened - and happened in the way she described - is impossible to check. Everyone in the story bar the offender was anonymous, and she stressed that the name of the offender was merely one in a long line that he had used. What seems unclear is why Antonia would have been chosen to take on such a large, expensive job.

Certainly, a female detective might have been preferred by a female client with what was seen as an embarrassing issue - she might understand more, be discrete, and be able to get confidences from other people more easily than a male detective. But Antonia admitted that she was not experienced, yet was given a job that paid the expenses of her travelling not only across the glamorous cities of Europe, but also across America and Canada. Her employer must have been fairly sure of her competence in order to risk such an expense.

Her tales of her travels are quite vague, with little concept of time or specific locations, outside of the one horse ride and the denouement in Winnipeg. There is little sense that she was actually in these places. This is not to say that she didn't undertake the case, or that she didn't travel; but there is likely to have been some exaggeration in how she portrayed the case for the newspapers. She wanted to portray herself as a brave, resourceful woman capable of undertaking the most challenging of cases - for this is how she would get further work, with readers noting her skills and remembering them in case they ever needed to use a detective.

What was particularly interesting was that Antonia noted that she had always received help from male private detectives - she said that there was 'goodfellowship which prevails...in the profession' and that rather than being the object of male jealousy, her male colleagues across the world had actually shown her great kindness and comradeship. It makes you wonder about possible networks of detectives across Europe who may have offered Antonia help during this first big case, one which resulted in a resounding success - at least, the way Antonia wrote up the story.