He is a small, round, well-dressed man with graying hair and the manners of a former European diplomat. He takes on a case from a worried wife who wants him to find out if there is another woman and why her husband is acting so strangely. He agrees, but with some reluctance.

Meet Alexandre Dulau, whose sole appearance in Starrett’s short story, “The Other Woman,” is a sheer delight. Like Sally Cardiff, the other one-shot detective we looked at a little while back, I wish there was more of Dulau’s adventures to discuss.

Before reviewing his publication history, let’s look at the tale .

It’s 1927 and Alexandre Dulau is sitting in his little office in Chicago. It is a time when wealthy society women still carry lorgnettes, and expect little round detectives to be both energetic and obsequious. Mrs. Hopewell Grange quickly discovers that Mr. Dulau might have an energetic mind, but speaks in circular ways that are not easy to decode.

“I presume you can be discreet?” she inquired, at length.

“To the point of indiscretion,” said Alexandre Dulau, with another low bow. “May I invite madame to be seated?”

“You are a strange man, Mr. Dulau,” said the lady.

Mrs. Grange’s husband is also strange, disappearing at irregular intervals, then reappearing without explanation. The wealthy woman is concerned because his behavior is causing gossip in her social circles. They have anything money can buy, but Mrs. Grange most prizes her reputation.

But it was not always thus. They started with little money and led lives of simple pleasure, enjoying each other’s company. Now heavy responsibilities have pulled them apart.

“I am attentive and sympathetic,” Dulau says as he encourages her to share more details.

Mr. Grange stays away for up to three days and merely states he was away on business. Mrs. Grange once followed him but found little of interest: He leisurely strolled to the park, fed the swans and squirrels, smoked a forbidden pipe (She won’t have one in the house.), then slowly strolled back to a shabby office building not far from his own. What he did in that building is a mystery.

Dulau asks if her husband has been unhappy.

“There is no reason for unhappiness,” she explains to the little man. “There is nothing that he cannot have if he wishes it. Our friends are numerous and include the best people in town.”

Which tells you all you need to know about the haughty Mrs. Grange.

The mystery of her husband’s odd behavior is not difficult to discern. Mrs. Grange demands to be taken to her husband’s hideaway and learn more of this other woman. Dulau takes her to a parlor that her husband has reconstructed in a shabby office. She is a first angry that he would run away from their luxury home to such a humble place. But as she walks about, she begins to recognize items from their earlier, simpler life. “What a fool,” she repeatedly says of her husband.

Will she understand who that other woman is? Will she once again want to be that woman?

“It is possible that I have done Mr. Hopewell Grange a great disservice,” Dulau says as he leaves her to walk into the morning sun. “On the other hand, it is possible that I have acted with my usual intelligence. She is at once relieved and disappointed, at once angry and full of thought.”

But whether the other woman ever would return to Hopewell Grange, so complicated and incomprehensible are human emotions, was beyond even the ability of Alexandre Dulau to fathom.

Starrett was clearly having a little fun with his own version of a certain Belgian detective. Dulau lacks only an outrageous mustache and “little grey cells.” Listen to him talk and tell me you don’t hear the Hercule Poirot at play:

“It may be nothing. I am an inquisitive old man, n’est-ce pas? I ask madame's pardon.”

and

“Yes youth is silly. Very silly. Its dearest wish is to be grown up. And sometimes when it is grown up, it would give all it possesses to be young again.”

and

“Courage madame! The truth is not far distant. In time we shall come upon it, in all its pathos, in all its tragedy, in all its nakedness. I but prepare you for it, dear lady!”

Remember that the first Poirot novel was published in 1920 and Agatha Christie’s detective appeared in one of his biggest selling novels, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, in 1926, just one year before “The Other Woman” was published.

What about his name? Where did Dulau come from? Turns out, A. Dulau & Co. was the name of a London publishing and bookselling establishment. Surely the great collector had come across Dulau’s catalogues over the years.

The Publication History

“The Other Woman” was first published in the April/May 1927 issue of Real Detective Tales and Mystery Magazine which I have yet to track down. The magazine was one of Starrett’s favorite places to pitch detective tales, especially those of Jimmie Lavender.

If you see a copy for sale, let me know.

Not long after its initial appearance, “The Other Woman” was picked for The World’s Best One Hundred Detective Stories, published by Funk and Wagnalls Company, in 1929. It appeared in Volume Six.

It’s a fun volume, starting off with two of the later Sherlock Holmes stories, “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs” and the less interesting “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone.” There are also two other Starrett tales: “Missing Men,” a Jimmie Lavender story and “The Eleventh Juror,” one of Starrett’s most frequently reprinted short stories.

There are also two of Maurice LeBlanc’s stories featuring Arsène Lupin; a tale from Saturday Evening Post contributor Henry C. Rowland; and “The Subconscious Witness” by Dr. Stoddard Goodhue writing under the name of Henry Smith Williams. Couple this with Alexandre Dumas’ D’Artagnan tale, and you have a nice evening’s read.

And then there’s Hitchcock.

More than a decade after Starrett’s death, his literary executor, Michael Murphy, sold the story once again, this time for the December 1985 issue of Alfred HItchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

I especially admire the illustration that accompanied the reprint, shown at the top of this post. The artist clearly was careful in some details, such as the 1927 calendar on the wall, which grounds the story in an earlier era. His version of Dulau is also faithful to the story, although I might have made him just a bit shorter.

I’m not so sure about the clothing Mrs. Grange is wearing. Is that a 1927 outfit?

One final thought: While I feel confident Starrett picked the detective’s name from a bookstore catalogue, it just so happens the word “dulau” is also Romanian for “hound” or “mastiff.” As in this example.

Coincidence?

I’ll leave that up to you to decide.