THE NOVELIST.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3136, 20 August 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE NOVELIST.

THE ADVENTURES OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR.

By A. Conan Doyle. Author of "The White Company," "The Captain of the Pole Star," &c.

CHAPTER 11. Lord Robert shook his head. " I am afraid that it will take a wiser head than yours and mine," he remarked, and bowing in a stately, old-fashioned manner, he departed. " It is very good of Lord Robert to honour my head by putting it on a level with his own," said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. "I think th.it I shall have a whiskey and soda and a cigar after all this crossquestioning. 1 had formed my conclusions as to the case before our client came into the room."

" My clear Holmes !" " I have notes of several similar cases, though none, as I remarked before, which were quite so prompt. My whole examination served to turn my conjecture into certainty. Circumstantial evidence is occasional!)' very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example." " But I have heard all that you have heard."

" Without, however, the knowledge of pre-existing cases, which serves me so well. There was a parallel instance in Aberdeen some years back, and something on very much the same lines at, Munich the year' after the Franco-Prusaian war. ft is one of those cases—but, hullo, here is Lestrade ! Good afternoon, Lestrade ! You will find the extra tumbler upon the side-board, and there are cigars in the box." " The little detective was attired in a pea-jacket and cravat, which gave him a decidedly nautical appearance, and he carried a black canvas bag in his hand. With a short greeting he seated himself and lit the cigar which he had been offered.

" What's up, then 1 said Holmes, with a twinkle in his eye. " You look dissatisfied." " And I feel dissatisfied. It is this infernal St. Simon marriage case. I can make neither head nor tail of the business." "Really! You surprise me." " Who ever heard of such a mixed affair. Every clue seems to slip through my fingers. I have beer; at work upon it all day." " And very wet it seems to have made you," said Holmes, laying his hand upon the arm of the pea jacket. " I have been dragging the Serpentine ." " In Heaven's name, what for 1" " In search of Lady Robert St. Simon." Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. " Have you dragged the basis of the Trafalgar Square fountain ?" he asked. '• Why ; what do you mean ?" "Because you have just as good a chance of finding this lady in the one as in the other." Lestrade shot an angry glance at my companion. " I suppose you know all about it," ho snarled. "Well, I have only just heard the facts, but my mind is made up." " Oh, indeed ! Then you think that the Serpentine plays no part in the matter ?" " I think it very unlikely. " Then perhaps you will kindly explain how it is that we found this in it V He opened his bag as he spoke and tumbled on to the floor a wedding dress of watered silk,a pair ot white satin shoes, and a bride's wreath and veil, all discoloured and soaked in water. " There," said he, putting a new wedding ring upon the top of the pile, " is a little nut for you to crack, Master Holmes." " Oh, indeed !" said my friend, blowing blue rings into the air. " You dragged them from the Serpentine f " No ; they were found floating near the margin by a park keeper. They have been identified as her clothes, and it. seemed to me that if the clothes were there, the body would not be far off." " By the same brilliant reasoning every man's body is to be found in the neighbourhood of his wardrobe. And, pray, what did you hope to arrive at through this 1" " At some evidence implicating Flora Miller in the disappearance." " lam afraid that you will find it difficult." " Are you indeed, now f cried Lestrade with some bitterness. " I am afraid, Holmes, that you are not very practical with your deductions and your inferences. You have made two blunders in as many minutes. This dress does implicate Miss Flora Miller.

" And now T " In the dress is a pocket. Iα the pocket is n currl case. In the card case is a notn And there is the very note." He slapped it down on the table in front of him. " Listen to this : " You will see ine when all is ready. Como at once— F.H.M. , Now, my theory all along has been that Lady Eobert was decoyed away by Flora Miller, and that she with confederates, no doubt was responsible for her disappearance. Here, signed with her initials, is the. note which was no doubt quietly slipped into her hand at the door which lured her within their reach." " Very good, Lestrade," said Holmes, laughing. " You really are very fine indeed. Let me see

it." He took up the paper in a list- 1 less way, but his attention instantly f became riveted, and he gave a little : cry of satisfaction. " This is in- I deed important," said he. < " Ha, you find it so !" " Extremely so. I congratulate ' you warmly." t Lestrade rose in his triumph and bent his head to iook. " Why," he s shrieked, " you're looking at the wrong side." t "On the contrary, this is tho s right side." v " The right side! You're mad ! f Here is the note written in pencil a over here." d " And over here is what appears <1 to be the fragment of an hotel bill, tl which interests me deeply." '• There's nothing in it I looked li at it before," said Lestrade, r< "' October 4th, rooms eight shillings, breakfast two and six, cock- n tail a shilling, lunch two and six, << *lass sherry eightpence,' I see noth- si ing in that." J "Very likely not. It is mostim- "E portant, all the same. As to tho o note it is important also, or at least b the initials are, so I congratulate s you again." " I've wasted time enough," said a Lestrado, rising. " I believe in j liarcl work, and not in sitting by the t fire spinning tine theories. Good- c :lay, Mr Holmes, and we shall see 0 which gets to the bottom of the j.-. matter first." He gathered up the u garments, thurst them into the bag, c and made for the door. n " Just one hint to you, Lestrade," drawled Holmes, before his rival v vanished. " I will tell you the true j, solution of the matter. Lady n Robert is a myth. There is not and ' t there never has been, any such per- p son." v Lesfcrade looked sadly at my com- j panion. Then he turned to me, , tapped his forehead three times, v shook his head solemnly, and Y hurried away. He had hardly shut T the door behind him when Holmes | rose and put on his overcoat. x " There is something in what the t fellow says about outdoor work," x he remarked, "so I think, Watson f that I must leave you to your , papers for a little while." I It was after 5 o'clock when Sher- { lock Holmes left me, but I had j no time to be lonely, for within an f hour there arrived a confectioner's , man with a very large flat box. j This he unpacked with the help "oE a ■ youth whom he had brought with ] him, and presently, to my great astonishment, a very epicurean , little cold supper began to be laid ] out upon our humble lodging-house . mahogany. There were a couple of ; brace of cold woodcock, a pheasant, , a. pate defoie yras, with a. group of , ancient and cobwebby bottles. Hav- ; ing laid out all these luxuries, my : two visitors vanished away, like the , genii of the " Arabian Nights," with no explanation save that the things had been paid for and were ordered to this address. Just before 9 o'clock Slierlock Holmes stepped briskly into the room. His features were gravely set, but there was a light in his eye which made me think that he had not been disappointed hi his conclusions. " They have laid the supper, then," he said, rubbing his hands. " You seem to expect company. They have laid for five." '• Yes, I fancy that we may have some company dropping in," said he. " I am surprised that Lord Rohert has not already arrived. Ida! I fancy that I hear his steps now upon the stairs." It was, indeed, our visitor of the morning who came bustling in, dangling his giassas more vigourously than ever, with a very perturbed expression upon his features. "My messenger reached you, then ?" asked Holmes. " Yes, and I confess that the contents startled me beyond measure. " Have you good authority for what you say 1" " The best possible." Lord Robert sank into a chair aud passed his hand over his forehead. "What will the Duke say," he murmured, " when he hears that one of the family has been subjected to such a humiliation 1" "It is the purest accident. I cannot allow that there is any humiliation." " Ah, you look on these things from another standpoint." " I fail to see that anyone is to blame. I can hardly say how the lady could have acted otherwise, though her abrupt method of doing it was undoubtedly to be regretted. Having no mother, she had no one to advise her at such a crisis." " It was a slight, sir, a public siight," said Lord Robert, tapping his fingers upon the table. " You must make allowances for this poor girl, placed in so unprecedented a position." " I will make no allowance. T am very angry, and I have been shamefully used."

" I think that I heard a ring," said Holmes. " Yes, there are steps on tho landing. If I cannot persuade you to take a lenient view of the matter, Lord iiobert, 1 have brought an ;advocate here who may be more successful." He opened the door and ushered in a lady and gentleman. " Lord .Uobert St. Simon," said he, •' allow Francis Hay Moulton. The lady, I think, you have already met." At the sight of these new-comers our client hail sprung from his seat and stood very erect, with his eyes cast down and his hand thrust into the breast of his frock coat—a picture of oirended dignity. The lady had taken a quick step forward, and held out

her two hands toward him, but he still refused to raise his eyes. It was as well for his resolution perhaps, for her pleading Face was one which it Wiis hard to resist. '•' You're angry, Robert," said she. " Well, I guess you have every cause to be." " Pray make no apology to me ," said Lord Robert St. Simon, bitterly. "Oh yes, I know that I have treated you real bad, and that I should have spoken to you before I went, but I was kind of rattled, sivl from the time when I saw Frank hero again 1 just didn't know when I wns doing or saying. I only wonder I didn't fall down and .lo a faint rignc. there before the altar." " Perhaps, Mrs Moulton, you would like my friend ami mo to leave the room while you explain this matter." "If I may give an opinion," remarked the strange gentleman, " we've had 'just a little too much secrecy over' this business already. For my own part I should like all Europe and America to hear the rights of it." He was a small, wiry, sunburned man, clean shaven, with a sharp face and alert manner. "Then I'll tell our story right away," said the lady. Frank here and I met in \S± in M/Guire's Camp, near the Rockies, where pa was working a claim". We were engaged to each other, Frank and I, but then one day father struck a rich pocket and made a pile, while poor Frank liore had a claim that petered out and came to nothing. The richer pa grew the poorer was Frank, so at last pa wouldn't hear of our engagement lasting any longer, and lie took me away "to 'Frisco. Frank wouldn't throw up his hand, though,' so he followed mo there, and he saw me without pa knowing anything about it. It would only have made him mad to know, so we just fixed it all up for ourselves; Frank said that he would go and make his pile, too, and never come back to claim me until he had as much as pa. fc?o then I promised to wait for him to the end of time, and pledged myself not to marry anyone else while he lived. " Why shouldn't we be married right away,'then," said he " and then 1 will feel sure of you, and. I won't claim to be your husband till I come back." Well, we talked it over, and we had fixed it all up so nicely, with a clergyman all ready in waiting, that we just did it right there and then. Frank went off to seek his fortune, and I went back to pa,

" The next I heard of Frank was that he was in Montana, and then he went prospecting into Arizona, and then I heard of him from New Mexico. After that came a longnewspaper story about how a miners camp had been attacked by Apache Indians, and there was my Frank's name among the killed. I fainted dead away, and was very sick for mouths afterwards. Pa thought I had a decline and took me to halt , the doctors in 'Frisco. Not a word of news came for a year and more, so that I never doubted that Frank was really dead. Then Lord Eobert caaie to 'Frisco and wo came to London and a marriage was arranged, and pa was very pleased, but I felt all the time that no man on this earth would over take the place in my heart that had been given to my poor Frank. "If I had married Lord Eobert, of course I'd have done my duty by Him; we can't command our love, but we can our actions. I went to the altar with him witk the intention that I would make him just as good a wife as it waa in me to be. But you may imagine what I felt when Hist as I came to the altar rails I glanced back and saw Frank standin", looking at me out of the first pew. I chought it was his ghost at first; but when I looked again there he was still with a kind of question in his eyes, as if to ask me whether I were glad or sorry to see him. I wonder I didn't drop. I know that everything was turning round, and the words of the clergyman were just like the buzz of a bee in my ear. I didn't know what to do. Should I stop the service and make a scene in the church ? I glanced at him again, and he seemed to know what I was thinking, for he raised his finger to his lips to tell me to keep still. Then I saw him scribble on a piece of paper, and I kne*v he was writing me a note. As I passed his pew on the way out I dropped my bouquet over to him and he slipped the note iuto my hand when he returned me the flowers. It was only a line, asking me to join him when he made the sign to do so. Of course, I never doubted for a moment that my first duty now was to him, and I determined to do just whatever he might

direct. "When I got back I told my maid, who had known him in California and had always been his friend. I ordered hei to say nothing but to get a few things packed and my ulster ready. I know I ought to have spokeu to Lord Eoberfc, but it was dreadful hard before his mother and all those great people. I just made up my mind to run away, and explain afterwai-ds. I hadn't been at table ten minutes before I saw Prank out of the window at the other side of the road. He beokoned to me, and then began walking into the park. I slipped out, put on my diiugs, and followed him. Some woman came talking something or other about Lord Robert St. Simon to me—seemed to me from tho little I hsard as if he had a little secret of his own before marriage also, but I managed to get away from her and soon overtook Frank. We got into a cab together, aud away we drove to some lodgings he had taken in

Gordon square, and that was my true wedding after all those years of waiting. Frank had been a prisoner among the Apaches, had escaped, came on to 'Frisco, found that I had given up for dead and gone to England, followed me there, and had come upon me at last on the very morning of my second wedding. "I saw it in the paper," explained the American. "It gave the name and the church, but not where the lady lived." " Then wo had a talk as to what we should do, and. Frank was all for openness, but I was so ashamed of it that I felt as if I would like to vanish away and never see any of them again, just sending a line to pa, perhaps, to show him that I was alive. It was awful to me to think of all those lords and ladies sitting round the breakfast table, and waiting for me to come back. So Frank took my wedding clothes and things and made a bundle of them, so that I should not be traced, and dropped them away where no one should find them. It is likely that we should have gone on to Paris to-niorrow only that this good gentleman, Mr Holmes, came vouud to us this evening, tnough haw he found us is more than I can think, and he showed us very clearly and kindly that I was wrong, and that Frank was right, and that we would put ourselves in the wrong if we were so secret. Then he offered to give us a chance of talking to Lord Robert alone, and so we came right away round to his rooms at once. Now, Eobert, you have heard it all. and I am very sorry if I have given you pain, and I hope that you do not think very, very meanly of me.!' Lord Eobert had by no means relaxed his rigid attitude, but had listened with a frowning brow and a compressed lip. "Excuse me," he said, "but it is not my custom to discuss my most intimate personal affairs in this public manner." "Then you won't forgive me? You won't shake bands before I tr C ?" " Oh, certainly. If it would give you any -pleasure." He put out his hand and coldly grasped that which sho extended to him. "I had hoped." suggested Holme?, " that you would join us in a friendly supper." " I think that there you ask a little too much," responded his lordship. "I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent developments, but I can hardly be expected to make merry over them. I think that with your permission, I will now wish you all a very good night." He included us all in a sweeping bow, and stalked, out of the room. " Then I trust that you at least will honour me with your company," said Holmes. "It is always joy to me to meet au American, Mr Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone yeai-s will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country, under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes." The case has been an interesting one, remarked Holmes when our visitors had left us, " because it serves to show very clearly how very simple the explanation may be of an affair which at first sight seems to be almost inexplicable. Nothing could be more natural than the sequence of events as narrated by this lady, and nothing stranger than the result viewed, for instauce bv Mr Lestrade, of Scotland Yard." "You were net yoursslf at fault at all, then ?" " From the first, two facts were very obvious to me, the one that the lady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony, the other that she had repented of it within a few minutes of returning home. Obviously something had occurred during the morning then to cause her to change her mind. What could that something be ?" She could not have spoken to anyone when she was out, for she had been in the company of the bridegroom. Had she seen someone then ? If she had, it must be some one from America, because she had spent so short a time in this country that she could hardly have allowed anyone to acquire so deep an influence "over her that the mere sight of him would induce her to change her plans so completely. You see we have already arrived, by a process of exclusions, at the idea that she might have seen an American. Then who could this American be, and why should he possess so much influenco over her ? It might be a lover. It might be a husband. Her young womanhood had, I knew, been spent in rough scenes and under strange conditions, So far I had got before ever I heard Lord Hobert'e narrative. Wheu he (old us of the man in the pew, of the change in the bride's manner, of so transparent a device for obtainitig a note as the dropping of a bouquet, of her reeort to her confidential maid, and of her very significant allusion to claim jumping, which in miners' parlance, means taking possession of that which an >ther person has a prior claim to, the whole situation became absolutely clear. She had gone off with a man, and the man was either a lover or was a previous husband, the chances being in favour of the luttor." " And how in the world did you . find them ?"

"It might have been difficult, but friend Lostrudc hold information in his hands, the value of which ho did not himself know, rhe initials were, of course, of the lighest importance, but more valuxble still was it to know that within i week he had settled his bill at jne of the most select London lotels." "How did you deduce the ielect ?" "By the select prices. Eight ihillings for a bed and eighteen.. )euce for a glass of sherry pointed o one of the most expensive hotels, .here are not nanny in London vhich charge at that rate. In the iecond one I visited in Northumberland avenue I learned by an infection, of the book that Fnmms I. Moulfcon, an American gentlonan, had only left tLo day beforo, md on looking over the entries igainst him I cam , ? upon the rery same items which I had leen in the duplicate bill. His etters were to be forwarded to 22G jordou Square. So thither I ;ravelled, and being fortunate Miough to find the loving couple at loine I ventured to g'ivo them soino paternal advice, and to point out to :hem that it would be better in 3very way that they should muke ;heir position a little clearer, bo'h ;o the public and to Lord Robert 3t. Simon in particular. I invited ihem to meet him hero, and as you 3ee I made him keep the appointment." " But with no very good results," E remarked. " His conduct μ-jls certainly not very gracious." " Ah, Watson," said Holmes, smiling, " perhaps you would not be very gracious, either if, after all the trouble oi wooing and wedding, you found yourself deprived in an instant of wife and. of fortune. I think that we may judge Lord Robert very mercifully, and thank our stars that we are never likely to find ourselves in the samo position. Draw your chair up to the fire, and hand me my violin, for the only problem which we have still to solve is how to while away these black, autumnal evenings." The Exn.