Mystery short stories

 

 

A Collection of

Short Mystery Stories

Featuring the illustrious characters:

 

Mr. A. J. Raffles

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

Father Brown

and Lady Molly of Scotland Yard

 

 

 

This E-book was created from public domain texts from Project Gutenberg,  edited and formatted by Candida Martinelli of Candida Martinelli’s Italophile Site.

            

 

Contents

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

 

From The Amateur Cracksman, by E. W. Hornung, 1899       1

THE IDES OF MARCH  1

A COSTUME PIECE  18

From The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1927     31

THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAZARIN STONE 31

THE PROBLEM OF THOR BRIDGE             48

From The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton, 1911     70

THE BLUE CROSS 70

THE SECRET GARDEN             85

From Lady Molly of Scotland Yard by Baroness Orczy, 1910   101

THE NINESCORE MYSTERY           101

THE END           116

 

i

From The Amateur Cracksman, by E. W. Hornung, 1899

 

 

E. W. Hornung has some thing in common with Arthur Conan Doyle.  They both authored over a dozen serious literary novels, but their lasting fame came through their light ‘entertainments’, Mr. Hornung for Raffles, and Mr. Doyle for Holmes.  Another thing they had in common was Mr. Doyle’s sister, Connie.  Mr. Hornung made her his wife.  A. J. Raffles, the gentleman thief, was popular from the first publication in 1899.  Raffles was first featured in a film in 1905, a silent film, and he has starred in films and television shows ever since.  If you read the stories from beginning to end, you’ll see something very interesting.  Mr. Hornung progresses Raffles’s deeply flawed character along it’s inevitable path to his self-destruction.  The series becomes progressively darker and darker.  The two stories I include in this collection, are the first two stories about A. J. Raffles, and show clearly his addiction to adrenaline, and not-always successful life of crime.

 

 

 

 THE IDES OF MARCH 

 

I

 

It was half-past twelve when I returned to the Albany as a last desperate resort.  The scene of my disaster was much as I had left it.  The baccarat-counters still strewed the table, with the empty glasses and the loaded ash-trays.  A window had been opened to let the smoke out, and was letting in the fog instead.  Raffles himself had merely discarded his dining jacket for one of his innumerable blazers.  Yet he arched his eyebrows as though I had dragged him from his bed.

 

"Forgotten something?" said he, when he saw me on his mat.

 

"No," said I, pushing past him without ceremony.  And I led the way into his room with an impudence amazing to myself.

 

"Not come back for your revenge, have you?  Because I'm afraid I can't give it to you singlehanded.  I was sorry myself that the others--"

We were face to face by his fireside, and I cut him short.

 

"Raffles," said I, "you may well be surprised at my coming back in this way and at this hour.  I hardly know you.  I was never in your rooms before tonight.  But I gophered for you at school, and you said you remembered me.  Of course that's no excuse; but will you listen to me--for two minutes?"

 

In my emotion I had at first to struggle for every word; but his face reassured me as I went on, and I was not mistaken in its expression.

 

"Certainly, my dear man," said he; "as many minutes as you like.  Have a Sullivan and sit down."  And he handed me his silver cigarette-case.

 

"No," said I, finding a full voice as I shook my head; "no, I won't smoke, and I won't sit down, thank you.  Nor will you ask me to do either when you've heard what I have to say."

 

"Really?" said he, lighting his own cigarette with one clear blue eye upon me.  "How do you know?"

 

"Because you'll probably show me the door," I cried bitterly; "and you will be justified in doing it!  But it's no use beating about the bush.  You know I dropped over two hundred just now?"

 

He nodded.

 

"I hadn't the money in my pocket."

 

"I remember."

 

"But I had my check-book, and I wrote each of you a check at that desk."

 

"Well?"

 

"Not one of them was worth the paper it was written on, Raffles.  I am overdrawn already at my bank!"

 

"Surely only for the moment?"

 

"No.  I have spent everything."

 

"But somebody told me you were so well off. I heard you had come in for money?"

 

"So I did.  Three years ago.  It has been my curse; now it's all gone--every penny!  Yes, I've been a fool; there never was nor will be such a fool as I've been. . . .  Isn't this enough for you?  Why don't you turn me out?"  He was walking up and down with a very long face instead.

 

"Couldn't your people do anything?" he asked at length.

 

"Thank God," I cried, "I have no people!  I was an only child.  I came in for everything there was.  My one comfort is that they're gone, and will never know."

 

I cast myself into a chair and hid my face. Raffles continued to pace the rich carpet that was of a piece with everything else in his rooms.  There was no variation in his soft and even footfalls.

 

"You used to be a literary little cuss," he said at length; "didn't you edit the magazine before you left?  Anyway I recollect getting you to do my verses; and literature of all sorts is the very thing nowadays; any fool can make a living at it."

 

I shook my head.  "Any fool couldn't write off my debts," said I.

 

"Then you have a flat somewhere?" he went on.

 

"Yes, in Mount Street."

 

"Well, what about the furniture?"

 

I laughed aloud in my misery.  "There's been a bill of sale on every stick for months!"

 

And at that Raffles stood still, with raised eyebrows and stern eyes that I could meet the better now that he knew the worst; then, with a shrug, he resumed his walk, and for some minutes neither of us spoke.  But in his handsome, unmoved face I read my fate and deathwarrant; and with every breath I cursed my folly and my cowardice in coming to him at all.  Because he had been kind to me at school, when he was captain of the eleven, and I his gopher, I had dared to look for kindness from him now; because I was ruined, and he rich enough to play cricket all the summer, and do nothing for the rest of the year, I had fatuously counted on his mercy, his sympathy, his help!  Yes, I had relied on him in my heart, for all my outward diffidence and humility; and I was rightly served.  There was as little of mercy as of sympathy in that curling nostril, that rigid jaw, that cold blue eye which never glanced my way.  I caught up my hat.  I blundered to my feet.  I would have gone without a word; but Raffles stood between me and the door.

 

"Where are you going?" said he.

 

"That's my business," I replied.  "I won't trouble YOU any more."

 

"Then how am I to help you?"

 

"I didn't ask your help."

"Then why come to me?"

 

"Why, indeed!" I echoed.  "Will you let me pass?"

 

"Not until you tell me where you are going and what you mean to do."

 

"Can't you guess?" I cried.  And for many seconds we stood staring in each other's eyes.

 

"Have you got the pluck?" said he, breaking the spell in a tone so cynical that it brought my last drop of blood to the boil.

 

"You shall see," said I, as I stepped back and whipped the pistol from my overcoat pocket.

"Now, will you let me pass or shall I do it here?"

 

The barrel touched my temple, and my thumb the trigger.  Mad with excitement as I was, ruined, dishonored, and now finally determined to make an end of my misspent life, my only surprise to this day is that I did not do so then and there. The despicable satisfaction of involving another in one's destruction added its miserable appeal to my baser egoism; and had fear or horror flown to my companion's face, I shudder to think I might have died diabolically happy with that look for my last impious consolation.  It was the look that came instead which held my hand.  Neither fear nor horror were in it; only wonder, admiration, and such a measure of pleased expectancy as caused me after all to pocket my revolver with an oath.

 

"You devil!" I said.  "I believe you wanted me to do it!"

 

"Not quite," was the reply, made with a little start, and a change of color that came too late. "To tell you the truth, though, I half thought you meant it, and I was never more fascinated in my life.  I never dreamt you had such stuff in you, Bunny!  No, I'm hanged if I let you go now.  And you'd better not try that game again, for you won't catch me stand and look on a second time.  We must think of some way out of the mess.  I had no idea you were a chap of that sort!  There, let me have the gun."

 

One of his hands fell kindly on my shoulder, while the other slipped into my overcoat pocket, and I suffered him to deprive me of my weapon without a murmur.  Nor was this simply because Raffles had the subtle power of making himself irresistible at will.  He was beyond comparison the most masterful man whom I have ever known; yet my acquiescence was due to more than the mere subjection of the weaker nature to the stronger. The forlorn hope which had brought me to the Albany was turned as by magic into an almost staggering sense of safety.  Raffles would help me after all!  A. J. Raffles would be my friend!  It was as though all the world had come round suddenly to my side; so far therefore from resisting his action, I caught and clasped his hand with a fervor as uncontrollable as the frenzy which had preceded it. 

"God bless you!" I cried.  "Forgive me for everything.  I will tell you the truth.  I DID think you might help me in my extremity, though I well knew that I had no claim upon you.  Still--for the old school's sake--the sake of old times--I thought you might give me another chance.  If you wouldn't I meant to blow out my brains--and will still if you change your mind!"

 

In truth I feared that it was changing, with his expression, even as I spoke, and in spite of his kindly tone and kindlier use of my old school nickname.  His next words showed me my mistake.

 

"What a boy it is for jumping to conclusions! I have my vices, Bunny, but backing and filling is not one of them.  Sit down, my good fellow, and have a cigarette to soothe your nerves.  I insist.  Whiskey?  The worst thing for you; here's some coffee that I was brewing when you came in.  Now listen to me.  You speak of 'another chance.'  What do you mean?  Another chance at baccarat?  Not if I know it!  You think the luck must turn; suppose it didn't?  We should only have made bad worse.  No, my dear chap, you've plunged enough. Do you put yourself in my hands or do you not? Very well, then you plunge no more, and I undertake not to present my check.  Unfortunately there are the other men; and still more unfortunately, Bunny, I'm as hard up at this moment as you are yourself!"

 

It was my turn to stare at Raffles.  "You?" I vociferated.  "You hard up?  How am I to sit here and believe that?"

 

"Did I refuse to believe it of you?" he returned, smiling.  "And, with your own experience, do you think that because a fellow has rooms in this place, and belongs to a club or two, and plays a little cricket, he must necessarily have a balance at the bank?  I tell you, my dear man, that at this moment I'm as hard up as you ever were.  I have nothing but my wits to live on--absolutely nothing else. It was as necessary for me to win some money this evening as it was for you.  We're in the same boat, Bunny; we'd better pull together."

 

"Together!"  I jumped at it.  "I'll do anything in this world for you, Raffles," I said, "if you really mean that you won't give me away.  Think of anything you like, and I'll do it!  I was a desperate man when I came here, and I'm just as desperate now.  I don't mind what I do if only I can get out of this without a scandal."

 

Again I see him, leaning back in one of the luxurious chairs with which his room was furnished. I see his indolent, athletic figure; his pale, sharp, clean-shaven features; his curly black hair; his strong, unscrupulous mouth.  And again I feel the clear beam of his wonderful eye, cold and luminous as a star, shining into my brain--sifting the very secrets of my heart.

 

"I wonder if you mean all that!" he said at length.  "You do in your present mood; but who can back his mood to last?  Still, there's hope when a chap takes that tone.  Now I think of it, too, you were a plucky little devil at school; you once did me rather a good turn, I recollect.  Remember it, Bunny?  Well, wait a bit, and perhaps I'll be able to do you a better one.  Give me time to think."

He got up, lit a fresh cigarette, and fell to pacing the room once more, but with a slower and more thoughtful step, and for a much longer period than before.  Twice he stopped at my chair as though on the point of speaking, but each time he checked himself and resumed his stride in silence.  Once he threw up the window, which he had shut some time since, and stood for some moments leaning out into the fog which filled the Albany courtyard. 

Meanwhile a clock on the chimney-piece struck one, and one again for the half-hour, without a word between us.

 

Yet I not only kept my chair with patience, but I acquired an incongruous equanimity in that half-hour.  Insensibly I had shifted my burden to the broad shoulders of this splendid friend, and my thoughts wandered with my eyes as the minutes passed.  The room was the goodsized, square one, with the folding doors, the marble mantel-piece, and the gloomy, oldfashioned distinction peculiar to the Albany.  It was charmingly furnished and arranged, with the right amount of negligence and the right amount of taste.  What struck me most, however, was the absence of the usual insignia of a cricketer's den.  Instead of the conventional rack of war-worn bats, a carved oak bookcase, with every shelf in a litter, filled the better part of one wall; and where I looked for cricketing groups, I found reproductions of such works as "Love and Death" and "The Blessed Damozel," in dusty frames and different parallels.  The man might have been a minor poet instead of an athlete of the first water.  But there had always been a fine streak of aestheticism in his complex composition; some of these very pictures I had myself dusted in his study at school; and they set me thinking of yet another of his many sides--and of the little incident to which he had just referred.

 

Everybody knows how largely the tone of a public school depends on that of the eleven, and on the character of the captain of cricket in particular; and I have never heard it denied that in A. J. Raffles's time our tone was good, or that such influence as he troubled to exert was on the side of the angels.  Yet it was whispered in the school that he was in the habit of parading the town at night in loud checks and a false beard.  It was whispered, and disbelieved.  I alone knew it for a fact; for night after night had I pulled the rope up after him when the rest of the dormitory were asleep, and kept awake by the hour to let it down again on a given signal.  Well, one night he was over-bold, and within an ace of ignominious expulsion in the hey-day of his fame.  Consummate daring and extraordinary nerve on his part, aided, doubtless, by some little presence of mind on mine, averted the untoward result; and no more need be said of a discreditable incident.  But I cannot pretend to have forgotten it in throwing myself on this man's mercy in my desperation.  And I was wondering how much of his leniency was owing to the fact that Raffles had not forgotten it either, when he stopped and stood over my chair once more.

 

"I've been thinking of that night we had the narrow squeak," he began.  "Why do you start?"

 

"I was thinking of it too."

 

He smiled, as though he had read my thoughts.

 

"Well, you were the right sort of little beggar then, Bunny; you didn't talk and you didn't flinch.

You asked no questions and you told no tales.  I wonder if you're like that now?"

 

"I don't know," said I, slightly puzzled by his tone.  "I've made such a mess of my own affairs that I trust myself about as little as I'm likely to be trusted by anybody else.  Yet I never in my life went back on a friend.  I will say that, otherwise perhaps I mightn't be in such a hole tonight."

 

"Exactly," said Raffles, nodding to himself, as though in assent to some hidden train of thought; "exactly what I remember of you, and I'll bet it's as true now as it was ten years ago.  We don't alter, Bunny.  We only develop.  I suppose neither you nor I are really altered since you used to let down that rope and I used to come up it hand over hand.  You would stick at nothing for a pal--what?"

 

"At nothing in this world," I was pleased to cry.

 

"Not even at a crime?" said Raffles, smiling.

 

I stopped to think, for his tone had changed, and I felt sure he was chaffing me.  Yet his eye seemed as much in earnest as ever, and for my part I was in no mood for reservations.

 

"No, not even at that," I declared; "name your crime, and I'm your man."

 

He looked at me one moment in wonder, and another moment in doubt; then turned the matter off with a shake of his head, and the little cynical laugh that was all his own.

 

"You're a nice chap, Bunny!  A real desperate character--what?  Suicide one moment, and any crime I like the next!  What you want is a drag, my boy, and you did well to come to a decent law-abiding citizen with a reputation to lose.  None the less we must have that money tonight--by hook or crook."

 

"Tonight, Raffles?"

 

"The sooner the better.  Every hour after ten o'clock tomorrow morning is an hour of risk.  Let one of those checks get round to your own bank, and you and it are dishonored together.  No, we must raise the wind tonight and re-open your account first thing tomorrow.  And I rather think I know where the wind can be raised."

 

"At two o'clock in the morning?"

 

"Yes."

 

"But how--but where--at such an hour?"

 

"From a friend of mine here in Bond Street."

 

"He must be a very intimate friend!"

 

"Intimate's not the word.  I have the run of his place and a latch-key all to myself."

 

"You would knock him up at this hour of the night?"

 

"If he's in bed."

 

"And it's essential that I should go in with you?"

 

"Absolutely."

 

"Then I must; but I'm bound to say I don't like the idea, Raffles."

 

"Do you prefer the alternative?" asked my companion, with a sneer.  "No, hang it, that's unfair!" he cried apologetically in the same breath.  "I quite understand.  It's a beastly ordeal.  But it would never do for you to stay outside.  I tell you what, you shall have a peg before we start--just one.  There's the whiskey, here's a siphon, and I'll be putting on an overcoat while you help yourself."

 

Well, I daresay I did so with some freedom, for this plan of his was not the less distasteful to me from its apparent inevitability.  I must own, however, that it possessed fewer terrors before my glass was empty.  Meanwhile Raffles rejoined me, with a covert coat over his blazer, and a soft felt hat set carelessly on the curly head he shook with a smile as I passed him the decanter.

 

"When we come back," said he.  "Work first, play afterward.  Do you see what day it is?" he added, tearing a leaflet from a Shakespearian calendar, as I drained my glass.  "March 15th.  'The Ides of March, the Ides of March, remember.' Eh, Bunny, my boy?  You won't forget them, will you?"

 

And, with a laugh, he threw some coals on the fire before turning down the gas like a careful householder.  So we went out together as the clock on the chimney-piece was striking two.

 

II

 

Piccadilly was a trench of raw white fog, rimmed with blurred street-lamps, and lined with a thin coating of adhesive mud.  We met no other wayfarers on the deserted flagstones, and were ourselves favored with a very hard stare from the constable of the beat, who, however, touched his helmet on recognizing my companion.

 

"You see, I'm known to the police," laughed Raffles as we passed on.  "Poor devils, they've got to keep their weather eye open on a night like this!  A fog may be a bore to you and me, Bunny, but it's a perfect godsend to the criminal classes, especially so late in their season.  Here we are, though--and I'm hanged if the beggar isn't in bed and asleep after all!"

 

We had turned into Bond Street, and had halted on the curb a few yards down on the right.  Raffles was gazing up at some windows across the road, windows barely discernible through the mist, and without the glimmer of a light to throw them out. They were over a jeweler’s shop, as I could see by the peep-hole in the shop door, and the bright light burning within.  But the entire "upper part," with the private street-door next the shop, was black and blank as the sky itself.

 

"Better give it up for tonight," I urged. "Surely the morning will be time enough!"

 

"Not a bit of it," said Raffles.  "I have his key. We'll surprise him.  Come along."

 

And seizing my right arm, he hurried me across the road, opened the door with his latch-key, and in another moment had shut it swiftly but softly behind us.  We stood together in the dark.  Outside, a measured step was approaching; we had heard it through the fog as we crossed the street; now, as it drew nearer, my companion's fingers tightened on my arm.

 

"It may be the chap himself," he whispered. "He's the devil of a night-bird.  Not a sound,

Bunny!  We'll startle the life out of him.  Ah!"

 

The measured step had passed without a pause. Raffles drew a deep breath, and his singular grip of me slowly relaxed.

 

"But still, not a sound," he continued in the same whisper; "we'll take a rise out of him, wherever he is!  Slip off your shoes and follow me."

 

Well, you may wonder at my doing so; but you can never have met A. J. Raffles.  Half his power lay in a conciliating trick of sinking the commander in the leader.  And it was impossible not to follow one who led with such a zest.  You might question, but you followed first.  So now, when I heard him kick off his own shoes, I did the same, and was on the stairs at his heels before I realized what an extraordinary way was this of approaching a stranger for money in the dead of night.  But obviously Raffles and he were on exceptional terms of intimacy, and I could not but infer that they were in the habit of playing practical jokes upon each other.

 

We groped our way so slowly upstairs that I had time to make more than one note before we reached the top.  The stair was uncarpeted.  The spread fingers of my right hand encountered nothing on the damp wall; those of my left trailed through a dust that could be felt on the banisters. An eerie sensation had been upon me since we entered the house.  It increased with every step we climbed.  What hermit were we going to startle in his cell?

 

We came to a landing.  The banisters led us to the left, and to the left again.  Four steps more, and we were on another and a longer landing, and suddenly a match blazed from the black.  I never heard it struck.  Its flash was blinding.  When my eyes became accustomed to the light, there was Raffles holding up the match with one hand, and shading it with the other, between bare boards, stripped walls, and the open doors of empty rooms.

 

"Where have you brought me?" I cried.  "The house is unoccupied!"

 

"Hush!  Wait!" he whispered, and he led the way into one of the empty rooms.  His match went out as we crossed the threshold, and he struck another without the slightest noise.  Then he stood with his back to me, fumbling with something that I could not see.  But, when he threw the second match away, there was some other light in its stead, and a slight smell of oil.  I stepped forward to look over his shoulder, but before I could do so he had turned and flashed a tiny lantern in my face.

 

"What's this?" I gasped.  "What rotten trick are you going to play?"

 

"It's played," he answered, with his quiet laugh.

 

"On me?"

 

"I am afraid so, Bunny."

 

"Is there no one in the house, then?"

 

"No one but ourselves."

 

"So it was mere chaff about your friend in Bond Street, who could let us have that money?"

 

"Not altogether.  It's quite true that Danby is a friend of mine."

 

"Danby?"

 

"The jeweler underneath."

 

"What do you mean?" I whispered, trembling like a leaf as his meaning dawned upon me.  "Are we to get the money from the jeweler?"

 

"Well, not exactly."

 

"What, then?"

 

"The equivalent--from his shop."

 

There was no need for another question.  I understood everything but my own density.  He had given me a dozen hints, and I had taken none. And there I stood staring at him, in that empty room; and there he stood with his dark lantern, laughing at me.

 

"A burglar!" I gasped.  "You--you!"

 

"I told you I lived by my wits."

 

"Why couldn't you tell me what you were going to do?  Why couldn't you trust me?  Why must you lie?" I demanded, piqued to the quick for all my horror.

 

"I wanted to tell you," said he.  "I was on the point of telling you more than once.  You may remember how I sounded you about crime, though you have probably forgotten what you said yourself.  I didn't think you meant it at the time, but I thought I'd put you to the test.  Now I see you didn't, and I don't blame you.  I only am to blame. Get out of it, my dear boy, as quick as you can; leave it to me.  You won't give me away, whatever else you do!"

 

Oh, his cleverness!  His fiendish cleverness! Had he fallen back on threats, coercion, sneers, all might have been different even yet.  But he set me free to leave him in the lurch.  He would not blame me.  He did not even bind me to secrecy; he trusted me.  He knew my weakness and my strength, and was playing on both with his master's touch.

 

"Not so fast," said I.  "Did I put this into your head, or were you going to do it in any case?"

 

"Not in any case," said Raffles.  "It's true I've had the key for days, but when I won tonight I thought of chucking it; for, as a matter of fact, it's not a one-man job."

 

"That settles it.  I'm your man."

 

"You mean it?"

 

"Yes--for tonight."

 

"Good old Bunny," he murmured, holding the lantern for one moment to my face; the next he was explaining his plans, and I was nodding, as though we had been fellow-cracksmen all our days.

 

"I know the shop," he whispered, "because I've got a few things there.  I know this upper part too; it's been to let for a month, and I got an order to view, and took a cast of the key before using it. The one thing I don't know is how to make a connection between the two; at present there's none. We may make it up here, though I rather fancy the basement myself.  If you wait a minute I'll tell you."

 

He set his lantern on the floor, crept to a back window, and opened it with scarcely a sound: only to return, shaking his head, after shutting the window with the same care.

 

"That was our one chance," said he; "a back window above a back window; but it's too dark to see anything, and we daren't show an outside light. Come down after me to the basement; and remember, though there's not a soul on the premises, you can't make too little noise.  There--there--listen to that!"

 

It was the measured tread that we had heard before on the flagstones outside.  Raffles darkened his lantern, and again we stood motionless till it had passed.

 

"Either a policeman," he muttered, "or a watchman that all these jewelers run between them. The watchman's the man for us to watch; he's simply paid to spot this kind of thing."

 

We crept very gingerly down the stairs, which creaked a bit in spite of us, and we picked up our shoes in the passage; then down some narrow stone steps, at the foot of which Raffles showed his light, and put on his shoes once more, bidding me do the same in a rather louder tone than he had permitted himself to employ overhead.  We were now considerably below the level of the street, in a small space with as many doors as it had sides.  Three were ajar, and we saw through them into empty cellars; but in the fourth a key was turned and a bolt drawn; and this one presently let us out into the bottom of a deep, square well of fog.  A similar door faced it across this area, and Raffles had the lantern close against it, and was hiding the light with his body, when a short and sudden crash made my heart stand still.  Next moment I saw the door wide open, and Raffles standing within and beckoning me with a jimmy.

 

"Door number one," he whispered.  "Deuce knows how many more there'll be, but I know of two at least.  We won't have to make much noise over them, either; down here there's less risk."

 

We were now at the bottom of the exact fellow to the narrow stone stair which we had just descended: the yard, or well, being the one part common to both the private and the business premises. But this flight led to no open passage; instead, a singularly solid mahogany door confronted us at the top.

 

"I thought so," muttered Raffles, handing me the lantern, and pocketing a bunch of skeleton keys, after tampering for a few minutes with the lock. "It'll be an hour's work to get through that!"

 

"Can't you pick it?"

 

"No: I know these locks.  It's no use trying. We must cut it out, and it'll take us an hour."

 

It took us forty-seven minutes by my watch; or, rather, it took Raffles; and never in my life have I seen anything more deliberately done.  My part was simply to stand by with the dark lantern in one hand, and a small bottle of rock-oil in the other.

 

Raffles had produced a pretty embroidered case, intended obviously for his razors, but filled instead with the tools of his secret trade, including the rock-oil.  From this case he selected a "bit," capable of drilling a hole an inch in diameter, and fitted it to a small but very strong steel "brace." Then he took off his covert-coat and his blazer, spread them neatly on the top step-knelt on them--turned up his shirt cuffs--and went to work with brace-and-bit near the keyhole.  But first he oiled the bit to minimize the noise, and this he did invariably before beginning a fresh hole, and often in the middle of one.  It took thirty-two separate borings to cut around that lock.

 

I noticed that through the first circular orifice Raffles thrust a forefinger; then, as the circle became an ever-lengthening oval, he got his hand through up to the thumb; and I heard him swear softly to himself.

 

"I was afraid so!"

 

"What is it?"

 

"An iron gate on the other side!"

 

"How on earth are we to get through that?" I asked in dismay.

 

"Pick the lock.  But there may be two.  In that case they'll be top and bottom, and we shall have two fresh holes to make, as the door opens inwards. It won't open two inches as it is."

 

I confess I did not feel sanguine about the lock-picking, seeing that one lock had baffled us already; and my disappointment and impatience must have been a revelation to me had I stopped to think. The truth is that I was entering into our nefarious undertaking with an involuntary zeal of which I was myself quite unconscious at the time.  The romance and the peril of the whole proceeding held me spellbound and entranced.  My moral sense and my sense of fear were stricken by a common paralysis.  And there I stood, shining my light and holding my phial with a keener interest than I had ever brought to any honest avocation. And there knelt A. J. Raffles, with his black hair tumbled, and the same watchful, quiet, determined half-smile with which I have seen him send down over after over in a county match!

 

At last the chain of holes was complete, the lock wrenched out bodily, and a splendid bare arm plunged up to the shoulder through the aperture, and through the bars of the iron gate beyond.

 

"Now," whispered Raffles, "if there's only one lock it'll be in the middle.  Joy!  Here it is!  Only let me pick it, and we're through at last."

 

He withdrew his arm, a skeleton key was selected from the bunch, and then back went his arm to the shoulder.  It was a breathless moment.  I heard the heart throbbing in my body, the very watch ticking in my pocket, and ever and anon the tinkle-tinkle of the skeleton key.  Then--at last--there came a single unmistakable click.  In another minute the mahogany door and the iron gate yawned behind us; and Raffles was sitting on an office table, wiping his face, with the lantern throwing a steady beam by his side.

 

We were now in a bare and roomy lobby behind the shop, but separated there from by an iron curtain, the very sight of which filled me with despair. Raffles, however, did not appear in the least depressed, but hung up his coat and hat on some pegs in the lobby before examining this curtain with his lantern.

 

"That's nothing," said he, after a minute's inspection; "we'll be through that in no time, but there's a door on the other side which may give us trouble."

 

"Another door!" I groaned.  "And how do you mean to tackle this thing?"

 

"Prise it up with the jointed jimmy.  The weak point of these iron curtains is the leverage you can get from below.  But it makes a noise, and this is where you're coming in, Bunny; this is where I couldn't do without you.  I must have you overhead to knock through when the street's clear. I'll come with you and show a light."

 

Well, you may imagine how little I liked the prospect of this lonely vigil; and yet there was something very stimulating in the vital responsibility which it involved.  Hitherto I had been a mere spectator.  Now I was to take part in the game. And the fresh excitement made me more than ever insensible to those considerations of conscience and of safety which were already as dead nerves in my breast.

 

So I took my post without a murmur in the front room above the shop.  The fixtures had been left for the refusal of the incoming tenant, and fortunately for us they included Venetian blinds which were already down.  It was the simplest matter in the world to stand peeping through the laths into the street, to beat twice with my foot when anybody was approaching, and once when all was clear again.  The noises that even I could hear below, with the exception of one metallic crash at the beginning, were indeed incredibly slight; but they ceased altogether at each double rap from my toe; and a policeman passed quite half a dozen times beneath my eyes, and the man whom I took to be the jeweler’s watchman oftener still, during the better part of an hour that I spent at the window.  Once, indeed, my heart was in my mouth, but only once.  It was when the watchman stopped and peered through the peep-hole into the lighted shop.  I waited for his whistle--I waited for the gallows or the jail!  But my signals had been studiously obeyed, and the man passed on in undisturbed serenity.

 

In the end I had a signal in my turn, and retraced my steps with lighted matches, down the broad stairs, down the narrow ones, across the area, and up into the lobby where Raffles awaited me with an outstretched hand.

 

"Well done, my boy!" said he.  "You're the same good man in a pinch, and you shall have your reward.  I've got a thousand pounds' worth if I've got a penn'oth.  It's all in my pockets.  And here's something else I found in this locker; very decent port and some cigars, meant for poor dear Danby's business friends.  Take a pull, and you shall light up presently.  I've found a lavatory, too, and we must have a wash-and-brush-up before we go, for I'm as black as your boot."

 

The iron curtain was down, but he insisted on raising it until I could peep through the glass door on the other side and see his handiwork in the shop beyond.  Here two electric lights were left burning all night long, and in their cold white rays I could at first see nothing amiss.  I looked along an orderly lane, an empty glass counter on my left, glass cupboards of untouched silver on my right, and facing me the filmy black eye of the peep-hole that shone like a stage moon on the street.  The counter had not been emptied by Raffles; its contents were in the Chubb's safe, which he had given up at a glance; nor had he looked at the silver, except to choose a cigarette case for me.  He had confined himself entirely to the shop window.  This was in three compartments, each secured for the night by removable panels with separate locks. Raffles had removed them a few hours before their time, and the electric light shone on a corrugated shutter bare as the ribs of an empty carcass.  Every article of value was gone from the one place which was invisible from the little window in the door; elsewhere all was as it had been left overnight. And but for a train of mangled doors behind the iron curtain, a bottle of wine and a cigar-box with which liberties had been taken, a rather black towel in the lavatory, a burnt match here and there, and our finger-marks on the dusty banisters, not a trace of our visit did we leave.

 

"Had it in my head for long?" said Raffles, as we strolled through the streets towards dawn, for all the world as though we were returning from a dance.  "No, Bunny, I never thought of it till I saw that upper part empty about a month ago, and bought a few things in the shop to get the lie of the land.  That reminds me that I never paid for them; but, by Jove, I will tomorrow, and if that isn't poetic justice, what is?  One visit showed me the possibilities of the place, but a second convinced me of its impossibilities without a pal.  So I had practically given up the idea, when you came along on the very night and in the very plight for it!  But here we are at the Albany, and I hope there's some fire left; for I don't know how you feel, Bunny, but for my part I'm as cold as Keats's owl."

 

He could think of Keats on his way from a felony!  He could hanker for his fireside like another!  Floodgates were loosed within me, and the plain English of our adventure rushed over me as cold as ice.  Raffles was a burglar.  I had helped him to commit one burglary, therefore I was a burglar, too.  Yet I could stand and warm myself by his fire, and watch him empty his pockets, as though we had done nothing wonderful or wicked!

 

My blood froze.  My heart sickened.  My brain whirled.  How I had liked this villain!  How I had admired him!  Now my liking and admiration must turn to loathing and disgust.  I waited for the change.  I longed to feel it in my heart.  But--I longed and I waited in vain!

 

I saw that he was emptying his pockets; the table sparkled with their hoard.  Rings by the dozen, diamonds by the score; bracelets, pendants, aigrettes, necklaces, pearls, rubies, amethysts, sapphires; and diamonds always, diamonds in everything, flashing bayonets of light, dazzling me--blinding me--making me disbelieve because I could no longer forget.  Last of all came no gem, indeed, but my own revolver from an inner pocket. And that struck a chord.  I suppose I said something--my hand flew out.  I can see Raffles now, as he looked at me once more with a high arch over each clear eye.  I can see him pick out the cartridges with his quiet, cynical smile, before he would give me my pistol back again.

 

"You mayn't believe it, Bunny," said he, "but I never carried a loaded one before.  On the whole I think it gives one confidence.  Yet it would be very awkward if anything went wrong; one might use it, and that's not the game at all, though I have often thought that the murderer who has just done the trick must have great sensations before things get too hot for him.  Don't look so distressed, my dear chap.  I've never had those sensations, and I don't suppose I ever shall."

 

"But this much you have done before?" said I hoarsely.

 

"Before?  My dear Bunny, you offend me!  Did it look like a first attempt?  Of course I have done it before."

 

"Often?"

 

"Well--no!  Not often enough to destroy the charm, at all events; never, as a matter of fact, unless I'm cursedly hard up.  Did you hear about the Thimbleby diamonds?  Well, that was the last time--and a poor lot of paste they were.  Then there was the little business of the Dormer houseboat at Henley last year.  That was mine also--such as it was.  I've never brought off a really big coup yet; when I do I shall chuck it up."

 

Yes, I remembered both cases very well.  To think that he was their author!  It was incredible, outrageous, inconceivable.  Then my eyes would fall upon the table, twinkling and glittering in a hundred places, and incredulity was at an end.

 

"How came you to begin?" I asked, as curiosity overcame mere wonder, and a fascination for his career gradually wove itself into my fascination for the man.

 

"Ah! that's a long story," said Raffles.  "It was in the Colonies, when I was out there playing cricket.  It's too long a story to tell you now, but I was in much the same fix that you were in tonight, and it was my only way out.  I never meant it for anything more; but I'd tasted blood, and it was all over with me.  Why should I work when I could steal?  Why settle down to some humdrum uncongenial billet, when excitement, romance, danger and a decent living were all going begging together?  Of course it's very wrong, but we can't all be moralists, and the distribution of wealth is very wrong to begin with.  Besides, you're not at it all the time.  I'm sick of quoting Gilbert's lines to myself, but they're profoundly true.  I only wonder if you'll like the life as much as I do!"

 

"Like it?" I cried out.  "Not I!  It's no life for me.  Once is enough!"

 

"You wouldn't give me a hand another time?"

 

"Don't ask me, Raffles.  Don't ask me, for God's sake!"

 

"Yet you said you would do anything for me! You asked me to name my crime!  But I knew at the time you didn't mean it; you didn't go back on me tonight, and that ought to satisfy me, goodness knows!  I suppose I'm ungrateful, and unreasonable, and all that.  I ought to let it end at this.  But you're the very man for me, Bunny, the--very--man!  Just think how we got through tonight. Not a scratch--not a hitch!  There's nothing very terrible in it, you see; there never would be, while we worked together."

 

He was standing in front of me with a hand on either shoulder; he was smiling as he knew so well how to smile.  I turned on my heel, planted my elbows on the chimney-piece, and my burning head between my hands.  Next instant a still heartier hand had fallen on my back.

 

"All right, my boy!  You are quite right and I'm worse than wrong.  I'll never ask it again. Go, if you want to, and come again about mid-day for the cash.  There was no bargain; but, of course, I'll get you out of your scrape--especially after the way you've stood by me tonight."

 

I was round again with my blood on fire.

 

"I'll do it again," I said, through my teeth.

 

He shook his head.  "Not you," he said, smiling quite good-humoredly on my insane enthusiasm.

 

"I will," I cried with an oath.  "I'll lend you a hand as often as you like!  What does it matter now?  I've been in it once.  I'll be in it again.  I've gone to the devil anyhow.  I can't go back, and wouldn't if I could.  Nothing matters another rap!  When you want me, I'm your man!"

 

And that is how Raffles and I joined felonious forces on the Ides of March. 

A COSTUME PIECE

 

 

London was just then talking of one whose name is already a name and nothing more. Reuben Rosenthall had made his millions on the diamond fields of South Africa, and had come home to enjoy them according to his lights; how he went to work will scarcely be forgotten by any reader of the halfpenny evening papers, which reveled in endless anecdotes of his original indigence and present prodigality, varied with interesting particulars of the extraordinary establishment which the millionaire set up in St. John's Wood.  Here he kept a retinue of Black South Africans, who were literally his slaves; and hence he would sally, with enormous diamonds in his shirt and on his finger, in the convoy of a prize-fighter of heinous repute, who was not, however, by any means the worst element in the Rosenthall mélange.  So said common gossip; but the fact was sufficiently established by the interference of the police on at least one occasion, followed by certain magisterial proceedings which were reported with justifiable gusto and huge headlines in the newspapers aforesaid.

 

And this was all one knew of Reuben Rosenthall up to the time when the Old Bohemian Club, having fallen on evil days, found it worth its while to organize a great dinner in honor of so wealthy an exponent of the club's principles.  I was not at the banquet myself, but a member took Raffles, who told me all about it that very night.

 

"Most extraordinary show I ever went to in my life," said he.  "As for the man himself--well, I was prepared for something grotesque, but the fellow fairly took my breath away.  To begin with, he's the most astounding brute to look at, well over six feet, with a chest like a barrel, and the reddest hair and whiskers you ever saw.  Drank like a fire-engine, but only got drunk enough to make us a speech that I wouldn't have missed for ten pounds.  I'm only sorry you weren't there, too, Bunny, old chap."

 

I began to be sorry myself, for Raffles was anything but an excitable person, and never had I seen him so excited before.  Had he been following Rosenthall's example?  His coming to my rooms at midnight, merely to tell me about his dinner, was in itself enough to excuse a suspicion which was certainly at variance with my knowledge of A. J. Raffles.

 

"What did he say?" I inquired mechanically, divining some subtler explanation of this visit, and wondering what on earth it could be.

 

"Say?" cried Raffles.  "What did he not say!  He boasted of his rise, he bragged of his riches, and he blackguarded society for taking him up for his money and dropping him out of sheer pique and jealousy because he had so much.  He mentioned names, too, with the most charming freedom, and swore he was as good a man as the Old Country had to show--PACE the Old Bohemians. To prove it he pointed to a great diamond in the middle of his shirt-front with a little finger loaded with another just like it: which of our bloated princes could show a pair like that?  As a matter of fact, they seemed quite wonderful stones, with a curious purple gleam to them that must mean a pot of money.  But old Rosenthall swore he wouldn't take fifty thousand pounds for the two, and wanted to know where the other man was who went about with twenty-five thousand in his shirt-front and another twenty-five on his little finger. He didn't exist.  If he did, he wouldn't have the pluck to wear them.  But he had--he'd tell us why. And before you could say Jack Robinson he had whipped out a whacking great revolver!"

 

"Not at the table?"

 

"At the table!  In the middle of his speech!  But it was nothing to what he wanted to do.  He actually wanted us to let him write his name in bullets on the opposite wall, to show us why he wasn't afraid to go about in all his diamonds!  That brute Purvis, the prize-fighter, who is his paid bully, had to bully his master before he could be persuaded out of it.  There was quite a panic for the moment; one fellow was saying his prayers under the table, and the waiters bolted to a man."

 

"What a grotesque scene!"

 

"Grotesque enough, but I rather wish they had let him go the whole hog and blaze away.  He was as keen as knives to show us how he could take care of his purple diamonds; and, do you know, Bunny, I was as keen as knives to see."

 

And Raffles leaned towards me with a sly, slow smile that made the hidden meaning of his visit only too plain to me at last.

 

"So you think of having a try for his diamonds yourself?"

 

He shrugged his shoulders.

 

"It is horribly obvious, I admit.  But--yes, I have set my heart upon them!  To be quite frank, I have had them on my conscience for some time; one couldn't hear so much of the man, and his prize-fighter, and his diamonds, without feeling it a kind of duty to have a go for them; but when it comes to brandishing a revolver and practically challenging the world, the thing becomes inevitable.  It is simply thrust upon one.  I was fated to hear that challenge, Bunny, and I, for one, must take it up.  I was only sorry I couldn't get on my hind legs and say so then and there."

 

"Well," I said, "I don't see the necessity as things are with us; but, of course, I'm your man."

 

My tone may have been half-hearted.  I did my best to make it otherwise.  But it was barely a month since our Bond Street exploit, and we certainly could have afforded to behave ourselves for some time to come.  We had been getting along so nicely: by his advice I had scribbled a thing or two; inspired by Raffles, I had even done an article on our own jewel robbery; and for the moment I was quite satisfied with this sort of adventure.  I thought we ought to know when we were well off, and could see no point in our running fresh risks before we were obliged.  On the other hand, I was anxious not to show the least disposition to break the pledge that I had given a month ago.  But it was not on my manifest disinclination that Raffles fastened.

 

"Necessity, my dear Bunny?  Does the writer only write when the wolf is at the door?  Does the painter paint for bread alone?  Must you and I be DRIVEN to crime like Tom of Bow and Dick of Whitechapel?  You pain me, my dear chap; you needn't laugh, because you do.  Art for art's sake is a vile catchword, but I confess it appeals to me. In this case my motives are absolutely pure, for I doubt if we shall ever be able to dispose of such peculiar stones.  But if I don't have a try for them--after tonight--I shall never be able to hold up my head again."

 

His eye twinkled, but it glittered, too.

 

"We shall have our work cut out," was all I said.

 

"And do you suppose I should be keen on it if we hadn't?" cried Raffles.  "My dear fellow, I would rob St. Paul's Cathedral if I could, but I could no more scoop a till when the shopworker wasn't looking than I could bag the apples out of an old woman's basket.  Even that little business last month was a sordid affair, but it was necessary, and I think its strategy redeemed it to some extent. Now there's some credit, and more sport, in going where they boast they're on their guard against you.  The Bank of England, for example, is the ideal crib; but that would need half a dozen of us with years to give to the job; and meanwhile Reuben Rosenthall is high enough game for you and me.  We know he's armed.  We know how Billy Purvis can fight.  It'll be no soft thing, I grant you. But what of that, my good Bunny--what of that?  A man's reach must exceed his grasp, dear boy, or what the dickens is a heaven for?"

 

"I would rather we didn't exceed ours just yet," I answered laughing, for his spirit was irresistible, and the plan was growing upon me, despite my qualms.

 

"Trust me for that," was his reply; "I'll see you through.  After all I expect to find that the difficulties are nearly all on the surface.  These fellows both drink like the devil, and that should simplify matters considerably.  But we shall see, and we must take our time.  There will probably turn out to be a dozen different ways in which the thing might be done, and we shall have to choose between them.  It will mean watching the house for at least a week in any case; it may mean lots of other things that will take much longer; but give me a week and I will tell you more.  That's to say, if you're really on?"

 

"Of course I am," I replied indignantly.  "But why should I give you a week?  Why shouldn't we watch the house together?"

 

"Because two eyes are as good as four and take up less room.  Never hunt in couples unless you're obliged.  But don't you look offended, Bunny; there'll be plenty for you to do when the time comes, that I promise you.  You shall have your share of the fun, never fear, and a purple diamond all to yourself--if we're lucky."

 

On the whole, however, this conversation left me less than lukewarm, and I still remember the depression which came upon me when Raffles was gone.  I saw the folly of the enterprise to which I had committed myself--the sheer, gratuitous, unnecessary folly of it.  And the paradoxes in which Raffles reveled, and the frivolous casuistry which was nevertheless half sincere, and which his mere personality rendered wholly plausible at the moment of utterance, appealed very little to me when recalled in cold blood.  I admired the spirit of pure mischief in which he seemed prepared to risk his liberty and his life, but I did not find it an infectious spirit on calm reflection.  Yet the thought of withdrawal was not to be entertained for a moment.  On the contrary, I was impatient of the delay ordained by Raffles; and, perhaps, no small part of my secret disaffection came of his galling determination to do without me until the last moment.

 

It made it no better that this was characteristic of the man and of his attitude towards me.  For a month we had been, I suppose, the thickest thieves in all London, and yet our intimacy was curiously incomplete.  With all his charming frankness, there was in Raffles a vein of capricious reserve which was perceptible enough to be very irritating. He had the instinctive secretiveness of the inveterate criminal.  He would make mysteries of matters of common concern; for example, I never knew how or where he disposed of the Bond Street jewels, on the proceeds of which we were both still leading the outward lives of hundreds of other young fellows about town.  He was consistently mysterious about that and other details, of which it seemed to me that I had already earned the right to know everything.  I could not but remember how he had led me into my first felony, by means of a trick, while yet uncertain whether he could trust me or not.

 

That I could no longer afford to resent, but I did resent his want of confidence in me now.  I said nothing about it, but it rankled every day, and never more than in the week that succeeded the Rosenthall dinner.  When I met Raffles at the club he would tell me nothing; when I went to his rooms he was out, or pretended to be.

 

One day he told me he was getting on well, but slowly; it was a more ticklish game than he had thought; but when I began to ask questions he would say no more.  Then and there, in my annoyance, I took my own decision.  Since he would tell me nothing of the result of his vigils, I determined to keep one on my own account, and that very evening found my way to the millionaire's front gates.

 

The house he was occupying is, I believe, quite the largest in the St. John's Wood district.  It stands in the angle formed by two broad thoroughfares, neither of which, as it happens, is a bus route, and I doubt if many quieter spots exist within the four-mile radius.  Quiet also was the great square house, in its garden of grass-plots and shrubs; the lights were low, the millionaire and his friends obviously spending their evening elsewhere.  The garden walls were only a few feet high.  In one there was a side door opening into a glass passage; in the other two five-barred, grained-and-varnished gates, one at either end of the little semi-circular drive, and both wide open. So still was the place that I had a great mind to walk boldly in and learn something of the premises; in fact, I was on the point of doing so, when I heard a quick, shuffling step on the pavement behind me.  I turned round and faced the dark scowl and the dirty clenched fists of a dilapidated tramp.

 

"You fool!" said he.  "You utter idiot!"

 

"Raffles!"

 

"That's it," he whispered savagely; "tell all the neighborhood--give me away at the top of your voice!"

 

With that he turned his back upon me, and shambled down the road, shrugging his shoulders and muttering to himself as though I had refused him alms.  A few moments I stood astounded, indignant, at a loss; then I followed him.  His feet trailed, his knees gave, his back was bowed, his head kept nodding; it was the gait of a man eighty years of age.  Presently he waited for me midway between two lamp-posts.  As I came up he was lighting rank tobacco, in a cutty pipe, with an evil-smelling match, and the flame showed me the suspicion of a smile.

 

"You must forgive my heat, Bunny, but it really was very foolish of you.  Here am I trying every dodge--begging at the door one night--hiding in the shrubs the next--doing every mortal thing but stand and stare at the house as you went and did. It's a costume piece, and in you rush in your ordinary clothes.  I tell you they're on the lookout for us night and day.  It's the toughest nut I ever tackled!"

 

"Well," said I, "if you had told me so before I shouldn't have come.  You told me nothing."

 

He looked hard at me from under the broken brim of a battered billycock.

 

"You're right," he said at length.  "I've been too close.  It's become second nature with me when I've anything on.  But here's an end of it, Bunny, so far as you're concerned.  I'm going home now, and I want you to follow me; but for heaven's sake keep your distance, and don't speak to me again till I speak to you.  There--give me a start."  And he was off again, a decrepit vagabond, with his hands in his pockets, his elbows squared, and frayed coat-tails swinging raggedly from side to side.

 

I followed him to the Finchley Road.  There he took an Atlas omnibus, and I sat some rows behind him on the top, but not far enough to escape the pest of his vile tobacco.  That he could carry his character-sketch to such a pitch--he who would only smoke one brand of cigarette!  It was the last, least touch of the insatiable artist, and it charmed away what mortification there still remained in me. Once more I felt the fascination of a comrade who was forever dazzling one with a fresh and unsuspected facet of his character.

 

As we neared Piccadilly I wondered what he would do.  Surely he was not going into the Albany like that?  No, he took another omnibus to Sloane Street, I sitting behind him as before.  At Sloane Street we changed again, and were presently in the long lean artery of the King's Road.  I was now all agog to know our destination, nor was I kept many more minutes in doubt.  Raffles got down.  I followed.  He crossed the road and disappeared up a dark turning.  I pressed after him, and was in time to see his coat-tails as he plunged into a still darker flagged alley to the right.  He was holding himself up and stepping out like a young man once more; also, in some subtle way, he already looked less disreputable.  But I alone was there to see him, the alley was absolutely deserted, and desperately dark.  At the further end he opened a door with a latch-key, and it was darker yet within.

 

Instinctively I drew back and heard him chuckle. We could no longer see each other.

 

"All right, Bunny!  There's no hanky-panky this time.  These are studios, my friend, and I'm one of the lawful tenants."

 

Indeed, in another minute we were in a lofty room with skylight, easels, dressing-cupboard, platform, and every other adjunct save the signs of actual labor.  The first thing I saw, as Raffles lit the gas, was its reflection in his silk hat on the pegs beside the rest of his normal garments.

 

"Looking for the works of art?" continued Raffles, lighting a cigarette and beginning to divest himself of his rags.  "I'm afraid you won't find any, but there's the canvas I'm always going to make a start upon.  I tell them I'm looking high and low for my ideal model.  I have the stove lit on principle twice a week, and look in and leave a newspaper and a smell of Sullivans--how good they are after shag tobacco!  Meanwhile I pay my rent and am a good tenant in every way; and it's a very useful little pied-a-terre--there's no saying how useful it might be at a pinch.  As it is, the billycock comes in and the topper goes out, and nobody takes the slightest notice of either; at this time of night the chances are that there's not a soul in the building except ourselves."

 

"You never told me you went in for disguises," said I, watching him as he cleansed the grime from his face and hands.

 

"No, Bunny, I've treated you very shabbily all round.  There was really no reason why I shouldn't have shown you this place a month ago, and yet there was no point in my doing so, and circumstances are just conceivable in which it would have suited us both for you to be in genuine ignorance of my whereabouts.  I have something to sleep on, as you perceive, in case of need, and, of course, my name is not Raffles in the King's Road.  So you will see that one might bolt further and fare worse."

 

"Meanwhile you use the place as a dressing-room?"

 

"It is my private pavilion," said Raffles.  "Disguises?  In some cases they're half the battle, and it's always pleasant to feel that, if the worst comes to the worst, you needn't necessarily be convicted under your own name.  Then they're indispensable in dealing with the fences.  I drive all my bargains in the tongue and raiment of Shoreditch.  If I didn't there'd be the very devil to pay in blackmail. Now, this cupboard's full of all sorts of toggery. I tell the woman who cleans the room that it's for my models when I find 'em.  By the way, I only hope I've got something that'll fit you, for you'll want a rig for tomorrow night."

 

"Tomorrow night!" I exclaimed.  "Why, what do you mean to do?"

 

"The trick," said Raffles.  "I intended writing to you as soon as I got back to my rooms, to ask you to look me up tomorrow afternoon; then I was going to unfold my plan of campaign, and take you straight into action then and there.  There's nothing like putting the nervous players in first; it's the sitting with their pads on that upsets their applecart; that was another of my reasons for being so confoundedly close.  You must try to forgive me.  I couldn't help remembering how well you played up last trip, without any time to weaken on it beforehand. 

All I want is for you to be as cool and smart tomorrow night as you were then; though, by Jove, there's no comparison between the two cases!"

 

"I thought you would find it so."

 

"You were right.  I have.  Mind you, I don't say this will be the tougher job all round; we shall probably get in without any difficulty at all; it's the getting out again that may flummox us.  That's the worst of an irregular household!" cried Raffles, with quite a burst of virtuous indignation.  "I assure you, Bunny, I spent the whole of Monday night in the shrubbery of the garden next door, looking over the wall, and, if you'll believe me, somebody was about all night long!  I don't mean the servants.  I don't believe they ever get to bed at all--poor devils!  No, I mean Rosenthall himself, and that pasty-faced beast Purvis.  They were up and drinking from midnight, when they came in, to broad daylight, when I cleared out.  Even then I left them sober enough to slang each other.  By the way, they very nearly came to blows in the garden, within a few yards of me, and I heard something that might come in useful and make Rosenthall shoot crooked at a critical moment.  You know what an I. D. B. is?"

 

"Illicit Diamond Buyer?"

 

"Exactly.  Well, it seems that Rosenthall was one.  He must have let it out to Purvis in his cups. Anyhow, I heard Purvis taunting him with it, and threatening him with the breakwater at Capetown; and I begin to think our friends are friend and foe. But about tomorrow night:

there's nothing subtle in my plan.  It's simply to get in while these fellows are out on the loose, and to lie low till they come back, and longer.  If possible, we must doctor the whiskey.  That would simplify the whole thing, though it's not a very sporting game to play; still, we must remember Rosenthall's revolver; we don't want him to sign his name on US.  With all those servants about, however, it's ten to one on the whiskey, and a hundred to one against us if we go looking for it.

 

A brush with the heathen would spoil everything, if it did no more.  Besides, there are the ladies--"

 

"The deuce there are!"

 

"Ladies with an lower case ‘l’, and the very voices for raising Cain.  I fear, I fear the clamor!  It would be fatal to us.  Au contraire, if we can manage to stow ourselves away unbeknownst, half the battle will be won.  If Rosenthall turns in drunk, it's a purple diamond apiece.  If he sits up sober, it may be a bullet instead.  We will hope not, Bunny; and all the firing wouldn't be on one side; but it's on the knees of the gods."

 

And so we left it when we shook hands in Piccadilly--not by any means as much later as I could have wished.  Raffles would not ask me to his rooms that night.  He said he made it a rule to have a long night before playing cricket and--other games.  His final word to me was framed on the same principle.

 

"Mind, only one drink tonight, Bunny.  Two at the outside--as you value your life--and mine!"

 

I remember my abject obedience; and the endless, sleepless night it gave me; and the roofs of the houses opposite standing out at last against the blue-gray London dawn.  I wondered whether I should ever see another, and was very hard on myself for that little expedition which I had made on my own willful account.

 

It was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening when we took up our position in the garden adjoining that of Reuben Rosenthall; the house itself was shut up, thanks to the outrageous libertine next door, who, by driving away the neighbors, had gone far towards delivering himself into our hands.  Practically secure from surprise on that side, we could watch our house under cover of a wall just high enough to see over, while a fair margin of shrubs in either garden afforded us additional protection.  Thus entrenched, we had stood an hour, watching a pair of lighted bow-windows with vague shadows flitting continually across the blinds, and listening to the drawing of corks, the clink of glasses, and a gradual crescendo of coarse voices within.  Our luck seemed to have deserted us: the owner of the purple diamonds was dining at home and dining at undue length.  I thought it was a dinner-party.  Raffles differed; in the end he proved right.  Wheels grated in the drive, a carriage and pair stood at the steps; there was a stampede from the dining-room, and the loud voices died away, to burst forth presently from the porch.

 

Let me make our position perfectly clear.  We were over the wall, at the side of the house, but a few feet from the dining-room windows.  On our right, one angle of the building cut the back lawn in two diagonally; on our left, another angle just permitted us to see the jutting steps and the waiting carriage.  We saw Rosenthall come out--saw the glimmer of his diamonds before anything. Then came the pugilist; then a lady with a head of hair like a bath sponge; then another, and the party was complete.

 

Raffles ducked and pulled me down in great excitement.

 

"The ladies are going with them," he whispered.  "This is great!"

 

"That's better still."

 

"The Gardenia!" the millionaire had bawled.

 

"And that's best of all," said Raffles, standing upright as hoofs and wheels crunched through the gates and rattled off at a fine speed.

 

"Now what?" I whispered, trembling with excitement.

 

"They'll be clearing away.  Yes, here come their shadows.  The drawing-room windows open on the lawn.  Bunny, it's the psychological moment. Where's that mask?"

 

I produced it with a hand whose trembling I tried in vain to still, and could have died for Raffles when he made no comment on what he could not fail to notice.  His own hands were firm and cool as he adjusted my mask for me, and then his own.

 

"By Jove, old boy," he whispered cheerily, "you look about the greatest ruffian I ever saw! These masks alone will down a servant, if we meet one.  But I'm glad I remembered to tell you not to shave.  You'll pass for Whitechapel if the worst comes to the worst and you don't forget to talk the lingo.  Better sulk like a mule if you're not sure of it, and leave the dialogue to me; but, please our stars, there will be no need.  Now, are you ready?"

 

"Quite."

 

"Got your gag?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Shooter?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Then follow me."

 

In an instant we were over the wall, in another on the lawn behind the house.  There was no moon. The very stars in their courses had veiled themselves for our benefit.  I crept at my leader's heels to some French windows opening upon a shallow veranda.  He pushed.  They yielded.

 

"Luck again," he whispered; "nothing BUT luck! Now for a light."

 

And the light came!

 

A good score of electric burners glowed red for the fraction of a second, then rained merciless white beams into our blinded eyes.  When we found our sight four revolvers covered us, and between two of them the colossal frame of Reuben Rosenthall shook with a wheezy laughter from head to foot.

 

"Good-evening, boys," he hiccoughed.  "Glad to see ye at last.  Shift foot or finger, you on the left, though, and you're a dead boy.  I mean you, you greaser!" he roared out at Raffles.  "I know you.  I've been waitin' for you.  I've been WATCHIN' you all this week!  Plucky smart you thought yerself, didn't you?  One day beggin', next time shammin' tight, and next one o' them old pals from Kimberley what never come when I'm in.  But you left the same tracks every day, you buggins, an' the same tracks every night, all round the blessed premises."

 

"All right, guv'nor," drawled Raffles; "don't excite.  It's a fair cop.  We don't sweat to know 'ow you brung it orf.  On'y don't you go for to shoot, 'cos we 'int awmed, s'help me Gord!"

 

"Ah, you're a knowin' one," said Rosenthall, fingering his triggers.  "But you've struck a knowin'er."

 

"Ho, yuss, we know all abaht thet!  Set a thief to ketch a thief--ho, yuss."

 

My eyes had torn themselves from the round black muzzles, from the accursed diamonds that had been our snare, the pasty pig-face of the over-fed pugilist, and the flaming cheeks of Rosenthall himself.  I was looking beyond them at the doorway filled with quivering silk and plush, black faces, white eyeballs, woolly pates.  But a sudden silence recalled my attention to the millionaire.  And only his nose retained its color.

 

"What d'ye mean?" he whispered with a hoarse oath.  "Spit it out, or, by Christmas, I'll drill you!"

 

"Whort price thet brikewater?" drawled Raffles coolly.

 

"Eh?"

 

Rosenthall's revolvers were describing widening orbits.

 

"Whort price thet brikewater--old I.D.B.?"

 

"Where in hell did you get hold o' that ?" asked Rosenthall, with a rattle in his thick neck, meant for mirth.

 

"You may well arst," says Raffles.  "It's all over the plice w'ere I come from."

 

"Who can have spread such rot?"

 

"I dunno," says Raffles; "arst the gen'leman on yer left; p'r'aps 'E knows."

 

The gentleman on his left had turned livid with emotion.  Guilty conscience never declared itself in plainer terms.  For a moment his small eyes bulged like currants in the suet of his face; the next, he had pocketed his pistols on a professional instinct, and was upon us with his fists.

 

"Out o' the light--out o' the light!" yelled Rosenthall in a frenzy.

 

He was too late.  No sooner had the burly pugilist obstructed his fire than Raffles was through the window at a bound; while I, for standing still and saying nothing, was scientifically felled to the floor.

 

I cannot have been many moments without my senses.  When I recovered them there was a great to-do in the garden, but I had the drawing-room to myself.  I sat up.  Rosenthall and Purvis were rushing about outside, cursing the servants and nagging at each other.

 

"Over THAT wall, I tell yer!"

 

"I tell you it was this one.  Can't you whistle for the police?"

 

"Police be damned!  I've had enough of the blessed police."

 

"Then we'd better get back and make sure of the other rotter."

 

"Oh, make sure o' yer skin.  That's what you'd better do.  Jala, you black hog, if I catch YOU skulkin'. . . ."

 

I never heard the threat.  I was creeping from the drawing-room on my hands and knees, my own revolver swinging by its steel ring from my teeth.

 

For an instant I thought that the hall also was deserted.  I was wrong, and I crept upon a servant on all fours.  Poor devil, I could not bring myself to deal him a base blow, but I threatened him most hideously with my revolver, and left the teeth chattering in his head as I took the stairs three at a time.  Why I went upstairs in that decisive fashion, as though it were my only course, I cannot explain.  But garden and ground floor seemed alive with men, and I might have done worse.

 

I turned into the first room I came to.  It was a bedroom--empty, though lit up; and never shall I forget how I started as I entered, on encountering the awful villain that was myself at full length in a pier-glass!  Masked, armed, and ragged, I was indeed fit carrion for a bullet or the hangman, and to one or the other I made up my mind.  Nevertheless, I hid myself in the wardrobe behind the mirror; and there I stood shivering and cursing my fate, my folly, and Raffles most of all--Raffles first and last--for I daresay half an hour.  Then the wardrobe door was flung suddenly open; they had stolen into the room without a sound; and I was hauled downstairs, an ignominious captive.

 

Gross scenes followed in the hall; the ladies were now upon the stage, and at sight of the desperate criminal they screamed with one accord. In truth I must have given them fair cause, though my mask was now torn away and hid nothing but my left ear.  Rosenthall answered their shrieks with a roar for silence; the woman with the bath-sponge hair swore at him shrilly in return; the place became a Babel impossible to describe.  I remember wondering how long it would be before the police appeared.  Purvis and the ladies were for calling them in and giving me in charge without delay.  Rosenthall would not hear of it.  He swore that he would shoot man or woman who left his sight.  He had had enough of the police.  He was not going to have them coming there to spoil sport; he was going to deal with me in his own way.  With that he dragged me from all other hands, flung me against a door, and sent a bullet crashing through the wood within an inch of my ear.

 

"You drunken fool!  It'll be murder!" shouted Purvis, getting in the way a second time.

 

"Wha' do I care?  He's armed, isn't he?  I shot him in self-defense.  It'll be a warning to others.  Will you stand aside, or d'ye want it yourself?"

 

"You're drunk," said Purvis, still between us. "I saw you take a neat tumbler-full since you come in, and it's made you drunk as a fool.  Pull yourself together, old man.  You ain't a-going to do what you'll be sorry for."

 

"Then I won't shoot at him, I'll only shoot roun' an' roun' the beggar.  You're quite right, ole feller.  Wouldn't hurt him.  Great mishtake. Roun' an' roun'.  There--like that!"

 

His freckled paw shot up over Purvis's shoulder, mauve lightning came from his ring, a red flash from his revolver, and shrieks from the women as the reverberations died away.  Some splinters lodged in my hair.

 

Next instant the prize-fighter disarmed him; and I was safe from the devil, but finally doomed to the deep sea.  A policeman was in our midst. He had entered through the drawing-room window; he was an officer of few words and creditable promptitude.  In a twinkling he had the handcuffs on my wrists, while the pugilist explained the situation, and his patron reviled the force and its representative with impotent malignity.  A fine watch they kept; a lot of good they did; coming in when all was over and the whole household might have been murdered in their sleep.  The officer only deigned to notice him as he marched me off.

 

"We know all about YOU, sir," said he contemptuously, and he refused the sovereign Purvis proffered.  "You will be seeing me again, sir, at Marylebone."

 

"Shall I come now?"

 

"As you please, sir.  I rather think the other gentleman requires you more, and I don't fancy this young man means to give much trouble."

 

"Oh, I'm coming quietly," I said.

 

And I went.

 

In silence we traversed perhaps a hundred yards. It must have been midnight.  We did not meet a soul.  At last I whispered:

 

"How on earth did you manage it?"

 

"Purely by luck," said Raffles.  "I had the luck to get clear away through knowing every brick of those back-garden walls, and the double luck to have these togs with the rest over at Chelsea.  The helmet is one of a collection I made up at Oxford; here it goes over this wall, and we'd better carry the coat and belt before we meet a real officer.  I got them once for a fancy ball--ostensibly--and thereby hangs a yarn.  I always thought they might come in useful a second time.  My chief crux tonight was getting rid of the hansom that brought me back.  I sent him off to Scotland Yard with ten bob and a special message to good old Mackenzie.  The whole detective department will be at Rosenthall's in about half an hour.  Of course, I speculated on our gentleman's hatred of the police--another huge slice of luck.  If you'd got away, well and good; if not, I felt he was the man to play with his mouse as long as possible. Yes, Bunny, it's been more of a costume piece than I intended, and we've come out of it with a good deal less credit.  But, by Jove, we're jolly lucky to have come out of it at all!"

From The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1927

 

 

 

In the Preface of The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle laments that he was not allowed to kill-off Holmes at the end of his previous volume of stories, His Last Bow (1917).  “I fear that Mr. Sherlock Holmes may become like one of those popular tenors who, having outlived their time, are still tempted to make repeated farewell bows to their indulgent audiences. This must cease and he must go the way of all flesh, material or imaginary.”  By popular demand, Doyle produced the new stories, but insisted they would be the last.  These are the first two stories from that collection.  The first is a rarity, in the third-person perspective, rather than narrated by Watson.  You may recognize the premise of the second from recent television mystery fiction.  It’s a very unusual ‘Holmes’ story, as you’ll see for yourself.    

 

 

 

 

THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAZARIN STONE

 

It was pleasant to Dr. Watson to find himself once more in the untidy room of the first floor in Baker Street which had been the starting-point of so many remarkable adventures.  He looked round him at the scientific charts upon the wall, the acid-charred bench of chemicals, the violin-case leaning in the corner, the coal-scuttle, which contained of old the pipes and tobacco.  Finally, his eyes came round to the fresh and smiling face of Billy, the young but very wise and tactful page, who had helped a little to fill up the gap of loneliness and isolation which surrounded the saturnine figure of the great detective.

 

"It all seems very unchanged, Billy.  You don't change, either.  I hope the same can be said of him?"

 

Billy glanced with some solicitude at the closed door of the bedroom.

 

"I think he's in bed and asleep," he said.

 

It was seven in the evening of a lovely summer's day, but Dr.  Watson was sufficiently familiar with the irregularity of his old friend's hours to feel no surprise at the idea.

 

"That means a case, I suppose?"

 

"Yes, sir, he is very hard at it just now.  I'm frightened for his health.  He gets paler and thinner, and he eats nothing.  'When will you be pleased to dine, Mr.  Holmes?' Mrs.  Hudson asked.  'Seven-thirty, the day after tomorrow,' said he.  You know his way when he is keen on a case."

 

"Yes, Billy, I know."

 

"He's following someone.  Yesterday he was out as a workman looking for a job.  Today he was an old woman.  Fairly took me in, he did, and I ought to know his ways by now."  Billy pointed with a grin to a very baggy parasol which leaned against the sofa.  "That's part of the old woman's outfit," he said.

 

"But what is it all about, Billy?"

 

Billy sank his voice, as one who discusses great secrets of State.  "I don't mind telling you, sir, but it should go no farther.  It's this case of the Crown diamond."

 

"What -- the hundred-thousand-pound burglary?"

 

"Yes, sir.  They must get it back, sir.  Why, we had the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary both sitting on that very sofa.  Mr. Holmes was very nice to them.  He soon put them at their ease and promised he would do all he could.  Then there is Lord Cantlemere --"

 

"Ah!"

 

"Yes, sir, you know what that means.  He's a stiff'un, sir, if I may say so.  I can get along with the Prime Minister, and I've nothing against the Home Secretary, who seemed a civil, obliging sort of man, but I can't stand his Lordship.  Neither can Mr. Holmes, sir.  You see, he don't believe in Mr.  Holmes and he was against employing him.  He'd rather he failed."

 

"And Mr. Holmes knows it?"

 

"Mr. Holmes always knows whatever there is to know."

 

"Well, we'll hope he won't fail and that Lord Cantlemere will be confounded.  But I say, Billy, what is that curtain for across the window?"

 

"Mr. Holmes had it put up there three days ago.  We've got something funny behind it."

 

Billy advanced and drew away the drapery which screened the alcove of the bow window.

 

Dr. Watson could not restrain a cry of amazement.  There was a facsimile of his old friend, dressing-gown and all, the face turned three-quarters towards the window and downward, as though reading an invisible book, while the body was sunk deep in an armchair.  Billy detached the head and held it in the air.

 

"We put it at different angles, so that it may seem more lifelike.  I wouldn't dare touch it if the blind were not down.  But when it's up you can see this from across the way."

 

"We used something of the sort once before."

 

"Before my time," said Billy.  He drew the window curtains apart and looked out into the street.  "There are folk who watch us from over yonder.  I can see a fellow now at the window.  Have a look for yourself."

 

Watson had taken a step forward when the bedroom door opened, and the long, thin form of Holmes emerged, his face pale and drawn, but his step and bearing as active as ever.  With a single spring he was at the window, and had drawn the blind once more.

 

"That will do, Billy," said he.  "You were in danger of your life then, my boy, and I can't do without you just yet.  Well, Watson, it is good to see you in your old quarters once again.  You come at a critical moment."

 

"So I gather."

 

"You can go, Billy.  That boy is a problem, Watson.  How far am I justified in allowing him to be in danger?"

 

"Danger of what, Holmes?"

 

"Of sudden death.  I'm expecting something this evening."

 

"Expecting what?"

 

"To be murdered, Watson."

 

"No, no, you are joking, Holmes!"

 

"Even my limited sense of humor could evolve a better joke than that.  But we may be comfortable in the meantime, may we not?  Is alcohol permitted?  The gasogene and cigars are in the old place.  Let me see you once more in the customary armchair.  You have not, I hope, learned to despise my pipe and my lamentable tobacco?  It has to take the place of food these days."

 

"But why not eat?"

 

"Because the faculties become refined when you starve them.  Why, surely, as a doctor, my dear Watson, you must admit that what your digestion gains in the way of blood supply is so much lost to the brain.  I am a brain, Watson.  The rest of me is a mere appendix.  Therefore, it is the brain I must consider."

 

"But this danger, Holmes?"

 

"Ah.  Yes, in case it should come off, it would perhaps be as well that you should burden your memory with the name and address of the murderer.  You can give it to Scotland Yard, with my love and a parting blessing.  Sylvius is the name -- Count Negretto Sylvius.  Write it down, man, write it down!  136 Moorside Gardens, N. W.  Got it?"

 

Watson's honest face was twitching with anxiety.  He knew only too well the immense risks taken by Holmes and was well aware that what he said was more likely to be under-statement than exaggeration.  Watson was always the man of action, and he rose to the occasion.

 

"Count me in, Holmes.  I have nothing to do for a day or two."

 

"Your morals don't improve, Watson.  You have added fibbing to your other vices.  You bear every sign of the busy medical man, with calls on him every hour."

 

"Not such important ones.  But can't you have this fellow arrested?"

 

"Yes, Watson, I could.  That's what worries him so."

 

"But why don't you?"

 

"Because I don't know where the diamond is."

 

"Ah!  Billy told me -- the missing Crown jewel!"

 

"Yes, the great yellow Mazarin stone.  I've cast my net and I have my fish.  But I have not got the stone.  What is the use of taking them?  We can make the world a better place by laying them by the heels.  But that is not what I am out for.  It's the stone I want."

 

"And is this Count Sylvius one of your fish?"

 

"Yes, and he's a shark.  He bites.  The other is Sam Merton the boxer.  Not a bad fellow, Sam, but the Count has used him.  Sam's not a shark.  He is a great big silly bull-headed gudgeon.  But he is flopping about in my net all the same."

 

"Where is this Count Sylvius?"

 

"I've been at his very elbow all the morning.  You've seen me as an old lady, Watson.  I was never more convincing.  He actually picked up my parasol for me once.  'By your leave, madame,' said he -- half-Italian, you know, and with the Southern graces of manner when in the mood, but a devil incarnate in the other mood.  Life is full of whimsical happenings, Watson."

 

"It might have been tragedy."

 

"Well, perhaps it might.  I followed him to old Straubenzee's workshop in the Minories.  Straubenzee made the air-gun -- a very pretty bit of work, as I understand, and I rather fancy it is in the opposite window at the present moment.  Have you seen the dummy?  Of course, Billy showed it to you.  Well, it may get a bullet through its beautiful head at any moment.  Ah, Billy, what is it?"

 

The boy had reappeared in the room with a card upon a tray.  Holmes glanced at it with raised eyebrows and an amused smile.

 

"The man himself.  I had hardly expected this.  Grasp the nettle, Watson!  A man of nerve.  Possibly you have heard of his reputation as a shooter of big game.  It would indeed be a triumphant ending to his excellent sporting record if he added me to his bag.  This is a proof that he feels my toe very close behind his heel."

 

"Send for the police."

 

"I probably shall.  But not just yet.  Would you glance carefully out of the window, Watson, and see if anyone is hanging about in the street?"

 

Watson looked warily round the edge of the curtain.

 

"Yes, there is one rough fellow near the door."

 

"That will be Sam Merton -- the faithful but rather fatuous Sam.  Where is this gentleman, Billy?"

 

"In the waiting-room, sir."

 

"Show him up when I ring."

 

"Yes, sir."

 

"If I am not in the room, show him in all the same."

 

"Yes, sir."

 

Watson waited until the door was closed, and then he turned earnestly to his companion. "Look here, Holmes, this is simply impossible.  This is a desperate man, who sticks at nothing.  He may have come to murder you."

 

"I should not be surprised."

 

"I insist upon staying with you."

 

"You would be horribly in the way."

 

"In his way?"

 

"No, my dear fellow -- in my way."

 

"Well, I can't possibly leave you."

 

"Yes, you can, Watson.  And you will, for you have never failed to play the game.  I am sure you will play it to the end.  This man has come for his own purpose, but he may stay for mine."

 

Holmes took out his notebook and scribbled a few lines.  "Take a cab to Scotland Yard and give this to Youghal of the C. I. D.  Come back with the police.  The fellow's arrest will follow."

 

"I'll do that with joy.

 

"Before you return I may have just time enough to find out where the stone is."  He touched the bell.  "I think we will go out through the bedroom.  This second exit is exceedingly useful.  I rather want to see my shark without his seeing me, and I have, as you will remember, my own way of doing it."

 

It was, therefore, an empty room into which Billy, a minute later, ushered Count Sylvius.  The famous game-shot, sportsman, and man-about-town was a big, dark fellow, with a formidable dark moustache shading a cruel, thin-lipped mouth, and surmounted by a long nose.  He was well dressed, but his brilliant necktie, shining pin, and glittering rings were flamboyant in their effect.  As the door closed behind him he looked round him with fierce, startled eyes, like one who suspects a trap at every turn.  Then he gave a violent start as he saw the impassive head and the collar of the dressing-gown which projected above the armchair in the window.  At first his expression was one of pure amazement.  Then the light of a horrible hope gleamed in his dark, murderous eyes.  He took one more glance round to see that there were no witnesses, and then, on tiptoe, his thick stick half raised, he approached the silent figure.  He was crouching for his final spring and blow when a cool, sardonic voice greeted him from the open bedroom door:

 

"Don't break it, Count! Don't break it!"

 

The assassin staggered back, amazement in his convulsed face.  For an instant he half raised his loaded cane once more, as if he would turn his violence from the effigy to the original; but there was something in that steady gray eye and mocking smile which caused his hand to sink to his side.

 

"It's a pretty little thing," said Holmes, advancing towards the image.  "Tavernier, the French modeler, made it.  He is as good at waxworks as your friend Straubenzee is at air-guns."

 

"Air-guns, sir! What do you mean?"

 

"Put your hat and stick on the side-table.  Thank you!  Pray take a seat.  Would you care to put your revolver out also?  Oh, very good, if you prefer to sit upon it.  Your visit is really most opportune, for I wanted badly to have a few minutes' chat with you.  "

 

The Count scowled, with heavy, threatening eyebrows.

 

"I, too, wished to have some words with you, Holmes.  That is why I am here.  I won't deny that I intended to assault you just now."

 

Holmes swung his leg on the edge of the table.

 

"I rather gathered that you had some idea of the sort in your head," said he.  "But why these personal attentions?"

 

"Because you have gone out of your way to annoy me.  Because you have put your creatures upon my track."

 

"My creatures!  I assure you no!"

 

"Nonsense!  I have had them followed.  Two can play at that game, Holmes."

 

"It is a small point, Count Sylvius, but perhaps you would kindly give me my prefix when you address me.  You can understand that, with my routine of work, I should find myself on familiar terms with half the rogues' gallery, and you will agree that exceptions are invidious."

 

"Well, Mr. Holmes, then."

 

"Excellent!  But I assure you, you are mistaken about my alleged agents."

 

Count Sylvius laughed contemptuously.

 

"Other people can observe as well as you.  Yesterday there was an old sporting man.  Today it was an elderly woman.  They held me in view all day."

 

"Really, sir, you compliment me.  Old Baron Dowson said the night before he was hanged that in my case what the law had gained the stage had lost.  And now you give my little impersonations your kindly praise?"

 

"It was you -- you yourself?"

 

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.  "You can see in the corner the parasol which you so politely handed to me in the Minories before you began to suspect."

 

"If I had known, you might never --"

 

"Have seen this humble home again.  I was well aware of it.  We all have neglected opportunities to deplore.  As it happens, you did not know, so here we are!"

 

The Count's knotted brows gathered more heavily over his menacing eyes.  "What you say only makes the matter worse.  It was not your agents but your play-acting, busybody self!  You admit that you have dogged me.  Why?"

 

"Come now, Count.  You used to shoot lions in Algeria."

 

"Well?"

 

"But why?"

 

"Why?  The sport -- the excitement -- the danger!"

 

"And, no doubt, to free the country from a pest?"

 

"Exactly!"

 

"My reasons in a nutshell!"

 

The Count sprang to his feet, and his hand involuntarily moved back to his hip-pocket.               

 

"Sit down, sir, sit down!  There was another, more practical, reason.  I want that yellow diamond!"

 

Count Sylvius lay back in his chair with an evil smile.

 

"Upon my word!" said he.

 

"You knew that I was after you for that.  The real reason why you are here tonight is to find out how much I know about the matter and how far my removal is absolutely essential.  Well, I should say that, from your point of view, it is absolutely essential, for I know all about it, save only one thing, which you are about to tell me."

 

"Oh, indeed!  And pray, what is this missing fact?"

 

"Where the Crown diamond now is."

 

The Count looked sharply at his companion.  "Oh, you want to know that, do you?  How the devil should I be able to tell you where it is?"

 

"You can, and you will."

 

"Indeed!"

 

"You can't bluff me, Count Sylvius."  Holmes's eyes, as he gazed at him, contracted and lightened until they were like two menacing points of steel.  "You are absolute plate-glass.  I see to the very back of your mind."

 

"Then, of course, you see where the diamond is!" 

 

Holmes clapped his hands with amusement, and then pointed a derisive finger.  "Then you do know.  You have admitted it!"

 

"I admit nothing."

 

"Now, Count, if you will be reasonable we can do business.  If not, you will get hurt."

 

Count Sylvius threw up his eyes to the ceiling.  "And you talk about bluff!" said he.

 

Holmes looked at him thoughtfully like a master chess-player who meditates his crowning move.  Then he threw open the table drawer and drew out a squat notebook.

 

"Do you know what I keep in this book?"

 

"No, sir, I do not!"

 

"You!"

 

"Me!"                         

 

"Yes, sir, you!  You are all here -- every action of your vile and dangerous life."

 

"Damn you, Holmes!" cried the Count with blazing eyes.  "There are limits to my patience!"

 

"It's all here, Count.  The real facts as to the death of old Mrs. Harold, who left you the Blymer estate, which you so rapidly gambled away."

"You are dreaming!"

 

"And the complete life history of Miss Minnie Warrender."

 

"Tut!  You will make nothing of that!"

 

"Plenty more here, Count.  Here is the robbery in the train deluxe to the Riviera on February 13, 1892.  Here is the forged check in the same year on the Credit Lyonnais."

 

"No, you're wrong there."

 

"Then I am right on the others!  Now, Count, you are a card-player.  When the other fellow has all the trumps, it saves time to throw down your hand."

 

"What has all this talk to do with the jewel of which you spoke?"

 

"Gently, Count.  Restrain that eager mind!  Let me get to the points in my own humdrum fashion.  I have all this against you; but, above all, I have a clear case against both you and your fighting bully in the case of the Crown diamond."

 

"Indeed!"

 

"I have the cabman who took you to Whitehall and the cabman who brought you away.  I have the commissionaire who saw you near the case.  I have Ikey Sanders, who refused to cut it up for you.  Ikey has peached, and the game is up."

 

The veins stood out on the Count's forehead.  His dark hands were clenched in a convulsion of restrained emotion.  He tried to speak, but the words would not shape themselves.

 

"That's the hand I play from," said Holmes.  "I put it all upon the table.  But one card is missing.  It's the king of diamonds.  I don't know where the stone is."

 

"You never shall know."

 

"No?  Now, be reasonable, Count.  Consider the situation.  You are going to be locked up for twenty years.  So is Sam Merton.  What good are you going to get out of your diamond?  None in the world.  But if you hand it over -- well, I'll compound a felony.  We don't want you or Sam.  We want the stone.  Give that up, and so far as I am concerned you can go free so long as you behave yourself in the future.  If you make another slip well, it will be the last.  But this time my commission is to get the stone, not you."

 

"But if I refuse?"

 

"Why, then -- alas! -- it must be you and not the stone."

Billy had appeared in answer to a ring.

 

"I think, Count, that it would be as well to have your friend Sam at this conference.  After all, his interests should be represented.  Billy, you will see a large and ugly gentleman outside the front door.  Ask him to come up."

 

"If he won't come, sir?"

 

"No violence, Billy.  Don't be rough with him.  If you tell him that Count Sylvius wants him he will certainly come."

 

"What are you going to do now?" asked the Count as Billy disappeared.

 

"My friend Watson was with me just now.  I told him that I had a shark and a gudgeon in my net; now I am drawing the net and up they come together."

 

The Count had risen from his chair, and his hand was behind his back.  Holmes held something half protruding from the pocket of his dressing-gown.

 

"You won't die in your bed, Holmes."

 

"I have often had the same idea.  Does it matter very much?  After all, Count, your own exit is more likely to be perpendicular than horizontal.  But these anticipations of the future are morbid.  Why not give ourselves up to the unrestrained enjoyment of the present?"

 

A sudden wild-beast light sprang up in the dark, menacing eyes of the master criminal.  Holmes's figure seemed to grow taller as he grew tense and ready.

 

"It is no use your fingering your revolver, my friend," he said in a quiet voice.  "You know perfectly well that you dare not use it, even if I gave you time to draw it.  Nasty, noisy things, revolvers, Count.  Better stick to air-guns.  Ah!  I think I hear the fairy footstep of your estimable partner.  Good day, Mr. Merton.  Rather dull in the street, is it not?"

 

The prize-fighter, a heavily built young man with a stupid, obstinate, slab-sided face, stood awkwardly at the door, looking about him with a puzzled expression.  Holmes's debonair manner was a new experience, and though he vaguely felt that it was hostile, he did not know how to counter it.  He turned to his more astute comrade for help.

 

"What's the game now, Count?  What's this fellow want?  What's up?"  His voice was deep and raucous.

 

The Count shrugged his shoulders, and it was Holmes who answered.

 

"If I may put it in a nutshell, Mr. Merton, I should say it was all up."

The boxer still addressed his remarks to his associate.

 

"Is this cove trying to be funny, or what?  I'm not in the funny mood myself."

 

"No, I expect not," said Holmes.  "I think I can promise you that you will feel even less humorous as the evening advances.  Now, look here, Count Sylvius.  I'm a busy man and I can't waste time.  I'm going into that bedroom.  Pray make yourselves quite at home in my absence.  You can explain to your friend how the matter lies without the restraint of my presence.  I shall try over the Hoffman 'Barcarole' upon my violin.  In five minutes I shall return for your final answer.  You quite grasp the alternative, do you not?  Shall we take you, or shall we have the stone?"

 

Holmes withdrew, picking up his violin from the corner as he passed.  A few moments later the long-drawn, wailing notes of that most haunting of tunes came faintly through the closed door of the bedroom.

 

"What is it, then?" asked Merton anxiously as his companion turned to him.  "Does he know about the stone?"

 

"He knows a damned sight too much about it.  I'm not sure that he doesn't know all about it."

 

"Good Lord!"  The boxer's sallow face turned a shade whiter.

 

"Ikey Sanders has spilt on us."

 

"He has, has he?  I'll do him down a thick 'un for that if I swing for it."

 

"That won't help us much.  We've got to make up our minds what to do."

 

"Half a mo'," said the boxer, looking suspiciously at the bedroom door.  "He's a leery cove that wants watching.  I suppose he's not listening?"

 

"How can he be listening with that music going?"

 

"That's right.  Maybe somebody's behind a curtain.  Too many curtains in this room."  As he looked round he suddenly saw for the first time the effigy in the window, and stood staring and pointing, too amazed for words.

 

"Tut!  It's only a dummy," said the Count.

 

"A fake, is it?  Well, strike me! Madame Tussaud ain't in it.  It's the living spit of him, gown and all.  But them curtains Count!"

 

"Oh, confound the curtains!  We are wasting our time, and there is none too much.  He can lag us over this stone."

 

"The deuce he can!"

 

"But he'll let us slip if we only tell him where the swag is."

 

"What! Give it up?  Give up a hundred thousand quid?"

 

"It's one or the other."

 

Merton scratched his short-cropped pate.

 

"He's alone in there.  Let's do him in.  If his light were out we should have nothing to fear."

 

The Count shook his head.

 

"He is armed and ready.  If we shot him we could hardly get away in a place like this.  Besides, it's likely enough that the police know whatever evidence he has got.  Hallo!  What was that?"

 

There was a vague sound which seemed to come from the window.  Both men sprang round, but all was quiet.  Save for the one strange figure seated in the chair, the room was certainly empty.

 

"Something in the street," said Merton.  "Now look here, guv'nor, you've got the brains. 

Surely you can think a way out of it.  If slugging is no use then it's up to you."

 

"I've fooled better men than he," the Count answered.  "The stone is here in my secret pocket. 

I take no chances leaving it about.  It can be out of England tonight and cut into four pieces in Amsterdam before Sunday.  He knows nothing of Van Seddar."

 

"I thought Van Seddar was going next week."

 

"He was.  But now he must get off by the next boat.  One or other of us must slip round with the stone to Lime Street and tell him."

 

"But the false bottom ain't ready."

 

"Well, he must take it as it is and chance it.  There's not a moment to lose."  Again, with the sense of danger which becomes an instinct with the sportsman, he paused and looked hard at the window.  Yes, it was surely from the street that the faint sound had come.

 

"As to Holmes," he continued, "we can fool him easily enough.  You see, the damned fool won't arrest us if he can get the stone.  Well, we'll promise him the stone.  We'll put him on the wrong track about it, and before he finds that it is the wrong track it will be in Holland and we out of the country."

 

"That sounds good to me!" cried Sam Merton with a grin.

 

"You go on and tell the Dutchman to get a move on him.  I'll see this sucker and fill him up with a bogus confession.  I'll tell him that the stone is in Liverpool.  Confound that whining music; it gets on my nerves!  By the time he finds it isn't in Liverpool it will be in quarters and we on the blue water.  Come back here, out of a line with that keyhole.  Here is the stone."

 

"I wonder you dare carry it."

 

"Where could I have it safer?  If we could take it out of Whitehall someone else could surely take it out of my lodgings."

 

"Let's have a look at it."

 

Count Sylvius cast a somewhat unflattering glance at his associate and disregarded the unwashed hand which was extended towards him.

 

"What -- d'ye think I'm going to snatch it off you?  See here, mister, I'm getting a bit tired of your ways."

 

"Well, well, no offence, Sam.  We can't afford to quarrel.  Come over to the window if you want to see the beauty properly.  Now hold it to the light!  Here!"

 

"Thank you!"

 

With a single spring Holmes had leaped from the dummy's chair and had grasped the precious jewel.  He held it now in one hand, while his other pointed a revolver at the Count's head.  The two villains staggered back in utter amazement.  Before they had recovered Holmes had pressed the electric bell.

 

"No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you!  Consider the furniture!  It must be very clear to you that your position is an impossible one.  The police are waiting below."

 

The Count's bewilderment overmastered his rage and fear.

 

"But how the deuce --?" he gasped.

 

"Your surprise is very natural.  You are not aware that a second door from my bedroom leads behind that curtain.  I fancied that you must have heard me when I displaced the figure, but luck was on my side.  It gave me a chance of listening to your racy conversation which would have been painfully constrained had you been aware of my presence."

 

The Count gave a gesture of resignation.

 

"We give you best, Holmes.  I believe you are the devil himself."

 

"Not far from him, at any rate," Holmes answered with a polite smile.

 

Sam Merton's slow intellect had only gradually appreciated the situation.  Now, as the sound of heavy steps came from the stairs outside, he broke silence at last.

 

"A fair cop!" said he.  "But, I say, what about that bloomin' fiddle!  I hear it yet."

 

"Tut, tut!" Holmes answered.  "You are perfectly right.  Let it play!  These modern gramophones are a remarkable invention."

 

There was an inrush of police, the handcuffs clicked and the criminals were led to the waiting cab.  Watson lingered with Holmes, congratulating him upon this fresh leaf added to his laurels.  Once more their conversation was interrupted by the imperturbable Billy with his card-tray.

 

"Lord Cantlemere sir."

 

"Show him up, Billy.  This is the eminent peer who represents the very highest interests," said Holmes.  "He is an excellent and loyal person, but rather of the old regime.  Shall we make him unbend?  Dare we venture upon a slight liberty?  He knows, we may conjecture, nothing of what has occurred."

 

The door opened to admit a thin, austere figure with a hatchet face and drooping midVictorian whiskers of a glossy blackness which hardly corresponded with the rounded shoulders and feeble gait.  Holmes advanced affably, and shook an unresponsive hand.

 

"How do you do, Lord Cantlemere?  It is chilly for the time of year, but rather warm indoors.  May I take your overcoat?"

 

"No, I thank you; I will not take it off."

 

Holmes laid his hand insistently upon the sleeve.

 

"Pray allow me!  My friend Dr.  Watson would assure you that these changes of temperature are most insidious."

 

His Lordship shook himself free with some impatience.

 

"I am quite comfortable, sir.  I have no need to stay.  I have simply looked in to know how your self-appointed task was progressing."

 

"It is difficult -- very difficult."  "I feared that you would find it so."

 

There was a distinct sneer in the old courtier's words and manner.

 

"Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of selfsatisfaction."

 

"Yes, sir, I have been much perplexed."

 

"No doubt."

 

"Especially upon one point.  Possibly you could help me upon

 

"You apply for my advice rather late in the day.  I thought that you had your own all-sufficient methods.  Still, I am ready to help you."

 

"You see, Lord Cantlemere, we can no doubt frame a case against the actual thieves."

 

"When you have caught them."

 

"Exactly.  But the question is -- how shall we proceed against the receiver?"

 

"Is this not rather premature?"

 

"It is as well to have our plans ready.  Now, what would you regard as final evidence against the receiver?"

 

"The actual possession of the stone."

 

"You would arrest him upon that?"

 

"Most undoubtedly."

 

Holmes seldom laughed, but he got as near it as his old friend Watson could remember.

 

"In that case, my dear sir, I shall be under the painful necessity of advising your arrest."

 

Lord Cantlemere was very angry.  Some of the ancient fires flickered up into his sallow cheeks.

 

"You take a great liberty, Mr. Holmes.  In fifty years of official life I cannot recall such a case.  I am a busy man, sir, engaged upon important affairs, and I have no time or taste for foolish jokes.  I may tell you frankly, sir, that I have never been a believer in your powers, and that I have always been of the opinion that the matter was far safer in the hands of the regular

police force.  Your conduct confirms all my conclusions.  I have the honor, sir, to wish you good-evening."

 

Holmes had swiftly changed his position and was between the peer and the door.

 

"One moment, sir," said he.  "To actually go off with the Mazarin stone would be a more serious offence than to be found in temporary possession of it."

 

"Sir, this is intolerable!  Let me pass."

 

"Put your hand in the right-hand pocket of your overcoat."

 

"What do you mean, sir?"

 

"Come -- come, do what I ask."

 

An instant later the amazed peer was standing, blinking and stammering, with the great yellow stone on his shaking palm.

 

"What!  What!  How is this, Mr.  Holmes?"

 

"Too bad, Lord Cantlemere, too bad!" cried Holmes.  "My old friend here will tell you that I have an impish habit of practical joking.  Also that I can never resist a dramatic situation.  I took the liberty -- the very great liberty, I admit -- of putting the stone into your pocket at the beginning of our interview."

 

The old peer stared from the stone to the smiling face before him.

 

"Sir, I am bewildered.  But -- yes -- it is indeed the Mazarin stone.  We are greatly your debtors, Mr. Holmes.  Your sense of humor may, as you admit, be somewhat perverted, and its exhibition remarkably untimely, but at least I withdraw any reflection I have made upon your amazing professional powers.  But how --"

 

"The case is but half finished; the details can wait.  No doubt, Lord Cantlemere, your pleasure in telling of this successful result in the exalted circle to which you return will be some small atonement for my practical joke.  Billy, you will show his Lordship out, and tell Mrs. Hudson that I should be glad if she would send up dinner for two as soon as possible."

THE PROBLEM OF THOR BRIDGE

 

Somewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co., at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box with my name, John H. Watson, M. D., Late Indian Army, painted upon the lid.  It is crammed with papers, nearly all of which are records of cases to illustrate the curious problems which Mr. Sherlock Holmes had at various times to examine.  Some, and not the least interesting, were complete failures, and as such will hardly bear narrating, since no final explanation is forthcoming.  A problem without a solution may interest the student, but can hardly fail to annoy the casual reader.  Among these unfinished tales is that of Mr. James Phillimore, who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world.  No less remarkable is that of the cutter Alicia, which sailed one spring morning into a small patch of mist from where she never again emerged, nor was anything further ever heard of herself and her crew.  A third case worthy of note is that of Isadora Persano, the well-known journalist and duelist, who was found stark staring mad with a match box in front of him which contained a remarkable worm said to be unknown to science.  Apart from these unfathomed cases, there are some which involve the secrets of private families to an extent which would mean consternation in many exalted quarters if it were thought possible that they might find their way into print.  I need not say that such a breach of confidence is unthinkable, and that these records will be separated and destroyed now that my friend has time to turn his energies to the matter.  There remain a considerable residue of cases of greater or less interest which I might have edited before had I not feared to give the public a surfeit which might react upon the reputation of the man whom above all others I revere.  In some I was myself concerned and can speak as an eyewitness, while in others I was either not present or played so small a part that they could only be told as by a third person.  The following narrative is drawn from my own experience.

 

It was a wild morning in October, and I observed as I was dressing how the last remaining leaves were being whirled from the solitary plane tree which graces the yard behind our house.  I descended to breakfast prepared to find my companion in depressed spirits, for, like all great artists, he was easily impressed by his surroundings.  On the contrary, I found that he had nearly finished his meal, and that his mood was particularly bright and joyous, with that somewhat sinister cheerfulness which was characteristic of his lighter moments.

 

"You have a case, Holmes?" I remarked.

 

"The faculty of deduction is certainly contagious, Watson," he answered.  "It has enabled you to probe my secret.  Yes, I have a case.  After a month of trivialities and stagnation the wheels move once more."

 

"Might I share it?"

 

"There is little to share, but we may discuss it when you have consumed the two hard-boiled eggs with which our new cook has favored us.  Their condition may not be unconnected with the copy of the Family Herald which I observed yesterday upon the hall-table.  Even so trivial a matter as cooking an egg demands an attention which is conscious of the passage of time and incompatible with the love romance in that excellent periodical."

 

A quarter of an hour later the table had been cleared and we were face to face.  He had drawn a letter from his pocket.

 

"You have heard of Neil Gibson, the Gold King?" he said.

 

"You mean the American Senator?"

 

"Well, he was once Senator for some Western state, but is better known as the greatest goldmining magnate in the world."

 

"Yes, I know of him.  He has surely lived in England for some time.  His name is very familiar."

 

"Yes, he bought a considerable estate in Hampshire some five years ago.  Possibly you have already heard of the tragic end of his wife?"

 

"Of course.  I remember it now.  That is why the name is familiar.  But I really know nothing of the details."

 

Holmes waved his hand towards some papers on a chair.  "I had no idea that the case was coming my way or I should have had my extracts ready," said he.  "The fact is that the problem, though exceedingly sensational, appeared to present no difficulty.  The interesting personality of the accused does not obscure the clearness of the evidence.  That was the view taken by the coroner's jury and also in the police-court proceedings.  It is now referred to the Assizes at Winchester.  I fear it is a thankless business.  I can discover facts, Watson, but I cannot change them.  Unless some entirely new and unexpected ones come to light I do not see what my client can hope for."

 

"Your client?"

 

"Ah, I forgot I had not told you.  I am getting into your involved habit, Watson, of telling a story backward.  You had best read this first."

 

The letter which he handed to me, written in a bold, masterful hand, ran as follows:

 

CLARIDGE'S HOTEL,

 

October 3rd.

 

DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES:

I can't see the best woman God ever made go to her death without doing all that is possible to save her.  I can't explain things -- I can't even try to explain them, but I know beyond all doubt that Miss Dunbar is innocent.  You know the facts -- who doesn't?  It has been the gossip of the country. And never a voice raised for her!  It's the damned injus- tice of it all that makes me crazy.  That woman has a heart that wouldn't let her kill a fly.  Well, I'll come at eleven tomorrow and see if you can get some ray of light in the dark.  Maybe I have a clue and don't know it.  Anyhow, all I know and all I have and all I am are for your use if only you can save her.  If ever in your life you showed your powers, put them now into this case.

 

Yours faithfully,

J.  NEIL GIBSON.

 

"There you have it," said Sherlock Holmes, knocking out the ashes of his after-breakfast pipe and slowly refilling it.  "That is the gentleman I await.  As to the story, you have hardly time to master all these papers, so I must give it to you in a nutshell if you are to take an intelligent interest in the proceedings.  This man is the greatest financial power in the world, and a man, as I understand, of most violent and formidable character.  He married a wife, the victim of this tragedy, of whom I know nothing save that she was past her prime, which was the more unfortunate as a very attractive governess superintended the education of two young children.  These are the three people concerned, and the scene is a grand old manor house, the centre of a historical English state.  Then as to the tragedy.  The wife was found in the grounds nearly half a mile from the house, late at night, clad in her dinner dress, with a shawl over her shoulders and a revolver bullet through her brain.  No weapon was found near her and there was no local clue as to the murder.  No weapon near her, Watson -- mark that!  The crime seems to have been committed late in the evening, and the body was found by a gamekeeper about eleven o'clock, when it was examined by the police and by a doctor before being carried up to the house.  Is this too condensed, or can you follow it clearly?"

 

"It is all very clear.  But why suspect the governess?"

 

"Well, in the first place there is some very direct evidence.  A revolver with one discharged chamber and a caliber which corresponded with the bullet was found on the floor of her ward- robe."  His eyes fixed and he repeated in broken words, "On -- the -- floor -- of -- her -- wardrobe." Then he sank into silence, and I saw that some train of thought had been set moving which I should be foolish to interrupt.  Suddenly with a start he emerged into brisk life once more.  "Yes, Watson, it was found.  Pretty damning, eh?  So the two juries thought.  Then the dead woman had a note upon her making an appointment at that very place and signed by the governess.  How's that? Finally there is the motive.  Senator Gibson is an attractive person.  If his wife dies, who more likely to succeed her than the young lady who had already by all accounts received pressing attentions from her employer?  Love, fortune, power, all depending upon one middle-aged life.  Ugly, Watson -- very ugly!"

 

"Yes, indeed, Holmes."

 

"Nor could she prove an alibi.  On the contrary, she had to admit that she was down near Thor Bridge -- that was the scene of the tragedy -- about that hour.  She couldn't deny it, for some passing villager had seen her there."

 

"That really seems final."

 

"And yet, Watson -- and yet!  This bridge -- a single broad span of stone with balustraded sides -- carries the drive over the narrowest part of a long, deep, reed-girt sheet of water.  Thor Mere it is called.  In the mouth of the bridge lay the dead woman.  Such are the main facts.  But here, if I mistake not, is our client, considerably before his time."

 

Billy had opened the door, but the name which he announced was an unexpected one.  Mr. Marlow Bates was a stranger to both of us.  He was a thin, nervous wisp of a man with frightened eyes and a twitching, hesitating manner -- a man whom my own professional eye would judge to be on the brink of an absolute nervous breakdown.

 

"You seem agitated, Mr.  Bates," said Holmes.  "Pray sit down.  I fear I can only give you a short time, for I have an appointment at eleven."

 

"I know you have," our visitor gasped, shooting out short sentences like a man who is out of breath.  "Mr. Gibson is coming.  Mr. Gibson is my employer.  I am manager of his estate.  Mr. Holmes, he is a villain -- an infernal villain."

 

"Strong language, Mr. Bates."

 

"I have to be emphatic, Mr. Holmes, for the time is so limited.  I would not have him find me here for the world.  He is almost due now.  But I was so situated that I could not come earlier.  His secretary, Mr. Ferguson, only told me this morning of his appointment with you."

 

"And you are his manager?"

 

"I have given him notice.  In a couple of weeks I shall have shaken off his accursed slavery.  A hard man, Mr. Holmes, hard to all about him.  Those public charities are a screen to cover his private iniquities.  But his wife was his chief victim.  He was brutal to her -- yes, sir, brutal!  How she came by her death I do not know, but I am sure that he had made her life a misery to her.  She was a creature of the tropics, a Brazilian by birth, as no doubt you know."

 

"No, it had escaped me."

 

"Tropical by birth and tropical by nature.  A child of the sun and of passion.  She had loved him as such women can love, but when her own physical charms had faded -- I am told that they once were great -- there was nothing to hold him.  We all liked her and felt for her and hated him for the way that he treated her.  But he is plausible and cunning.  That is all I have to say to you.  Don't take him at his face value.  There is more behind.  Now I'll go.  No, no, don't detain me!  He is almost due."

 

With a frightened look at the clock our strange visitor literally ran to the door and disappeared.

 

"Well!  Well!" said Holmes after an interval of silence.  "Mr. Gibson seems to have a nice loyal household.  But the warning is a useful one, and now we can only wait till the man himself appears."

 

Sharp at the hour we heard a heavy step upon the stairs, and the famous millionaire was shown into the room.  As I looked upon him I understood not only the fears and dislike of his manager but also the execrations which so many business rivals have heaped upon his head.  If I were a sculptor and desired to idealize the successful man of affairs, iron of nerve and leathery of conscience, I should choose Mr. Neil Gibson as my model.  His tall, gaunt, craggy figure had a suggestion of hunger and rapacity.  An Abraham Lincoln keyed to base uses instead of high ones would give some idea of the man.  His face might have been chiseled in granite, hard-set, craggy, remorseless, with deep lines upon it, the scars of many a crisis.  Cold gray eyes, looking shrewdly out from under bristling brows, surveyed us each in turn.  He bowed in perfunctory fashion as Holmes mentioned my name, and then with a masterful air of possession he drew a chair up to my companion and seated himself with his bony knees almost touching him.

 

"Let me say right here, Mr.  Holmes," he began, "that money is nothing to me in this case.  You can burn it if it's any use in lighting you to the truth.  This woman is innocent and this woman has to be cleared, and it's up to you to do it.  Name your figure!"

 

"My professional charges are upon a fixed scale," said Holmes coldly.  "I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether."

 

"Well, if dollars make no difference to you, think of the reputation.  If you pull this off every paper in England and America will be booming you.  You'll be the talk of two continents."

 

"Thank you, Mr. Gibson, I do not think that I am in need of booming.  It may surprise you to know that I prefer to work anonymously, and that it is the problem itself which attracts me.  But we are wasting time.  Let us get down to the facts."

 

"I think that you will find all the main ones in the press reports.  I don't know that I can add anything which will help you.  But if there is anything you would wish more light upon -- well, I am here to give it."

 

"Well, there is just one point."

 

"What is it?"

 

"What were the exact relations between you and Miss Dunbar?"

 

The Gold King gave a violent start and half rose from his chair.  Then his massive calm came back to him.

 

"I suppose you are within your rights -- and maybe doing your duty -- in asking such a question, Mr. Holmes."

 

"We will agree to suppose so," said Holmes.

 

"Then I can assure you that our relations were entirely and always those of an employer towards a young lady whom he never conversed with, or ever saw, save when she was in the company of his children."

 

Holmes rose from his chair.

 

"I am a rather busy man, Mr. Gibson," said he, "and I have no time or taste for aimless conversations.  I wish you good-morning."

 

Our visitor had risen also, and his great loose figure towered above Holmes.  There was an angry gleam from under those bristling brows and a tinge of color in the sallow cheeks.

 

"What the devil do you mean by this, Mr. Holmes?  Do you dismiss my case?"

 

"Well, Mr. Gibson, at least I dismiss you.  I should have thought my words were plain."

 

"Plain enough, but what's at the back of it?  Raising the price on me, or afraid to tackle it, or what?  I've a right to a plain answer."

 

"Well, perhaps you have," said Holmes.  "I'll give you one.  This case is quite sufficiently complicated to start with without the further difficulty of false information."

 

"Meaning that I lie."

 

"Well, I was trying to express it as delicately as I could, but if you insist upon the word I will not contradict you."

 

I sprang to my feet, for the expression upon the millionaire's face was fiendish in its intensity, and he had raised his great knotted fist.  Holmes smiled languidly and reached his hand out for his pipe.

 

"Don't be noisy, Mr. Gibson.  I find that after breakfast even the smallest argument is unsettling.  I suggest that a stroll in the morning air and a little quiet thought will be greatly to your advantage."

 

With an effort the Gold King mastered his fury.  I could not but admire him, for by a supreme self-command he had turned in a minute from a hot flame of anger to a frigid and contemptuous indifference.

 

"Well, it's your choice.  I guess you know how to run your own business.  I can't make you touch the case against your will.  You've done yourself no good this morning, Mr. Holmes, for I have broken stronger men than you.  No man ever crossed me and was the better for it."

 

"So many have said so, and yet here I am," said Holmes, smiling.  "Well, good-morning, Mr. Gibson.  You have a good deal yet to learn."

 

Our visitor made a noisy exit, but Holmes smoked in imperturbable silence with dreamy eyes fixed upon the ceiling.

 

"Any views, Watson?" he asked at last.

 

"Well, Holmes, I must confess that when I consider that this is a man who would certainly brush any obstacle from his path, and when I remember that his wife may have been an obstacle and an object of dislike, as that man Bates plainly told us, it seems to me --"

 

"Exactly.  And to me also."

 

"But what were his relations with the governess, and how did you discover them?"

 

"Bluff, Watson, bluff!  When I considered the passionate, unconventional, unbusinesslike tone of his letter and contrasted it with his self-contained manner and appearance, it was pretty clear that there was some deep emotion which centered upon the accused woman rather than upon the victim.  We've got to understand the exact relations of those three people if we are to reach the truth.  You saw the frontal attack which I made upon him, and how imperturbably he received it.  Then I bluffed him by giving him the impression that I was absolutely certain, when in reality I was only extremely suspicious."

 

"Perhaps he will come back?"

 

"He is sure to come back.  He must come back.  He can't leave it where it is.  Ha!  Isn't that a ring? Yes, there is his footstep.  Well, Mr. Gibson, I was just saying to Dr. Watson that you were somewhat overdue."

 

The Gold King had reentered the room in a more chastened mood than he had left it.  His wounded pride still showed in his resentful eyes, but his common sense had shown him that he must yield if he would attain his end.

 

"I've been thinking it over, Mr. Holmes, and I feel that I have been hasty in taking your remarks amiss.  You are justified in getting down to the facts, whatever they may be, and I think the more of you for it.  I can assure you, however, that the relations between Miss Dunbar and me don't really touch this case."

 

"That is for me to decide, is it not?"

 

"Yes, I guess that is so.  You're like a surgeon who wants every symptom before he can give his diagnosis."

 

"Exactly.  That expresses it.  And it is only a patient who has an object in deceiving his surgeon who would conceal the facts of his case."

 

"That may be so, but you will admit, Mr. Holmes, that most men would shy off a bit when they are asked point-blank what their relations with a woman may be -- if there is really some serious feeling in the case.  I guess most men have a little private reserve of their own in some corner of their souls where they don't welcome intruders.  And you burst suddenly into it.  But the object excuses you, since it was to try and save her.  Well, the stakes are down and the reserve open, and you can explore where you will.  What is it you want?"

 

"The truth."

 

The Gold King paused for a moment as one who marshals his thoughts.  His grim, deep-lined face had become even sadder and more grave.

 

"I can give it to you in a very few words, Mr. Holmes," said he at last.  "There are some things that are painful as well as difficult to say, so I won't go deeper than is needful.  I met my wife when I was gold-hunting in Brazil.  Maria Pinto was the daughter of a government official at Manaos, and she was very beautiful.  I was young and ardent in those days, but even now, as I look back with colder blood and a more critical eye, I can see that she was rare and wonderful in her beauty.  It was a deep rich nature, too, passionate, whole-hearted, tropical, ill-balanced, very different from the American women whom I had known.  Well, to make a long story short, I loved her and I married her.  It was only when the romance had passed -- and it lingered for years -- that I realized that we had nothing -- absolutely nothing -- in common.  My love faded.  If hers had faded also it might have been easier.  But you know the wonderful way of women!  Do what I might, nothing could turn her from me.  If I have been harsh to her, even brutal as some have said, it has been because I knew that if I could kill her love, or if it turned to hate, it would be easier for both of us.  But nothing changed her.  She adored me in those English woods as she had adored me twenty years ago on the banks of the Amazon.  Do what I might, she was as devoted as ever.

 

"Then came Miss Grace Dunbar.  She answered our advertisement and became governess to our two children.  Perhaps you have seen her portrait in the papers.  The whole world has proclaimed that she also is a very beautiful woman.  Now, I make no pretence to be more moral than my neighbors, and I will admit to you that I could not live under the same roof with such a woman and in daily contact with her without feeling a passionate regard for her.  Do you blame me, Mr. Holmes?"

 

"I do not blame you for feeling it.  I should blame you if you expressed it, since this young lady was in a sense under your protection."

 

"Well, maybe so," said the millionaire, though for a moment the reproof had brought the old angry gleam into his eyes.  "I'm not pretending to be any better than I am.  I guess all my life I've been a man that reached out his hand for what he wanted, and I never wanted anything more than the love and possession of that woman.  I told her so."

 

"Oh, you did, did you?"

 

Holmes could look very formidable when he was moved.

 

"I said to her that if I could marry her I would, but that it was out of my power.  I said that money was no object and that all I could do to make her happy and comfortable would be done."

 

"Very generous, I am sure," said Holmes with a sneer.

 

"See here, Mr.  Holmes.  I came to you on a question of evidence, not on a question of morals.  I'm not asking for your criticism."

 

"It is only for the young lady's sake that I touch your case at all," said Holmes sternly.  "I don't know that anything she is accused of is really worse than what you have yourself admitted, that you have tried to ruin a defenseless girl who was under your roof.  Some of you rich men have to be taught that all the world cannot be bribed into condoning your offences."

 

To my surprise the Gold King took the reproof with equanimity.

 

"That's how I feel myself about it now.  I thank God that my plans did not work out as I intended.  She would have none of it, and she wanted to leave the house instantly."

 

"Why did she not?"

 

"Well, in the first place, others were dependent upon her, and it was no light matter for her to let them all down by sacrificing her living.  When I had sworn -- as I did -- that she should never be molested again, she consented to remain.  But there was another reason.  She knew the influence she had over me, and that it was stronger than any other influence in the world.  She wanted to use it for good."

 

"How?"

 

"Well, she knew something of my affairs.  They are large, Mr. Holmes -- large beyond the belief of an ordinary man.  I can make or break -- and it is usually break.  It wasn't individuals only.  It was communities, cities, even nations.  Business is a hard game, and the weak go to the wall.  I played the game for all it was worth.  I never squealed myself, and I never cared if the other fellow squealed.  But she saw it different.  I guess she was right.  She believed and said that a fortune for one man that was more than he needed should not be built on ten thousand ruined men who were left without the means of life.  That was how she saw it, and I guess she could see past the dollars to something that was more lasting.  She found that I listened to what she said, and she believed she was serving the world by influencing my actions.  So she stayed -- and then this came along."

 

"Can you throw any light upon that?"

 

The Gold King paused for a minute or more, his head sunk in his hands, lost in deep thought.

 

"It's very black against her.  I can't deny that.  And women lead an inward life and may do things beyond the judgment of a man.  At first I was so rattled and taken aback that I was ready to think she had been led away in some extraordinary fashion that was clean against her usual nature.  One explanation came into my head.  I give it to you, Mr.  Holmes, for what it is worth.  There is no doubt that my wife was bitterly jealous.  There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as any body-jealousy, and though my wife had no cause -- and I think she understood this -- for the latter, she was aware that this English girl exerted an influence upon my mind and my acts that she herself never had.  It was an influence for good, but that did not mend the matter.  She was crazy with hatred and the heat of the Amazon was always in her blood.  She might have planned to murder Miss Dunbar -- or we will say to threaten her with a gun and so frighten her into leaving us.  Then there might have been a scuffle and the gun gone off and shot the woman who held it."

 

"That possibility had already occurred to me," said Holmes.  "Indeed, it is the only obvious alternative to deliberate murder."

 

"But she utterly denies it."

 

"Well, that is not final -- is it?  One can understand that a woman placed in so awful a position might hurry home still in her bewilderment holding the revolver.  She might even throw it down among her clothes, hardly knowing what she was doing, and when it was found she might try to lie her way out by a total denial, since all explanation was impossible.  What is against such a supposition?"

 

"Miss Dunbar herself."

 

"Well, perhaps."

 

Holmes looked at his watch.  "I have no doubt we can get the necessary permits this morning and reach Winchester by the evening train.  When I have seen this young lady it is very possible that I may be of more use to you in the matter, though I cannot promise that my conclusions will necessarily be such as you desire."

There was some delay in the official pass, and instead of reaching Winchester that day we went down to Thor Place, the Hampshire estate of Mr. Neil Gibson.  He did not accompany us himself, but we had the address of Sergeant Coventry, of the local police, who had first examined into the affair.  He was a tall, thin, cadaverous man, with a secretive and mysterious manner which conveyed the idea that he knew or suspected a very great deal more than he dared say.  He had a trick, too, of suddenly sinking his voice to a whisper as if he had come upon something of vital importance, though the information was usually commonplace enough.  Behind these tricks of manner he soon showed himself to be a decent, honest fellow who was not too proud to admit that he was out of his depth and would welcome any help.

 

"Anyhow, I'd rather have you than Scotland Yard, Mr.  Holmes," said he.  "If the Yard gets called into a case, then the local loses all credit for success and may be blamed for failure.  Now, you play straight, so I've heard."

 

"I need not appear in the matter at all," said Holmes to the evident relief of our melancholy acquaintance.  "If I can clear it up I don't ask to have my name mentioned."

 

"Well, it's very handsome of you, I am sure.  And your friend, Dr. Watson, can be trusted, I know.  Now, Mr. Holmes, as we walk down to the place there is one question I should like to ask you.  I'd breathe it to no soul but you."  He looked round as though he hardly dare utter the words.  "Don't you think there might be a case against Mr. Neil Gibson himself?"

 

"I have been considering that."

 

"You've not seen Miss Dunbar.  She is a wonderful fine woman in every way.  He may well have wished his wife out of the road.  And these Americans are readier with pistols than our folk are.  It was his pistol, you know."

 

"Was that clearly made out?"

 

"Yes, sir.  It was one of a pair that he had."

 

"One of a pair?  Where is the other?"

 

"Well, the gentleman has a lot of firearms of one sort and another.  We never quite matched that particular pistol -- but the box was made for two."

 

"If it was one of a pair you should surely be able to match it."

 

"Well, we have them all laid out at the house if you would care to look them over."

 

"Later, perhaps.  I think we will walk down together and have a look at the scene of the tragedy."

This conversation had taken place in the little front room of Sergeant Coventry's humble cottage which served as the local police-station.  A walk of half a mile or so across a windswept heath, all gold and bronze with the fading ferns, brought us to a side-gate opening into the grounds of the Thor Place estate.  A path led us through the pheasant preserves, and then from a clearing we saw the widespread, half-timbered house, half Tudor and half Georgian, upon the crest of the hill.  Beside us there was a long, reedy pool, constricted in the centre where the main carriage drive passed over a stone bridge, but swelling into small lakes on either side.  Our guide paused at the mouth of this bridge, and he pointed to the ground.

 

"That was where Mrs. Gibson's body lay.  I marked it by that stone."

 

"I understand that you were there before it was moved?"

 

"Yes, they sent for me at once."

 

"Who did?"

 

"Mr. Gibson himself.  The moment the alarm was given and he had rushed down with others from the house, he insisted that nothing should be moved until the police should arrive."

 

"That was sensible.  I gathered from the newspaper report that the shot was fired from close quarters."

 

"Yes, sir, very close."

 

"Near the right temple?"

 

"Just behind it, sir."

 

"How did the body lie?"

 

"On the back, sir.  No trace of a struggle.  No marks.  No weapon.  The short note from Miss Dunbar was clutched in her left hand."

 

"Clutched, you say?"

 

"Yes, sir, we could hardly open the fingers."

 

"That is of great importance.  It excludes the idea that anyone could have placed the note there after death in order to furnish a false clue.  Dear me!  The note, as I remember, was quite short:

 

           "I will be at Thor Bridge at nine o'clock."                                                   "G.  DUNBAR.

Was that not so?"

 

"Yes, sir."

 

"Did Miss Dunbar admit writing it?"

 

"Yes, sir."

 

"What was her explanation?"

 

"Her defense was reserved for the Assizes.  She would say nothing."

 

"The problem is certainly a very interesting one.  The point of the letter is very obscure, is it not?"

 

"Well, sir," said the guide, "it seemed, if I may be so bold as to say so, the only really clear point in the whole case."

 

Holmes shook his head.

 

"Granting that the letter is genuine and was really written, it was certainly received some time before -- say one hour or two.  Why, then, was this lady still clasping it in her left hand?  Why should she carry it so carefully?  She did not need to refer to it in the interview.  Does it not seem remarkable?"

 

"Well, sir, as you put it, perhaps it does."

 

"I think I should like to sit quietly for a few minutes and think it out."  He seated himself upon the stone ledge of the bridge, and I could see his quick gray eyes darting their questioning glances in every direction.  Suddenly he sprang up again and ran across to the opposite parapet, whipped his lens from his pocket, and began to examine the stonework.

 

"This is curious," said he.

 

"Yes, sir, we saw the chip on the ledge.  I expect it's been done by some passerby."

 

The stonework was gray, but at this one point it showed white for a space not larger than a sixpence.  When examined closely one could see that the surface was chipped as by a sharp blow.

 

"It took some violence to do that," said Holmes thoughtfully.  With his cane he struck the ledge several times without leaving a mark.  "Yes, it was a hard knock.  In a curious place, too.  It was not from above but from below, for you see that it is on the lower edge of the parapet."

"But it is at least fifteen feet from the body."

 

"Yes, it is fifteen feet from the body.  It may have nothing to do with the matter, but it is a point worth noting.  I do not think that we have anything more to learn here.  There were no footprints, you say?"

 

"The ground was iron hard, sir.  There were no traces at all."

 

"Then we can go.  We will go up to the house first and look over these weapons of which you speak.  Then we shall get on to Winchester, for I should desire to see Miss Dunbar before we go farther."

 

Mr. Neil Gibson had not returned from town, but we saw in the house the neurotic Mr. Bates who had called upon us in the morning.  He showed us with a sinister relish the formidable array of firearms of various shapes and sizes which his employer had accumulated in the course of an adventurous life.

 

"Mr. Gibson has his enemies, as anyone would expect who knew him and his methods," said he.  "He sleeps with a loaded revolver in the drawer beside his bed.  He is a man of violence, sir, and there are times when all of us are afraid of him.  I am sure that the poor lady who has passed was often terrified."

 

"Did you ever witness physical violence towards her?"

 

"No, I cannot say that.  But I have heard words which were nearly as bad -- words of cold, cutting contempt, even before the servants."

 

"Our millionaire does not seem to shine in private life," remarked Holmes as we made our way to the station.  "Well, Watson, we have come on a good many facts, some of them new ones, and yet I seem some way from my conclusion.  In spite of the very evident dislike which Mr. Bates has to his employer, I gather from him that when the alarm came he was undoubtedly in his library.  Dinner was over at 8:30 and all was normal up to then.  It is true that the alarm was somewhat late in the evening, but the tragedy certainly occurred about the hour named in the note.  There is no evidence at all that Mr. Gibson had been out of doors since his return from town at five o'clock.  On the other hand, Miss Dunbar, as I understand it, admits that she had made an appointment to meet Mrs.  Gibson at the bridge.  Beyond this she would say nothing, as her lawyer had advised her to reserve her defense.  We have several very vital questions to ask that young lady, and my mind will not be easy until we have seen her.  I must confess that the case would seem to me to be very black against her if it were not for one thing."

 

"And what is that, Holmes?"

 

"The finding of the pistol in her wardrobe."

"Dear me, Holmes!" I cried, "that seemed to me to be the most damning incident of all."

 

"Not so, Watson.  It had struck me even at my first perfunctory reading as very strange, and now that I am in closer touch with the case it is my only firm ground for hope.  We must look for consistency.  Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception."

 

"I hardly follow you."

 

"Well now, Watson, suppose for a moment that we visualize you in the character of a woman who, in a cold, premeditated fashion, is about to get rid of a rival.  You have planned it.  A note has been written.  The victim has come.  You have your weapon.  The crime is done.  It has been workmanlike and complete.  Do you tell me that after carrying out so crafty a crime you would now ruin your reputation as a criminal by forgetting to fling your weapon into those adjacent reed-beds which would forever cover it, but you must needs carry it carefully home and put it in your own wardrobe, the very first place that would be searched?  Your best friends would hardly call you a schemer, Watson, and yet I could not picture you doing anything so crude as that."

 

"In the excitement of the moment "

 

"No, no, Watson, I will not admit that it is possible.  Where a crime is coolly premeditated, then the means of covering it are coolly premeditated also.  I hope, therefore, that we are in the presence of a serious misconception."

 

"But there is so much to explain."

 

"Well, we shall set about explaining it.  When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.  For example, there is this revolver.  Miss Dunbar disclaims all knowledge of it.  On our new theory she is speaking truth when she says so.  Therefore, it was placed in her wardrobe.  Who placed it there?  Someone who wished to incriminate her.  Was not that person the actual criminal?  You see how we come at once upon a most fruitful line of inquiry."

 

We were compelled to spend the night at Winchester, as the formalities had not yet been completed, but next morning, in the company of Mr. Joyce Cummings, the rising barrister who was entrusted with the defense, we were allowed to see the young lady in her cell.  I had expected from all that we had heard to see a beautiful woman, but I can never forget the effect which Miss Dunbar produced upon me.  It was no wonder that even the masterful millionaire had found in her something more powerful than himself -- something which could control and guide him.  One felt, too, as one looked at the strong, clear-cut, and yet sensitive face, that even should she be capable of some impetuous deed, none the less there was an innate nobility of character which would make her influence always for the good.  She was a brunette, tall, with a noble figure and commanding presence, but her dark eyes had in them the appealing, helpless expression of the hunted creature who feels the nets around it, but can see no way out from the toils.  Now, as she realized the presence and the help of my famous friend, there came a touch of color in her wan cheeks and a light of hope began to glimmer in the glance which she turned upon us.

 

"Perhaps Mr. Neil Gibson has told you something of what occurred between us?" she asked in a low, agitated voice.

 

"Yes," Holmes answered, "you need not pain yourself by entering into that part of the story.  After seeing you, I am prepared to accept Mr. Gibson's statement both as to the influence which you had over him and as to the innocence of your relations with him.  But why was the whole situation not brought out in court?"

 

"It seemed to me incredible that such a charge could be sustained.  I thought that if we waited the whole thing must clear itself up without our being compelled to enter into painful details of the inner life of the family.  But I understand that far from clearing it has become even more serious."

 

"My dear young lady," cried Holmes earnestly, "I beg you to have no illusions upon the point.  Mr.  Cummings here would assure you that all the cards are at present against us, and that we must do everything that is possible if we are to win clear.  It would be a cruel deception to pretend that you are not in very great danger.  Give me all the help you can, then, to get at the truth."

 

"I will conceal nothing."

 

"Tell us, then, of your true relations with Mr. Gibson's wife."

 

"She hated me, Mr. Holmes.  She hated me with all the fervor of her tropical nature.  She was a woman who would do nothing by halves, and the measure of her love for her husband was the measure also of her hatred for me.  It is probable that she misunderstood our relations.  I would not wish to wrong her, but she loved so vividly in a physical sense that she could hardly understand the mental, and even spiritual, tie which held her husband to me, or imagine that it was only my desire to influence his power to good ends which kept me under his roof.  I can see now that I was wrong.  Nothing could justify me in remaining where I was a cause of unhappiness, and yet it is certain that the unhappiness would have remained even if I had left the house."

 

"Now, Miss Dunbar," said Holmes, "I beg you to tell us exactly what occurred that evening."

 

"I can tell you the truth so far as I know it, Mr.  Holmes, but I am in a position to prove nothing, and there are points -- the most vital points -- which I can neither explain nor can I imagine any explanation."

 

"If you will find the facts, perhaps others may find the explanation."

 

"With regard, then, to my presence at Thor Bridge that night, I received a note from Mrs. Gibson in the morning.  It lay on the table of the schoolroom, and it may have been left there by her own hand.  It implored me to see her there after dinner, said she had something important to say to me, and asked me to leave an answer on the sundial in the garden, as she desired no one to be in our confidence.  I saw no reason for such secrecy, but I did as she asked, accepting the appointment.  She asked me to destroy her note and I burned it in the schoolroom grate.  She was very much afraid of her husband, who treated her with a harshness for which I frequently reproached him, and I could only imagine that she acted in this way because she did not wish him to know of our interview."

 

"Yet she kept your reply very carefully?"

 

"Yes.  I was surprised to hear that she had it in her hand when she died."

 

"Well, what happened then?"

 

"I went down as I had promised.  When I reached the bridge she was waiting for me.  Never did I realize till that moment how this poor creature hated me.  She was like a mad woman -- indeed, I think she was a mad woman, subtly mad with the deep power of deception which insane people may have.  How else could she have met me with unconcern every day and yet had so raging a hatred of me in her heart?  I will not say what she said.  She poured her whole wild fury out in burning and horrible words.  I did not even answer -- I could not.  It was dreadful to see her.  I put my hands to my ears and rushed away.  When I left her she was standing, still shrieking out her curses at me, in the mouth of the bridge."

 

"Where she was afterwards found?"

 

"Within a few yards from the spot."

 

"And yet, presuming that she met her death shortly after you left her, you heard no shot?"

 

"No, I heard nothing.  But, indeed, Mr.  Holmes, I was so agitated and horrified by this terrible outbreak that I rushed to get back to the peace of my own room, and I was incapable of noticing anything which happened."

 

"You say that you returned to your room.  Did you leave it again before next morning?"

 

"Yes, when the alarm came that the poor creature had met her death I ran out with the others

"

 

"Did you see Mr. Gibson?"

 

"Yes, he had just returned from the bridge when I saw him.  He had sent for the doctor and the police."

"Did he seem to you much perturbed?"

 

"Mr. Gibson is a very strong, self-contained man.  I do not think that he would ever show his emotions on the surface.  But I, who knew him so well, could see that he was deeply concerned."

 

"Then we come to the all-important point.  This pistol that was found in your room.  Had you ever seen it before?"

 

"Never, I swear it."

 

"When was it found?"

 

"Next morning, when the police made their search."

 

"Among your clothes?"

 

"Yes, on the floor of my wardrobe under my dresses."

 

"You could not guess how long it had been there?"

 

"It had not been there the morning before."

 

"How do you know?"

 

"Because I tidied out the wardrobe."

 

"That is final.  Then someone came into your room and placed the pistol there in order to inculpate you."

 

"It must have been so."

 

"And when?"

 

"It could only have been at meal-time, or else at the hours when I would be in the schoolroom with the children."

 

"As you were when you got the note?"

 

"Yes, from that time onward for the whole morning."

 

"Thank you, Miss Dunbar.  Is there any other point which could help me in the investigation?"

 

"I can think of none."

"There was some sign of violence on the stonework of the bridge -- a perfectly fresh chip just opposite the body.  Could you suggest any possible explanation of that?"

 

"Surely it must be a mere coincidence."

 

"Curious, Miss Dunbar, very curious.  Why should it appear at the very time of the tragedy, and why at the very place?"

 

"But what could have caused it?  Only great violence could have such an effect."

 

Holmes did not answer.  His pale, eager face had suddenly assumed that tense, far-away expression which I had learned to associate with the supreme manifestations of his genius.  So evident was the crisis in his mind that none of us dared to speak, and we sat, barrister, prisoner, and myself, watching him in a concentrated and absorbed silence.  Suddenly he sprang from his chair, vibrating with nervous energy and the pressing need for action.

 

"Come, Watson, come!" he cried.

 

"What is it, Mr. Holmes?"

 

"Never mind, my dear lady.  You will hear from me, Mr. Cummings.  With the help of the god of justice I will give you a case which will make England ring.  You will get news by tomorrow, Miss Dunbar, and meanwhile take my assurance that the clouds are lifting and that I have every hope that the light of truth is breaking through."

 

It was not a long journey from Winchester to Thor Place, but it was long to me in my impatience, while for Holmes it was evident that it seemed endless; for, in his nervous restlessness he could not sit still, but paced the carriage or drummed with his long, sensitive fingers upon the cushions beside him.  Suddenly, however, as we neared our destination he seated himself opposite to me -- we had a first-class carriage to ourselves -- and laying a hand upon each of my knees he looked into my eyes with the peculiarly mischievous gaze which was characteristic of his more imp-like moods.

 

"Watson," said he, "I have some recollection that you go armed upon these excursions of ours."

 

It was as well for him that I did so, for he took little care for his own safety when his mind was once absorbed by a problem so that more than once my revolver had been a good friend in need.  I reminded him of the fact.

 

"Yes, yes, I am a little absent-minded in such matters.  But have you your revolver on you?"

 

I produced it from my hip-pocket, a short, handy, but very serviceable little weapon.  He undid the catch, shook out the cartridges, and examined it with care.

"It's heavy -- remarkably heavy," said he.

 

"Yes, it is a solid bit of work."

 

He mused over it for a minute.

 

"Do you know, Watson," said he, "I believe your revolver is going to have a very intimate connection with the mystery which we are investigating."

 

"My dear Holmes, you are joking."

 

"No, Watson, I am very serious.  There is a test before us.  If the test comes off, all will be clear.  And the test will depend upon the conduct of this little weapon.  One cartridge out.  Now we will replace the other five and put on the safety-catch.  So!  That increases the weight and makes it a better reproduction."

 

I had no glimmer of what was in his mind, nor did he enlighten me, but sat lost in thought until we pulled up in the little Hampshire station.  We secured a ramshackle trap, and in a quarter of an hour were at the house of our confidential friend, the sergeant.

 

"A clue, Mr. Holmes?  What is it?"

 

"It all depends upon the behavior of Dr. Watson's revolver," said my friend.  "Here it is.  Now, officer, can you give me ten yards of string?"

 

The village shop provided a ball of stout twine.

 

"I think that this is all we will need," said Holmes.  "Now, if you please, we will get off on what I hope is the last stage of our journey."

 

The sun was setting and turning the rolling Hampshire moor into a wonderful autumnal panorama.  The sergeant, with many critical and incredulous glances, which showed his deep doubts of the sanity of my companion, lurched along beside us.  As we approached the scene of the crime I could see that my friend under all his habitual coolness was in truth deeply agitated.

 

"Yes," he said in answer to my remark, "you have seen me miss my mark before, Watson.  I have an instinct for such things, and yet it has sometimes played me false.  It seemed a certainty when first it flashed across my mind in the cell at Winchester, but one drawback of an active mind is that one can always conceive alternative explanations which would make our scent a false one.  And yet -- and yet -- well, Watson, we can but try."

 

As he walked he had firmly tied one end of the string to the handle of the revolver.  We had now reached the scene of the tragedy.  With great care he marked out under the guidance of the policeman the exact spot where the body had been stretched.  He then hunted among the heather and the ferns until he found a considerable stone.  This he secured to the other end of his line of string, and he hung it over the parapet of the bridge so that it swung clear above the water.  He then stood on the fatal spot, some distance from the edge of the bridge, with my revolver in his hand, the string being taut between the weapon and the heavy stone on the farther side.

 

"Now for it!" he cried.

 

At the words he raised the pistol to his head, and then let go his grip.  In an instant it had been whisked away by the weight of the stone, had struck with a sharp crack against the parapet, and had vanished over the side into the water.  It had hardly gone before Holmes was kneeling beside the stonework, and a joyous cry showed that he had found what he expected.

 

"Was there ever a more exact demonstration?" he cried.  "See, Watson, your revolver has solved the problem!" As he spoke he pointed to a second chip of the exact size and shape of the first which had appeared on the under edge of the stone balustrade.

 

"We'll stay at the inn tonight," he continued as he rose and faced the astonished sergeant.  "You will, of course, get a grappling-hook and you will easily restore my friend's revolver.  You will also find beside it the revolver, string and weight with which this vindictive woman attempted to disguise her own crime and to fasten a charge of murder upon an innocent victim.  You can let Mr. Gibson know that I will see him in the morning, when steps can be taken for Miss Dunbar's vindication."

 

Late that evening, as we sat together smoking our pipes in the village inn, Holmes gave me a brief review of what had passed.

 

"I fear, Watson," said he, "that you will not improve any reputation which I may have acquired by adding the case of the Thor Bridge mystery to your annals.  I have been sluggish in mind and wanting in that mixture of imagination and reality which is the basis of my art.  I confess that the chip in the stonework was a sufficient clue to suggest the true solution, and that I blame myself for not having attained it sooner.

 

"It must be admitted that the workings of this unhappy woman's mind were deep and subtle, so that it was no very simple matter to unravel her plot.  I do not think that in our adventures we have ever come across a stranger example of what perverted love can bring about.  Whether Miss Dunbar was her rival in a physical or in a merely mental sense seems to have been equally unforgivable in her eyes.  No doubt she blamed this innocent lady for all those harsh dealings and unkind words with which her husband tried to repel her too demonstrative affection.  Her first resolution was to end her own life.  Her second was to do it in such a way as to involve her victim in a fate which was worse far than any sudden death could be.

 

"We can follow the various steps quite clearly, and they show a remarkable subtlety of mind. 

A note was extracted very cleverly from Miss Dunbar which would make it appear that she had chosen the scene of the crime.  In her anxiety that it should be discovered she somewhat overdid it by holding it in her hand to the last.  This alone should have excited my suspicions earlier than it did.

 

"Then she took one of her husband's revolvers -- there was, as you saw, an arsenal in the house -- and kept it for her own use.  A similar one she concealed that morning in Miss Dunbar's ward- robe after discharging one barrel, which she could easily do in the woods without attracting attention.  She then went down to the bridge where she had contrived this exceedingly ingenious method for getting rid of her weapon.  When Miss Dunbar appeared she used her last breath in pouring out her hatred, and then, when she was out of hearing, carried out her terrible purpose.  Every link is now in its place and the chain is complete.  The papers may ask why the lake was not dragged in the first instance, but it is easy to be wise after the event, and in any case the expanse of a reed-filled lake is no easy matter to drag unless you have a clear perception of what you are looking for and where.  Well, Watson, we have helped a remarkable woman, and also a formidable man.  Should they in the future join their forces, as seems not unlikely, the financial world may find that Mr. Neil Gibson has learned something in that schoolroom of sorrow where our earthly lessons are taught."  

From The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton, 1911

 

 

 

 

A prolific writer of all genres, G. K. Chesterton, wrote five collections of Father Brown stories from 1911 to 1935.  These two stories are the first two, from the very first book.  If you’re unfamiliar with Father Brown, this is your change to meet him for the first time, just as the readers did in 1911.  You’ll see shades of television’s Father Dowling in Father Brown.  And there have been two films and one television series adapted from his famous priestly character.  Ironically, Mr. Chesterton was not a Catholic when he created Father Brown.  It was only in 1922 that he converted to Catholicism, and went on to write many books on spirituality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 THE BLUE CROSS  

 

Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no means conspicuous--nor wished to be.  There was nothing notable about him, except a slight contrast between the holiday gaiety of his clothes and the official gravity of his face.  His clothes included a slight, pale grey jacket, a white waistcoat, and a silver straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon.  His lean face was dark by contrast, and ended in a curt black beard that looked Spanish and suggested an Elizabethan ruff.  He was smoking a cigarette with the seriousness of an idler.  There was nothing about him to indicate the fact that the grey jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white waistcoat covered a police card, or that the straw hat covered one of the most powerful intellects in Europe.  For this was Valentin himself, the head of the Paris police and the most famous investigator of the world; and he was coming from Brussels to London to make the greatest arrest of the century.  

 

Flambeau was in England.  The police of three countries had tracked the great criminal at last from Ghent to Brussels, from Brussels to the Hook of Holland; and it was conjectured that he would take some advantage of the unfamiliarity and confusion of the Eucharistic Congress, then taking place in London.  Probably he would travel as some minor clerk or secretary connected with it; but, of course, Valentin could not be certain; nobody could be certain about Flambeau.  

 

It is many years now since this colossus of crime suddenly ceased keeping the world in a turmoil; and when he ceased, as they said after the death of Roland, there was a great quiet upon the earth.  But in his best days (I mean, of course, his worst) Flambeau was a figure as statuesque and international as the Kaiser.  Almost every morning the daily paper announced that he had escaped the consequences of one extraordinary crime by committing another.  He was a Gascon of gigantic stature and bodily daring; and the wildest tales were told of his outbursts of athletic humor; how he turned the juge d'instruction (ed. investigating magistrate) upside down and stood him on his head, "to clear his mind"; how he ran down the Rue de Rivoli with a policeman under each arm.  It is due to him to say that his fantastic physical strength was generally employed in such bloodless though undignified scenes; his real crimes were chiefly those of ingenious and wholesale robbery.  But each of his thefts was almost a new sin, and would make a story by itself.  It was he who ran the great Tyrolean Dairy Company in London, with no dairies, no cows, no carts, no milk, but with some thousand subscribers.  These he served by the simple operation of moving the little milk cans outside people's doors to the doors of his own customers.  It was he who had kept up an unaccountable and close correspondence with a young lady whose whole letter-bag was intercepted, by the extraordinary trick of photographing his messages infinitesimally small upon the slides of a microscope.  A sweeping simplicity, however, marked many of his experiments.  It is said that he once repainted all the numbers in a street in the dead of night merely to divert one traveler into a trap.  It is quite certain that he invented a portable pillarbox, which he put up at corners in quiet suburbs on the chance of strangers dropping postal orders into it.  Lastly, he was known to be a startling acrobat; despite his huge figure, he could leap like a grasshopper and melt into the tree-tops like a monkey.  Hence the great Valentin, when he set out to find Flambeau, was perfectly aware that his adventures would not end when he had found him.  

 

But how was he to find him?  On this the great Valentin's ideas were still in process of settlement.  

 

There was one thing which Flambeau, with all his dexterity of disguise, could not cover, and that was his singular height.  If Valentin's quick eye had caught a tall apple-woman, a tall grenadier, or even a tolerably tall duchess, he might have arrested them on the spot.  But all along his train there was nobody that could be a disguised Flambeau, any more than a cat could be a disguised giraffe.  About the people on the boat he had already satisfied himself; and the people picked up at Harwich or on the journey limited themselves with certainty to six.  There was a short railway official traveling up to the terminus, three fairly short market gardeners picked up two stations afterwards, one very short widow lady going up from a small Essex town, and a very short Roman Catholic priest going up from a small Essex village. 

When it came to the last case, Valentin gave it up and almost laughed.  The little priest was so much the essence of those Eastern flats; he had a face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling; he had eyes as empty as the North Sea; he had several brown paper parcels, which he was quite incapable of collecting.  The Eucharistic Congress had doubtless sucked out of their local stagnation many such creatures, blind and helpless, like moles disinterred.  Valentin was a skeptic in the severe style of France, and could have no love for priests.  But he could have pity for them, and this one might have provoked pity in anybody.  He had a large, shabby umbrella, which constantly fell on the floor.  He did not seem to know which was the right end of his return ticket.  He explained with a moon-calf simplicity to everybody in the carriage that he had to be careful, because he had something made of real silver "with blue stones" in one of his brown-paper parcels.  His quaint blending of Essex flatness with saintly simplicity continuously amused the Frenchman till the priest arrived (somehow) at Tottenham with all his parcels, and came back for his umbrella.  When he did the last, Valentin even had the good nature to warn him not to take care of the silver by telling everybody about it.  But to whomever he talked, Valentin kept his eye open for someone else; he looked out steadily for anyone, rich or poor, male or female, who was well up to six feet; for Flambeau was four inches above it.  

 

He alighted at Liverpool Street, however, quite conscientiously secure that he had not missed the criminal so far.  He then went to Scotland Yard to regularize his position and arrange for help in case of need; he then lit another cigarette and went for a long stroll in the streets of London.  As he was walking in the streets and squares beyond Victoria, he paused suddenly and stood.  It was a quaint, quiet square, very typical of London, full of an accidental stillness.  The tall, flat houses round looked at once prosperous and uninhabited; the square of shrubbery in the centre looked as deserted as a green Pacific islet.  One of the four sides was much higher than the rest, like a dais; and the line of this side was broken by one of London's admirable accidents--a restaurant that looked as if it had strayed from Soho.  It was an unreasonably attractive object, with dwarf plants in pots and long, striped blinds of lemon yellow and white.  It stood specially high above the street, and in the usual patchwork way of London, a flight of steps from the street ran up to meet the front door almost as a fire-escape might run up to a first-floor window.  Valentin stood and smoked in front of the yellow-white blinds and considered them long.  

 

The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.  A few clouds in heaven do come together into the staring shape of one human eye.  A tree does stand up in the landscape of a doubtful journey in the exact and elaborate shape of a note of interrogation.  I have seen both these things myself within the last few days.  Nelson does die in the instant of victory; and a man named Williams does quite accidentally murder a man named Williamson; it sounds like a sort of infanticide.  In short, there is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss.  As it has been well expressed in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should reckon on the unforeseen.   

 

Aristide Valentin was unfathomably French; and the French intelligence is intelligence specially and solely.  He was not "a thinking machine"; for that is a brainless phrase of modern fatalism and materialism.  A machine only is a machine because it cannot think.  But he was a thinking man, and a plain man at the same time.  All his wonderful successes, that looked like conjuring, had been gained by plodding logic, by clear and commonplace French thought.  The French electrify the world not by starting any paradox, they electrify it by carrying out a truism.  They carry a truism so far--as in the French Revolution.  But exactly because Valentin understood reason, he understood the limits of reason.  Only a man who knows nothing of motors talks of motoring without petrol; only a man who knows nothing of reason talks of reasoning without strong, undisputed first principles.  Here he had no strong first principles.  Flambeau had been missed at Harwich; and if he was in London at all, he might be anything from a tall tramp on Wimbledon Common to a tall toast-master at the Hotel Metropole.  In such a naked state of nescience, Valentin had a view and a method of his own.  

 

In such cases he reckoned on the unforeseen.  In such cases, when he could not follow the train of the reasonable, he coldly and carefully followed the train of the unreasonable.  Instead of going to the right places--banks, police stations, rendezvous-- he systematically went to the wrong places; knocked at every empty house, turned down every cul-de-sac, went up every lane blocked with rubbish, went round every crescent that led him uselessly out of the way.  He defended this crazy course quite logically.  He said that if one had a clue this was the worst way; but if one had no clue at all it was the best, because there was just the chance that any oddity that caught the eye of the pursuer might be the same that had caught the eye of the pursued.  Somewhere a man must begin, and it had better be just where another man might stop.  Something about that flight of steps up to the shop, something about the quietude and quaintness of the restaurant, roused all the detective's rare romantic fancy and made him resolve to strike at random.  He went up the steps, and sitting down at a table by the window, asked for a cup of black coffee.  

 

It was half-way through the morning, and he had not breakfasted; the slight litter of other breakfasts stood about on the table to remind him of his hunger; and adding a poached egg to his order, he proceeded musingly to shake some white sugar into his coffee, thinking all the time about Flambeau.  He remembered how Flambeau had escaped, once by a pair of nail scissors, and once by a house on fire; once by having to pay for an unstamped letter, and once by getting people to look through a telescope at a comet that might destroy the world.  He thought his detective brain as good as the criminal's, which was true.  But he fully realized the disadvantage.  "The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic," he said with a sour smile, and lifted his coffee cup to his lips slowly, and put it down very quickly.  He had put salt in it.  

 

He looked at the vessel from which the silvery powder had come; it was certainly a sugarbasin; as unmistakably meant for sugar as a champagne-bottle for champagne.  He wondered why they should keep salt in it.  He looked to see if there were any more orthodox vessels.  Yes; there were two salt-cellars quite full.  Perhaps there was some speciality in the condiment in the salt-cellars.  He tasted it; it was sugar.  Then he looked round at the restaurant with a refreshed air of interest, to see if there were any other traces of that singular artistic taste which puts the sugar in the salt-cellars and the salt in the sugar-basin.  Except for an odd splash of some dark fluid on one of the white-papered walls, the whole place appeared neat, cheerful and ordinary.  He rang the bell for the waiter.  

 

When that official hurried up, fuzzy-haired and somewhat blear-eyed at that early hour, the detective (who was not without an appreciation of the simpler forms of humor) asked him to taste the sugar and see if it was up to the high reputation of the hotel.  The result was that the waiter yawned suddenly and woke up.  

 

"Do you play this delicate joke on your customers every morning?" inquired Valentin.  "Does changing the salt and sugar never pall on you as a jest?" 

 

The waiter, when this irony grew clearer, stammeringly assured him that the establishment had certainly no such intention; it must be a most curious mistake.  He picked up the sugarbasin and looked at it; he picked up the salt-cellar and looked at that, his face growing more and more bewildered.  At last he abruptly excused himself, and hurrying away, returned in a few seconds with the proprietor.  The proprietor also examined the sugar-basin and then the salt-cellar; the proprietor also looked bewildered.  

 

Suddenly the waiter seemed to grow inarticulate with a rush of words.  

 

"I zink," he stuttered eagerly, "I zink it is those two clergy-men." 

 

"What two clergymen?"

 

"The two clergymen," said the waiter, "that threw soup at the wall." 

 

"Threw soup at the wall?" repeated Valentin, feeling sure this must be some singular Italian metaphor.  

 

"Yes, yes," said the attendant excitedly, and pointed at the dark splash on the white paper; "threw it over there on the wall." 

 

Valentin looked his query at the proprietor, who came to his rescue with fuller reports.  

 

"Yes, sir," he said, "it's quite true, though I don't suppose it has anything to do with the sugar and salt.  Two clergymen came in and drank soup here very early, as soon as the shutters were taken down.  They were both very quiet, respectable people; one of them paid the bill and went out; the other, who seemed a slower coach altogether, was some minutes longer getting his things together.  But he went at last.  Only, the instant before he stepped into the street he deliberately picked up his cup, which he had only half emptied, and threw the soup slap on the wall.  I was in the back room myself, and so was the waiter; so I could only rush out in time to find the wall splashed and the shop empty.  It don't do any particular damage, but it was confounded cheek; and I tried to catch the men in the street.  They were too far off though; I only noticed they went round the next corner into Carstairs Street." 

 

The detective was on his feet, hat settled and stick in hand.  He had already decided that in the universal darkness of his mind he could only follow the first odd finger that pointed; and this finger was odd enough.  Paying his bill and clashing the glass doors behind him, he was soon swinging round into the other street.  

 

It was fortunate that even in such fevered moments his eye was cool and quick.  Something in a shop-front went by him like a mere flash; yet he went back to look at it.  The shop was a popular greengrocer and fruiterer's, an array of goods set out in the open air and plainly ticketed with their names and prices.  In the two most prominent compartments were two heaps, of oranges and of nuts respectively.  On the heap of nuts lay a scrap of cardboard, on which was written in bold, blue chalk, "Best tangerine oranges, two a penny."  On the oranges was the equally clear and exact description, "Finest Brazil nuts, 4d. a lb."  M. Valentin looked at these two placards and fancied he had met this highly subtle form of humor before, and that somewhat recently.  He drew the attention of the red-faced fruiterer, who was looking rather sullenly up and down the street, to this inaccuracy in his advertisements.  The fruiterer said nothing, but sharply put each card into its proper place.  The detective, leaning elegantly on his walking-cane, continued to scrutinize the shop.  At last he said, "Pray excuse my apparent irrelevance, my good sir, but I should like to ask you a question in experimental psychology and the association of ideas." 

 

The red-faced shop-man regarded him with an eye of menace; but he continued gaily, swinging his cane, "Why," he pursued, "why are two tickets wrongly placed in a greengrocer's shop like a shovel hat that has come to London for a holiday?  Or, in case I do not make myself clear, what is the mystical association which connects the idea of nuts marked as oranges with the idea of two clergymen, one tall and the other short?" 

 

The eyes of the tradesman stood out of his head like a snail's; he really seemed for an instant likely to fling himself upon the stranger.  At last he stammered angrily:  "I don't know what you 'ave to do with it, but if you're one of their friends, you can tell 'em from me that I'll knock their silly 'eads off, parsons or no parsons, if they upset my apples again." 

 

"Indeed?" asked the detective, with great sympathy.  "Did they upset your apples?" 

 

"One of 'em did," said the heated shop-man; "rolled 'em all over the street.  I'd 'ave caught the fool but for havin' to pick 'em up." 

 

"Which way did these parsons go?" asked Valentin.  

 

"Up that second road on the left-hand side, and then across the square," said the other promptly.  

 

"Thanks," replied Valentin, and vanished like a fairy.  On the other side of the second square he found a policeman, and said:  "This is urgent, constable; have you seen two clergymen in shovel hats?" 

 

The policeman began to chuckle heavily.  "I 'ave, sir; and if you arst me, one of 'em was drunk.  He stood in the middle of the road that bewildered that--" 

 

"Which way did they go?" snapped Valentin.  

 

"They took one of them yellow buses over there," answered the man; "them that go to Hampstead." 

 

Valentin produced his official card and said very rapidly:  "Call up two of your men to come with me in pursuit," and crossed the road with such contagious energy that the ponderous policeman was moved to almost agile obedience.  In a minute and a half the French detective was joined on the opposite pavement by an inspector and a man in plain clothes.  

 

"Well, sir," began the former, with smiling importance, "and what may--?" 

 

Valentin pointed suddenly with his cane.  "I'll tell you on the top of that omnibus," he said, and was darting and dodging across the tangle of the traffic.  

 

When all three sank panting on the top seats of the yellow vehicle, the inspector said:  "We could go four times as quick in a taxi." 

 

"Quite true," replied their leader placidly, "if we only had an idea of where we were going." 

 

"Well, where are you going?" asked the other, staring.  

 

Valentin smoked frowningly for a few seconds; then, removing his cigarette, he said:  "If you know what a man's doing, get in front of him; but if you want to guess what he's doing, keep behind him.  Stray when he strays; stop when he stops; travel as slowly as he.  Then you may see what he saw and may act as he acted.  All we can do is to keep our eyes skinned for a queer thing." 

 

"What sort of queer thing do you mean?" asked the inspector.  

 

"Any sort of queer thing," answered Valentin, and relapsed into obstinate silence.  

 

The yellow omnibus crawled up the northern roads for what seemed like hours on end; the great detective would not explain further, and perhaps his assistants felt a silent and growing doubt of his errand.  Perhaps, also, they felt a silent and growing desire for lunch, for the hours crept long past the normal luncheon hour, and the long roads of the North London suburbs seemed to shoot out into length after length like an infernal telescope.  It was one of those journeys on which a man perpetually feels that now at last he must have come to the end of the universe, and then finds he has only come to the beginning of Tufnell Park.  London died away in draggled taverns and dreary scrubs, and then was unaccountably born again in blazing high streets and blatant hotels.  It was like passing through thirteen separate vulgar cities all just touching each other.  But though the winter twilight was already threatening the road ahead of them, the Parisian detective still sat silent and watchful, eyeing the frontage of the streets that slid by on either side.  By the time they had left Camden Town behind, the policemen were nearly asleep; at least, they gave something like a jump as Valentin leapt erect, struck a hand on each man's shoulder, and shouted to the driver to stop.  

 

They tumbled down the steps into the road without realizing why they had been dislodged; when they looked round for enlightenment they found Valentin triumphantly pointing his finger towards a window on the left side of the road.  It was a large window, forming part of the long facade of a gilt and palatial public-house; it was the part reserved for respectable dining, and labeled "Restaurant." This window, like all the rest along the frontage of the hotel, was of frosted and figured glass; but in the middle of it was a big, black smash, like a star in the ice.  

 

"Our cue at last," cried Valentin, waving his stick; "the place with the broken window." 

 

"What window?  What cue?" asked his principal assistant.  "Why, what proof is there that this has anything to do with them?" 

 

Valentin almost broke his bamboo stick with rage.  "Proof!" he cried.  "Good God!  The man is looking for proof!  Why, of course, the chances are twenty to one that it has nothing to do with them.  But what else can we do?  Don't you see we must either follow one wild possibility or else go home to bed?"  He banged his way into the restaurant, followed by his companions, and they were soon seated at a late luncheon at a little table, and looked at the star of smashed glass from the inside.  Not that it was very informative to them even then.  

 

"Got your window broken, I see," said Valentin to the waiter as he paid the bill.  

 

"Yes, sir," answered the attendant, bending busily over the change, to which Valentin silently added an enormous tip.  The waiter straightened himself with mild but unmistakable animation.  

 

"Ah, yes, sir," he said.  "Very odd thing, that, sir." 

 

"Indeed?"  Tell us about it," said the detective with careless curiosity.  

 

"Well, two gents in black came in," said the waiter; "two of those foreign parsons that are running about.  They had a cheap and quiet little lunch, and one of them paid for it and went out.  The other was just going out to join him when I looked at my change again and found he'd paid me more than three times too much.  `Here,' I says to the chap who was nearly out of the door, `you've paid too much.'  `Oh,' he says, very cool, `have we?'  'Yes,' I says, and picks up the bill to show him.  Well, that was a knock-out." 

 

"What do you mean?" asked his interlocutor.  

 

"Well, I'd have sworn on seven Bibles that I'd put 4s. on that bill.  But now I saw I'd put 14s., as plain as paint." 

 

"Well?" cried Valentin, moving slowly, but with burning eyes, "and then?" 

 

"The parson at the door he says all serene, `Sorry to confuse your accounts, but it'll pay for the window.'  `What window?' I says.  `The one I'm going to break,' he says, and smashed that blessed pane with his umbrella." 

 

All three inquirers made an exclamation; and the inspector said under his breath, "Are we after escaped lunatics?" 

 

The waiter went on with some relish for the ridiculous story:  "I was so knocked silly for a second, I couldn't do anything.  The man marched out of the place and joined his friend just round the corner.  Then they went so quick up Bullock Street that I couldn't catch them, though I ran round the bars to do it." 

 

"Bullock Street," said the detective, and shot up that thoroughfare as quickly as the strange couple he pursued.  

 

Their journey now took them through bare brick ways like tunnels; streets with few lights and even with few windows; streets that seemed built out of the blank backs of everything and everywhere.  Dusk was deepening, and it was not easy even for the London policemen to guess in what exact direction they were treading.  The inspector, however, was pretty certain that they would eventually strike some part of Hampstead Heath.  Abruptly one bulging gas-lit window broke the blue twilight like a bull's-eye lantern; and Valentin stopped an instant before a little garish sweet-stuff shop.  After an instant's hesitation he went in; he stood amid the gaudy colors of the confectionery with entire gravity and bought thirteen chocolate cigars with a certain care.  He was clearly preparing an opening; but he did not need one.  

 

An angular, elderly woman in the shop had regarded his elegant appearance with a merely automatic inquiry; but when she saw the door behind him blocked with the blue uniform of the inspector, her eyes seemed to wake up.  

 

"Oh," she said, "if you've come about that parcel, I've sent it off already." 

 

"Parcel?" repeated Valentin; and it was his turn to look inquiring.  

 

"I mean the parcel the gentleman left--the clergyman gentleman." 

 

"For goodness' sake," said Valentin, leaning forward with his first real confession of eagerness, "for Heaven's sake tell us what happened exactly." 

 

"Well," said the woman a little doubtfully, "the clergymen came in about half an hour ago and bought some peppermints and talked a bit, and then went off towards the Heath.  But a second after, one of them runs back into the shop and says, `Have I left a parcel!'  Well, I looked everywhere and couldn't see one; so he says, `Never mind; but if it should turn up, please post it to this address,' and he left me the address and a shilling for my trouble.  And sure enough, though I thought I'd looked everywhere, I found he'd left a brown paper parcel, so I posted it to the place he said.  I can't remember the address now; it was somewhere in Westminster.  But as the thing seemed so important, I thought perhaps the police had come about it." 

 

"So they have," said Valentin shortly.  "Is Hampstead Heath near here?" 

 

"Straight on for fifteen minutes," said the woman, "and you'll come right out on the open."  Valentin sprang out of the shop and began to run.  The other detectives followed him at a reluctant trot.  

 

The street they threaded was so narrow and shut in by shadows that when they came out unexpectedly into the void common and vast sky they were startled to find the evening still so light and clear.  A perfect dome of peacock-green sank into gold amid the blackening trees and the dark violet distances.  The glowing green tint was just deep enough to pick out in points of crystal one or two stars.  All that was left of the daylight lay in a golden glitter across the edge of Hampstead and that popular hollow which is called the Vale of Health.  The holiday makers who roam this region had not wholly dispersed; a few couples sat shapelessly on benches; and here and there a distant girl still shrieked in one of the swings.  The glory of heaven deepened and darkened around the sublime vulgarity of man; and standing on the slope and looking across the valley, Valentin beheld the thing which he sought.  

 

Among the black and breaking groups in that distance was one especially black which did not break--a group of two figures clerically clad.  Though they seemed as small as insects, Valentin could see that one of them was much smaller than the other.  Though the other had a student's stoop and an inconspicuous manner, he could see that the man was well over six feet high.  He shut his teeth and went forward, whirling his stick impatiently.  By the time he had substantially diminished the distance and magnified the two black figures as in a vast microscope, he had perceived something else; something which startled him, and yet which he had somehow expected.  Whoever was the tall priest, there could be no doubt about the identity of the short one.  It was his friend of the Harwich train, the stumpy little cure of Essex whom he had warned about his brown paper parcels.  

 

Now, so far as this went, everything fitted in finally and rationally enough.  Valentin had learned by his inquiries that morning that a Father Brown from Essex was bringing up a silver cross with sapphires, a relic of considerable value, to show some of the foreign priests at the congress.  This undoubtedly was the "silver with blue stones"; and Father Brown undoubtedly was the little greenhorn in the train.  Now there was nothing wonderful about the fact that what Valentin had found out Flambeau had also found out; Flambeau found out everything.  Also there was nothing wonderful in the fact that when Flambeau heard of a sapphire cross he should try to steal it; that was the most natural thing in all natural history.  And most certainly there was nothing wonderful about the fact that Flambeau should have it all his own way with such a silly sheep as the man with the umbrella and the parcels.  He was the sort of man whom anybody could lead on a string to the North Pole; it was not surprising that an actor like Flambeau, dressed as another priest, could lead him to Hampstead Heath.  So far the crime seemed clear enough; and while the detective pitied the priest for his helplessness, he almost despised Flambeau for condescending to so gullible a victim.  But when Valentin thought of all that had happened in between, of all that had led him to his triumph, he racked his brains for the smallest rhyme or reason in it.  What had the stealing of a blue-and-silver cross from a priest from Essex to do with chucking soup at wall paper?  What had it to do with calling nuts oranges, or with paying for windows first and breaking them afterwards?  He had come to the end of his chase; yet somehow he had missed the middle of it.  When he failed (which was seldom), he had usually grasped the clue, but nevertheless missed the criminal.  Here he had grasped the criminal, but still he could not grasp the clue.  

 

The two figures that they followed were crawling like black flies across the huge green contour of a hill.  They were evidently sunk in conversation, and perhaps did not notice where they were going; but they were certainly going to the wilder and more silent heights of the Heath.  As their pursuers gained on them, the latter had to use the undignified attitudes of the deer-stalker, to crouch behind clumps of trees and even to crawl prostrate in deep grass.  By these ungainly ingenuities the hunters even came close enough to the quarry to hear the murmur of the discussion, but no word could be distinguished except the word "reason" recurring frequently in a high and almost childish voice.  Once over an abrupt dip of land and a dense tangle of thickets, the detectives actually lost the two figures they were following.  They did not find the trail again for an agonizing ten minutes, and then it led round the brow of a great dome of hill overlooking an amphitheatre of rich and desolate sunset scenery.  Under a tree in this commanding yet neglected spot was an old ramshackle wooden seat.  On this seat sat the two priests still in serious speech together.  The gorgeous green and gold still clung to the darkening horizon; but the dome above was turning slowly from peacock-green to peacock-blue, and the stars detached themselves more and more like solid jewels.  Mutely motioning to his followers, Valentin contrived to creep up behind the big branching tree, and, standing there in deathly silence, heard the words of the strange priests for the first time.  

 

After he had listened for a minute and a half, he was gripped by a devilish doubt.  Perhaps he had dragged the two English policemen to the wastes of a nocturnal heath on an errand no saner than seeking figs on its thistles.  For the two priests were talking exactly like priests, piously, with learning and leisure, about the most aerial enigmas of theology.  The little Essex priest spoke the more simply, with his round face turned to the strengthening stars; the other talked with his head bowed, as if he were not even worthy to look at them.  But no more innocently clerical conversation could have been heard in any Italian cloister or Spanish cathedral.  

 

The first he heard was the tail of one of Father Brown's sentences, which ended:  "...  what they really meant in the Middle Ages by the heavens being incorruptible." 

 

The taller priest nodded his bowed head and said:  "Ah, yes, these modern infidels appeal to their reason; but who can look at those millions of worlds and not feel that there may well be wonderful universes above us where reason is utterly unreasonable?" 

"No," said the other priest; "reason is always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the lost borderland of things.  I know that people charge the Church with lowering reason, but it is just the other way.  Alone on earth, the Church makes reason really supreme.  Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God himself is bound by reason." 

 

The other priest raised his austere face to the spangled sky and said:  "Yet who knows if in that infinite universe--?" 

 

"Only infinite physically," said the little priest, turning sharply in his seat, "not infinite in the sense of escaping from the laws of truth." 

 

Valentin behind his tree was tearing his fingernails with silent fury.  He seemed almost to hear the sniggers of the English detectives whom he had brought so far on a fantastic guess only to listen to the metaphysical gossip of two mild old parsons.  In his impatience he lost the equally elaborate answer of the tall cleric, and when he listened again it was again Father Brown who was speaking. 

 

"Reason and justice grip the remotest and the loneliest star.  Look at those stars.  Don't they look as if they were single diamonds and sapphires?  Well, you can imagine any mad botany or geology you please.  Think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliants.  Think the moon is a blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire.  But don't fancy that all that frantic astronomy would make the smallest difference to the reason and justice of conduct.  On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl, you would still find a notice-board, `Thou shalt not steal.'" 

 

Valentin was just in the act of rising from his rigid and crouching attitude and creeping away as softly as might be, felled by the one great folly of his life.  But something in the very silence of the tall priest made him stop until the latter spoke.  When at last he did speak, he said simply, his head bowed and his hands on his knees: 

 

"Well, I think that other worlds may perhaps rise higher than our reason.  The mystery of heaven is unfathomable, and I for one can only bow my head." 

 

Then, with brow yet bent and without changing by the faintest shade his attitude or voice, he added:  

"Just hand over that sapphire cross of yours, will you?  We're all alone here, and I could pull you to pieces like a straw doll." 

 

The utterly unaltered voice and attitude added a strange violence to that shocking change of speech.  But the guarder of the relic only seemed to turn his head by the smallest section of the compass.  He seemed still to have a somewhat foolish face turned to the stars.  Perhaps he had not understood.  Or, perhaps, he had understood and sat rigid with terror.  

 

"Yes," said the tall priest, in the same low voice and in the same still posture, "yes, I am Flambeau." 

Then, after a pause, he said:  "Come, will you give me that cross?" 

 

"No," said the other, and the monosyllable had an odd sound.  

 

Flambeau suddenly flung off all his pontifical pretensions.  The great robber leaned back in his seat and laughed low but long.  "No," he cried, "you won't give it me, you proud prelate.  You won't give it me, you little celibate simpleton.  Shall I tell you why you won't give it me?  Because I've got it already in my own breast-pocket." 

 

The small man from Essex turned what seemed to be a dazed face in the dusk, and said, with the timid eagerness of "The Private Secretary":  "Are--are you sure?"

 

Flambeau yelled with delight.  "Really, you're as good as a three-act farce," he cried.  "Yes, you turnip, I am quite sure.  I had the sense to make a duplicate of the right parcel, and now, my friend, you've got the duplicate and I've got the jewels.  An old dodge, Father Brown-- a very old dodge." 

 

"Yes," said Father Brown, and passed his hand through his hair with the same strange vagueness of manner.  "Yes, I've heard of it before." 

 

The colossus of crime leaned over to the little rustic priest with a sort of sudden interest.  "You have heard of it?" he asked.  "Where have you heard of it?" 

 

"Well, I mustn't tell you his name, of course," said the little man simply.  "He was a penitent, you know.  He had lived prosperously for about twenty years entirely on duplicate brown paper parcels.  And so, you see, when I began to suspect you, I thought of this poor chap's way of doing it at once." 

 

"Began to suspect me?" repeated the outlaw with increased intensity.  "Did you really have the gumption to suspect me just because I brought you up to this bare part of the heath?" 

 

"No, no," said Brown with an air of apology.  "You see, I suspected you when we first met.  It's that little bulge up the sleeve where you people have the spiked bracelet." 

 

"How in Tartarus," cried Flambeau, "did you ever hear of the spiked bracelet?" 

 

"Oh, one's little flock, you know!" said Father Brown, arching his eyebrows rather blankly.  "When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets.  So, as I suspected you from the first, don't you see, I made sure that the cross should go safe, anyhow.  I'm afraid I watched you, you know.  So at last I saw you change the parcels.  Then, don't you see, I changed them back again.  And then I left the right one behind." 

 

"Left it behind?" repeated Flambeau, and for the first time there was another note in his voice beside his triumph.  

"Well, it was like this," said the little priest, speaking in the same unaffected way.  "I went back to that sweet-shop and asked if I'd left a parcel, and gave them a particular address if it turned up.  Well, I knew I hadn't; but when I went away again I did.  So, instead of running after me with that valuable parcel, they have sent it flying to a friend of mine in Westminster."  Then he added rather sadly:  "I learnt that, too, from a poor fellow in Hartlepool.  He used to do it with handbags he stole at railway stations, but he's in a monastery now.  Oh, one gets to know, you know," he added, rubbing his head again with the same sort of desperate apology.  "We can't help being priests.  People come and tell us these things." 

 

Flambeau tore a brown-paper parcel out of his inner pocket and rent it in pieces.  There was nothing but paper and sticks of lead inside it.  He sprang to his feet with a gigantic gesture, and cried: 

 

"I don't believe you.  I don't believe a bumpkin like you could manage all that.  I believe you've still got the stuff on you, and if you don't give it up--why, we're all alone, and I'll take it by force!" 

 

"No," said Father Brown simply, and stood up also, "you won't take it by force.  First, because

I really haven't still got it.  And, second, because we are not alone." 

 

Flambeau stopped in his stride forward.  

 

"Behind that tree," said Father Brown, pointing, "are two strong policemen and the greatest detective alive.  How did they come here, do you ask?  Why, I brought them, of course!  How did I do it?  Why, I'll tell you if you like!  Lord bless you, we have to know twenty such things when we work among the criminal classes!  Well, I wasn't sure you were a thief, and it would never do to make a scandal against one of our own clergy.  So I just tested you to see if anything would make you show yourself.  A man generally makes a small scene if he finds salt in his coffee; if he doesn't, he has some reason for keeping quiet.  I changed the salt and sugar, and you kept quiet.  A man generally objects if his bill is three times too big.  If he pays it, he has some motive for passing unnoticed.  I altered your bill, and you paid it." 

 

The world seemed waiting for Flambeau to leap like a tiger.  But he was held back as by a spell; he was stunned with the utmost curiosity.  

 

"Well," went on Father Brown, with lumbering lucidity, "as you wouldn't leave any tracks for the police, of course somebody had to.  At every place we went to, I took care to do something that would get us talked about for the rest of the day.  I didn't do much harm--a splashed wall, spilt apples, a broken window; but I saved the cross, as the cross will always be saved.  It is at Westminster by now.  I rather wonder you didn't stop it with the Donkey's Whistle." 

 

"With the what?" asked Flambeau.

 

"I'm glad you've never heard of it," said the priest, making a face.  "It's a foul thing.  I'm sure you're too good a man for a Whistler.  I couldn't have countered it even with the Spots myself; I'm not strong enough in the legs." 

 

"What on earth are you talking about?" asked the other.  

 

"Well, I did think you'd know the Spots," said Father Brown, agreeably surprised.  "Oh, you can't have gone so very wrong yet!" 

 

"How in blazes do you know all these horrors?" cried Flambeau.  

 

The shadow of a smile crossed the round, simple face of his clerical opponent.  "Oh, by being a celibate simpleton, I suppose," he said.  "Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?  But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren't a priest." 

 

"What?" asked the thief, almost gaping.  

 

"You attacked reason," said Father Brown.  "It's bad theology."  And even as he turned away to collect his property, the three policemen came out from under the twilight trees.  

 

Flambeau was an artist and a sportsman.  He stepped back and swept Valentin a great bow.  

 

"Do not bow to me, mon ami," said Valentin with silver clearness.  "Let us both bow to our master." 

 

And they both stood an instant uncovered while the little Essex priest blinked about for his umbrella.  

 

THE SECRET GARDEN  

 

Aristide Valentin, Chief of the Paris Police, was late for his dinner, and some of his guests began to arrive before him.  These were, however, reassured by his confidential servant, Ivan, the old man with a scar, and a face almost as grey as his moustaches, who always sat at a table in the entrance hall--a hall hung with weapons.  Valentin's house was perhaps as peculiar and celebrated as its master.  It was an old house, with high walls and tall poplars almost overhanging the Seine; but the oddity--and perhaps the police value--of its architecture was this:  that there was no ultimate exit at all except through this front door, which was guarded by Ivan and the armory.  The garden was large and elaborate, and there were many exits from the house into the garden.  But there was no exit from the garden into the world outside; all round it ran a tall, smooth, unscalable wall with special spikes at the top; no bad garden, perhaps, for a man to reflect in, whom some hundred criminals had sworn to kill.  

 

As Ivan explained to the guests, their host had telephoned that he was detained for ten minutes.  He was, in truth, making some last arrangements about executions and such ugly things; and though these duties were rootedly repulsive to him, he always performed them with precision.  Ruthless in the pursuit of criminals, he was very mild about their punishment.  Since he had been supreme over French--and largely over European--police methods, his great influence had been honorably used for the mitigation of sentences and the purification of prisons.  He was one of the great humanitarian French freethinkers; and the only thing wrong with them is that they make mercy even colder than justice.  

 

When Valentin arrived he was already dressed in black clothes and the red rosette--an elegant figure, his dark beard already streaked with grey.  He went straight through his house to his study, which opened on the grounds behind.  The garden door of it was open, and after he had carefully locked his box in its official place, he stood for a few seconds at the open door looking out upon the garden.  A sharp moon was fighting with the flying rags and tatters of a storm, and Valentin regarded it with a wistfulness unusual in such scientific natures as his.  Perhaps such scientific natures have some psychic prevision of the most tremendous problem of their lives.  From any such occult mood, at least, he quickly recovered, for he knew he was late, and that his guests had already begun to arrive.  A glance at his drawingroom when he entered it was enough to make certain that his principal guest was not there, at any rate.  He saw all the other pillars of the little party; he saw Lord Galloway, the English Ambassador--a choleric old man with a russet face like an apple, wearing the blue ribbon of the Garter.  He saw Lady Galloway, slim and threadlike, with silver hair and a face sensitive and superior.  He saw her daughter, Lady Margaret Graham, a pale and pretty girl with an elfish face and copper-colored hair.  He saw the Duchess of Mont St. Michel, black-eyed and opulent, and with her, her two daughters, black-eyed and opulent also.  He saw Dr.  Simon, a typical French scientist, with glasses, a pointed brown beard, and a forehead barred with those parallel wrinkles which are the penalty of superciliousness, since they come through constantly elevating the eyebrows.  He saw Father Brown, of Cobhole, in Essex, whom he had recently met in England.  He saw--perhaps with more interest than any of these--a tall man in uniform, who had bowed to the Galloways without receiving any very hearty acknowledgment, and who now advanced alone to pay his respects to his host.  This was Commandant O'Brien, of the French Foreign Legion.  He was a slim yet somewhat swaggering figure, clean-shaven, dark-haired, and blue-eyed, and, as seemed natural in an officer of that famous regiment of victorious failures and successful suicides, he had an air at once dashing and melancholy.  He was by birth an Irish gentleman, and in boyhood had known the Galloways--especially Margaret Graham.  He had left his country after some crash of debts, and now expressed his complete freedom from British etiquette by swinging about in uniform, saber and spurs.  When he bowed to the Ambassador's family, Lord and Lady Galloway bent stiffly, and Lady Margaret looked away.  

 

But for whatever old causes such people might be interested in each other, their distinguished host was not specially interested in them.  No one of them at least was in his eyes the guest of the evening.  Valentin was expecting, for special reasons, a man of world-wide fame, whose friendship he had secured during some of his great detective tours and triumphs in the United States.  He was expecting Julius K. Brayne, that multi-millionaire whose colossal and even crushing endowments of small religions have occasioned so much easy sport and easier solemnity for the American and English papers.  Nobody could quite make out whether Mr. Brayne was an atheist or a Mormon or a Christian Scientist; but he was ready to pour money into any intellectual vessel, so long as it was an untried vessel.  One of his hobbies was to wait for the American Shakespeare--a hobby more patient than angling.  He admired Walt Whitman, but thought that Luke P. Tanner, of Paris, Pa., was more "progressive" than Whitman any day.  He liked anything that he thought "progressive."  He thought Valentin "progressive," thereby doing him a grave injustice.  

 

The solid appearance of Julius K. Brayne in the room was as decisive as a dinner bell.  He had this great quality, which very few of us can claim, that his presence was as big as his absence.  He was a huge fellow, as fat as he was tall, clad in complete evening black, without so much relief as a watch-chain or a ring.  His hair was white and well brushed back like a German's; his face was red, fierce and cherubic, with one dark tuft under the lower lip that threw up that otherwise infantile visage with an effect theatrical and even Mephistophelean.  Not long, however, did that salon merely stare at the celebrated American; his lateness had already become a domestic problem, and he was sent with all speed into the dining-room with Lady Galloway on his arm.  

 

Except on one point the Galloways were genial and casual enough.  So long as Lady Margaret did not take the arm of that adventurer O'Brien, her father was quite satisfied; and she had not done so, she had decorously gone in with Dr. Simon.  Nevertheless, old Lord Galloway was restless and almost rude.  He was diplomatic enough during dinner, but when, over the cigars, three of the younger men--Simon the doctor, Brown the priest, and the detrimental O'Brien, the exile in a foreign uniform--all melted away to mix with the ladies or smoke in the conservatory, then the English diplomatist grew very undiplomatic indeed.  He was stung every sixty seconds with the thought that the scamp O'Brien might be signaling to Margaret somehow; he did not attempt to imagine how.  He was left over the coffee with Brayne, the hoary Yankee who believed in all religions, and Valentin, the grizzled Frenchman who believed in none.  They could argue with each other, but neither could appeal to him.  After a time, these "progressive" logomachies had reached a crisis of tedium; Lord Galloway got up also and sought the drawing-room.  He lost his way in long passages for some six or eight minutes:  till he heard the high-pitched, didactic voice of the doctor, and then the dull voice of the priest, followed by general laughter.  They also, he thought with a curse, were probably arguing about "science and religion."  But the instant he opened the salon door he saw only one thing--he saw what was not there.  He saw that Commandant O'Brien was absent, and that Lady Margaret was absent too.  

 

Rising impatiently from the drawing-room, as he had from the dining-room, he stamped along the passage once more.  His notion of protecting his daughter from the Irish-Algerian n'er-dowell had become something central and even mad in his mind.  As he went towards the back of the house, where was Valentin's study, he was surprised to meet his daughter, who swept past with a white, scornful face, which was a second enigma.  If she had been with O'Brien, where was O'Brien!  If she had not been with O'Brien, where had she been?  With a sort of senile and passionate suspicion he groped his way to the dark back parts of the mansion, and eventually found a servants' entrance that opened on to the garden.  The moon with her scimitar had now ripped up and rolled away all the storm-wrack.  The argent light lit up all four corners of the garden.  A tall figure in blue was striding across the lawn towards the study door; a glint of moonlit silver on his facings picked him out as Commandant O'Brien.  

 

He vanished through the French windows into the house, leaving Lord Galloway in an indescribable temper, at once virulent and vague.  The blue-and-silver garden, like a scene in a theatre, seemed to taunt him with all that tyrannical tenderness against which his worldly authority was at war.  The length and grace of the Irishman's stride enraged him as if he were a rival instead of a father; the moonlight maddened him.  He was trapped as if by magic into a garden of troubadours, a Watteau fairyland; and, willing to shake off such amorous imbecilities by speech, he stepped briskly after his enemy.  As he did so he tripped over some tree or stone in the grass; looked down at it first with irritation and then a second time with curiosity.  The next instant the moon and the tall poplars looked at an unusual sight --an elderly English diplomatist running hard and crying or bellowing as he ran.  

 

His hoarse shouts brought a pale face to the study door, the beaming glasses and worried brow of Dr. Simon, who heard the nobleman's first clear words.  Lord Galloway was crying:  "A corpse in the grass--a blood-stained corpse."  O'Brien at last had gone utterly out of his mind.  

 

"We must tell Valentin at once," said the doctor, when the other had brokenly described all that he had dared to examine.  "It is fortunate that he is here"; and even as he spoke the great detective entered the study, attracted by the cry.  It was almost amusing to note his typical transformation; he had come with the common concern of a host and a gentleman, fearing that some guest or servant was ill.  When he was told the gory fact, he turned with all his gravity instantly bright and businesslike; for this, however abrupt and awful, was his business.   "Strange, gentlemen," he said as they hurried out into the garden, "that I should have hunted mysteries all over the earth, and now one comes and settles in my own back-yard.  But where is the place?"  They crossed the lawn less easily, as a slight mist had begun to rise from the river; but under the guidance of the shaken Galloway they found the body sunken in deep grass--the body of a very tall and broad-shouldered man.  He lay face downwards, so they could only see that his big shoulders were clad in black cloth, and that his big head was bald, except for a wisp or two of brown hair that clung to his skull like wet seaweed.  A scarlet serpent of blood crawled from under his fallen face.  

 

"At least," said Simon, with a deep and singular intonation, "he is none of our party." 

 

"Examine him, doctor," cried Valentin rather sharply.  "He may not be dead." 

 

The doctor bent down.  "He is not quite cold, but I am afraid he is dead enough," he answered.  "Just help me to lift him up." 

 

They lifted him carefully an inch from the ground, and all doubts as to his being really dead were settled at once and frightfully.  The head fell away.  It had been entirely sundered from the body; whoever had cut his throat had managed to sever the neck as well.  Even Valentin was slightly shocked.  "He must have been as strong as a gorilla," he muttered.  

 

Not without a shiver, though he was used to anatomical dissections, Dr. Simon lifted the head.  It was slightly slashed about the neck and jaw, but the face was substantially unhurt.  It was a ponderous, yellow face, at once sunken and swollen, with a hawk-like nose and heavy lids--a face of a wicked Roman emperor, with, perhaps, a distant touch of a Chinese emperor.  All present seemed to look at it with the coldest eye of ignorance.  Nothing else could be noted about the man except that, as they had lifted his body, they had seen underneath it the white gleam of a shirt-front defaced with a red gleam of blood.  As Dr.  Simon said, the man had never been of their party.  But he might very well have been trying to join it, for he had come dressed for such an occasion.  

 

Valentin went down on his hands and knees and examined with his closest professional attention the grass and ground for some twenty yards round the body, in which he was assisted less skillfully by the doctor, and quite vaguely by the English lord.  Nothing rewarded their grovelings except a few twigs, snapped or chopped into very small lengths, which Valentin lifted for an instant's examination and then tossed away.  

 

"Twigs," he said gravely; "twigs, and a total stranger with his head cut off; that is all there is on this lawn." 

 

There was an almost creepy stillness, and then the unnerved Galloway called out sharply: 

"Who's that?  Who's that over there by the garden wall?!"  

A small figure with a foolishly large head drew waveringly near them in the moonlit haze; looked for an instant like a goblin, but turned out to be the harmless little priest whom they had left in the drawing-room.  "I say," he said meekly, "there are no gates to this garden, do you know." 

 

Valentin's black brows had come together somewhat crossly, as they did on principle at the sight of the cassock.  But he was far too just a man to deny the relevance of the remark.  "You are right," he said.  "Before we find out how he came to be killed, we may have to find out how he came to be here.  Now listen to me, gentlemen.  If it can be done without prejudice to my position and duty, we shall all agree that certain distinguished names might well be kept out of this.  There are ladies, gentlemen, and there is a foreign ambassador.  If we must mark it down as a crime, then it must be followed up as a crime.  But till then I can use my own discretion.  I am the head of the police; I am so public that I can afford to be private.  Please Heaven, I will clear everyone of my own guests before I call in my men to look for anybody else.  Gentlemen, upon your honor, you will none of you leave the house till tomorrow at noon; there are bedrooms for all.  Simon, I think you know where to find my man, Ivan, in the front hall; he is a confidential man.  Tell him to leave another servant on guard and come to me at once.  Lord Galloway, you are certainly the best person to tell the ladies what has happened, and prevent a panic.  They also must stay.  Father Brown and I will remain with the body." 

 

When this spirit of the captain spoke in Valentin he was obeyed like a bugle.  Dr. Simon went through to the armory and routed out Ivan, the public detective's private detective.  Galloway went to the drawing-room and told the terrible news tactfully enough, so that by the time the company assembled there the ladies were already startled and already soothed.  Meanwhile the good priest and the good atheist stood at the head and foot of the dead man motionless in the moonlight, like symbolic statues of their two philosophies of death.  

 

Ivan, the confidential man with the scar and the moustaches, came out of the house like a cannon ball, and came racing across the lawn to Valentin like a dog to his master.  His livid face was quite lively with the glow of this domestic detective story, and it was with almost unpleasant eagerness that he asked his master's permission to examine the remains.  

 

"Yes; look, if you like, Ivan," said Valentin, "but don't be long.  We must go in and thrash this out in the house." 

 

Ivan lifted the head, and then almost let it drop.  "Why," he gasped, "it's--no, it isn't; it can't be.  Do you know this man, sir?" 

 

"No," said Valentin indifferently; "we had better go inside."  

 

Between them they carried the corpse to a sofa in the study, and then all made their way to the drawing-room.  

The detective sat down at a desk quietly, and even without hesitation; but his eye was the iron eye of a judge at assize.  He made a few rapid notes upon paper in front of him, and then said shortly: "Is everybody here?" 

 

"Not Mr. Brayne," said the Duchess of Mont St. Michel, looking round.  

 

"No," said Lord Galloway in a hoarse, harsh voice.  "And not Mr. Neil O'Brien, I fancy.  I saw that gentleman walking in the garden when the corpse was still warm." 

 

"Ivan," said the detective, "go and fetch Commandant O'Brien and Mr. Brayne.  Mr. Brayne, I know, is finishing a cigar in the dining-room; Commandant O'Brien, I think, is walking up and down the conservatory.  I am not sure." 

 

The faithful attendant flashed from the room, and before anyone could stir or speak Valentin went on with the same soldierly swiftness of exposition.  

 

"Everyone here knows that a dead man has been found in the garden, his head cut clean from his body.  Dr. Simon, you have examined it.  Do you think that to cut a man's throat like that would need great force?  Or, perhaps, only a very sharp knife?" 

 

"I should say that it could not be done with a knife at all," said the pale doctor.  

 

"Have you any thought," resumed Valentin, "of a tool with which it could be done?" 

 

"Speaking within modern probabilities, I really haven't," said the doctor, arching his painful brows.  "It's not easy to hack a neck through even clumsily, and this was a very clean cut.  It could be done with a battle-axe or an old headsman's axe, or an old two-handed sword." 

 

"But, good heavens!" cried the Duchess, almost in hysterics, "there aren't any two-handed swords and battle-axes round here." 

 

Valentin was still busy with the paper in front of him.  "Tell me," he said, still writing rapidly, "could it have been done with a long French cavalry saber?" 

 

A low knocking came at the door, which, for some unreasonable reason, curdled everyone's blood like the knocking in Macbeth.  Amid that frozen silence Dr. Simon managed to say:  "A saber-- yes, I suppose it could." 

 

"Thank you," said Valentin.  "Come in, Ivan."  The confidential Ivan opened the door and ushered in Commandant Neil O'Brien, whom he had found at last pacing the garden again.  

 

The Irish officer stood up disordered and defiant on the threshold.  "What do you want with me?" he cried.  

"Please sit down," said Valentin in pleasant, level tones.  "Why, you aren't wearing your sword.  Where is it?" 

 

"I left it on the library table," said O'Brien, his brogue deepening in his disturbed mood.  "It was a nuisance, it was getting--" 

 

"Ivan," said Valentin, "please go and get the Commandant's sword from the library."  Then, as the servant vanished, "Lord Galloway says he saw you leaving the garden just before he found the corpse.  What were you doing in the garden?" 

 

The Commandant flung himself recklessly into a chair.  "Oh," he cried in pure Irish, "admirin' the moon.  Communing with Nature, me bhoy." 

 

A heavy silence sank and endured, and at the end of it came again that trivial and terrible knocking.  Ivan reappeared, carrying an empty steel scabbard.  "This is all I can find," he said.  

 

"Put it on the table," said Valentin, without looking up.  There was an inhuman silence in the room, like that sea of inhuman silence round the dock of the condemned murderer.  The Duchess's weak exclamations had long ago died away.  Lord Galloway's swollen hatred was satisfied and even sobered.  The voice that came was quite unexpected.  

 

"I think I can tell you," cried Lady Margaret, in that clear, quivering voice with which a courageous woman speaks publicly.  "I can tell you what Mr. O'Brien was doing in the garden, since he is bound to silence.  He was asking me to marry him.  I refused; I said in my family circumstances I could give him nothing but my respect.  He was a little angry at that; he did not seem to think much of my respect.  I wonder," she added, with rather a wan smile, "if he will care at all for it now.  For I offer it him now.  I will swear anywhere that he never did a thing like this." 

 

Lord Galloway had edged up to his daughter, and was intimidating her in what he imagined to be an undertone.  "Hold your tongue, Maggie," he said in a thunderous whisper.  "Why should you shield the fellow?  Where's his sword?  Where's his confounded cavalry--" 

 

He stopped because of the singular stare with which his daughter was regarding him, a look that was indeed a lurid magnet for the whole group.  

 

"You old fool!" she said in a low voice without pretence of piety, "what do you suppose you are trying to prove? I tell you this man was innocent while with me.  But if he wasn't innocent, he was still with me.  If he murdered a man in the garden, who was it who must have seen-who must at least have known?  Do you hate Neil so much as to put your own daughter--" 

 

Lady Galloway screamed.  Everyone else sat tingling at the touch of those satanic tragedies that have been between lovers before now.  They saw the proud, white face of the Scotch aristocrat, and her lover, the Irish adventurer, like old portraits in a dark house.  The long silence was full of formless historical memories of murdered husbands and poisonous paramours.  

 

In the centre of this morbid silence an innocent voice said:  "Was it a very long cigar?" 

 

The change of thought was so sharp that they had to look round to see who had spoken.  

 

"I mean," said little Father Brown, from the corner of the room, "I mean that cigar Mr. Brayne is finishing.  It seems nearly as long as a walking-stick." 

 

Despite the irrelevance there was assent as well as irritation in Valentin's face as he lifted his head.  

 

"Quite right," he remarked sharply.  "Ivan, go and see about Mr. Brayne again, and bring him here at once." 

 

The instant the factotum had closed the door, Valentin addressed the girl with an entirely new earnestness.  

 

"Lady Margaret," he said, "we all feel, I am sure, both gratitude and admiration for your act in rising above your lower dignity and explaining the Commandant's conduct.  But there is a hiatus still.  Lord Galloway, I understand, met you passing from the study to the drawingroom, and it was only some minutes afterwards that he found the garden and the Commandant still walking there." 

 

"You have to remember," replied Margaret, with a faint irony in her voice, "that I had just refused him, so we should scarcely have come back arm in arm.  He is a gentleman, anyhow; and he loitered behind--and so got charged with murder." 

 

"In those few moments," said Valentin gravely, "he might really--" 

 

The knock came again, and Ivan put in his scarred face.  "Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but Mr. Brayne has left the house." 

 

"Left!" cried Valentin, and rose for the first time to his feet.  

 

"Gone.  Scooted.  Evaporated," replied Ivan in humorous French.  "His hat and coat are gone, too, and I'll tell you something to cap it all.  I ran outside the house to find any traces of him, and I found one, and a big trace, too." 

 

"What do you mean?" asked Valentin.  

 

"I'll show you," said his servant, and reappeared with a flashing naked cavalry saber, streaked with blood about the point and edge.  Everyone in the room eyed it as if it were a thunderbolt; but the experienced Ivan went on quite quietly:  "I found this," he said, "flung among the bushes fifty yards up the road to Paris.  In other words, I found it just where your respectable Mr. Brayne threw it when he ran away." 

 

There was again a silence, but of a new sort.  Valentin took the saber, examined it, reflected with unaffected concentration of thought, and then turned a respectful face to O'Brien.  "Commandant," he said, "we trust you will always produce this weapon if it is wanted for police examination.  Meanwhile," he added, slapping the steel back in the ringing scabbard, "let me return you your sword." 

 

At the military symbolism of the action the audience could hardly refrain from applause.  

 

For Neil O'Brien, indeed, that gesture was the turning-point of existence.  By the time he was wandering in the mysterious garden again in the colors of the morning the tragic futility of his ordinary mien had fallen from him; he was a man with many reasons for happiness.  Lord Galloway was a gentleman, and had offered him an apology.  Lady Margaret was something better than a lady, a woman at least, and had perhaps given him something better than an apology, as they drifted among the old flowerbeds before breakfast.  The whole company was more lighthearted and humane, for though the riddle of the death remained, the load of suspicion was lifted off them all, and sent flying off to Paris with the strange millionaire--a man they hardly knew.  The devil was cast out of the house--he had cast himself out.  

 

Still, the riddle remained; and when O'Brien threw himself on a garden seat beside Dr. Simon, that keenly scientific person at once resumed it.  He did not get much talk out of O'Brien, whose thoughts were on pleasanter things.  

 

"I can't say it interests me much," said the Irishman frankly, "especially as it seems pretty plain now.  Apparently Brayne hated this stranger for some reason; lured him into the garden, and killed him with my sword.  Then he fled to the city, tossing the sword away as he went.  By the way, Ivan tells me the dead man had a Yankee dollar in his pocket.  So he was a countryman of Brayne's, and that seems to clinch it.  I don't see any difficulties about the business." 

 

"There are five colossal difficulties," said the doctor quietly; "like high walls within walls.  Don't mistake me.  I don't doubt that Brayne did it; his flight, I fancy, proves that.  But as to how he did it.  First difficulty:  Why should a man kill another man with a great hulking saber, when he can almost kill him with a pocket knife and put it back in his pocket?  Second difficulty:  Why was there no noise or outcry?  Does a man commonly see another come up waving a scimitar and offer no remarks?  Third difficulty:  A servant watched the front door all the evening; and a rat cannot get into Valentin's garden anywhere.  How did the dead man get into the garden?  Fourth difficulty:  Given the same conditions, how did Brayne get out of the garden?" 

 

"And the fifth," said Neil, with eyes fixed on the English priest who was coming slowly up the path.  

 

"Is a trifle, I suppose," said the doctor, "but I think an odd one.  When I first saw how the head had been slashed, I supposed the assassin had struck more than once.  But on examination I found many cuts across the truncated section; in other words, they were struck after the head was off.  Did Brayne hate his foe so fiendishly that he stood sabering his body in the moonlight?" 

 

"Horrible!" said O'Brien, and shuddered.  

 

The little priest, Brown, had arrived while they were talking, and had waited, with characteristic shyness, till they had finished.  Then he said awkwardly:  "I say, I'm sorry to interrupt.  But I was sent to tell you the news!" 

 

"News?" repeated Simon, and stared at him rather painfully through his glasses.  

 

"Yes, I'm sorry," said Father Brown mildly.  "There's been another murder, you know." 

 

Both men on the seat sprang up, leaving it rocking.  

 

"And, what's stranger still," continued the priest, with his dull eye on the rhododendrons, "it's the same disgusting sort; it's another beheading.  They found the second head actually bleeding into the river, a few yards along Brayne's road to Paris; so they suppose that he--" 

 

"Great Heaven!" cried O'Brien.  "Is Brayne a monomaniac?" 

 

"There are American vendettas," said the priest impassively.  Then he added:  "They want you to come to the library and see it." 

 

Commandant O'Brien followed the others towards the inquest, feeling decidedly sick.  As a soldier, he loathed all this secretive carnage; where were these extravagant amputations going to stop?  First one head was hacked off, and then another; in this case (he told himself bitterly) it was not true that two heads were better than one.  As he crossed the study he almost staggered at a shocking coincidence.  Upon Valentin's table lay the colored picture of yet a third bleeding head; and it was the head of Valentin himself.  A second glance showed him it was only a Nationalist paper, called The Guillotine, which every week showed one of its political opponents with rolling eyes and writhing features just after execution; for Valentin was an anti-clerical of some note.  But O'Brien was an Irishman, with a kind of chastity even in his sins; and his gorge rose against that great brutality of the intellect which belongs only to France.  He felt Paris as a whole, from the grotesques on the Gothic churches to the gross caricatures in the newspapers.  He remembered the gigantic jests of the Revolution.  He saw the whole city as one ugly energy, from the sanguinary sketch lying on Valentin's table up to where, above a mountain and forest of gargoyles, the great devil grins on Notre Dame.  

 

The library was long, low, and dark; what light entered it shot from under low blinds and had still some of the ruddy tinge of morning.  Valentin and his servant Ivan were waiting for them at the upper end of a long, slightly-sloping desk, on which lay the mortal remains, looking enormous in the twilight.  The big black figure and yellow face of the man found in the garden confronted them essentially unchanged.  The second head, which had been fished from among the river reeds that morning, lay streaming and dripping beside it; Valentin's men were still seeking to recover the rest of this second corpse, which was supposed to be afloat.  Father Brown, who did not seem to share O'Brien's sensibilities in the least, went up to the second head and examined it with his blinking care.  It was little more than a mop of wet white hair, fringed with silver fire in the red and level morning light; the face, which seemed of an ugly, empurpled and perhaps criminal type, had been much battered against trees or stones as it tossed in the water.  

 

"Good morning, Commandant O'Brien," said Valentin, with quiet cordiality.  "You have heard of Brayne's last experiment in butchery, I suppose?" 

 

Father Brown was still bending over the head with white hair, and he said, without looking up:  "I suppose it is quite certain that Brayne cut off this head, too." 

 

"Well, it seems common sense," said Valentin, with his hands in his pockets.  "Killed in the same way as the other.  Found within a few yards of the other.  And sliced by the same weapon which we know he carried away." 

 

"Yes, yes; I know," replied Father Brown submissively.  "Yet, you know, I doubt whether Brayne could have cut off this head." 

 

"Why not?" inquired Dr.  Simon, with a rational stare.  

 

"Well, doctor," said the priest, looking up blinking, "can a man cut off his own head?  I don't know." 

 

O'Brien felt an insane universe crashing about his ears; but the doctor sprang forward with impetuous practicality and pushed back the wet white hair.  

 

"Oh, there's no doubt it's Brayne," said the priest quietly.  "He had exactly that chip in the left ear." 

 

The detective, who had been regarding the priest with steady and glittering eyes, opened his clenched mouth and said sharply:  "You seem to know a lot about him, Father Brown." 

 

"I do," said the little man simply.  "I've been about with him for some weeks.  He was thinking of joining our church." 

 

The star of the fanatic sprang into Valentin's eyes; he strode towards the priest with clenched hands.  "And, perhaps," he cried, with a blasting sneer, "perhaps he was also thinking of leaving all his money to your church." 

 

"Perhaps he was," said Brown stolidly; "it is possible." 

 

"In that case," cried Valentin, with a dreadful smile, "you may indeed know a great deal about him.  About his life and about his--" 

 

Commandant O'Brien laid a hand on Valentin's arm.  "Drop that slanderous rubbish, Valentin," he said, "or there may be more swords yet." 

 

But Valentin (under the steady, humble gaze of the priest) had already recovered himself.  "Well," he said shortly, "people's private opinions can wait.  You gentlemen are still bound by your promise to stay; you must enforce it on yourselves--and on each other.  Ivan here will tell you anything more you want to know; I must get to business and write to the authorities.  We can't keep this quiet any longer.  I shall be writing in my study if there is any more news." 

 

"Is there any more news, Ivan?" asked Dr.  Simon, as the chief of police strode out of the room.  

 

"Only one more thing, I think, sir," said Ivan, wrinkling up his grey old face, "but that's important, too, in its way.  There's that old buffer you found on the lawn," and he pointed without pretence of reverence at the big black body with the yellow head.  "We've found out who he is, anyhow." 

 

"Indeed!" cried the astonished doctor, "and who is he?" 

 

"His name was Arnold Becker," said the under-detective, "though he went by many aliases. 

He was a wandering sort of scamp, and is known to have been in America; so that was where Brayne got his knife into him.  We didn't have much to do with him ourselves, for he worked mostly in Germany.  We've communicated, of course, with the German police.  But, oddly enough, there was a twin brother of his, named Louis Becker, whom we had a great deal to do with.  In fact, we found it necessary to guillotine him only yesterday.  Well, it's a rum thing, gentlemen, but when I saw that fellow flat on the lawn I had the greatest jump of my life.  If I hadn't seen Louis Becker guillotined with my own eyes, I'd have sworn it was Louis Becker lying there in the grass.  Then, of course, I remembered his twin brother in Germany, and following up the clue--" 

 

The explanatory Ivan stopped, for the excellent reason that nobody was listening to him.  The Commandant and the doctor were both staring at Father Brown, who had sprung stiffly to his feet, and was holding his temples tight like a man in sudden and violent pain.  

 

"Stop, stop, stop!" he cried; "stop talking a minute, for I see half.  Will God give me strength?  Will my brain make the one jump and see all?  Heaven help me!  I used to be fairly good at thinking.  I could paraphrase any page in Aquinas once.  Will my head split--or will it see?  I see half--I only see half."  He buried his head in his hands, and stood in a sort of rigid torture of thought or prayer, while the other three could only go on staring at this last prodigy of their wild twelve hours.  

 

When Father Brown's hands fell they showed a face quite fresh and serious, like a child's.  He heaved a huge sigh, and said:  "Let us get this said and done with as quickly as possible.  Look here, this will be the quickest way to convince you all of the truth."  He turned to the doctor.  "Dr.  Simon," he said, "you have a strong head-piece, and I heard you this morning asking the five hardest questions about this business.  Well, if you will ask them again, I will answer them." 

 

Simon's pince-nez dropped from his nose in his doubt and wonder, but he answered at once.  "Well, the first question, you know, is why a man should kill another with a clumsy saber at all when a man can kill with a bodkin?" 

 

"A man cannot behead with a bodkin," said Brown calmly, "and for this murder beheading was absolutely necessary." 

 

"Why?" asked O'Brien, with interest. 

 

"And the next question?" asked Father Brown.  

 

"Well, why didn't the man cry out or anything?" asked the doctor; "sabers in gardens are certainly unusual." 

 

"Twigs," said the priest gloomily, and turned to the window which looked on the scene of death.  "No one saw the point of the twigs.  Why should they lie on that lawn (look at it) so far from any tree?  They were not snapped off; they were chopped off.  The murderer occupied his enemy with some tricks with the saber, showing how he could cut a branch in mid-air, or what-not.  Then, while his enemy bent down to see the result, a silent slash, and the head fell." 

 

"Well," said the doctor slowly, "that seems plausible enough.  But my next two questions will stump anyone." 

 

The priest still stood looking critically out of the window and waited.  

 

"You know how all the garden was sealed up like an air-tight chamber," went on the doctor.  "Well, how did the strange man get into the garden?" 

 

Without turning round, the little priest answered:  "There never was any strange man in the garden." 

 

There was a silence, and then a sudden cackle of almost childish laughter relieved the strain.  The absurdity of Brown's remark moved Ivan to open taunts.  

 

"Oh!" he cried; "then we didn't lug a great fat corpse on to a sofa last night?  He hadn't got into the garden, I suppose?" 

 

"Got into the garden?" repeated Brown reflectively.  "No, not entirely." 

 

"Hang it all," cried Simon, "a man gets into a garden, or he doesn't." 

 

"Not necessarily," said the priest, with a faint smile.  "What is the nest question, doctor?" 

 

"I fancy you're ill," exclaimed Dr. Simon sharply; "but I'll ask the next question if you like.  How did Brayne get out of the garden?" 

 

"He didn't get out of the garden," said the priest, still looking out of the window.  

 

"Didn't get out of the garden?" exploded Simon.  

 

"Not completely," said Father Brown.  

 

Simon shook his fists in a frenzy of French logic.  "A man gets out of a garden, or he doesn't," he cried.  

 

"Not always," said Father Brown.

 

Dr.  Simon sprang to his feet impatiently.  "I have no time to spare on such senseless talk," he cried angrily.  "If you can't understand a man being on one side of a wall or the other, I won't trouble you further." 

 

"Doctor," said the cleric very gently, "we have always got on very pleasantly together.  If only for the sake of old friendship, stop and tell me your fifth question." 

 

The impatient Simon sank into a chair by the door and said briefly:  "The head and shoulders were cut about in a queer way.  It seemed to be done after death." 

 

"Yes," said the motionless priest, "it was done so as to make you assume exactly the one simple falsehood that you did assume.  It was done to make you take for granted that the head belonged to the body." 

 

The borderland of the brain, where all the monsters are made, moved horribly in the Gaelic O'Brien.  He felt the chaotic presence of all the horse-men and fish-women that man's unnatural fancy has begotten.  A voice older than his first fathers seemed saying in his ear:  "Keep out of the monstrous garden where grows the tree with double fruit.  Avoid the evil garden where died the man with two heads."  Yet, while these shameful symbolic shapes passed across the ancient mirror of his Irish soul, his Frenchified intellect was quite alert, and was watching the odd priest as closely and incredulously as all the rest.  

 

Father Brown had turned round at last, and stood against the window, with his face in dense shadow; but even in that shadow they could see it was pale as ashes.  Nevertheless, he spoke quite sensibly, as if there were no Gaelic souls on earth.  

 

"Gentlemen," he said, "you did not find the strange body of Becker in the garden.  You did not find any strange body in the garden.  In face of Dr. Simon's rationalism, I still affirm that Becker was only partly present.  Look here!"  (pointing to the black bulk of the mysterious corpse) "you never saw that man in your lives.  Did you ever see this man?" 

 

He rapidly rolled away the bald, yellow head of the unknown, and put in its place the whitemaned head beside it.  And there, complete, unified, unmistakable, lay Julius K. Brayne.  

 

"The murderer," went on Brown quietly, "hacked off his enemy's head and flung the sword far over the wall.  But he was too clever to fling the sword only.  He flung the head over the wall also.  Then he had only to clap on another head to the corpse, and (as he insisted on a private inquest) you all imagined a totally new man." 

 

"Clap on another head!" said O'Brien staring.  "What other head?  Heads don't grow on garden bushes, do they?" 

 

"No," said Father Brown huskily, and looking at his boots; "there is only one place where they grow.  They grow in the basket of the guillotine, beside which the chief of police, Aristide Valentin, was standing not an hour before the murder.  Oh, my friends, hear me a minute more before you tear me in pieces.  Valentin is an honest man, if being mad for an arguable cause is honesty.  But did you never see in that cold, grey eye of his that he is mad!  He would do anything, anything, to break what he calls the superstition of the Cross.  He has fought for it and starved for it, and now he has murdered for it.  Brayne's crazy millions had hitherto been scattered among so many sects that they did little to alter the balance of things.  But Valentin heard a whisper that Brayne, like so many scatter-brained skeptics, was drifting to us; and that was quite a different thing.  Brayne would pour supplies into the impoverished and pugnacious Church of France; he would support six Nationalist newspapers like The Guillotine.  The battle was already balanced on a point, and the fanatic took flame at the risk.  He resolved to destroy the millionaire, and he did it as one would expect the greatest of detectives to commit his only crime.  He abstracted the severed head of Becker on some criminological excuse, and took it home in his official box.  He had that last argument with Brayne, that Lord Galloway did not hear the end of; that failing, he led him out into the sealed garden, talked about swordsmanship, used twigs and a saber for illustration, and--" 

 

Ivan of the Scar sprang up.  "You lunatic," he yelled; "you'll go to my master now, if I take you by--“ 

 

"Why, I was going there," said Brown heavily; "I must ask him to confess, and all that." 

 

Driving the unhappy Brown before them like a hostage or sacrifice, they rushed together into the sudden stillness of Valentin's study.  

 

The great detective sat at his desk apparently too occupied to hear their turbulent entrance. 

They paused a moment, and then something in the look of that upright and elegant back made the doctor run forward suddenly.  A touch and a glance showed him that there was a small box of pills at Valentin's elbow, and that Valentin was dead in his chair; and on the blind face of the suicide was more than the pride of Cato.  

 

From Lady Molly of Scotland Yard by Baroness Orczy, 1910

 

 

 

 

The Hungarian born Baroness Orczy, artist and author, is most famous for creating The Scarlet Pimpernel.  But during her lifetime she was known for creating many popular and unique characters in her mystery and adventure fiction.  Lady Molly of Scotland Yard followed the rules of the day:  Lady Mary worked tirelessly learning her craft with the sole honorable scope of freeing her wrongly convicted husband.  Once she managed to get him freed, she retired to domestic bliss.  Unlike in her stories, however, it was the Baroness’s husband, the enlightened Montagu Barstow, who encouraged her to develop her writing talents and make a career for herself, which she did to the ripe old age of 82.  The two stories in this collection are the first and the last, so you can see Lady Molly’s progression, as narrated by her colleague, Mary.

 

 

 

 

 THE NINESCORE MYSTERY

 

                                                      I                                           

 

Well, you know, some say she is the daughter of a duke, others that she was born in the gutter, and that the handle has been soldered on to her name in order to give her style and influence.  

 

I could say a lot, of course, but "my lips are sealed," as the poets say.  All through her successful career at the Yard she honored me with her friendship and confidence, but when she took me in partnership, as it were, she made me promise that I would never breathe a word of her private life, and this I swore on my Bible oath–"wish I may die," and all the rest of it.  

 

Yes, we always called her "my lady," from the moment that she was put at the head of our section; and the chief called her "Lady Molly" in our presence.  We of the Female Department are dreadfully snubbed by the men, though don't tell me that women have not ten times as much intuition as the blundering and sterner sex; my firm belief is that we shouldn't have half so many undetected crimes if some of the so-called mysteries were put to the test of feminine investigation.  

 

Do you suppose for a moment, for instance, that the truth about that extraordinary case at Ninescore would ever have come to light if the men alone had had the handling of it?  Would any man have taken so bold a risk as Lady Molly did when–but I am anticipating.  

 

Let me go back to that memorable morning when she came into my room in a wild state of agitation.  

 

"The chief says I may go down to Ninescore if I like, Mary," she said in a voice all aquiver with excitement.  

 

"You!" I shouted.  "What for?" 

 

"What for–what for?" she repeated eagerly.  "Mary, don't you understand?  It is the chance I have been waiting for–the chance of a lifetime?  They are all desperate about the case up at the Yard; the public is furious, and columns of sarcastic letters appear in the daily press.  None of our men know what to do; they are at their wits' end, and so this morning I went to the chief–" 

 

"Yes?" I queried eagerly, for she had suddenly ceased speaking.  

 

"Well, never mind now how I did it–I will tell you all about it on the way, for we have just got time to catch the 11 a.m. down to Canterbury.  The chief says I may go, and that I may take whom I like with me.  He suggested one of the men, but somehow I feel that this is woman's work, and I'd rather have you, Mary, than anyone.  We will go over the preliminaries of the case together in the train, as I don't suppose that you have got them at your fingers' ends yet, and you have only just got time to put a few things together and meet me at Charing Cross booking-office in time for that 11.0 sharp." 

 

She was off before I could ask her any more questions, and anyhow I was too flabbergasted to say much.  A murder case in the hands of the Female Department!  Such a thing had been unheard of until now.  But I was all excitement, too, and you may be sure I was at the station in good time.  

 

Fortunately Lady Molly and I had a carriage to ourselves.  It was a non-stop run to

Canterbury, so we had plenty of time before us, and I was longing to know all about this case, you bet, since I was to have the honor of helping Lady Molly in it.  

 

The murder of Mary Nicholls had actually been committed at Ash Court, a fine old mansion which stands in the village of Ninescore.  The Court is surrounded by magnificently timbered grounds, the most fascinating portion of which is an island in the midst of a small pond, which is spanned by a tiny rustic bridge.  The island is called "The Wilderness," and is at the furthermost end of the grounds, out of sight and earshot of the mansion itself.  It was in this charming spot, on the edge of the pond, that the body of a girl was found on the 5th of February last.  

 

I will spare you the horrible details of this gruesome discovery.  Suffice it to say for the present that the unfortunate woman was lying on her face, with the lower portion of her body on the small grass-covered embankment, and her head, arms, and shoulders sunk in the slime of the stagnant water just below.  

 

It was Timothy Coleman, one of the under-gardeners at Ash Court, who first made this appalling discovery.  He had crossed the rustic bridge and traversed the little island in its entirety, when he noticed something blue lying half in and half out of the water beyond.  Timothy is a stolid, unemotional kind of yokel, and, once having ascertained that the object was a woman's body in a blue dress with white facings, he quietly stooped and tried to lift it out of the mud.  

 

But here even his stolidity gave way at the terrible sight which was revealed before him.  That the woman–whoever she might be–had been brutally murdered was obvious, her dress in front being stained with blood; but what was so awful that it even turned old Timothy sick with horror, was that, owing to the head, arms and shoulders having apparently been in the slime for some time, they were in an advanced state of decomposition.  

 

Well, whatever was necessary was immediately done, of course.  Coleman went to get assistance from the lodge, and soon the police were on the scene and had removed the unfortunate victim's remains to the small local police-station.  

 

Ninescore is a sleepy, out-of-the-way village, situated some seven miles from Canterbury and four from Sandwich.  Soon everyone in the place had heard that a terrible murder had been committed in the village, and all the details were already freely discussed at the Green Man Public House.  

 

To begin with, everyone said that though the body itself might be practically unrecognizable, the bright blue serge dress with the white facings was unmistakable, as were the pearl and ruby ring and the red leather purse found by Inspector Meisures close to the murdered woman's hand.  

 

Within two hours of Timothy Coleman's gruesome find the identity of the unfortunate victim was firmly established as that of Mary Nicholls, who lived with her sister Susan at 2, Elm Cottages, in Ninescore Lane, almost opposite Ash Court.  It was also known that when the police called at that address they found the place locked and apparently uninhabited.  

 

Mrs. Hooker, who lived at No. 1 next door, explained to Inspector Meisures that Susan and Mary Nicholls had left home about a fortnight ago, and that she had not seen them since.   "It'll be a fortnight tomorrow," she said.  "I was just inside my own front door a-calling to the cat to come in.  It was past seven o'clock, and as dark a night as ever you did see.  You could hardly see your ‘and afore your eyes, and there was a nasty damp drizzle comin' from everywhere.  Susan and Mary come out of their cottage; I couldn't rightly see Susan, but I 'eard Mary's voice quite distinck.  She says: 'We'll have to 'urry,' says she.  I, thinkin' they might be goin' to do some shoppin' in the village, calls out to them that I'd just 'eard the church clock strike seven, and that bein' Thursday, and early closin', they'd find all the shops shut at Ninescore.  But they took no notice, and walked off towards the village, and that's the last I ever seed o' them two." 

 

Further questioning among the village folk brought forth many curious details.  It seems that Mary Nicholls was a very flighty young woman, about whom there had already been quite a good deal of scandal, whilst Susan, on the other hand–who was very sober and steady in her conduct–had chafed considerably under her younger sister's questionable reputation, and, according to Mrs. Hooker, many were the bitter quarrels which occurred between the two girls.  These quarrels, it seems, had been especially violent within the last year whenever Mr. Lionel Lydgate called at the cottage.  He was a London gentleman, it appears–a young man about town, it afterwards transpired–but he frequently stayed at Canterbury, where he had some friends, and on those occasions he would come over to Ninescore in his smart dogcart and take Mary out for drives.  

 

Mr. Lydgate is brother to Lord Edbrooke, the multi-millionaire, who was the recipient of birthday honors (ed. He became a Lord) last year.  His lordship resides at Edbrooke Castle, but he and his brother Lionel had rented Ash Court once or twice, as both were keen golfers and Sandwich Links are very close by.  Lord Edbrooke, I may add, is a married man.  Mr. Lionel Lydgate, on the other hand, is just engaged to Miss Marbury, daughter of one of the canons of Canterbury.  

 

No wonder, therefore, that Susan Nicholls strongly objected to her sister's name being still coupled with that of a young man far above her in station, who, moreover, was about to marry a young lady in his own rank of life.  

 

But Mary seemed not to care.  She was a young woman who only liked fun and pleasure, and she shrugged her shoulders at public opinion, even though there were ugly rumors about the parentage of a little baby girl whom she herself had placed under the care of Mrs. Williams, a widow who lived in a somewhat isolated cottage on the Canterbury road.  Mary had told Mrs. Williams that the father of the child, who was her own brother, had died very suddenly, leaving the little one on her and Susan's hands; and, as they couldn't look after it properly, they wished Mrs. Williams to have charge of it.  To this the latter readily agreed.  

 

The sum for the keep of the infant was decided upon, and thereafter Mary Nicholls had come every week to see the little girl, and always brought the money with her.  

 

Inspector Meisures called on Mrs. Williams, and certainly the worthy widow had a very startling sequel to relate to the above story.  

 

"A fortnight tomorrow," explained Mrs. Williams to the inspector, "a little after seven o'clock, Mary Nicholls come runnin' into my cottage.  It was an awful night, pitch dark and a nasty drizzle.  Mary says to me she's in a great hurry; she is goin' up to London by a train from Canterbury and wants to say good-bye to the child.  She seemed terribly excited, and her clothes were very wet.  I brings baby to her, and she kisses it rather wild-like and says to me:  'You'll take great care of her, Mrs.  Williams,' she says; ' I may be gone some time.'  Then she puts baby down and gives me £2, the child's keep for eight weeks." 

 

After which, it appears, Mary once more said "good-bye" and ran out of the cottage, Mrs. Williams going as far as the front door with her.  The night was very dark, and she couldn't see if Mary was alone or not, until presently she heard her voice saying tearfully:  "I had to kiss baby–" then the voice died out in the distance "on the way to Canterbury," Mrs.  Williams said most emphatically.  

 

So far, you see, Inspector Meisures was able to fix the departure of the two sisters Nicholls from Ninescore on the night of January 23rd.  Obviously they left their cottage about seven, went to Mrs.  Williams, where Susan remained outside while Mary went in to say good-bye to the child.  

 

After that all traces of them seem to have vanished.  Whether they did go to Canterbury, and caught the last up train, at what station they alighted, or when poor Mary came back, could not at present be discovered.  

 

According to the medical officer, the unfortunate girl must have been dead twelve or thirteen days at the very least, as, though the stagnant water may have accelerated decomposition, the head could not have got into such an advanced state much under a fortnight.  

 

At Canterbury station neither the booking-clerk nor the porters could throw any light upon the subject.  Canterbury West is a busy station, and scores of passengers buy tickets and go through the barriers every day.  It was impossible, therefore, to give any positive information about two young women who may or may not have traveled by the last up train on Saturday, January 23rd–that is, a fortnight before.  

 

One thing only was certain–whether Susan went to Canterbury and traveled by that up train or not, alone or with her sister–Mary had undoubtedly come back to Ninescore either the same night or the following day, since Timothy Coleman found her half-decomposed remains in the grounds of Ash Court a fortnight later.  

 

Had she come back to meet her lover, or what?  And where was Susan now?  

 

From the first, therefore, you see, there was a great element of mystery about the whole case, and it was only natural that the local police should feel that, unless something more definite came out at the inquest, they would like to have the assistance of some of the fellows at the Yard.  

 

So the preliminary notes were sent up to London, and some of them drifted into our hands.  Lady Molly was deeply interested in it from the first, and my firm belief is that she simply worried the chief into allowing her to go down to Ninescore and see what she could do.  

 

II

 

At first it was understood that Lady Molly should only go down to Canterbury after the inquest, if the local police still felt that they were in want of assistance from London.  But nothing was further from my lady's intentions than to wait until then.  

 

"I was not going to miss the first act of a romantic drama," she said to me just as our train steamed into Canterbury station.  "Pick up your bag, Mary.  We're going to tramp it to Ninescore–two lady artists on a sketching tour, remember–and we'll find lodgings in the village, I dare say." 

 

We had some lunch in Canterbury, and then we started to walk the six and a half miles to

Ninescore, carrying our bags.  We put up at one of the cottages, where the legend

"Apartments for single respectable lady or gentleman" had hospitably invited us to enter, and at eight o'clock the next morning we found our way to the local police-station, where the inquest was to take place.  Such a funny little place, you know–just a cottage converted for official use–and the small room packed to its utmost holding capacity.  The entire able-bodied population of the neighborhood had, I verily believe, congregated in these ten cubic yards of stuffy atmosphere.  

 

Inspector Meisures, apprised by the chief of our arrival, had reserved two good places for us well in sight of witnesses, coroner and jury.  The room was insupportably close, but I assure you that neither Lady Molly nor I thought much about our comfort then.  We were terribly interested.  

 

From the outset the case seemed, as it were, to wrap itself more and more in its mantle of impenetrable mystery.  There was precious little in the way of clues, only that awful intuition, that dark unspoken suspicion with regard to one particular man's guilt, which one could feel hovering in the minds of all those present.  

 

Neither the police nor Timothy Coleman had anything to add to what was already known.  The ring and purse were produced, also the dress worn by the murdered woman.  All were sworn to by several witnesses as having been the property of Mary Nicholls.  

 

Timothy, on being closely questioned, said that, in his opinion, the girl's body had been pushed into the mud, as the head was absolutely embedded in it, and he didn't see how she could have fallen like that.  

 

Medical evidence was repeated; it was as uncertain–as vague–as before.  Owing to the state of the head and neck it was impossible to ascertain by what means the death blow had been dealt.  The doctor repeated his statement that the unfortunate girl must have been dead quite a fortnight.  The body was discovered on February 5th–a fortnight before that would have been on or about January 23rd.  

 

The caretaker who lived at the lodge at Ash Court could also throw but little light on the mysterious event.  Neither he nor any member of his family had seen or heard anything to arouse their suspicions.  Against that he explained that "The Wilderness," where the murder was committed, is situated some 200 yards from the lodge, with the mansion and flower garden lying between.  Replying to a question put to him by a juryman, he said that portion of the grounds is only divided off from Ninescore Lane by a low, brick wall, which has a door in it, opening into the lane almost opposite Elm Cottages.  He added that the mansion had been empty for over a year, and that he succeeded the last man, who died, about twelve months ago.  Mr. Lydgate had not been down for golf since the witness had been in charge.  

 

It would be useless to recapitulate all that the various witnesses had already told the police, and were now prepared to swear to.  The private life of the two sisters Nicholls was gone into at full length, as much, at least, as was publicly known.  But you know what village folk are; except when there is a bit of scandal and gossip, they know precious little of one another's inner lives.  

 

The two girls appeared to be very comfortably off.  Mary was always smartly dressed; and the baby girl, whom she had placed in Mrs. Williams's charge, had plenty of good and expensive clothes, whilst her keep, 5s. a week, was paid with unfailing regularity.  What seemed certain, however, was that they did not get on well together, that Susan violently objected to Mary's association with Mr.  Lydgate, and that recently she had spoken to the vicar asking him to try to persuade her sister to go away from Ninescore altogether, so as to break entirely with the past.  The Reverend Octavius Ludlow, Vicar of Ninescore, seems thereupon to have had a little talk with Mary on the subject, suggesting that she should accept a good situation in London.  

 

"But," continued the reverend gentleman, "I didn't make much impression on her.  All she replied to me was that she certainly need never go into service, as she had a good income of her own, and could obtain £5,000 or more quite easily at any time if she chose." 

 

"Did you mention Mr. Lydgate's name to her at all?" asked the coroner.  

 

"Yes, I did," said the vicar, after a slight hesitation.  

 

"Well, what was her attitude then?" 

 

"I am afraid she laughed," replied the Reverend Octavius, primly, "and said very

picturesquely, if somewhat ungrammatically, that 'some folks didn't know what they was talkin' about.'" 

 

All very indefinite, you see.  Nothing to get hold of, no motive suggested–beyond a very vague suspicion, perhaps, of blackmail–to account for a brutal crime.  I must not, however, forget to tell you the two other facts which came to light in the course of this extraordinary inquest.  Though, at the time, these facts seemed of wonderful moment for the elucidation of the mystery, they only helped ultimately to plunge the whole case into darkness still more impenetrable than before.  

 

I am alluding, firstly, to the deposition of James Franklin, a carter in the employ of one of the local farmers.  He stated that about half-past six on that same Saturday night, January 23rd, he was walking along Ninescore Lane leading his horse and cart, as the night was indeed pitch dark.  Just as he came somewhere near Elm Cottages he heard a man's voice saying in a kind of hoarse whisper: 

 

"Open the door, can't you?  It's as dark as blazes!" 

 

Then a pause, after which the same voice added: 

 

"Mary, where the dickens are you?"  Whereupon a girl's voice replied:  "All right, I'm coming." 

 

James Franklin heard nothing more after that, nor did he see anyone in the gloom.  

 

With the stolidity peculiar to the Kentish peasantry, he thought no more of this until the day when he heard that Mary Nicholls had been murdered; then he voluntarily came forward and told his story to the police.  Now, when he was closely questioned, he was quite unable to say whether these voices proceeded from that side of the lane where stand Elm Cottages or from the other side, which is edged by the low, brick wall.  

 

Finally, Inspector Meisures, who really showed an extraordinary sense of what was dramatic, here produced a document which he had reserved for the last.  This was a piece of paper which he had found in the red leather purse already mentioned, and which at first had not been thought very important, as the writing was identified by several people as that of the deceased, and consisted merely of a series of dates and hours scribbled in pencil on a scrap of notepaper.  But suddenly these dates had assumed a weird and terrible significance:  two of them, at least–December 26th and January 1st followed by "10 a.m."–were days on which Mr. Lydgate came over to Ninescore and took Mary for drives.  One or two witnesses swore to this positively.  Both dates had been local meets of the harriers, to which other folk from the village had gone, and Mary had openly said afterwards how much she had enjoyed these.  

 

The other dates (there were six altogether) were more or less vague.  One Mrs. Hooker remembered as being coincident with a day Mary Nicholls had spent away from home; but the last date, scribbled in the same handwriting, was January 23rd, and below it the hour–6 p.m.  

 

The coroner now adjourned the inquest.  An explanation from Mr. Lionel Lydgate had become imperative.  

III

 

Public excitement had by now reached a very high pitch; it was no longer a case of mere local interest.  The country inns all round the immediate neighborhood were packed with visitors from London, artists, journalists, dramatists, and actor-managers, whilst the hotels and flyproprietors of Canterbury were doing a roaring trade.  

 

Certain facts and one vivid picture stood out clearly before the thoughtful mind in the midst of a chaos of conflicting and irrelevant evidence:  the picture was that of the two women tramping in the wet and pitch dark night towards Canterbury.  Beyond that everything was a blur.  

 

When did Mary Nicholls come back to Ninescore, and why?  

 

To keep an appointment made with Lionel Lydgate, it was openly whispered; but that appointment–if the rough notes were interpreted rightly–was for the very day on which she and her sister went away from home.  A man's voice called to her at half-past six certainly, and she replied to it.  Franklin, the carter, heard her; but half an hour afterwards Mrs. Hooker heard her voice when she left home with her sister, and she visited Mrs. Williams after that.

 

The only theory compatible with all this was, of course, that Mary merely accompanied Susan part of the way to Canterbury, then went back to meet her lover, who enticed her into the deserted grounds of Ash Court, and there murdered her.

 

The motive was not far to seek.  Mr. Lionel Lydgate, about to marry, wished to silence for ever a voice that threatened to be unpleasantly persistent in its demands for money and in its threats of scandal.

 

But there was one great argument against that theory–the disappearance of Susan Nicholls.  She had been extensively advertised for.  The murder of her sister was published broadcast in every newspaper in the United Kingdom–she could not be ignorant of it.  And, above all, she hated Mr. Lydgate.  Why did she not come and add the weight of her testimony against him if, indeed, he was guilty?

 

And if Mr. Lydgate was innocent, then where was the criminal?  And why had Susan Nicholls disappeared?

 

Why?  Why?  Why?

 

Well, the next day would show.  Mr. Lionel Lydgate had been cited by the police to give evidence at the adjourned inquest.

 

Good-looking, very athletic, and obviously frightfully upset and nervous, he entered the little courtroom, accompanied by his solicitor, just before the coroner and jury took their seats.  

He looked keenly at Lady Molly as he sat down, and from the expression on his face I guessed that he was much puzzled to know who she was.

 

He was the first witness called.  Manfully and clearly he gave a concise account of his association with the deceased.

 

"She was pretty and amusing," he said.  "I liked to take her out when I was in the neighborhood; it was no trouble to me.  There was no harm in her, whatever the village gossips might say.  I know she had been in trouble, as they say, but that had nothing to do with me.  It wasn't for me to be hard on a girl, and I fancy that she has been very badly treated by some scoundrel." 

 

Here he was hard pressed by the coroner, who wished him to explain what he meant.  But Mr. Lydgate turned obstinate, and to every leading question he replied stolidly and very emphatically:  "I don't know who it was.  It had nothing to do with me, but I was sorry for the girl because of everyone turning against her, including her sister, and I tried to give her a little pleasure when I could."

 

That was all right.  Very sympathetically told.  The public quite liked this pleasing specimen of English cricket-, golf- and football-loving manhood.  Subsequently Mr. Lydgate admitted meeting Mary on December 26th and January 1st, but he swore most emphatically that that was the last he ever saw of her.  

 

"But the 23rd of January," here insinuated the coroner; "you made an appointment with the deceased then?"

 

"Certainly not," he replied.

 

"But you met her on that day?"

 

"Most emphatically no," he replied quietly.  "I went down to Edbrooke Castle, my brother's place in Lincolnshire, on the 20th of last month, and only got back to town about three days ago."

 

"You swear to that, Mr. Lydgate?" asked the coroner.

 

"I do, indeed, and there are a score of witnesses to bear me out.  The family, the house-party, the servants."

 

He tried to dominate his own excitement.  I suppose, poor man, he had only just realized that certain horrible suspicions had been resting upon him.  His solicitor pacified him, and presently he sat down, whilst I must say that everyone there present was relieved at the thought that the handsome young athlete was not a murderer, after all.  To look at him it certainly seemed preposterous.

But then, of course, there was the deadlock, and as there were no more witnesses to be heard, no new facts to elucidate, the jury returned the usual verdict against some person or persons unknown; and we, the keenly interested spectators, were left to face the problem– Who murdered Mary Nicholls, and where was her sister Susan?  

 

IV

 

After the verdict we found our way back to our lodgings.  Lady Molly tramped along silently, with that deep furrow between her brows which I knew meant that she was deep in thought.

 

"Now we'll have some tea," I said, with a sigh of relief, as soon as we entered the cottage door.

 

"No, you won't," replied my lady, dryly.  "I am going to write out a telegram, and we'll go straight on to Canterbury and send it from there."

 

"To Canterbury!" I gasped.  "Two hours' walk at least, for I don't suppose we can get a trap, and it is past three o'clock.  Why not send your telegram from Ninescore?"

 

"Mary, you are stupid," was all the reply I got.

 

She wrote out two telegrams–one of which was at least three dozen words long–and, once more calling to me to come along, we set out for Canterbury.

 

I was tea-less, cross, and puzzled.  Lady Molly was alert, cheerful, and irritatingly active.

 

We reached the first telegraph office a little before five.  My lady sent the telegram without condescending to tell me anything of its destination or contents; then she took me to the Castle Hotel and graciously offered me tea.

 

"May I be allowed to inquire whether you propose tramping back to Ninescore tonight?" I asked with a slight touch of sarcasm, as I really felt put out.  

 

"No, Mary," she replied, quietly munching a bit of Sally Lunn Cake; "I have engaged a couple of rooms at this hotel and wired the chief that any message will find us here tomorrow morning."

 

After that there was nothing for it but quietude, patience, and finally supper and bed.

 

The next morning my lady walked into my room before I had finished dressing.  She had a newspaper in her hand, and threw it down on the bed as she said calmly:

 

"It was in the evening paper all right last night.  I think we shall be in time."

 

No use asking her what "it" meant.  It was easier to pick up the paper, which I did.  It was a late edition of one of the leading London evening shockers, and at once the front page, with its startling headline, attracted my attention:

 

THE NINESCORE MYSTERY

MARY NICHOLL'S BABY DYING

 

Then, below that, a short paragraph:– 

 

"We regret to learn that the little baby  daughter of the unfortunate girl who was  murdered recently at Ash Court, Ninescore, Kent, under such terrible and mysterious  circumstances, is very seriously ill at the cottage of Mrs. Williams, in whose charge  she is.  The local doctor who visited her today declares that she cannot last more than a few hours.  At the time of going to press the nature of the child's complaint was  not known to our special representative at

Ninescore."

 

"What does this mean?" I gasped.

 

But before she could reply there was a knock at the door.

 

"A telegram for Miss Granard," said the voice of the hall-porter.

 

"Quick, Mary," said Lady Molly, eagerly.  "I told the chief and also Meisures to wire here and to you."

 

The telegram turned out to have come from Ninescore, and was signed "Meisures."  Lady Molly read it aloud:

 

"Mary Nicholls arrived here this morning.

Detained her at station.  Come at once." 

 

"Mary Nicholls!  I don't understand," was all I could contrive to say.

 

But she only replied:  "I knew it!  I knew it!  Oh, Mary, what a wonderful thing is human nature, and how I thank Heaven that gave me a knowledge of it!"

 

She made me get dressed all in a hurry, and then we swallowed some breakfast hastily whilst a fly was being got for us.  I had, perforce, to satisfy my curiosity from my own inner consciousness.  Lady Molly was too absorbed to take any notice of me.  Evidently the chief knew what she had done and approved of it:  the telegram from Meisures pointed to that.

 

My lady had suddenly become a personality.  Dressed very quietly, and in a smart closefitting hat, she looked years older than her age, owing also to the seriousness of her mien.

 

The fly took us to Ninescore fairly quickly.  At the little police-station we found Meisures awaiting us.  He had Elliot and Pegram from the Yard with him.  They had obviously got their orders, for all three of them were mighty deferential.

 

"The woman is Mary Nicholls, right enough," said Meisures, as Lady Molly brushed quickly past him, "the woman who was supposed to have been murdered.  It's that silly bogus paragraph about the infant brought her out of her hiding-place.  I wonder how it got in," he added blandly; "the child is well enough."

 

"I wonder," said Lady Molly, whilst a smile–the first I had seen that morning–lit up her pretty face.

 

"I suppose the other sister will turn up too, presently," rejoined Elliot.  "Pretty lot of trouble we shall have now.  If Mary Nicholls is alive and kickin', who was murdered at Ash Court, say I?"

 

"I wonder," said Lady Molly, with the same charming smile.

 

Then she went in to see Mary Nicholls.

 

The Reverend Octavius Ludlow was sitting beside the girl, who seemed in great distress, for she was crying bitterly.

 

Lady Molly asked Elliott and the others to remain in the passage whilst she herself went into the room, I following behind her.

 

When the door was shut, she went up to Mary Nicholls, and assuming a hard and severe manner, she said:  "Well, you have at last made up your mind, have you, Nicholls?  I suppose you know that we have applied for a warrant for your arrest?"

 

The woman gave a shriek which unmistakably was one of fear.

 

"My arrest?" she gasped.  "What for?"

 

"The murder of your sister Susan."

 

"'Twasn't me!" she said quickly.

 

"Then Susan is dead?" retorted Lady Molly, quietly.

 

Mary saw that she had betrayed herself.  She gave Lady Molly a look of agonized horror, then turned as white as a sheet and would have fallen had not the Reverend Octavius Ludlow gently led her to a chair.

 

"It wasn't me," she repeated, with a heart-broken sob.

 

"That will be for you to prove," said Lady Molly dryly.  "The child cannot now, of course remain with Mrs. Williams; she will be removed to the workhouse, and–"

 

"No, that shan't be," said the mother excitedly.  "She shan't be, I tell you.  The workhouse, indeed," she added in a paroxysm of hysterical tears, "and her father a lord!" 

 

The reverend gentleman and I gasped in astonishment; but Lady Molly had worked up to this climax so ingeniously that it was obvious she had guessed it all along, and had merely led Mary Nicholls on in order to get this admission from her.

 

How well she had known human nature in pitting the child against the sweetheart!  Mary Nicholls was ready enough to hide herself, to part from her child even for a while, in order to save the man she had once loved from the consequences of his crime; but when she heard that her child was dying, she no longer could bear to leave it among strangers, and when Lady Molly taunted her with the workhouse, she exclaimed in her maternal pride:

 

"The workhouse!  And her father a lord!"

 

Driven into a corner, she confessed the whole truth.

 

Lord Edbrooke, then Mr. Lydgate, was the father of her child.  Knowing this, her sister Susan had, for over a year now, systematically blackmailed the unfortunate man–not altogether, it seems, without Mary's connivance.  In January last she got him to come down to Ninescore under the distinct promise that Mary would meet him and hand over to him the letters she had received from him, as well as the ring he had given her, in exchange for the sum of £5,000.

 

The meeting-place was arranged, but at the last moment Mary was afraid to go in the dark.  Susan, nothing daunted, but anxious about her own reputation in case she should be seen talking to a man so late at night, put on Mary's dress, took the ring and the letters, also her sister's purse, and went to meet Lord Edbrooke.

 

What happened at that interview no one will ever know.  It ended with the murder of the blackmailer.  I suppose the fact that Susan had, in measure, begun by impersonating her sister, gave the murderer the first thought of confusing the identity of his victim by the horrible device of burying the body in the slimy mud.  Anyway, he almost did succeed in hoodwinking the police, and would have done so entirely but for Lady Molly's strange intuition in the matter.

 

After his crime he ran instinctively to Mary's cottage.  He had to make a clean breast of it to her, as, without her help, he was a doomed man.

 

So he persuaded her to go away from home and to leave no clue or trace of herself or her sister in Ninescore.  With the help of money which he would give her, she could begin life anew somewhere else, and no doubt he deluded the unfortunate girl with promises that her child would be restored to her very soon.

 

Thus he enticed Mary Nicholls away, who would have been the great and all-important witness against him the moment his crime was discovered.  A girl of Mary's type and class instinctively obeys the man she has once loved, the man who is the father of her child.  She consented to disappear and to allow all the world to believe that she had been murdered by some unknown miscreant.

 

Then the murderer quietly returned to his luxurious home at Edbrooke Castle, unsuspected.  No one had thought of mentioning his name in connection with that of Mary Nicholls.  In the days when he used to come down to Ash Court he was Mr. Lydgate, and, when he became a peer, sleepy, out-of-the-way Ninescore ceased to think of him.

 

Perhaps Mr. Lionel Lydgate knew all about his brother's association with the village girl.  From his attitude at the inquest I should say he did, but of course he would not betray his own brother unless forced to do so.

 

Now, of course, the whole aspect of the case was changed:  the veil of mystery had been torn asunder owing to the insight, the marvelous intuition, of a woman who, in my opinion, is the most wonderful psychologist of her time.

 

You know the sequel.  Our fellows at the Yard, aided by the local police, took their lead from Lady Molly, and began their investigations of Lord Edbrooke's movements on or about the 23rd of January.

 

Even their preliminary inquiries revealed the fact that his lordship had left Edbrooke Castle on the 21st.  He went up to town, saying to his wife and household that he was called away on business, and not even taking his valet with him.  He put up at the Langham Hotel.  

 

But here police investigations came to an abrupt ending.  Lord Edbrooke evidently got wind of them.  Anyway, the day after Lady Molly so cleverly enticed Mary Nicholls out of her hidingplace, and surprised her into an admission of the truth, the unfortunate man threw himself in front of the express train at Grantham railway station, and was instantly killed.  Human justice cannot reach him now!

 

But don't tell me that a man would have thought of that bogus paragraph, or of the taunt which stung the motherly pride of the village girl to the quick, and thus wrung from her an admission which no amount of male ingenuity would ever have obtained.

 

THE END

 

I

 

One or two people knew that at one time Lady Molly Robertson-Kirk had been engaged to Captain Hubert de Mazareen, who was now convict No. 97, undergoing a life sentence for the murder of Mr. Steadman, a solicitor of Carlisle, in the Elkhorn Woods in April, 1904.  Few, on the other hand, knew of the secret marriage solemnized on that never-to-be-forgotten afternoon, when all of us present in the church, with the exception of the bridegroom himself, were fully aware that proofs of guilt--deadly and irrefutable--were even then being heaped up against the man to whom Lady Molly was plighting her troth, for better or for worse, with her mental eyes wide open, her unerring intuition keen to the fact that nothing but a miracle could save the man she loved from an ignoble condemnation, perhaps from the gallows.  

 

The husband of my dear lady, the man whom she loved with all the strength of her romantic and passionate nature, was duly tried and convicted of murder.  Condemned to be hanged, he was reprieved, and his sentence commuted to penal servitude for life.  

 

The question of Hubert’s grandfather Sir Jeremiah's estate became a complicated one, for his last will and testament, leaving everything to his son, Hubert’s uncle, Philip Baddock, was never signed, and the former one, dated 1902, bequeathed everything he possessed unconditionally to his beloved grandson Hubert.  

 

After much legal argument, which it is useless to recapitulate here, it was agreed between the parties, and ratified in court, that the deceased gentleman's vast wealth should be disposed of as if he had died intestate.  One-half of it, therefore, went to Captain Hubert de Mazareen, grandson, and the other half to Philip Baddock, the son.  The latter bought Appledore Castle and resided there, whilst his nephew became No. 97 in Dartmoor Prison.  

 

Captain Hubert had served two years of his sentence when he made that daring and successful escape which caused so much sensation at the time.  He managed to reach Appledore, where he was discovered by Mr. Philip Baddock, who gave him food and shelter and got everything ready for the safe conveyance of his unfortunate nephew to Liverpool and thence to a port of safety in South America.  

 

You remember how he was thwarted in this laudable attempt by Lady Molly herself, who communicated with the police and gave up convict No. 97 into the hands of the authorities once more.  

 

Of course, public outcry was loud against my dear lady's action.  Sense of duty was all very well, so people argued, but no one could forget that at one time Captain Hubert de Mazareen and Lady Molly Robertson-Kirk had actually been engaged to be married, and it seemed positively monstrous for a woman to be so pitiless towards the man whom she must at one time have loved.  

 

You see how little people understood my dear lady's motives.  Some went so far as to say that she had only contemplated marriage with Captain Hubert de Mazareen because he was then, presumably, the heir to Sir Jeremiah's fortune; now--continued the gossips--she was equally ready to marry Mr. Philip Baddock, who at any rate was the happy possessor of onehalf of the deceased gentleman's wealth.  

 

Certainly Lady Molly's conduct at this time helped to foster this idea.  Finding that even the chief was inclined to give her the cold shoulder, she shut up our flat in Maida Vale and took up her residence at the little house which she owned in Kirk, and from the windows of which she had a splendid view of stately Appledore Castle nestling among the trees on the hillside.  

 

I was with her, of course, and Mr. Philip Baddock was a frequent visitor at the house.  There could be no doubt that he admired her greatly, and that she accepted his attentions with a fair amount of graciousness.  The county fought shy of her.  Her former engagement to Captain de Mazareen was well known, and her treachery to him was severely censured.  

 

Living almost in isolation in the village, her whole soul seemed wrapped in thoughts of how to unravel the mystery of the death of Mr. Steadman.  Captain de Mazareen had sworn in his defense that the solicitor, after starting to walk through the Elkhorn woods with him, had feared that the tramp over rough ground would be too much for him, and had almost immediately turned back in order to regain the road.  But the chauffeur, George Taylor, who was busy with the broken-down car some two hundred yards up the road, never saw Mr. Steadman again, whilst Captain de Mazareen arrived at the gates of Appledore Castle alone.  Here he was met by Mr. Philip Baddock, who informed him that Sir Jeremiah had breathed his last an hour before.  

 

No one at the Castle recollected seeing a stick in Captain Hubert's hand when he arrived, whilst there were several witnesses who swore that he carried one at Appledore Station when he started to walk with her ladyship.  The stick was found close to the body of the solicitor; and the solicitor, when he met with his terrible death, had in his pocket the draft of a will which meant disinheritance to Captain de Mazareen.  

 

Here was the awful problem which Lady Molly had to face and to solve it she persisted in believing that the man whom she loved, and whom she had married at the moment when she knew that proofs of guilt were dead against him, was indeed innocent.

 

II

 

We had spent all the morning shopping in Carlisle, and in the afternoon we called on Mr. Fuelling, of the firm of Fuelling, Steadman & Co., solicitors.  

 

Lady Molly had some business to arrange in connection with the purchase of an additional bit of land to round off her little garden at Kirk.  

 

Mr. Fuelling was courteous, but distinctly stiff, in his manner towards the lady who was "connected with the police," more especially when--her business being transacted--she seemed inclined to tarry in the busy solicitor's office, and to lead conversation round to the subject of the murder of Mr. Steadman.  

 

"Five years have gone by since then," said Mr. Fuelling curtly in response to a remark from Lady Molly.  "I prefer not to revive unpleasant memories." 

 

"You, of course, believed Captain de Mazareen guilty?" retorted my dear lady imperturbably.  

 

"There were circumstances----" rejoined the solicitor, "and--and, of course, I hardly knew the unfortunate young man.  Messrs. Truscott & Truscott used to be the family solicitors." 

 

"Yes.  It seemed curious that when Sir Jeremiah wished to make his will he sent for you, rather than for his accustomed lawyer," mused Lady Molly.  

 

"Sir Jeremiah did not send for me," replied Mr. Fuelling with some acerbity, "he sent for my junior, Mr. Steadman." 

 

"Perhaps Mr. Steadman was a great friend of his." 

 

"Not at all.  Not at all.  Mr. Steadman was a new arrival in Carlisle, and had never seen Sir Jeremiah before the day when he was sent for and, in a brief interview, drafted the will which, alas! proved to be the primary cause of my unfortunate partner's death." 

 

"You cannot draft a will in a brief interview, Mr. Fuelling," remarked Lady Molly lightly.  

 

"Mr. Steadman did so," retorted Mr. Fuelling curtly.  "Though Sir Jeremiah's mind was as clear as a crystal, he was very feeble, and the interview had to take place in a darkened room.  That was the only time my young partner saw Sir Jeremiah.  Twenty-four hours later they were both dead." 

 

"Oh!" commented my dear lady with sudden indifference.  "Well, I won't detain you, Mr. Fuelling.  Good afternoon." 

 

A few moments later, having parted from the worthy old solicitor, we were out in the street once more.  

 

"The darkened room is my first ray of light," quoth Lady Molly with a smile at her own paradoxical remark.  

 

When we reached home later that afternoon we were met at the garden gate by Mr. Felkin, Mr.  Philip Baddock's friend and agent, who lived with him at Appledore Castle.  

 

Mr. Felkin was a curious personality; very taciturn in manner but a man of considerable education.  He was the son of a country parson, and at the time of his father's death he had been studying for the medical profession.  Finding himself unable to pursue his studies for lack of means, and being left entirely destitute, he had been forced to earn his living by taking up the less exalted calling of male nurse.  It seems that he had met Mr. Philip Baddock on the Continent some years ago, and the two young men had somehow drifted into close acquaintanceship.  When the late Sir Jeremiah required a personal nurse-attendant Mr. Philip Baddock sent for his friend and installed him at Appledore Castle.  

 

Here Mr. Felkin remained, even after the old gentleman's death.  He was nominally called Mr. Baddock's agent, but really did very little work.  He was very fond of shooting and of riding, and spent his life in the pursuit of these sports, and he always had plenty of money to spend.  

 

But everyone voted him a disagreeable bear, and the only one who ever succeeded in making him smile was Lady Molly, who always showed an unaccountable liking for the uncouth creature.  Even now, when he extended a somewhat grimy hand and murmured a clumsy apology at his intrusion, she greeted him with effusiveness and insisted on his coming into the house.  

 

We all turned to walk along the little drive when Mr. Baddock's car came whizzing round the corner of the road from the village.  He pulled up at our gate, and the next moment had joined us in the drive.  

 

There was a very black look in his eyes as they wandered restlessly from my dear lady's face to that of his friend.  Lady Molly's hand was even then resting on Mr. Felkin's coat sleeve; she had been in the act of leading him herself towards the house, and did not withdraw her hand when Mr. Baddock appeared.  

 

"Burton has just called about those estimates, Felkin," said the latter somewhat roughly; "he is waiting at the Castle.  You had better take the car--I can walk home later on." 

 

"Oh!  How disappointing!" exclaimed Lady Molly, with what looked uncommonly like a pout.  "I was going to have such a cozy chat with Mr. Felkin--all about horses and dogs.  Couldn't you see that tiresome Burton, Mr. Baddock?" she added ingenuously.  

 

I don't think that Mr. Baddock actually swore, but I am sure he was very near doing so.  

 

"Burton can wait," said Mr. Felkin curtly.  

 

"No, he cannot," retorted Philip Baddock, whose face was a frowning mirror of uncontrolled jealousy; "take the car, Felkin, and go at once." 

 

For a moment it seemed as if Felkin would refuse to obey.  The two men stood looking at each other, measuring one another's power of will and strength of passion.  Hate and jealousy were clearly written in each pair of glowering eyes.  Philip Baddock looked defiant, and Felkin taciturn and sulky.  

 

Close to them stood my dear lady.  Her beautiful eyes literally glowed with triumph.  That these two men loved her, each in his own curious, uncontrolled way, I, her friend and confidante, knew very well I had seen, and often puzzled over, the feminine attacks which she had made on the susceptibilities of that morose lout Felkin.  It had taken her nearly two years to bring him to her feet.  During that time she had alternately rendered him happy with her smiles and half mad with her coquetries, whilst Philip Baddock's love for her was fanned by his ever-growing jealousy.  

 

I remember that I often thought her game a cruel one.  She was one of those women whom few men could resist; if she really desired to conquer she invariably succeeded, and her victory over Felkin seemed to me as purposeless as it was unkind.  After all, she was the lawful wife of Captain de Mazareen, and to rouse hatred between two friends for the sake of her love, when that love was not hers to give, seemed unworthy of her.  At this moment, when I could read deadly hatred in the faces of these two men, her cooing laugh grated unpleasantly on my ear.  

 

"Never mind, Mr.  Felkin," she said, turning her luminous eyes on him.  "Since you have so hard a taskmaster, you must do your duty now.  But," she added, throwing a strange, defiant look at Mr.  Baddock, "I shall be at home this evening; come and have our cozy chat after dinner." 

 

She gave him her hand, and he took it with a certain clumsy gallantry and raised it to his lips.  I thought that Philip Baddock would strike his friend with his open hand.  The veins on his temples were swollen like dark cords, and I don't think that I ever saw such an evil look in anyone's eyes before.  

 

Strangely enough, the moment Mr. Felkin's back was turned my dear lady seemed to set herself the task of soothing the violent passions which she had willfully aroused in the other man.  She invited him to come into the house, and, some ten minutes later, I heard her singing to him.  When, later on, I went into the boudoir to join them at tea, she was sitting on the music stool whilst he half bent over her, half knelt at her feet; her hands were clasped in her lap, and his fingers were closed over hers.  

 

He did not attempt to leave her side when he saw me entering the room.  In fact, he wore a triumphant air of possession, and paid her those attentions which only an accepted lover would dare to offer.  

 

He left soon after tea, and she accompanied him to the door.  She gave him her hand to kiss, and I, who stood at some little distance in the shadow, thought that he would take her in his arms, so yielding and gracious did she seem.  But some look or gesture on her part must have checked him, for he turned and walked quickly down the drive.  

 

Lady Molly stood in the doorway gazing out towards the sunset.  I, in my humble mind, wondered once again what was the purport of this cruel game.  

 

III

 

Half an hour later she called to me, asked for her hat, told me to put on mine and to come out for a stroll.  

 

As so often happened, she led the way towards the Elkhorn woods, which, in spite, or perhaps because, of the painful memories they evoked, was a very favorite walk of hers.  

 

As a rule the wood, especially that portion of it where the unfortunate solicitor had been murdered, was deserted after sunset.  The villagers declared that Mr. Steadman's ghost haunted the clearing, and that the cry of the murdered man, as he was being foully struck from behind, could be distinctly heard echoing through the trees.  

 

Needless to say these superstitious fancies never disturbed Lady Molly.  She liked to wander over the ground where was committed that mysterious crime which had sent to ignominy worse than death the man she loved so passionately.  It seemed as if she meant to wrench its secret from the silent ground, from the leafy undergrowth, from the furtive inhabitants of the glades.  

 

The sun had gone down behind the hills; the wood was dark and still.  We strolled up as far as the first clearing, where a plain granite stone, put up by Mr. Philip Baddock, marked the spot where Mr.  Steadman had been murdered.  

 

We sat down on it to rest.  My dear lady's mood was a silent one; I did not dare to disturb it, and, for a while, only the gentle "hush--sh--sh" of the leaves, stirred by the evening breeze, broke the peaceful stillness of the glade.  

 

Then we heard a murmur of voices, deep-toned and low.  We could not hear the words spoken, though we both strained our ears, and presently Lady Molly arose and cautiously made her way among the trees in the direction whence the voices came, I following as closely as I could.  

 

We had not gone far when we recognized the voices and heard the words that were said.  I paused, distinctly frightened, whilst my dear lady whispered a warning, "Hush!" 

 

Never in all my life had I heard so much hatred, such vengeful malignity expressed in the intonation of the human voice as I did in the half-dozen words which now struck my ear.  

 

"You will give her up, or----" 

 

It was Mr. Felkin who spoke.  I recognized his raucous delivery, but I could not distinguish either of the two men in the gloom.  

 

"Or what?" queried the other, in a voice which trembled with either rage or fear--perhaps with both.  

 

"You will give her up," repeated Felkin sullenly.  "I tell you that it is an impossibility--do you understand?--an impossibility for me to stand by and see her wedded to you, or to any other man for the matter of that.  But that is neither here nor there," he added after a slight pause.  "It is with you I have to deal now.  You shan't have her--you shan't--I won't allow it, even if I have to----" 

 

He paused again.  I cannot describe the extraordinary effect this rough voice coming out of the darkness had upon my nerves.  I had edged up to Lady Molly, and had succeeded in getting hold of her hand.  It was like ice, and she herself was as rigid as that piece of granite on which we had been sitting.  

 

"You seem bubbling over with covert threats," interposed Philip Baddock, with what was obviously a sneer; "what are the extreme measures to which you will resort if I do not give up the lady whom I love with my whole heart, and who has honored me today by accepting my hand in marriage?" 

 

"That is a lie!" shouted Felkin.  

 

"What is a lie?" queried the other quietly.  

 

"She has not accepted you--and you know it.  You are trying to keep me away from her-arrogating rights which you do not possess.  Give her up, man, give her up.  It will be best for you.  She will listen to me--I can win her all right--but you must stand aside for me this time.  Take the word of a desperate man for it, Baddock.  It will be best for you to give her up." 

 

Silence reigned in the wood for a few moments, and then we heard Philip Baddock's voice again, but he seemed to speak more calmly, almost indifferently, as I thought.  

 

"Are you going now?" he asked.  "Won't you come in to dinner?" 

 

"No," replied Felkin, "I don't want any dinner, and I have an appointment for afterwards." 

 

"Don't let us part ill friends, Felkin," continued Philip Baddock in conciliatory tones.  "Do you know that, personally, my feeling is that no woman on earth is worth a serious quarrel between two old friends, such as we have been." 

 

"I'm glad you think so," rejoined the other dryly.  "S'long." 

 

The cracking of twigs on the moss-covered ground indicated that the two men had parted and were going their several ways.  

 

With infinite caution, and holding my hand tightly in hers, my dear lady made her way along the narrow path which led us out of the wood.  

 

Once in the road we walked rapidly, and soon reached our garden gate.  Lady Molly had not spoken a word during all that time, and no one knew better than I did how to respect her silence.  

 

During dinner she tried to talk of indifferent subjects, and never once alluded to the two men whom she had thus willfully pitted one against the other.  That her calm was only on the surface, however, I realized from the fact that every sound on the gravel path outside caused her to start.  She was, of course, expecting the visit of Mr. Felkin.  

 

At eight o'clock he came.  It was obvious that he had spent the past hour in wandering about in the woods.  He looked untidy and unkempt.  My dear lady greeted him very coldly, and when he tried to kiss her hand she withdrew it abruptly.  

 

Our drawing-room was a double one, divided by portiere curtains.  Lady Molly led the way into the front room, followed by Mr. Felkin.  Then she drew the curtains together, leaving me standing behind them.  I concluded that she wished me to stay there and to listen, conscious of the fact that Felkin, in his agitated mood, would be quite oblivious of my presence.  

 

I almost pitied the poor man, for to me--the listener--it was at once apparent that my dear lady had only bidden him come tonight in order to torture him.  For about a year she had been playing with him as a cat does with a mouse; encouraging him at times with sweet words and smiles, repelling him at others with coldness not unmixed with coquetry.  But tonight her coldness was unalloyed; her voice was trenchant, her attitude almost one of contempt.  

 

I missed the beginning of their conversation, for the curtains were thick and I did not like to go too near, but soon Mr. Felkin's voice was raised.  It was harsh and uncompromising.  

 

"I suppose that I am only good enough for a summer's flirtation?" he said sullenly, "but not to marry, eh?  The owner of Appledore Castle, the millionaire, Mr. Baddock, is more in your line-

---" 

 

"It certainly would be a more suitable match for me," rejoined Lady Molly coolly.  

 

"He told me that you had formally accepted him," said the man with enforced calm; "is that true?" 

 

"Partly," she replied.  

 

"But you won't marry him!" 

 

The exclamation seemed to come straight from a heart brimful of passion, of love, of hate, and of revenge.  The voice had the same intonation in it which had rung an hour ago in the dark Elkhorn woods.  

 

"I may do," came in quiet accents from my dear lady.  

 

"You won't marry him," repeated Felkin roughly.  

 

"Who shall prevent me?" retorted Lady Molly with a low, sarcastic laugh.  

 

"I will."  

"You?" she said contemptuously.  

 

"I told him an hour ago that he must give you up I tell you now that you shall not be Philip Baddock's wife." 

 

"Oh!" she interposed.  And I could almost see the disdainful shrug of her shoulders, the flash of contempt in her expressive eyes.  

 

No doubt it maddened him to see her so cool, so indifferent, when he had thought that he could win her.  I do believe that the poor wretch loved her.  She was always beautiful, but never more so than tonight, when she had obviously determined finally to dismiss him.  

 

"If you marry Philip Baddock," he now said in a voice which quivered with uncontrolled passion, "then within six months of your wedding-day you will be a widow, for your husband will have ended his life on the gallows." 

 

"You are mad!" she retorted calmly.  

 

"That is as it may be," he replied.  "I warned him tonight, and he seems inclined to heed my warning; but he won't stand aside if you beckon to him.  Therefore, if you love him, take my warning.  I may not be able to get you, but I swear to you that Philip Baddock shan't either.  I'll see him hanged first," he added with gruesome significance.  

 

"And do you think that you can force me to do your bidding by such paltry threats?" she retorted.  

 

"Paltry threats?  Ask Philip Baddock if my threats are paltry.  He knows full well that in my room at Appledore Castle, safe from thievish fingers, lie the proofs that he killed Alexander Steadman in the Elkhorn woods.  Oh, I wouldn't help him in his nefarious deeds until he placed himself in my hands.  He had to take my terms or leave the thing alone altogether, for he could not work without me.  My wants are few, and he has treated and paid me well.  Now we are rivals, and I'll destroy him before I'll let him gloat over me.  

 

"Do you know how we worked it?  Sir Jeremiah would not disinherit his grandson--he steadily refused to make a will in Philip Baddock's favor.  But when he was practically dying we sent for Alexander Steadman--a newcomer, who had never seen Sir Jeremiah before--and I impersonated the old gentleman for the occasion.  Yes, I!" he repeated with a coarse laugh, "I was Sir Jeremiah for the space of half an hour, and I think that I played the part splendidly.  I dictated the terms of a new will.  Young Steadman never suspected the fraud for a single instant.  We had darkened the room for the comedy, you see, and Mr. Steadman was destined by Baddock and myself never to set eyes on the real Sir Jeremiah.  

 

"After the interview Baddock sent for Captain de Mazareen; this was all part of his plan and mine.  We engineered it all, and we knew that Sir Jeremiah could only last a few hours.  We sent for Steadman again, and I myself scattered a few dozen sharp nails among the loose stones in the road where the motor-car was intended to break down, thus forcing the solicitor to walk through the woods.  Captain de Mazareen's appearance on the scene at that particular moment was an unrehearsed effect which nearly upset all our plans, for had Mr. Steadman stuck to him that night, instead of turning back, he would probably be alive now, and Baddock and I would be doing time somewhere for attempted fraud.  We should have been done, at any rate.  

 

"Well, you know what happened.  Mr. Steadman was killed.  Baddock killed him, and then ran straight back to the house, just in time to greet Captain de Mazareen, who evidently had loitered on his way.  But it was I who thought of the stick, as an additional precaution to avert suspicion from ourselves.  Captain de Mazareen was carrying one, and left it in the hall at the Castle.  I cut my own hand and stained the stick with it, then polished and cleaned it up, and later, during the night, deposited it in the near neighborhood of the murdered body.  Ingenious, wasn't it?  I am a clever beggar, you see.  Because I was cleverer than Baddock he could not do without me, and because he could not do without me I made him write and sign a request to me to help him to manufacture a bogus will and then to murder the solicitor who had drawn it up.  And I have hidden that precious document in the wing of Appledore Castle which I inhabit; the exact spot is known only to myself.  Baddock has often tried to find out, but all he knows is that these things are in that particular wing of the house.  I have the document, and the draft of the will taken out of Mr. Steadman's pocket, and the short bludgeon with which he was killed--it is still stained with blood--and the rags with which I cleaned the stick.  I swear that I will never make use of these things against Philip Baddock unless he drives me to it, and if you make use of what I have just told you I'll swear that I have lied.  No one can find the proofs which I hold.  But on the day you marry Baddock I'll put them in the hands of the police." 

 

There was silence in the room.  I could almost hear the beating of my own heart, so horrified, so appalled was I at the horrible tale which the man had just told to my dear lady.  

 

The villainy of the whole scheme was so terrible, and at the same time so cunning, that it seemed inconceivable that human brain could have engendered it.  Vaguely in my dull mind I wondered if Lady Molly would have to commit bigamy before she could wrench from this evildoer's hands the proofs that would set her own husband free from his martyrdom.  

 

What she said I did not hear, what he meant to retort I never knew, for at that moment my attention was attracted by the sound of running footsteps on the gravel, followed by a loud knock at our front door.  Instinctively I ran to open it.  Our old gardener was standing there hatless and breathless.  

 

"Appledore Castle, miss," he stammered, "it's on fire.  I thought you would like to know." 

 

Before I had time to reply I heard a loud oath uttered close behind me, and the next moment Felkin dashed out of the drawing-room into the hall.  

 

"Is there a bicycle here that I can take?" he shouted to the gardener.  

 

"Yes, sir," replied the old man; "my son has one.  Just in that shed, sir, on your left." 

 

In fewer seconds than it takes to relate Felkin had rushed to the shed, dragged out the bicycle, mounted it, and I think that within two minutes of hearing the awful news he was bowling along the road, and was soon out of sight.  

 

IV

 

One wing of the stately mansion was ablaze when, a quarter of an hour later, my dear lady and I arrived upon the scene.  We had come on our bicycles not long after Mr. Felkin.  

 

At the very moment that the weird spectacle burst fully upon our gaze a loud cry of horror had just risen from the hundred or so people who stood watching the terrible conflagration, whilst the local fire brigade, assisted by Mr. Baddock's men, were working with the hydrants.  That cry found echo in our own throats as we saw a man clambering, with the rapidity of a monkey, up a long ladder which had been propped up against a second floor window of the flaming portion of the building.  The red glow illumined the large, shaggy head of Felkin, throwing for a moment into bold relief his hooked nose and straggly beard.  For the space of three seconds perhaps he stood thus, outlined against what looked like a glowing furnace behind him, and the next instant he had disappeared beyond the window embrasure.  

 

"This is madness!" came in loud accents from out the crowd in the foreground, and before one fully realized whence that voice had come, Mr. Philip Baddock was in his turn seen clambering up that awful ladder.  A dozen pairs of hands reached him just in time to drag him back from the perilous ascent.  He fought to free himself, but the firemen were determined and soon succeeded in bringing him back to level ground, whilst two of them, helmeted and well-equipped, took his place upon the ladder.  

 

The foremost had hardly reached the level of the first story when Felkin's figure once more appeared in the window embrasure above.  He was staggering like a man drunk or fainting, his shaggy hair and beard were blown about his head by the terrible draught caused by the flames, and he waved his arms over his head, giving the impression to those below, who gazed horrified, that he was either possessed or dying.  In one hand he held what looked like a great long bundle.  

 

We could see him now put one leg forward, obviously gathering strength to climb the somewhat high window ledge.  With a shout of encouragement the two firemen scrambled up with squirrel-like agility, and the cry of "They're coming!  They're coming!  Hold on, Felkin!" rose from a hundred excited throats.  

 

The unfortunate man made another effort.  We could see his face clearly now in the almost blinding glow which surrounded him.  It was distorted with fear and also with agony.  

 

He gave one raucous cry, which I do believe will echo in my ears as long as I live, and with a super- human effort he hurled the bundle which he held out of the window.  

 

At that same moment there was a terrific hissing, followed by a loud crash.  The floor beneath the feet of the unfortunate man must have given way, for he disappeared suddenly in a sea of flames.  

 

The bundle which he had hurled down had struck the foremost fireman on the head.  He lost his hold, and as he fell he dragged his unfortunate comrade down with him.  The others ran to the rescue of their comrades.  I don't think they were seriously hurt, but what happened directly after among the crowd, the firemen, or the burning building, I cannot tell you.  I only know that at the moment when Felkin's figure was, for the second time, seen in the frame of the glowing window, Lady Molly seized my hand and dragged me forward through the crowd.  

 

Her husband's life was hanging in the balance, just as much as that of the miserable wretch who was courting a horrible death for the sake of those proofs which--as it was proved afterwards--Philip Baddock tried to destroy by such drastic means.  

 

The excitement round the ladder, the fall of the two firemen, the crashing in of the floor and the gruesome disappearance of Felkin caused so much excitement in the crowd that the bundle which the unfortunate man had thrown remained unheeded for the moment.  But Philip Baddock reached the spot where it fell thirty seconds after Lady Molly did.  She had already picked it up, when he said harshly: 

 

"Give me that.  It is mine.  Felkin risked his life to save it for me." 

 

Inspector Etty, however, stood close by, and before Philip Baddock realized what Lady Molly meant to do, she had turned quickly and placed the bundle in the inspector's hands.  

 

"You know me, Etty, don't you?" she said rapidly.  

 

"Oh, yes, my lady!" he replied.  

 

"Then take the utmost care of this bundle.  It contains proofs of one of the most dastardly crimes ever committed in this country." 

 

No other words could have aroused the enthusiasm and caution of Etty in the same manner.  

 

After that Philip Baddock might protest, might rage, storm, or try to bribe, but the proofs of his guilt and Captain de Mazareen's innocence were safe in the hands of the police, and bound to come to light at last.  

 

But, as a matter of fact, Baddock neither stormed nor pleaded.  When Lady Molly turned to him once more he had disappeared.  

 

You know the rest, of course.  It occurred too recently to be recounted.  Philip Baddock was found the next morning with a bullet through his head, lying on the granite stone which, with cruel hypocrisy, he himself had erected in memory of Mr. Steadman whom he had so foully murdered.  

 

The unfortunate Felkin had not lied when he said that the proofs which he held of Baddock's guilt were conclusive and deadly.  

 

Captain de Mazareen obtained His Majesty's gracious pardon after five years of martyrdom which he had borne with heroic fortitude.  

 

I was not present when Lady Molly was once more united to the man who so ardently worshipped and trusted her, and to whose love, innocence, and cause she had remained so sublimely loyal throughout the past few years.  

 

She has given up her connection with the police.  The reason for it has gone with the return of her happiness, over which I--her ever faithful Mary Granard--will, with your permission, draw a veil.  

 

 

The End of A Collection of Short Mysteries