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Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English
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Title: The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories:
Modern English

Editor: Julian Hawthorne

Contributor: Egerton Castle
Wilkie Collins
Arthur Conan Doyle
Rudyard Kipling
Robert Louis Stevenson
Stanley John Weyman

Release date: June 4, 2005 [eBook #2038]
Most recently updated: December 31, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOCK AND
KEY LIBRARY: CLASSIC MYSTERY AND DETECTIVE STORIES:
MODERN ENGLISH ***

THE LOCK AND KEY LIBRARY

CLASSIC MYSTERY AND DETECTIVE
STORIES
EDITED BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE

MODERN ENGLISH

Rudyard Kipling A. Conan Doyle
Egerton Castle
Stanley J. Weyman Wilkie Collins
Robert Louis Stevenson

NEW YORK

THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO.

1909

"And Sent out a Jet of Fire from His Nostrils"
Drawing by Power O'Malley.
To illustrate "In the House of Suddhoo," by Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling
My Own True Ghost Story
The Sending of Dana Da
In the House of Suddhoo
His Wedded Wife
A. Conan Doyle
A Case of Identity
A Scandal in Bohemia
The Red-Headed League
Egerton Castle
The Baron's Quarry
Stanley J. Weyman
The Fowl in the Pot
Robert Louis Stevenson
The Pavilion on the Links
Wilkie Collins
The Dream Woman
The First Narrative
The Second Narrative
The Third Narrative
Fourth (and Last) Narrative
Anonymous
The Lost Duchess
The Minor Canon
The Pipe
The Puzzle
The Great Valdez Sapphire

Rudyard Kipling

My Own True Ghost Story
As I came through the Desert thus it was—
As I came through the Desert.
The City of Dreadful Night.

Somewhere in the Other World, where there are books and pictures and plays
and shop windows to look at, and thousands of men who spend their lives in
building up all four, lives a gentleman who writes real stories about the real
insides of people; and his name is Mr. Walter Besant. But he will insist upon
treating his ghosts—he has published half a workshopful of them—with levity.
He makes his ghost-seers talk familiarly, and, in some cases, flirt outrageously,
with the phantoms. You may treat anything, from a Viceroy to a Vernacular
Paper, with levity; but you must behave reverently toward a ghost, and
particularly an Indian one.
There are, in this land, ghosts who take the form of fat, cold, pobby corpses,
and hide in trees near the roadside till a traveler passes. Then they drop upon
his neck and remain. There are also terrible ghosts of women who have died in
child-bed. These wander along the pathways at dusk, or hide in the crops near a
village, and call seductively. But to answer their call is death in this world and
the next. Their feet are turned backward that all sober men may recognize
them. There are ghosts of little children who have been thrown into wells.
These haunt well curbs and the fringes of jungles, and wail under the stars, or
catch women by the wrist and beg to be taken up and carried. These and the
corpse ghosts, however, are only vernacular articles and do not attack Sahibs.
No native ghost has yet been authentically reported to have frightened an
Englishman; but many English ghosts have scared the life out of both white and
black.
Nearly every other Station owns a ghost. There are said to be two at Simla, not
counting the woman who blows the bellows at Syree dâk-bungalow on the Old
Road; Mussoorie has a house haunted of a very lively Thing; a White Lady is
supposed to do night-watchman round a house in Lahore; Dalhousie says that
one of her houses "repeats" on autumn evenings all the incidents of a horrible
horse-and-precipice accident; Murree has a merry ghost, and, now that she has
been swept by cholera, will have room for a sorrowful one; there are Officers'

Quarters in Mian Mir whose doors open without reason, and whose furniture is
guaranteed to creak, not with the heat of June but with the weight of Invisibles
who come to lounge in the chairs; Peshawur possesses houses that none will
willingly rent; and there is something—not fever—wrong with a big bungalow
in Allahabad. The older Provinces simply bristle with haunted houses, and
march phantom armies along their main thoroughfares.
Some of the dâk-bungalows on the Grand Trunk Road have handy little
cemeteries in their compound—witnesses to the "changes and chances of this
mortal life" in the days when men drove from Calcutta to the Northwest. These
bungalows are objectionable places to put up in. They are generally very old,
always dirty, while the khansamah is as ancient as the bungalow. He either
chatters senilely, or falls into the long trances of age. In both moods he is
useless. If you get angry with him, he refers to some Sahib dead and buried
these thirty years, and says that when he was in that Sahib's service not a
khansamah in the Province could touch him. Then he jabbers and mows and
trembles and fidgets among the dishes, and you repent of your irritation.
In these dâk-bungalows, ghosts are most likely to be found, and when found,
they should be made a note of. Not long ago it was my business to live in dâk-
bungalows. I never inhabited the same house for three nights running, and grew
to be learned in the breed. I lived in Government-built ones with red brick walls
and rail ceilings, an inventory of the furniture posted in every room, and an
excited snake at the threshold to give welcome. I lived in "converted" ones—
old houses officiating as dâk-bungalows—where nothing was in its proper
place and there wasn't even a fowl for dinner. I lived in second-hand palaces
where the wind blew through open-work marble tracery just as uncomfortably
as through a broken pane. I lived in dâk-bungalows where the last entry in the
visitors' book was fifteen months old, and where they slashed off the curry-kid's
head with a sword. It was my good luck to meet all sorts of men, from sober
traveling missionaries and deserters flying from British Regiments, to drunken
loafers who threw whisky bottles at all who passed; and my still greater good
fortune just to escape a maternity case. Seeing that a fair proportion of the
tragedy of our lives out here acted itself in dâk-bungalows, I wondered that I
had met no ghosts. A ghost that would voluntarily hang about a dâk-bungalow
would be mad of course; but so many men have died mad in dâk-bungalows
that there must be a fair percentage of lunatic ghosts.
In due time I found my ghost, or ghosts rather, for there were two of them. Up
till that hour I had sympathized with Mr. Besant's method of handling them, as

shown in "The Strange Case of Mr. Lucraft and Other Stories." I am now in the
Opposition.
We will call the bungalow Katmal dâk-bungalow. But that was the smallest part
of the horror. A man with a sensitive hide has no right to sleep in dâk-
bungalows. He should marry. Katmal dâk-bungalow was old and rotten and
unrepaired. The floor was of worn brick, the walls were filthy, and the windows
were nearly black with grime. It stood on a bypath largely used by native Sub-
Deputy Assistants of all kinds, from Finance to Forests; but real Sahibs were
rare. The khansamah, who was nearly bent double with old age, said so.
When I arrived, there was a fitful, undecided rain on the face of the land,
accompanied by a restless wind, and every gust made a noise like the rattling of
dry bones in the stiff toddy palms outside. The khansamah completely lost his
head on my arrival. He had served a Sahib once. Did I know that Sahib? He
gave me the name of a well-known man who has been buried for more than a
quarter of a century, and showed me an ancient daguerreotype of that man in
his prehistoric youth. I had seen a steel engraving of him at the head of a
double volume of Memoirs a month before, and I felt ancient beyond telling.
The day shut in and the khansamah went to get me food. He did not go through
the, pretense of calling it "khana"—man's victuals. He said "ratub," and that
means, among other things, "grub"—dog's rations. There was no insult in his
choice of the term. He had forgotten the other word, I suppose.
While he was cutting up the dead bodies of animals, I settled myself down,
after exploring the dâk-bungalow. There were three rooms, beside my own,
which was a corner kennel, each giving into the other through dingy white
doors fastened with long iron bars. The bungalow was a very solid one, but the
partition walls of the rooms were almost jerry-built in their flimsiness. Every
step or bang of a trunk echoed from my room down the other three, and every
footfall came back tremulously from the far walls. For this reason I shut the
door. There were no lamps—only candles in long glass shades. An oil wick was
set in the bathroom.
For bleak, unadulterated misery that dâk-bungalow was the worst of the many
that I had ever set foot in. There was no fireplace, and the windows would not
open; so a brazier of charcoal would have been useless. The rain and the wind
splashed and gurgled and moaned round the house, and the toddy palms rattled
and roared. Half a dozen jackals went through the compound singing, and a
hyena stood afar off and mocked them. A hyena would convince a Sadducee of

the Resurrection of the Dead—the worst sort of Dead. Then came the ratub—a
curious meal, half native and half English in composition—with the old
khansamah babbling behind my chair about dead and gone English people, and
the wind-blown candles playing shadow-bo-peep with the bed and the
mosquito-curtains. It was just the sort of dinner and evening to make a man
think of every single one of his past sins, and of all the others that he intended
to commit if he lived.
Sleep, for several hundred reasons, was not easy. The lamp in the bathroom
threw the most absurd shadows into the room, and the wind was beginning to
talk nonsense.
Just when the reasons were drowsy with blood-sucking I heard the regular
—"Let-us-take-and-heave-him-over" grunt of doolie-bearers in the compound.
First one doolie came in, then a second, and then a third. I heard the doolies
dumped on the ground, and the shutter in front of my door shook. "That's some
one trying to come in," I said. But no one spoke, and I persuaded myself that it
was the gusty wind. The shutter of the room next to mine was attacked, flung
back, and the inner door opened. "That's some Sub-Deputy Assistant," I said,
"and he has brought his friends with him. Now they'll talk and spit and smoke
for an hour."
But there were no voices and no footsteps. No one was putting his luggage into
the next room. The door shut, and I thanked Providence that I was to be left in
peace. But I was curious to know where the doolies had gone. I got out of bed
and looked into the darkness. There was never a sign of a doolie. Just as I was
getting into bed again, I heard, in the next room, the sound that no man in his
senses can possibly mistake—the whir of a billiard ball down the length of the
slates when the striker is stringing for break. No other sound is like it. A minute
afterwards there was another whir, and I got into bed. I was not frightened—
indeed I was not. I was very curious to know what had become of the doolies. I
jumped into bed for that reason.
Next minute I heard the double click of a cannon and my hair sat up. It is a
mistake to say that hair stands up. The skin of the head tightens and you can
feel a faint, prickly, bristling all over the scalp. That is the hair sitting up.
There was a whir and a click, and both sounds could only have been made by
one thing—a billiard ball. I argued the matter out at great length with myself;
and the more I argued the less probable it seemed that one bed, one table, and
two chairs—all the furniture of the room next to mine—could so exactly

duplicate the sounds of a game of billiards. After another cannon, a three-
cushion one to judge by the whir, I argued no more. I had found my ghost and
would have given worlds to have escaped from that dâk-bungalow. I listened,
and with each listen the game grew clearer. There was whir on whir and click
on click. Sometimes there was a double click and a whir and another click.
Beyond any sort of doubt, people were playing billiards in the next room. And
the next room was not big enough to hold a billiard table!
Between the pauses of the wind I heard the game go forward—stroke after
stroke. I tried to believe that I could not hear voices; but that attempt was a
failure.
Do you know what fear is? Not ordinary fear of insult, injury or death, but
abject, quivering dread of something that you cannot see—fear that dries the
inside of the mouth and half of the throat—fear that makes you sweat on the
palms of the hands, and gulp in order to keep the uvula at work? This is a fine
Fear—a great cowardice, and must be felt to be appreciated. The very
improbability of billiards in a dâk-bungalow proved the reality of the thing. No
man—drunk or sober—could imagine a game at billiards, or invent the spitting
crack of a "screw-cannon."
A severe course of dâk-bungalows has this disadvantage—it breeds infinite
credulity. If a man said to a confirmed dâk-bungalow-haunter:—"There is a
corpse in the next room, and there's a mad girl in the next but one, and the
woman and man on that camel have just eloped from a place sixty miles away,"
the hearer would not disbelieve because he would know that nothing is too
wild, grotesque, or horrible to happen in a dâk-bungalow.
This credulity, unfortunately, extends to ghosts. A rational person fresh from his
own house would have turned on his side and slept. I did not. So surely as I was
given up as a bad carcass by the scores of things in the bed because the bulk of
my blood was in my heart, so surely did I hear every stroke of a long game at
billiards played in the echoing room behind the iron-barred door. My dominant
fear was that the players might want a marker. It was an absurd fear; because
creatures who could play in the dark would be above such superfluities. I only
know that that was my terror; and it was real.
After a long, long while the game stopped, and the door banged. I slept because
I was dead tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have kept awake. Not for
everything in Asia would I have dropped the door-bar and peered into the dark
of the next room.

When the morning came, I considered that I had done well and wisely, and
inquired for the means of departure.
"By the way, khansamah," I said, "what were those three doolies doing in my
compound in the night?"
"There were no doolies," said the khansamah.
I went into the next room and the daylight streamed through the open door. I
was immensely brave. I would, at that hour, have played Black Pool with the
owner of the big Black Pool down below.
"Has this place always been a dâk-bungalow?" I asked.
"No," said the khansamah. "Ten or twenty years ago, I have forgotten how
long, it was a billiard room."
"A how much?"
"A billiard room for the Sahibs who built the Railway. I was khansamah then in
the big house where all the Railway-Sahibs lived, and I used to come across
with brandy-shrab. These three rooms were all one, and they held a big table on
which the Sahibs played every evening. But the Sahibs are all dead now, and
the Railway runs, you say, nearly to Kabul."
"Do you remember anything about the Sahibs?"
"It is long ago, but I remember that one Sahib, a fat man and always angry, was
playing here one night, and he said to me:—'Mangal Khan, brandy-pani do,'
and I filled the glass, and he bent over the table to strike, and his head fell
lower and lower till it hit the table, and his spectacles came off, and when we—
the Sahibs and I myself—ran to lift him he was dead. I helped to carry him out.
Aha, he was a strong Sahib! But he is dead and I, old Mangal Khan, am still
living, by your favor."
That was more than enough! I had my ghost—a first-hand, authenticated
article. I would write to the Society for Psychical Research—I would paralyze
the Empire with the news! But I would, first of all, put eighty miles of assessed
crop land between myself and that dâk-bungalow before nightfall. The Society
might send their regular agent to investigate later on.
I went into my own room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts of
the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again,—with a miss in balk this

time, for the whir was a short one.
The door was open and I could see into the room. Click—click! That was a
cannon. I entered the room without fear, for there was sunlight within and a
fresh breeze without. The unseen game was going on at a tremendous rate. And
well it might, when a restless little rat was running to and fro inside the dingy
ceiling-cloth, and a piece of loose window-sash was making fifty breaks off the
window-bolt as it shook in the breeze!
Impossible to mistake the sound of billiard balls! Impossible to mistake the
whir of a ball over the slate! But I was to be excused. Even when I shut my
enlightened eyes the sound was marvelously like that of a fast game.
Entered angrily the faithful partner of my sorrows, Kadir Baksh.
"This bungalow is very bad and low-caste! No wonder the Presence was
disturbed and is speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to the bungalow
late last night when I was sleeping outside, and said that it was their custom to
rest in the rooms set apart for the English people! What honor has the
khansamah? They tried to enter, but I told them to go. No wonder, if these
Oorias have been here, that the Presence is sorely spotted. It is shame, and the
work of a dirty man!"
Kadir Baksh did not say that he had taken from each gang two annas for rent in
advance, and then, beyond my earshot, had beaten them with the big green
umbrella whose use I could never before divine. But Kadir Baksh has no
notions of morality.
There was an interview with the khansamah, but as he promptly lost his head,
wrath gave place to pity, and pity led to a long conversation, in the course of
which he put the fat Engineer-Sahib's tragic death in three separate stations—
two of them fifty miles away. The third shift was to Calcutta, and there the
Sahib died while driving a dog-cart.
If I had encouraged him the khansamah would have wandered all through
Bengal with his corpse.
I did not go away as soon as I intended. I stayed for the night, while the wind
and the rat and the sash and the window-bolt played a ding-dong "hundred and
fifty up." Then the wind ran out and the billiards stopped, and I felt that I had
ruined my one genuine, hall-marked ghost story.

Had I only stopped at the proper time, I could have made anything out of it.
That was the bitterest thought of all!

The Sending of Dana Da
When the Devil rides on your chest, remember the chamar.
—Native
Pro
ver
b.

Once upon a time some people in India made a new heaven and a new earth out
of broken teacups, a missing brooch or two, and a hair brush. These were
hidden under bushes, or stuffed into holes in the hillside, and an entire civil
service of subordinate gods used to find or mend them again; and everyone
said: "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our
philosophy." Several other things happened also, but the religion never seemed
to get much beyond its first manifestations; though it added an air-line postal
dak, and orchestral effects in order to keep abreast of the times, and stall off
competition.
This religion was too elastic for ordinary use. It stretched itself and embraced
pieces of everything that medicine men of all ages have manufactured. It
approved and stole from Freemasonry; looted the Latter-day Rosicrucians of
half their pet words; took any fragments of Egyptian philosophy that it found in
the Encyclopædia Britannica; annexed as many of the Vedas as had been
translated into French or English, and talked of all the rest; built in the German
versions of what is left of the Zend Avesta; encouraged white, gray, and black
magic, including Spiritualism, palmistry, fortune-telling by cards, hot chestnuts,
double-kerneled nuts and tallow droppings; would have adopted Voodoo and
Oboe had it known anything about them, and showed itself, in every way, one
of the most accommodating arrangements that had ever been invented since the
birth of the sea.
When it was in thorough working order, with all the machinery down to the
subscriptions complete, Dana Da came from nowhere, with nothing in his
hands, and wrote a chapter in its history which has hitherto been unpublished.
He said that his first name was Dana, and his second was Da. Now, setting
aside Dana of the New York Sun, Dana is a Bhil name, and Da fits no native of
India unless you accept the Bengali Dé as the original spelling. Da is Lap or

Finnish; and Dana Da was neither Finn, Chin, Bhil, Bengali, Lap, Nair, Gond,
Romaney, Magh, Bokhariot, Kurd, Armenian, Levantine, Jew, Persian, Punjabi,
Madrasi, Parsee, nor anything else known to ethnologists. He was simply Dana
Da, and declined to give further information. For the sake of brevity, and as
roughly indicating his origin, he was called "The Native." He might have been
the original Old Man of the Mountains, who is said to be the only authorized
head of the Teacup Creed. Some people said that he was; but Dana Da used to
smile and deny any connection with the cult; explaining that he was an
"independent experimenter."
As I have said, he came from nowhere, with his hands behind his back, and
studied the creed for three weeks; sitting at the feet of those best competent to
explain its mysteries. Then he laughed aloud and went away, but the laugh
might have been either of devotion or derision.
When he returned he was without money, but his pride was unabated. He
declared that he knew more about the things in heaven and earth than those
who taught him, and for this contumacy was abandoned altogether.
His next appearance in public life was at a big cantonment in Upper India, and
he was then telling fortunes with the help of three leaden dice, a very dirty old
cloth, and a little tin box of opium pills. He told better fortunes when he was
allowed half a bottle of whisky; but the things which he invented on the opium
were quite worth the money. He was in reduced circumstances. Among other
people's he told the fortune of an Englishman who had once been interested in
the Simla creed, but who, later on, had married and forgotten all his old
knowledge in the study of babies and Exchange. The Englishman allowed Dana
Da to tell a fortune for charity's sake, and, gave him five rupees, a dinner, and
some old clothes. When he had eaten, Dana Da professed gratitude, and asked
if there were anything he could do for his host—in the esoteric line.
"Is there anyone that you love?" said Dana Da. The Englishman loved his wife,
but had no desire to drag her name into the conversation. He therefore shook
his head.
"Is there anyone that you hate?" said Dana Da. The Englishman said that there
were several men whom he hated deeply.
"Very good," said Dana Da, upon whom the whisky and the opium were
beginning to tell. "Only give me their names, and I will dispatch a Sending to
them and kill them."

Now a Sending is a horrible arrangement, first invented, they say, in Iceland. It
is a thing sent by a wizard, and may take any form, but most generally wanders
about the land in the shape of a little purple cloud till it finds the sendee, and
him it kills by changing into the form of a horse, or a cat, or a man without a
face. It is not strictly a native patent, though chamars can, if irritated, dispatch
a Sending which sits on the breast of their enemy by night and nearly kills him.
Very few natives care to irritate chamars for this reason.
"Let me dispatch a Sending," said Dana Da; "I am nearly dead now with want,
and drink, and opium; but I should like to kill a man before I die. I can send a
Sending anywhere you choose, and in any form except in the shape of a man."
The Englishman had no friends that he wished to kill, but partly to soothe Dana
Da, whose eyes were rolling, and partly to see what would be done, he asked
whether a modified Sending could not be arranged for—such a Sending as
should make a man's life a burden to him, and yet do him no harm. If this were
possible, he notified his willingness to give Dana Da ten rupees for the job.
"I am not what I was once," said Dana Da, "and I must take the money because
I am poor. To what Englishman shall I send it?"
"Send a Sending to Lone Sahib," said the Englishman, naming a man who had
been most bitter in rebuking him for his apostasy from the Teacup Creed. Dana
Da laughed and nodded.
"I could have chosen no better man myself," said he. "I will see that he finds
the Sending about his path and about his bed."
He lay down on the hearthrug, turned up the whites of his eyes, shivered all
over, and began to snort. This was magic, or opium, or the Sending, or all three.
When he opened his eyes he vowed that the Sending had started upon the
warpath, and was at that moment flying up to the town where Lone Sahib lives.
"Give me my ten rupees," said Dana Da, wearily, "and write a letter to Lone
Sahib, telling him, and all who believe with him, that you and a friend are using
a power greater than theirs. They will see that you are speaking the truth."
He departed unsteadily, with the promise of some more rupees if anything came
of the Sending.
The Englishman sent a letter to Lone Sahib, couched in what he remembered of
the terminology of the creed. He wrote: "I also, in the days of what you held to

be my backsliding, have obtained enlightenment, and with enlightenment has
come power." Then he grew so deeply mysterious that the recipient of the letter
could make neither head nor tail of it, and was proportionately impressed; for
he fancied that his friend had become a "fifth rounder." When a man is a "fifth
rounder" he can do more than Slade and Houdin combined.
Lone Sahib read the letter in five different fashions, and was beginning a sixth
interpretation, when his bearer dashed in with the news that there was a cat on
the bed. Now, if there was one thing that Lone Sahib hated more than another it
was a cat. He rated the bearer for not turning it out of the house. The bearer
said that he was afraid. All the doors of the bedroom had been shut throughout
the morning, and no real cat could possibly have entered the room. He would
prefer not to meddle with the creature.
Lone Sahib entered the room gingerly, and there, on the pillow of his bed,
sprawled and whimpered a wee white kitten, not a jumpsome, frisky little beast,
but a sluglike crawler with its eyes barely opened and its paws lacking strength
or direction—a kitten that ought to have been in a basket with its mamma. Lone
Sahib caught it by the scruff of its neck, handed it over to the sweeper to be
drowned, and fined the bearer four annas.
That evening, as he was reading in his room, he fancied that he saw something
moving about on the hearthrug, outside the circle of light from his reading
lamp. When the thing began to myowl, he realized that it was a kitten—a wee
white kitten, nearly blind and very miserable. He was seriously angry, and
spoke bitterly to his bearer, who said that there was no kitten in the room when
he brought in the lamp, and real kittens of tender age generally had mother cats
in attendance.
"If the Presence will go out into the veranda and listen," said the bearer, "he
will hear no cats. How, therefore, can the kitten on the bed and the kitten on the
hearthrug be real kittens?"
Lone Sahib went out to listen, and the bearer followed him, but there was no
sound of Rachel mewing for her children. He returned to his room, having
hurled the kitten down the hillside, and wrote out the incidents of the day for
the benefit of his coreligionists. Those people were so absolutely free from
superstition that they ascribed anything a little out of the common to agencies.
As it was their business to know all about the agencies, they were on terms of
almost indecent familiarity with manifestations of every kind. Their letters
dropped from the ceiling—unstamped—and spirits used to squatter up and

down their staircases all night. But they had never come into contact with
kittens. Lone Sahib wrote out the facts, noting the hour and the minute, as
every psychical observer is bound to do, and appending the Englishman's letter
because it was the most mysterious document and might have had a bearing
upon anything in this world or the next. An outsider would have translated all
the tangle thus: "Look out! You laughed at me once, and now I am going to
make you sit up."
Lone Sahib's coreligionists found that meaning in it; but their translation was
refined and full of four-syllable words. They held a sederunt, and were filled
with tremulous joy, for, in spite of their familiarity with all the other worlds and
cycles, they had a very human awe of things sent from ghostland. They met in
Lone Sahib's room in shrouded and sepulchral gloom, and their conclave was
broken up by a clinking among the photo frames on the mantelpiece. A wee
white kitten, nearly blind, was looping and writhing itself between the clock
and the candlesticks. That stopped all investigations or doubtings. Here was the
manifestation in the flesh. It was, so far as could be seen, devoid of purpose,
but it was a manifestation of undoubted authenticity.
They drafted a round robin to the Englishman, the backslider of old days,
adjuring him in the interests of the creed to explain whether there was any
connection between the embodiment of some Egyptian god or other (I have
forgotten the name) and his communication. They called the kitten Ra, or Toth,
or Shem, or Noah, or something; and when Lone Sahib confessed that the first
one had, at his most misguided instance, been drowned by the sweeper, they
said consolingly that in his next life he would be a "bounder," and not even a
"rounder" of the lowest grade. These words may not be quite correct, but they
express the sense of the house accurately.
When the Englishman received the round robin—it came by post—he was
startled and bewildered. He sent into the bazaar for Dana Da, who read the
letter and laughed. "That is my Sending," said he. "I told you I would work
well. Now give me another ten rupees."
"But what in the world is this gibberish about Egyptian gods?" asked the
Englishman.
"Cats," said Dana Da, with a hiccough, for he had discovered the Englishman's
whisky bottle. "Cats and cats and cats! Never was such a Sending. A hundred of
cats. Now give me ten more rupees and write as I dictate."

Dana Da's letter was a curiosity. It bore the Englishman's signature, and hinted
at cats—at a Sending of cats. The mere words on paper were creepy and
uncanny to behold.
"What have you done, though?" said the Englishman; "I am as much in the dark
as ever. Do you mean to say that you can actually send this absurd Sending you
talk about?"
"Judge for yourself," said Dana Da. "What does that letter mean? In a little time
they will all be at my feet and yours, and I, oh, glory! will be drugged or drunk
all day long."
Dana Da knew his people.
When a man who hates cats wakes up in the morning and finds a little
squirming kitten on his breast, or puts his hand into his ulster pocket and finds
a little half-dead kitten where his gloves should be, or opens his trunk and finds
a vile kitten among his dress shirts, or goes for a long ride with his mackintosh
strapped on his saddle-bow and shakes a little sprawling kitten from its folds
when he opens it, or goes out to dinner and finds a little blind kitten under his
chair, or stays at home and finds a writhing kitten under the quilt, or wriggling
among his boots, or hanging, head downward, in his tobacco jar, or being
mangled by his terrier in the veranda—when such a man finds one kitten,
neither more nor less, once a day in a place where no kitten rightly could or
should be, he is naturally upset. When he dare not murder his daily trove
because he believes it to be a manifestation, an emissary, an embodiment, and
half a dozen other things all out of the regular course of nature, he is more than
upset. He is actually distressed. Some of Lone Sahib's coreligionists thought
that he was a highly favored individual; but many said that if he had treated the
first kitten with proper respect—as suited a Toth-Ra Tum-Sennacherib
Embodiment—all his trouble would have been averted. They compared him to
the Ancient Mariner, but none the less they were proud of him and proud of the
Englishman who had sent the manifestation. They did not call it a Sending
because Icelandic magic was not in their programme.
After sixteen kittens—that is to say, after one fortnight, for there were three
kittens on the first day to impress the fact of the Sending, the whole camp was
uplifted by a letter—it came flying through a window—from the Old Man of
the Mountains—the head of all the creed—explaining the manifestation in the
most beautiful language and soaking up all the credit of it for himself. The
Englishman, said the letter, was not there at all. He was a backslider without

power or asceticism, who couldn't even raise a table by force of volition, much
less project an army of kittens through space. The entire arrangement, said the
letter, was strictly orthodox, worked and sanctioned by the highest authorities
within the pale of the creed. There was great joy at this, for some of the weaker
brethren seeing that an outsider who had been working on independent lines
could create kittens, whereas their own rulers had never gone beyond crockery
—and broken at that—were showing a desire to break line on their own trail. In
fact, there was the promise of a schism. A second round robin was drafted to
the Englishman, beginning: "Oh, Scoffer," and ending with a selection of curses
from the rites of Mizraim and Memphis and the Commination of Jugana; who
was a "fifth rounder," upon whose name an upstart "third rounder" once traded.
A papal excommunication is a billet-doux compared to the Commination of
Jugana. The Englishman had been proved under the hand and seal of the Old
Man of the Mountains to have appropriated virtue and pretended to have power
which, in reality, belonged only to the supreme head. Naturally the round robin
did not spare him.
He handed the letter to Dana Da to translate into decent English. The effect on
Dana Da was curious. At first he was furiously angry, and then he laughed for
five minutes.
"I had thought," he said, "that they would have come to me. In another week I
would have shown that I sent the Sending, and they would have discrowned the
Old Man of the Mountains who has sent this Sending of mine. Do you do
nothing. The time has come for me to act. Write as I dictate, and I will put them
to shame. But give me ten more rupees."
At Dana Da's dictation the Englishman wrote nothing less than a formal
challenge to the Old Man of the Mountains. It wound up: "And if this
manifestation be from your hand, then let it go forward; but if it be from my
hand, I will that the Sending shall cease in two days' time. On that day there
shall be twelve kittens and thenceforward none at all. The people shall judge
between us." This was signed by Dana Da, who added pentacles and
pentagrams, and a crux ansata, and half a dozen swastikas, and a Triple Tau to
his name, just to show that he was all he laid claim to be.
The challenge was read out to the gentlemen and ladies, and they remembered
then that Dana Da had laughed at them some years ago. It was officially
announced that the Old Man of the Mountains would treat the matter with
contempt; Dana Da being an independent investigator without a single "round"

at the back of him. But this did not soothe his people. They wanted to see a
fight. They were very human for all their spirituality. Lone Sahib, who was
really being worn out with kittens, submitted meekly to his fate. He felt that he
was being "kittened to prove the power of Dana Da," as the poet says.
When the stated day dawned, the shower of kittens began. Some were white
and some were tabby, and all were about the same loathsome age. Three were
on his hearthrug, three in his bathroom, and the other six turned up at intervals
among the visitors who came to see the prophecy break down. Never was a
more satisfactory Sending. On the next day there were no kittens, and the next
day and all the other days were kittenless and quiet. The people murmured and
looked to the Old Man of the Mountains for an explanation. A letter, written on
a palm leaf, dropped from the ceiling, but everyone except Lone Sahib felt that
letters were not what the occasion demanded. There should have been cats,
there should have been cats—full-grown ones. The letter proved conclusively
that there had been a hitch in the psychic current which, colliding with a dual
identity, had interfered with the percipient activity all along the main line. The
kittens were still going on, but owing to some failure in the developing fluid,
they were not materialized. The air was thick with letters for a few days
afterwards. Unseen hands played Glück and Beethoven on finger-bowls and
clock shades; but all men felt that psychic life was a mockery without
materialized kittens. Even Lone Sahib shouted with the majority on this head.
Dana Da's letters were very insulting, and if he had then offered to lead a new
departure, there is no knowing what might not have happened.
But Dana Da was dying of whisky and opium in the Englishman's go-down,
and had small heart for new creeds.
"They have been put to shame," said he. "Never was such a Sending. It has
killed me."
"Nonsense," said the Englishman, "you are going to die, Dana Da, and that sort
of stuff must be left behind. I'll admit that you have made some queer things
come about. Tell me honestly, now, how was it done?"
"Give me ten more rupees," said Dana Da, faintly, "and if I die before I spend
them, bury them with me." The silver was counted out while Dana Da was
fighting with death. His hand closed upon the money and he smiled a grim
smile.
"Bend low," he whispered. The Englishman bent.

"Bunnia—mission school—expelled—box-wallah (peddler)—Ceylon pearl
merchant—all mine English education—outcasted, and made up name Dana
Da—England with American thought-reading man and—and—you gave me
ten rupees several times—I gave the Sahib's bearer two-eight a month for cats
—little, little cats. I wrote, and he put them about—very clever man. Very few
kittens now in the bazaar. Ask Lone Sahib's sweeper's wife."
So saying, Dana Da gasped and passed away into a land where, if all be true,
there are no materializations and the making of new creeds is discouraged.
But consider the gorgeous simplicity of it all!

In the House of Suddhoo
A stone's throw out on either hand
From that well-ordered road we tread,
And all the world is wild and strange;
Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite
Shall bear us company to-night,
For we have reached the Oldest Land
Wherein the Powers of Darkness range.

—
F
r
o
m
t
h
e
D
u
s
k
t
o
t
h
e
D
a
w
n
.

The house of Suddhoo, near the Taksali Gate, is two storied, with four carved
windows of old brown wood, and a flat roof. You may recognize it by five red
handprints arranged like the Five of Diamonds on the whitewash between the

upper windows. Bhagwan Dass, the bunnia, and a man who says he gets his
living by seal-cutting live in the lower story with a troop of wives, servants,
friends, and retainers. The two upper rooms used to be occupied by Janoo and
Azizun and a little black-and-tan terrier that was stolen from an Englishman's
house and given to Janoo by a soldier. To-day, only Janoo lives in the upper
rooms. Suddhoo sleeps on the roof generally, except when he sleeps in the
street. He used to go to Peshawar in the cold weather to visit his son, who sells
curiosities near the Edwardes' Gate, and then he slept under a real mud roof.
Suddhoo is a great friend of mine, because his cousin had a son who secured,
thanks to my recommendation, the post of head messenger to a big firm in the
Station. Suddhoo says that God will make me a Lieutenant-Governor one of
these days. I daresay his prophecy will come true. He is very, very old, with
white hair and no teeth worth showing, and he has outlived his wits—outlived
nearly everything except his fondness for his son at Peshawar. Janoo and
Azizun are Kashmiris, Ladies of the City, and theirs was an ancient and more or
less honorable profession; but Azizun has since married a medical student from
the Northwest and has settled down to a most respectable life somewhere near
Bareilly. Bhagwan Dass is an extortionate and an adulterator. He is very rich.
The man who is supposed to get his living by seal cutting pretends to be very
poor. This lets you know as much as is necessary of the four principal tenants in
the house of Suddhoo. Then there is Me, of course; but I am only the chorus
that comes in at the end to explain things. So I do not count.
Suddhoo was not clever. The man who pretended to cut seals was the cleverest
of them all—Bhagwan Dass only knew how to lie—except Janoo. She was also
beautiful, but that was her own affair.
Suddhoo's son at Peshawar was attacked by pleurisy, and old Suddhoo was
troubled. The seal-cutter man heard of Suddhoo's anxiety and made capital out
of it. He was abreast of the times. He got a friend in Peshawar to telegraph
daily accounts of the son's health. And here the story begins.
Suddhoo's cousin's son told me, one evening, that Suddhoo wanted to see me;
that he was too old and feeble to come personally, and that I should be
conferring an everlasting honor on the House of Suddhoo if I went to him. I
went; but I think, seeing how well off Suddhoo was then, that he might have
sent something better than an ekka, which jolted fearfully, to haul out a future
Lieutenant-Governor to the City on a muggy April evening. The ekka did not
run quickly. It was full dark when we pulled up opposite the door of Ranjit
Singh's Tomb near the main gate of the Fort. Here was Suddhoo and he said

that by reason of my condescension, it was absolutely certain that I should
become a Lieutenant-Governor while my hair was yet black. Then we talked
about the weather and the state of my health, and the wheat crops, for fifteen
minutes, in the Huzuri Bagh, under the stars.
Suddhoo came to the point at last. He said that Janoo had told him that there
was an order of the Sirkar against magic, because it was feared that magic
might one day kill the Empress of India. I didn't know anything about the state
of the law; but I fancied that something interesting was going to happen. I said
that so far from magic being discouraged by the Government it was highly
commended. The greatest officials of the State practiced it themselves. (If the
Financial Statement isn't magic, I don't know what is.) Then, to encourage him
further, I said that, if there was any jadoo afoot, I had not the least objection to
giving it my countenance and sanction, and to seeing that it was clean jadoo—
white magic, as distinguished from the unclean jadoo which kills folk. It took a
long time before Suddhoo admitted that this was just what he had asked me to
come for. Then he told me, in jerks and quavers, that the man who said he cut
seals was a sorcerer of the cleanest kind; that every day he gave Suddhoo news
of his sick son in Peshawar more quickly than the lightning could fly, and that
this news was always corroborated by the letters. Further, that he had told
Suddhoo how a great danger was threatening his son, which could be removed
by clean jadoo; and, of course, heavy payment. I began to see exactly how the
land lay, and told Suddhoo that I also understood a little jadoo in the Western
line, and would go to his house to see that everything was done decently and in
order. We set off together; and on the way Suddhoo told me that he had paid the
seal cutter between one hundred and two hundred rupees already; and the jadoo
of that night would cost two hundred more. Which was cheap, he said,
considering the greatness of his son's danger; but I do not think he meant it.
The lights were all cloaked in the front of the house when we arrived. I could
hear awful noises from behind the seal cutter's shop front, as if some one were
groaning his soul out. Suddhoo shook all over, and while we groped our way
upstairs told me that the jadoo had begun. Janoo and Azizun met us at the stair
head, and told us that the jadoo work was coming off in their rooms, because
there was more space there. Janoo is a lady of a freethinking turn of mind. She
whispered that the jadoo was an invention to get money out of Suddhoo, and
that the seal cutter would go to a hot place when he died. Suddhoo was nearly
crying with fear and old age. He kept walking up and down the room in the half
light, repeating his son's name over and over again, and asking Azizun if the

seal cutter ought not to make a reduction in the case of his own landlord. Janoo
pulled me over to the shadow in the recess of the carved bow-windows. The
boards were up, and the rooms were only lit by one tiny oil lamp. There was no
chance of my being seen if I stayed still.
Presently, the groans below ceased, and we heard steps on the staircase. That
was the seal cutter. He stopped outside the door as the terrier barked and
Azizun fumbled at the chain, and he told Suddhoo to blow out the lamp. This
left the place in jet darkness, except for the red glow from the two huqas that
belonged to Janoo and Azizun. The seal cutter came in, and I heard Suddhoo
throw himself down on the floor and groan. Azizun caught her breath, and
Janoo backed on to one of the beds with a shudder. There was a clink of
something metallic, and then shot up a pale blue-green flame near the ground.
The light was just enough to show Azizun, pressed against one corner of the
room with the terrier between her knees; Janoo, with her hands clasped, leaning
forward as she sat on the bed; Suddhoo, face down, quivering, and the seal
cutter.
I hope I may never see another man like that seal cutter. He was stripped to the
waist, with a wreath of white jasmine as thick as my wrist round his forehead, a
salmon-colored loin-cloth round his middle, and a steel bangle on each ankle.
This was not awe-inspiring. It was the face of the man that turned me cold. It
was blue-gray in the first place. In the second, the eyes were rolled back till you
could only see the whites of them; and, in the third, the face was the face of a
demon—a ghoul—anything you please except of the sleek, oily old ruffian who
sat in the daytime over his turning-lathe downstairs. He was lying on his
stomach with his arms turned and crossed behind him, as if he had been thrown
down pinioned. His head and neck were the only parts of him off the floor.
They were nearly at right angles to the body, like the head of a cobra at spring.
It was ghastly. In the center of the room, on the bare earth floor, stood a big,
deep, brass basin, with a pale blue-green light floating in the center like a night-
light. Round that basin the man on the floor wriggled himself three times. How
he did it I do not know. I could see the muscles ripple along his spine and fall
smooth again; but I could not see any other motion. The head seemed the only
thing alive about him, except that slow curl and uncurl of the laboring back
muscles. Janoo from the bed was breathing seventy to the minute; Azizun held
her hands before her eyes; and old Suddhoo, fingering at the dirt that had got
into his white beard, was crying to himself. The horror of it was that the
creeping, crawly thing made no sound—only crawled! And, remember, this

lasted for ten minutes, while the terrier whined, and Azizun shuddered, and
Janoo gasped and Suddhoo cried.
I felt the hair lift at the back of my head, and my heart thump like a
thermantidote paddle. Luckily, the seal cutter betrayed himself by his most
impressive trick and made me calm again. After he had finished that
unspeakable crawl, he stretched his head away from the floor as high as he
could, and sent out a jet of fire from his nostrils. Now I knew how fire—
spouting is done—I can do it myself—so I felt at ease. The business was a
fraud. If he had only kept to that crawl without trying to raise the effect,
goodness knows what I might not have thought. Both the girls shrieked at the
jet of fire, and the head dropped, chin down on the floor, with a thud; the whole
body lying then like a corpse with its arms trussed. There was a pause of five
full minutes after this, and the blue-green flame died down. Janoo stooped to
settle one of her anklets, while Azizun turned her face to the wall and took the
terrier in her arms. Suddhoo put out an arm mechanically to Janoo's huqa, and
she slid it across the floor with her foot. Directly above the body and on the
wall were a couple of flaming portraits, in stamped paper frames, of the Queen
and the Prince of Wales. They looked down on the performance, and, to my
thinking, seemed to heighten the grotesqueness of it all.
Just when the silence was getting unendurable, the body turned over and rolled
away from the basin to the side of the room, where it lay stomach up. There
was a faint "plop" from the basin—exactly like the noise a fish makes when it
takes a fly—and the green light in the center revived.
I looked at the basin, and saw, bobbing in the water the dried, shriveled, black
head of a native baby—open eyes, open mouth and shaved scalp. It was worse,
being so very sudden, than the crawling exhibition. We had no time to say
anything before it began to speak.
Read Poe's account of the voice that came from the mesmerized dying man,
and you will realize less than one half of the horror of that head's voice.
There was an interval of a second or two between each word, and a sort of
"ring, ring, ring," in the note of the voice like the timbre of a bell. It pealed
slowly, as if talking to itself, for several minutes before I got rid of my cold
sweat. Then the blessed solution struck me. I looked at the body lying near the
doorway, and saw, just where the hollow of the throat joins on the shoulders, a
muscle that had nothing to do with any man's regular breathing, twitching away
steadily. The whole thing was a careful reproduction of the Egyptian teraphin

that one reads about sometimes; and the voice was as clever and as appalling a
piece of ventriloquism as one could wish to hear. All this time the head was
"lip-lip-lapping" against the side of the basin, and speaking. It told Suddhoo, on
his face again whining, of his son's illness and of the state of the illness up to
the evening of that very night. I always shall respect the seal cutter for keeping
so faithfully to the time of the Peshawar telegrams. It went on to say that
skilled doctors were night and day watching over the man's life; and that he
would eventually recover if the fee to the potent sorcerer, whose servant was
the head in the basin, were doubled.
Here the mistake from the artistic point of view came in. To ask for twice your
stipulated fee in a voice that Lazarus might have used when he rose from the
dead, is absurd. Janoo, who is really a woman of masculine intellect, saw this
as quickly as I did. I heard her say "Ash nahin! Fareib!" scornfully under her
breath; and just as she said so, the light in the basin died out, the head stopped
talking, and we heard the room door creak on its hinges. Then Janoo struck a
match, lit the lamp, and we saw that head, basin, and seal cutter were gone.
Suddhoo was wringing his hands and explaining to anyone who cared to listen,
that, if his chances of eternal salvation depended on it, he could not raise
another two hundred rupees. Azizun was nearly in hysterics in the corner; while
Janoo sat down composedly on one of the beds to discuss the probabilities of
the whole thing being a bunao, or "make-up."
I explained as much as I knew of the seal cutter's way of jadoo; but her
argument was much more simple:—"The magic that is always demanding gifts
is no true magic," said she. "My mother told me that the only potent love spells
are those which are told you for love. This seal cutter man is a liar and a devil. I
dare not tell, do anything, or get anything done, because I am in debt to
Bhagwan Dass the bunnia for two gold rings and a heavy anklet. I must get my
food from his shop. The seal cutter is the friend of Bhagwan Dass, and he
would poison my food. A fool's jadoo has been going on for ten days, and has
cost Suddhoo many rupees each night. The seal cutter used black hens and
lemons and mantras before. He never showed us anything like this till to-night.
Azizun is a fool, and will be a pur dahnashin soon. Suddhoo has lost his
strength and his wits. See now! I had hoped to get from Suddhoo many rupees
while he lived, and many more after his death; and behold, he is spending
everything on that offspring of a devil and a she-ass, the seal cutter!"
Here I said: "But what induced Suddhoo to drag me into the business? Of
course I can speak to the seal cutter, and he shall refund. The whole thing is

child's talk—shame—and senseless."
"Suddhoo is an old child," said Janoo. "He has lived on the roofs these seventy
years and is as senseless as a milch goat. He brought you here to assure himself
that he was not breaking any law of the Sirkar, whose salt he ate many years
ago. He worships the dust off the feet of the seal cutter, and that cow devourer
has forbidden him to go and see his son. What does Suddhoo know of your
laws or the lightning post? I have to watch his money going day by day to that
lying beast below."
Janoo stamped her foot on the floor and nearly cried with vexation; while
Suddhoo was whimpering under a blanket in the corner, and Azizun was trying
to guide the pipe-stem to his foolish old mouth.

Now the case stands thus. Unthinkingly, I have laid myself open to the charge
of aiding and abetting the seal cutter in obtaining money under false pretenses,
which is forbidden by Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. I am helpless in
the matter for these reasons, I cannot inform the police. What witnesses would
support my statements? Janoo refuses flatly, and Azizun is a veiled woman
somewhere near Bareilly—lost in this big India of ours. I dare not again take
the law into my own hands, and speak to the seal cutter; for certain am I that,
not only would Suddhoo disbelieve me, but this step would end in the
poisoning of Janoo, who is bound hand and foot by her debt to the bunnia.
Suddhoo is an old dotard; and whenever we meet mumbles my idiotic joke that
the Sirkar rather patronizes the Black Art than otherwise. His son is well now;
but Suddhoo is completely under the influence of the seal cutter, by whose
advice he regulates the affairs of his life. Janoo watches daily the money that
she hoped to wheedle out of Suddhoo taken by the seal cutter, and becomes
daily more furious and sullen.
She will never tell, because she dare not; but, unless something happens to
prevent her, I am afraid that the seal cutter will die of cholera—the white
arsenic kind—about the middle of May. And thus I shall have to be privy to a
murder in the house of Suddhoo.

His Wedded Wife
Cry "Murder!" in the market-place, and each
Will turn upon his neighbor anxious eyes
That ask:—"Art thou the man?" We hunted Cain
Some centuries ago, across the world,
That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain
To-day.

—Vibart's Moralities.

Shakespeare says something about worms, or it may be giants or beetles,
turning if you tread on them too severely. The safest plan is never to tread on a
worm—not even on the last new subaltern from Home, with his buttons hardly
out of their tissue paper, and the red of sappy English beef in his cheeks. This is
the story of the worm that turned. For the sake of brevity, we will call Henry
Augustus Ramsay Faizanne, "The Worm," although he really was an
exceedingly pretty boy, without a hair on his face, and with a waist like a girl's,
when he came out to the Second "Shikarris" and was made unhappy in several
ways. The "Shikarris" are a high-caste regiment, and you must be able to do
things well—play a banjo, or ride more than little, or sing, or act—to get on
with them.
The Worm did nothing except fall off his pony, and knock chips out of gate
posts with his trap. Even that became monotonous after a time. He objected to
whist, cut the cloth at billiards, sang out of tune, kept very much to himself, and
wrote to his Mamma and sisters at Home. Four of these five things were vices
which the "Shikarris" objected to and set themselves to eradicate. Everyone
knows how subalterns are, by brother subalterns, softened and not permitted to
be ferocious. It is good and wholesome, and does no one any harm, unless
tempers are lost; and then there is trouble. There was a man once—but that is
another story.
The "Shikarris" shikarred The Worm very much, and he bore everything
without winking. He was so good and so anxious to learn, and flushed so pink,
that his education was cut short, and he was left to his own devices by everyone
except the Senior Subaltern who continued to make life a burden to The Worm.

The Senior Subaltern meant no harm; but his chaff was coarse, and he didn't
quite understand where to stop. He had been waiting too long for his Company;
and that always sours a man. Also he was in love, which made him worse.
One day, after he had borrowed The Worm's trap for a lady who never existed,
had used it himself all the afternoon, had sent a note to The Worm, purporting
to come from the lady, and was telling the Mess all about it, The Worm rose in
his place and said, in his quiet, ladylike voice:—"That was a very pretty sell;
but I'll lay you a month's pay to a month's pay when you get your step, that I
work a sell on you that you'll remember for the rest of your days, and the
Regiment after you when you're dead or broke." The Worm wasn't angry in the
least, and the rest of the Mess shouted. Then the Senior Subaltern looked at The
Worm from the boots upward, and down again and said: "Done, Baby." The
Worm took the rest of the Mess to witness that the bet had been taken, and
retired into a book with a sweet smile.
Two months passed, and the Senior Subaltern still educated The Worm, who
began to move about a little more as the hot weather came on. I have said that
the Senior Subaltern was in love. The curious thing is that a girl was in love
with the Senior Subaltern. Though the Colonel said awful things, and the
Majors snorted, and married Captains looked unutterable wisdom, and the
juniors scoffed, those two were engaged.
The Senior Subaltern was so pleased with getting his Company and his
acceptance at the same time that he forgot to bother The Worm. The girl was a
pretty girl, and had money of her own. She does not come into this story at all.
One night, at beginning of the hot weather, all the Mess, except The Worm who
had gone to his own room to write Home letters, were sitting on the platform
outside the Mess House. The Band had finished playing, but no one wanted to
go in. And the Captains' wives were there also. The folly of a man in love is
unlimited. The Senior Subaltern had been holding forth on the merits of the girl
he was engaged to, and the ladies were purring approval, while the men
yawned, when there was a rustle of skirts in the dark, and a tired, faint voice
lifted itself.
"Where's my husband?"
I do not wish in the least to reflect on the morality of the "Shikarris"; but it is
on record that four men jumped up as if they had been shot. Three of them were
married men. Perhaps they were afraid that their wives had come from Home

unbeknownst. The fourth said that he had acted on the impulse of the moment.
He explained this afterwards.
Then the voice cried: "Oh Lionel!" Lionel was the Senior Subaltern's name. A
woman came into the little circle of light by the candles on the peg tables,
stretching out her hands to the dark where the Senior Subaltern was, and
sobbing. We rose to our feet, feeling that things were going to happen and
ready to believe the worst. In this bad, small world of ours, one knows so little
of the life of the next man—which, after all, is entirely his own concern—that
one is not surprised when a crash comes. Anything might turn up any day for
anyone. Perhaps the Senior Subaltern had been trapped in his youth. Men are
crippled that way occasionally. We didn't know; we wanted to hear; and the
Captains' wives were as anxious as we. If he had been trapped, he was to be
excused; for the woman from nowhere, in the dusty shoes and gray traveling
dress, was very lovely, with black hair and great eyes full of tears. She was tall,
with a fine figure, and her voice had a running sob in it pitiful to hear. As soon
as the Senior Subaltern stood up, she threw her arms round his neck, and called
him "my darling" and said she could not bear waiting alone in England, and his
letters were so short and cold, and she was his to the end of the world, and
would he forgive her? This did not sound quite like a lady's way of speaking. It
was too demonstrative.
Things seemed black indeed, and the Captains' wives peered under their
eyebrows at the Senior Subaltern, and the Colonel's face set like the Day of
Judgment framed in gray bristles, and no one spoke for a while.
Next the Colonel said, very shortly: "Well, sir?" and the woman sobbed afresh.
The Senior Subaltern was half choked with the arms round his neck, but he
gasped out: "It's a d——d lie! I never had a wife in my life!" "Don't swear,"
said the Colonel. "Come into the Mess. We must sift this clear somehow," and
he sighed to himself, for he believed in his "Shikarris," did the Colonel.
We trooped into the anteroom, under the full lights, and there we saw how
beautiful the woman was. She stood up in the middle of us all, sometimes
choking with crying, then hard and proud, and then holding out her arms to the
Senior Subaltern. It was like the fourth act of a tragedy. She told us how the
Senior Subaltern had married her when he was Home on leave eighteen months
before; and she seemed to know all that we knew, and more too, of his people
and his past life. He was white and ashy gray, trying now and again to break
into the torrent of her words; and we, noting how lovely she was and what a

criminal he looked, esteemed him a beast of the worst kind. We felt sorry for
him, though.
I shall never forget the indictment of the Senior Subaltern by his wife. Nor will
he. It was so sudden, rushing out of the dark, unannounced, into our dull lives.
The Captains' wives stood back; but their eyes were alight, and you could see
that they had already convicted and sentenced the Senior Subaltern. The
Colonel seemed five years older. One Major was shading his eyes with his hand
and watching the woman from underneath it. Another was chewing his
mustache and smiling quietly as if he were witnessing a play. Full in the open
space in the center, by the whist tables, the Senior Subaltern's terrier was
hunting for fleas. I remember all this as clearly as though a photograph were in
my hand. I remember the look of horror on the Senior Subaltern's face. It was
rather like seeing a man hanged; but much more interesting. Finally, the woman
wound up by saying that the Senior Subaltern carried a double F.M. in tattoo on
his left shoulder. We all knew that, and to our innocent minds it seemed to
clinch the matter. But one of the Bachelor Majors said very politely: "I presume
that your marriage certificate would be more to the purpose?"
That roused the woman. She stood up and sneered at the Senior Subaltern for a
cur, and abused the Major and the Colonel and all the rest. Then she wept, and
then she pulled a paper from her breast, saying imperially: "Take that! And let
my husband—my lawfully wedded husband—read it aloud—if he dare!"
There was a hush, and the men looked into each other's eyes as the Senior
Subaltern came forward in a dazed and dizzy way, and took the paper. We were
wondering, as we stared, whether there was anything against any one of us that
might turn up later on. The Senior Subaltern's throat was dry; but, as he ran his
eye over the paper, he broke out into a hoarse cackle of relief, and said to the
woman: "You young blackguard!"
But the woman had fled through a door, and on the paper was written: "This is
to certify that I, The Worm, have paid in full my debts to the Senior Subaltern,
and, further, that the Senior Subaltern is my debtor, by agreement on the 23d of
February, as by the Mess attested, to the extent of one month's Captain's pay, in
the lawful currency of the India Empire."
Then a deputation set off for The Worm's quarters and found him, betwixt and
between, unlacing his stays, with the hat, wig, serge dress, etc., on the bed. He
came over as he was, and the "Shikarris" shouted till the Gunners' Mess sent
over to know if they might have a share of the fun. I think we were all, except

the Colonel and the Senior Subaltern, a little disappointed that the scandal had
come to nothing. But that is human nature. There could be no two words about
The Worm's acting. It leaned as near to a nasty tragedy as anything this side of
a joke can. When most of the Subalterns sat upon him with sofa cushions to
find out why he had not said that acting was his strong point, he answered very
quietly: "I don't think you ever asked me. I used to act at Home with my
sisters." But no acting with girls could account for The Worm's display that
night. Personally, I think it was in bad taste. Besides being dangerous. There is
no sort of use in playing with fire, even for fun.
The "Shikarris" made him President of the Regimental Dramatic Club; and,
when the Senior Subaltern paid up his debt, which he did at once, The Worm
sank the money in scenery and dresses. He was a good Worm; and the
"Shikarris" are proud of him. The only drawback is that he has been christened
"Mrs. Senior Subaltern"; and, as there are now two Mrs. Senior Subalterns in
the Station, this is sometimes confusing to strangers.
Later on, I will tell you of a case something like this, but with all the jest left
out and nothing in it but real trouble.

A. Conan Doyle

A Case of Identity
"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in
his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the
mind of man can invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are
really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window
hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at
the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings,
the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through
generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction,
with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions, most stale and
unprofitable."
"And yet I am not convinced of it," I answered. "The cases which come to light
in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar enough. We have in our
police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must
be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic."
"A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect,"
remarked Holmes. "This is wanting in the police report, where more stress is
laid perhaps upon the platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which
to an observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter. Depend upon it,
there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace."
I smiled and shook my head. "I can quite understand your thinking so," I said.
"Of course, in your position of unofficial adviser and helper to everybody who
is absolutely puzzled, throughout three continents, you are brought in contact
with all that is strange and bizarre. But here"—I picked up the morning paper
from the ground—"let us put it to a practical test. Here is the first heading upon
which I come. 'A husband's cruelty to his wife.' There is half a column of print,
but I know without reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me. There is, of
course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow, the bruise, the
unsympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of writers could invent nothing
more crude."
"Indeed your example is an unfortunate one for your argument," said Holmes,
taking the paper, and glancing his eye down it. "This is the Dundas separation

case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up some small points in
connection with it. The husband was a teetotaler, there was no other woman,
and the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding
up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife, which
you will allow is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of the average
story teller. Take a pinch of snuff, doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored
over you in your example."
He held out his snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in the center of the
lid. Its splendor was in such contrast to his homely ways and simple life that I
could not help commenting upon it.
"Ah!" said he, "I forgot that I had not seen you for some weeks. It is a little
souvenir from the King of Bohemia, in return for my assistance in the case of
the Irene Adler papers."
"And the ring?" I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which sparkled upon
his finger.
"It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the matter in which I
served them was of such delicacy that I cannot confide it even to you, who
have been good enough to chronicle one or two of my little problems."
"And have you any on hand just now?" I asked with interest.
"Some ten or twelve, but none which present any features of interest. They are
important, you understand, without being interesting. Indeed I have found that
it is usually in unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation, and
for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives the charm to an
investigation. The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the
crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive. In these cases, save for one
rather intricate matter which has been referred to me from Marseilles, there is
nothing which presents any features of interest. It is possible, however, that I
may have something better before very many minutes are over, for this is one
of my clients, or I am much mistaken."
He had risen from his chair, and was standing between the parted blinds, gazing
down into the dull, neutral-tinted London street. Looking over his shoulder, I
saw that on the pavement opposite there stood a large woman with a heavy fur
boa round her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat
which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess-of-Devonshire fashion over her ear.

From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at
our windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her fingers
fidgeted with her glove buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer
who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp clang
of the bell.
"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into
the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire de coeur. She
would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for
communication. And yet even here we may discriminate. When a woman has
been seriously wronged by a man, she no longer oscillates, and the usual
symptom is a broken bell wire. Here we may take it that there is a love matter,
but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed or grieved. But here she
comes in person to resolve our doubts."
As he spoke, there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons entered to
announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself loomed behind his
small black figure like a full-sailed merchantman behind a tiny pilot boat.
Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy courtesy for which he was
remarkable, and having closed the door, and bowed her into an armchair, he
looked her over in the minute and yet abstracted fashion which was peculiar to
him.
"Do you not find," he said, "that with your short sight it is a little trying to do
so much typewriting?"
"I did at first," she answered, "but now I know where the letters are without
looking." Then, suddenly realizing the full purport of his words, she gave a
violent start, and looked up with fear and astonishment upon her broad, good-
humored face. "You've heard about me, Mr. Holmes," she cried, "else how
could you know all that?"
"Never mind," said Holmes, laughing, "it is my business to know things.
Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook. If not, why should
you come to consult me?"
"I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Etherege, whose husband
you found so easily when the police and everyone had given him up for dead.
Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as much for me. I'm not rich, but still I
have a hundred a year in my own right, besides the little that I make by the

machine, and I would give it all to know what has become of Mr. Hosmer
Angel."
"Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?" asked Sherlock
Holmes, with his finger tips together, and his eyes to the ceiling.
Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss Mary
Sutherland. "Yes, I did bang out of the house," she said, "for it made me angry
to see the easy way in which Mr. Windibank—that is, my father—took it all.
He would not go to the police, and he would not go to you, and so at last, as he
would do nothing, and kept on saying that there was no harm done, it made me
mad, and I just on with my things and came right away to you."
"Your father?" said Holmes. "Your stepfather, surely, since the name is
different."
"Yes, my stepfather. I call him father, though it sounds funny, too, for he is only
five years and two months older than myself."
"And your mother is alive?"
"Oh, yes; mother is alive and well. I wasn't best pleased, Mr. Holmes, when she
married again so soon after father's death, and a man who was nearly fifteen
years younger than herself. Father was a plumber in the Tottenham Court Road,
and he left a tidy business behind him, which mother carried on with Mr.
Hardy, the foreman; but when Mr. Windibank came he made her sell the
business, for he was very superior, being a traveler in wines. They got four
thousand seven hundred for the good-will and interest, which wasn't near as
much as father could have got if he had been alive."
I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this rambling and
inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he had listened with the greatest
concentration of attention.
"Your own little income," he asked, "does it come out of the business?"
"Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate, and was left me by my Uncle Ned in Auckland.
It is in New Zealand stock, paying four and half per cent. Two thousand five
hundred pounds was the amount, but I can only touch the interest."
"You interest me extremely," said Holmes. "And since you draw so large a sum
as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the bargain, you no doubt travel a

little, and indulge yourself in every way. I believe that a single lady can get on
very nicely upon an income of about sixty pounds."
"I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, but you understand that as
long as I live at home I don't wish to be a burden to them, and so they have the
use of the money just while I am staying with them. Of course that is only just
for the time. Mr. Windibank draws my interest every quarter, and pays it over to
mother, and I find that I can do pretty well with what I earn at typewriting. It
brings me twopence a sheet, and I can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in
a day."
"You have made your position very clear to me," said Holmes. "This is my
friend, Doctor Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself.
Kindly tell us now all about your connection with Mr. Hosmer Angel."
A flush stole over Miss Sutherland's face, and she picked nervously at the
fringe of her jacket. "I met him first at the gasfitters' ball," she said. "They used
to send father tickets when he was alive, and then afterwards they remembered
us, and sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank did not wish us to go. He never did
wish us to go anywhere. He would get quite mad if I wanted so much as to join
a Sunday School treat. But this time I was set on going, and I would go, for
what right had he to prevent? He said the folk were not fit for us to know, when
all father's friends were to be there. And he said that I had nothing fit to wear,
when I had my purple plush that I had never so much as taken out of the
drawer. At last, when nothing else would do, he went off to France upon the
business of the firm; but we went, mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to
be our foreman, and it was there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel."
"I suppose," said Holmes, "that when Mr. Windibank came back from France,
he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball?"
"Oh, well, he was very good about it. He laughed, I remember, and shrugged
his shoulders, and said there was no use denying anything to a woman, for she
would have her way."
"I see. Then at the gasfitters' ball you met, as I understand, a gentleman called
Mr. Hosmer Angel?"
"Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we had got home
all safe, and after that we met him—that is to say, Mr. Holmes, I met him twice

for walks, but after that father came back again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could
not come to the house any more."
"No?"
"Well, you know, father didn't like anything of the sort. He wouldn't have any
visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a woman should be happy in
her own family circle. But then, as I used to say to mother, a woman wants her
own circle to begin with, and I had not got mine yet."
"But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you?"
"Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote and
said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until he had gone. We
could write in the meantime, and he used to write every day. I took the letters in
the morning, so there was no need for father to know."
"Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that we took.
Hosmer—Mr. Angel—was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall Street—and—"
"What office?"
"That's the worst of it, Mr. Holmes; I don't know."
"Where did he live, then?"
"He slept on the premises."
"And you don't know his address?"
"No—except that it was Leadenhall Street."
"Where did you address your letters, then?"
"To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called for. He said that if
they were sent to the office he would be chaffed by all the other clerks about
having letters from a lady, so I offered to typewrite them, like he did his, but he
wouldn't have that, for he said that when I wrote them they seemed to come
from me, but when they were typewritten he always felt that the machine had
come between us. That will just show you how fond he was of me, Mr. Holmes,
and the little things that he would think of."

"It was most suggestive," said Holmes. "It has long been an axiom of mine that
the little things are infinitely the most important. Can you remember any other
little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?"
"He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the
evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be conspicuous. Very
retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. He'd had the
quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he told me, and it had left him
with a weak throat and a hesitating, whispering fashion of speech. He was
always well dressed, very neat and plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine
are, and he wore tinted glasses against the glare."
"Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, your stepfather, returned to
France?"
"Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again, and proposed that we should
marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest, and made me
swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever happened I would
always be true to him. Mother said he was quite right to make me swear, and
that it was a sign of his passion. Mother was all in his favor from the first, and
was even fonder of him than I was. Then, when they talked of marrying within
the week, I began to ask about father; but they both said never to mind about
father, but just to tell him afterwards and mother said she would make it all
right with him. I didn't quite like that, Mr. Holmes. It seemed funny that I
should ask his leave, as he was only a few years older than me; but I didn't
want to do anything on the sly, so I wrote to father at Bordeaux, where the
company has its French offices, but the letter came back to me on the very
morning of the wedding."
"It missed him, then?"
"Yes, sir, for he had started to England just before it arrived."
"Ha! that was unfortunate. Your wedding was arranged, then, for the Friday.
Was it to be in church?"
"Yes, sir, but very quietly. It was to be at St. Saviour's, near King's Cross, and
we were to have breakfast afterwards at the St. Pancras Hotel. Hosmer came for
us in a hansom, but as there were two of us, he put us both into it, and stepped
himself into a four-wheeler, which happened to be the only other cab in the
street. We got to the church first, and when the four-wheeler drove up we

waited for him to step out, but he never did, and when the cabman got down
from the box and looked, there was no one there! The cabman said that he
could not imagine what had become of him, for he had seen him get in with his
own eyes. That was last Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or heard
anything since then to throw any light upon what became of him."
"It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated," said Holmes.
"Oh, no, sir! He was too good and kind to leave me so. Why, all the morning he
was saying to me that, whatever happened, I was to be true; and that even if
something quite unforeseen occurred to separate us, I was always to remember
that I was pledged to him, and that he would claim his pledge sooner or later. It
seemed strange talk for a wedding morning, but what has happened since gives
a meaning to it."
"Most certainly it does. Your own opinion is, then, that some unforeseen
catastrophe has occurred to him?"
"Yes, sir. I believe that he foresaw some danger, or else he would not have
talked so. And then I think that what he foresaw happened."
"But you have no notion as to what it could have been?"
"None."
"One more question. How did your mother take the matter?"
"She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter again."
"And your father? Did you tell him?"
"Yes, and he seemed to think, with me, that something had happened, and that I
should hear of Hosmer again. As he said, what interest could anyone have in
bringing me to the door of the church, and then leaving me? Now, if he had
borrowed my money, or if he had married me and got my money settled on
him, there might be some reason; but Hosmer was very independent about
money, and never would look at a shilling of mine. And yet what could have
happened? And why could he not write? Oh! it drives me half mad to think of,
and I can't sleep a wink at night." She pulled a little handkerchief out of her
muff, and began to sob heavily into it.
"I shall glance into the case for you," said Holmes, rising, "and I have no doubt
that we shall reach some definite result. Let the weight of the matter rest upon

me now, and do not let your mind dwell upon it further. Above all, try to let Mr.
Hosmer Angel vanish from your memory, as he has done from your life."
"Then you don't think I'll see him again?"
"I fear not."
"Then what has happened to him?"
"You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an accurate description
of him, and any letters of his which you can spare."
"I advertised for him in last Saturday's Chronicle," said she. "Here is the slip,
and here are four letters from him."
"Thank you. And your address?"
"No. 31 Lyon Place, Camberwell."
"Mr. Angel's address you never had, I understand. Where is your father's place
of business?"
"He travels for Westhouse & Marbank, the great claret importers of Fenchurch
Street."
"Thank you. You have made your statement very clearly. You will leave the
papers here, and remember the advice which I have given you. Let the whole
incident be a sealed book, and do not allow it to affect your life."
"You are very kind, Mr. Holmes, but I cannot do that. I shall be true to Hosmer.
He shall find me ready when he comes back."
For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was something noble in
the simple faith of our visitor which compelled our respect. She laid her little
bundle of papers upon the table, and went her way, with a promise to come
again whenever she might be summoned.
Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his finger tips still pressed
together, his legs stretched out in front of him, and his gaze directed upward to
the ceiling. Then he took down from the rack the old and oily clay pipe, which
was to him as a counselor, and, having lighted it, he leaned back in his chair,
with thick blue cloud wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite
languor in his face.

"Quite an interesting study, that maiden," he observed. "I found her more
interesting than her little problem, which, by the way, is rather a trite one. You
will find parallel cases, if you consult my index, in Andover in '77, and there
was something of the sort at The Hague last year. Old as is the idea, however,
there were one or two details which were new to me. But the maiden herself
was most instructive."
"You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite invisible to me," I
remarked.
"Not invisible, but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to look, and so
you missed all that was important. I can never bring you to realize the
importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb nails, or the great issues
that may hang from a boot lace. Now, what did you gather from that woman's
appearance? Describe it."
"Well, she had a slate-colored, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a feather of a
brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads sewed upon it and a fringe
of little black jet ornaments. Her dress was brown, rather darker than coffee
color, with a little purple plush at the neck and sleeves. Her gloves were
grayish, and were worn through at the right forefinger. Her boots I didn't
observe. She had small round, hanging gold earrings, and a general air of being
fairly well-to-do, in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way."
Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled.
"'Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have really
done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed everything of importance,
but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye for color. Never
trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My
first glance is always at a woman's sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to
take the knee of the trouser. As you observe, this woman had plush upon her
sleeve, which is a most useful material for showing traces. The double line a
little above the wrist, where the typewritist presses against the table, was
beautifully defined. The sewing machine, of the hand type, leaves a similar
mark, but only on the left arm, and on the side of it farthest from the thumb,
instead of being right across the broadest part, as this was. I then glanced at her
face, and observing the dint of a pince-nez at either side of her nose, I ventured
a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed to surprise her."
"It surprised me."

"But, surely, it was very obvious. I was then much surprised and interested on
glancing down to observe that, though the boots which she was wearing were
not unlike each other, they were really odd ones, the one having a slightly
decorated toe cap and the other a plain one. One was buttoned only in the two
lower buttons out of five, and the other at the first, third, and fifth. Now, when
you see that a young lady, otherwise neatly dressed, has come away from home
with odd boots, half-buttoned, it is no great deduction to say that she came
away in a hurry."
"And what else?" I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by my friend's
incisive reasoning.
"I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home, but after
being fully dressed. You observed that her right glove was torn at the
forefinger, but you did not, apparently, see that both glove and finger were
stained with violet ink. She had written in a hurry, and dipped her pen too deep.
It must have been this morning, or the mark would not remain clear upon the
finger. All this is amusing, though rather elementary, but I must go back to
business, Watson. Would you mind reading me the advertised description of
Mr. Hosmer Angel?"
I held the little printed slip to the light. "Missing," it said, "on the morning of
the fourteenth, a gentleman named Hosmer Angel. About five feet seven inches
in height; strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the
center, bushy black side-whiskers and mustache; tinted glasses; slight infirmity
of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, in black frock-coat faced with silk,
black waistcoat, gold Albert chain, and gray Harris tweed trousers, with brown
gaiters over elastic-sided boots. Known to have been employed in an office in
Leadenhall Street. Anybody bringing," etc., etc.
"That will do," said Holmes. "As to the letters," he continued, glancing over
them, "they are very commonplace. Absolutely no clew in them to Mr. Angel,
save that he quotes Balzac once. There is one remarkable point, however,
which will no doubt strike you."
"They are typewritten," I remarked.
"Not only that, but the signature is typewritten. Look at the neat little 'Hosmer
Angel' at the bottom. There is a date, you see, but no superscription except
Leadenhall Street, which is rather vague. The point about the signature is very
suggestive—in fact, we may call it conclusive."

"Of what?"
"My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how strongly it bears upon the
case?"
"I cannot say that I do, unless it were that he wished to be able to deny his
signature if an action for breach of promise were instituted."
"No, that was not the point. However, I shall write two letters which should
settle the matter. One is to a firm in the City, the other is to the young lady's
stepfather, Mr. Windibank, asking him whether he could meet us here at six
o'clock to-morrow evening. It is just as well that we should do business with
the male relatives. And now, doctor, we can do nothing until the answers to
those letters come, so we may put our little problem upon the shelf for the
interim."
I had had so many reasons to believe in my friend's subtle powers of reasoning,
and extraordinary energy in action, that I felt that he must have some solid
grounds for the assured and easy demeanor with which he treated the singular
mystery which he had been called upon to fathom. Once only had I known him
to fail, in the case of the King of Bohemia and the Irene Adler photograph, but
when I looked back to the weird business of the "Sign of the Four," and the
extraordinary circumstances connected with the "Study in Scarlet," I felt that it
would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel.
I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the conviction that when
I came again on the next evening I would find that he held in his hands all the
clews which would lead up to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of
Miss Mary Sutherland.
A professional case of great gravity was engaging my own attention at the time,
and the whole of next day I was busy at the bedside of the sufferer. It was not
until close upon six o'clock that I found myself free, and was able to spring into
a hansom and drive to Baker Street, half afraid that I might be too late to assist
at the dénouement of the little mystery. I found Sherlock Holmes alone,
however, half asleep, with his long, thin form curled up in the recesses of his
armchair. A formidable array of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent, cleanly
smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the chemical
work which was so dear to him.
"Well, have you solved it?" I asked as I entered.

"Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta."
"No, no; the mystery!" I cried.
"Oh, that! I thought of the salt that I have been working upon. There was never
any mystery in the matter, though, as I said yesterday, some of the details are of
interest. The only drawback is that there is no law, I fear, that can touch the
scoundrel."
"Who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting Miss Sutherland?"
The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet opened his
lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and a tap at the
door.
"This is the girl's stepfather, Mr. James Windibank," said Holmes. "He has
written to me to say that he would be here at six. Come in!"
The man who entered was a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, some thirty years of
age, clean shaven, and sallow-skinned, with a bland, insinuating manner, and a
pair of wonderfully sharp and penetrating gray eyes. He shot a questioning
glance at each of us, placed his shiny top hat upon the sideboard, and, with a
slight bow, sidled down into the nearest chair.
"Good evening, Mr. James Windibank," said Holmes. "I think this typewritten
letter is from you, in which you made an appointment with me for six o'clock?"
"Yes, sir. I am afraid that I am a little late, but I am not quite my own master,
you know. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland has troubled you about this little
matter, for I think it is far better not to wash linen of the sort in public. It was
quite against my wishes that she came, but she is a very excitable, impulsive
girl, as you may have noticed, and she is not easily controlled when she has
made up her mind on a point. Of course, I did not mind you so much, as you
are not connected with the official police, but it is not pleasant to have a family
misfortune like this noised abroad. Besides, it is a useless expense, for how
could you possibly find this Hosmer Angel?"
"On the contrary," said Holmes, quietly, "I have every reason to believe that I
will succeed in discovering Mr. Hosmer Angel."
Mr. Windibank gave a violent start, and dropped his gloves. "I am delighted to
hear it," he said.

"It is a curious thing," remarked Holmes, "that a typewriter has really quite as
much individuality as a man's handwriting. Unless they are quite new no two of
them write exactly alike. Some letters get more worn than others, and some
wear only on one side. Now, you remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank,
that in every case there is some little slurring over the e, and a slight defect in
the tail of the r. There are fourteen other characteristics, but those are the more
obvious."
"We do all our correspondence with this machine at the office, and no doubt it
is a little worn," our visitor answered, glancing keenly at Holmes with his
bright little eyes.
"And now I will show you what is really a very interesting study, Mr.
Windibank," Holmes continued. "I think of writing another little monograph
some of these days on the typewriter and its relation to crime. It is a subject to
which I have devoted some little attention. I have here four letters which
purport to come from the missing man. They are all typewritten. In each case,
not only are the e's slurred and the r's tailless, but you will observe, if you care
to use my magnifying lens, that the fourteen other characteristics to which I
have alluded are there as well."
Mr. Windibank sprung out of his chair, and picked up his hat. "I cannot waste
time over this sort of fantastic talk, Mr. Holmes," he said. "If you can catch the
man, catch him, and let me know when you have done it."
"Certainly," said Holmes, stepping over and turning the key in the door. "I let
you know, then, that I have caught him!"
"What! where?" shouted Mr. Windibank, turning white to his lips, and glancing
about him like a rat in a trap.
"Oh, it won't do—really it won't," said Holmes, suavely. "There is no possible
getting out of it, Mr. Windibank. It is quite too transparent, and it was a very
bad compliment when you said that it was impossible for me to solve so simple
a question. That's right! Sit down, and let us talk it over."
Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face, and a glitter of moisture
on his brow. "It—it's not actionable," he stammered.
"I am very much afraid that it is not; but between ourselves, Windibank, it was
as cruel, and selfish, and heartless a trick in a petty way as ever came before

me. Now, let me just run over the course of events, and you will contradict me
if I go wrong."
The man sat huddled up in his chair, with his head sunk upon his breast, like
one who is utterly crushed. Holmes stuck his feet up on the corner of the
mantelpiece, and, leaning back with his hands in his pockets, began talking,
rather to himself, as it seemed, than to us.
"The man married a woman very much older than himself for her money," said
he, "and he enjoyed the use of the money of the daughter as long as she lived
with them. It was a considerable sum, for people in their position, and the loss
of it would have made a serious difference. It was worth an effort to preserve it.
The daughter was of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate and warm-
hearted in her ways, so that it was evident that with her fair personal
advantages, and her little income, she would not be allowed to remain single
long. Now her marriage would mean, of course, the loss of a hundred a year, so
what does her stepfather do to prevent it? He takes the obvious course of
keeping her at home, and forbidding her to seek the company of people of her
own age. But soon he found that that would not answer forever. She became
restive, insisted upon her rights, and finally announced her positive intention of
going to a certain ball. What does her clever stepfather do then? He conceives
an idea more creditable to his head than to his heart. With the connivance and
assistance of his wife, he disguised himself, covered those keen eyes with
tinted glasses masked the face with a mustache and a pair of bushy whiskers,
sunk that clear voice into an insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account
of the girl's short sight, he appears as Mr. Hosmer Angel, and keeps off other
lovers by making love himself."
"It was only a joke at first," groaned our visitor. "We never thought that she
would have been so carried away."
"Very likely not. However that may be, the young lady was very decidedly
carried away, and having quite made up her mind that her stepfather was in
France, the suspicion of treachery never for an instant entered her mind. She
was flattered by the gentleman's attentions, and the effect was increased by the
loudly expressed admiration of her mother. Then Mr. Angel began to call, for it
was obvious that the matter should be pushed as far as if would go, if a real
effect were to be produced. There were meetings, and an engagement, which
would finally secure the girl's affections from turning toward anyone else. But
the deception could not be kept up forever. These pretended journeys to France

were rather cumbrous. The thing to do was clearly to bring the business to an
end in such a dramatic manner that it would leave a permanent impression upon
the young lady's mind, and prevent her from looking upon any other suitor for
some time to come. Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a Testament,
and hence also the allusions to a possibility of something happening on the very
morning of the wedding. James Windibank wished Miss Sutherland to be so
bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as to his fate, that for ten years to
come, at any rate, she would not listen to another man. As far as the church
door he brought her, and then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently
vanished away by the old trick of stepping in at one door of a four-wheeler and
out at the other. I think that that was the chain of events, Mr. Windibank!"
Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while Holmes had been
talking, and he rose from his chair now with a cold sneer upon his pale face.
"It may be so, or it may not, Mr. Holmes," said he; "but if you are so very sharp
you ought to be sharp enough to know that it is you who are breaking the law
now, and not me. I have done nothing actionable from the first, but as long as
you keep that door locked you lay yourself open to an action for assault and
illegal constraint."
"The law cannot, as you say, touch you," said Holmes, unlocking and throwing
open the door, "yet there never was a man who deserved punishment more. If
the young lady has a brother or a friend, he ought to lay a whip across your
shoulders. By Jove!" he continued, flushing up at the sight of the bitter sneer
upon the man's face, "it is not part of my duties to my client, but here's a
hunting crop handy, and I think I shall just treat myself to—" He took two swift
steps to the whip, but before he could grasp it there was a wild clatter of steps
upon the stairs, the heavy hall door banged, and from the window we could see
Mr. James Windibank running at the top of his speed down the road.
"There's a cold-blooded scoundrel!" said Holmes, laughing as he threw himself
down into his chair once more. "That fellow will rise from crime to crime until
he does something very bad and ends on a gallows. The case has, in some
respects, been not entirely devoid of interest."
"I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning," I remarked.
"Well, of course it was obvious from the first that this Mr. Hosmer Angel must
have some strong object for his curious conduct, and it was equally clear that
the only man who really profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was

the stepfather. Then the fact that the two men were never together, but that the
one always appeared when the other was away, was suggestive. So were the
tinted spectacles and the curious voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as did
the bushy whiskers. My suspicions were all confirmed by his peculiar action in
typewriting his signature, which, of course, inferred that his handwriting was so
familiar to her that she would recognize even the smallest sample of it. You see
all these isolated facts, together with many minor ones, all pointed in the same
direction."
"And how did you verify them?"
"Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corroboration. I knew the firm
for which this man worked. Having taken the printed description, I eliminated
everything from it which could be the result of a disguise,—the whiskers, the
glasses, the voice,—and I sent it to the firm with a request that they would
inform me whether it answered to the description of any of their travelers. I had
already noticed the peculiarities of the typewriter, and I wrote to the man
himself at his business address, asking him if he would come here. As I
expected, his reply was typewritten, and revealed the same trivial but
characteristic defects. The same post brought me a letter from Westhouse &
Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the description tallied in every
respect with that of their employee, James Windibank. Voilà tout!"
"And Miss Sutherland?"
"If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old Persian saying,
'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso
snatcheth a delusion from a woman.' There is as much sense in Hafiz as in
Horace, and as much knowledge of the world."

A Scandal in Bohemia

I
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him
mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates
the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene
Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold,
precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect
reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen; but as a lover, he
would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer
passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the
observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But
for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely
adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a
doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in
one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing that a strong
emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and
that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each
other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centered interests which rise
up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment,
were sufficient to absorb all my attention; while Holmes, who loathed every
form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in
Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week
between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug and the fierce energy
of his own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of
crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of
observation in following out those clews, and clearing up those mysteries,
which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. From time to time
I heard some vague account of his doings; of his summons to Odessa in the
case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the
Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had
accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland.
Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the
readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former friend and companion.

One night—it was on the 20th of March, 1888—I was returning from a journey
to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when my way led me
through Baker Street. As I passed the well-remembered door, which must
always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents
of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again,
and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were
brilliantly lighted, and even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass
twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly,
eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest, and his hands clasped behind him.
To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their
own story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his drug-created dreams,
and was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell, and was
shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own.
His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think, to see me.
With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair,
threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the
corner. Then he stood before the fire, and looked me over in his singular
introspective fashion.
"Wedlock suits you," he remarked. "I think, Watson, that you have put on seven
and a half pounds since I saw you."
"Seven," I answered.
"Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, I fancy, Watson.
And in practice again, I observe. You did not tell me that you intended to go
into harness."
"Then how do you know?"
"I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting yourself very
wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl?"
"My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly have been
burned had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had a country walk on
Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess; but as I have changed my clothes,
I can't imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, and my
wife has given her notice; but there again I fail to see how you work it out."
He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long nervous hands together.

"It is simplicity itself," said he, "my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left
shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost
parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by some one who has very
carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud
from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile
weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slicking specimen of
the London slavey. As to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms,
smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right
forefinger, and a bulge on the side of his top hat to show where he has secreted
his stethoscope, I must be dull indeed if I do not pronounce him to be an active
member of the medical profession."
I could not help laughing at the ease with which he, explained his process of
deduction. "When I hear you give your reasons," I remarked, "the thing always
appears to me so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at
each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled, until you explain your
process. And yet, I believe that my eyes are as good as yours."
"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into
an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For
example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this
room."
"Frequently."
"How often?"
"Well, some hundreds of times."
"Then how many are there?"
"How many? I don't know."
"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my
point. Now, I know there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and
observed. By the way, since you are interested in these little problems, and
since you are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences,
you may be interested in this." He threw over a sheet of thick pink-tinted note
paper which had been lying open upon the table. "It came by the last post," said
he. "Read it aloud."
The note was undated, and without either signature or address.

"There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to eight o'clock," it said, "a
gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the very deepest
moment. Your recent services to one of the royal houses of Europe have shown
that you are one who may safely be trusted with matters which are of an
importance which can hardly be exaggerated. This account of you we have
from all quarters received. Be in your chamber, then, at that hour, and do not
take it amiss if your visitor wears a mask."
"This is indeed a mystery," I remarked. "What do you imagine that it means?"
"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit
facts. But the note itself—what do you deduce from it?"
I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was written.
"The man who wrote it was presumably well to do," I remarked, endeavoring to
imitate my companion's processes. "Such paper could not be bought under half
a crown a packet. It is peculiarly strong and stiff."
"Peculiar—that is the very word," said Holmes. "It is not an English paper at
all. Hold it up to the light"
I did so, and saw a large E with a small g, a P and a large G with a small t
woven into the texture of the paper.
"What do you make of that?" asked Holmes.
"The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather."
"Not all. The G with the small t stands for 'Gesellschaft,' which is the German
for 'Company.' It is a customary contraction like our 'Co.' P, of course, stands
for 'Papier.' Now for the Eg. Let us glance at our 'Continental Gazetteer." He
took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves. "Eglow, Eglonitz—here we
are, Egria. It is in a German-speaking country—in Bohemia, not far from
Carlsbad. 'Remarkable as being the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for
its numerous glass factories and paper mills.' Ha! ha! my boy, what do you
make of that?" His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue triumphant cloud
from his cigarette.
"The paper was made in Bohemia," I said.

"Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do you note the
peculiar construction of the sentence—'This account of you we have from all
quarters received'? A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is
the German who is so uncourteous to his verbs. It only remains, therefore, to
discover what is wanted by this German who writes upon Bohemian paper, and
prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here he comes, if I am not
mistaken, to resolve all our doubts."
As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses' hoofs and grating wheels
against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the bell. Holmes whistled.
"A pair, by the sound," said he. "Yes," he continued, glancing out of the
window. "A nice little brougham and a pair of beauties. A hundred and fifty
guineas apiece. There's money in this case, Watson, if there is nothing else."
"I think I had better go, Holmes."
"Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. And this
promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it."
"But your client—"
"Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he. Here he comes. Sit
down in that armchair, doctor, and give us your best attention."
A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the
passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a loud and
authoritative tap.
"Come in!" said Holmes.
A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in
height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His dress was rich with a
richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste. Heavy
bands of astrakhan were slashed across the sleeves and front of his double-
breasted coat, while the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his shoulders
was lined with flame-colored silk, and secured at the neck with a brooch which
consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots which extended halfway up his
calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, completed the
impression of barbaric opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance.
He carried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore across the upper
part of his face, extending down past the cheek-bones, a black visard mask,

which he had apparently adjusted that very moment, for his hand was still
raised to it as he entered. From the lower part of the face he appeared to be a
man of strong character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin,
suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.
"You had my note?" he asked, with a deep, harsh voice and a strongly marked
German accent. "I told you that I would call." He looked from one to the other
of us, as if uncertain which to address.
"Pray take a seat," said Holmes. "This is my friend and colleague, Doctor
Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me in my cases. Whom have
I the honor to address?"
"You may address me as the Count von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman. I
understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honor and discretion,
whom I may trust with a matter of the most extreme importance. If not, I
should much prefer to communicate with you alone."
I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me back into my
chair. "It is both, or none," said he. "You may say before this gentleman
anything which you may say to me."
The count shrugged his broad shoulders. "Then I must begin," said he, "by
binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at the end of that time the
matter will be of no importance. At present it is not too much to say that it is of
such weight that it may have an influence upon European history."
"I promise," said Holmes.
"And I."
"You will excuse this mask," continued our strange visitor. "The august person
who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to you, and I may confess at
once that the title by which I have just called myself is not exactly my own."
"I was aware of it," said Holmes, dryly.
"The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution has to be taken
to quench what might grow to be an immense scandal, and seriously
compromise one of the reigning families of Europe. To speak plainly, the
matter implicates the great House of Ormstein, hereditary kings of Bohemia."

"I was also aware of that," murmured Holmes, settling himself down in his
armchair, and closing his eyes.
Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid, lounging figure
of the man who had been, no doubt, depicted to him as the most incisive
reasoner and most energetic agent in Europe. Holmes slowly reopened his eyes
and looked impatiently at his gigantic client.
"If your majesty would condescend to state your case," he remarked, "I should
be better able to advise you."
The man sprung from his chair, and paced up and down the room in
uncontrollable agitation. Then, with a gesture of desperation, he tore the mask
from his face and hurled it upon the ground.
"You are right," he cried, "I am the king. Why should I attempt to conceal it?"
"Why, indeed?" murmured Holmes. "Your majesty had not spoken before I was
aware that I was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein,
Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and hereditary King of Bohemia."
"But you can understand," said our strange visitor, sitting down once more and
passing his hand over his high, white forehead, "you can understand that I am
not accustomed to doing such business in my own person. Yet the matter was
so delicate that I could not confide it to an agent without putting myself in his
power. I have come incognito from Prague for the purpose of consulting you."
"Then, pray consult," said Holmes, shutting his eyes once more.
"The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a lengthy visit to
Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the well-known adventuress Irene Adler.
The name is no doubt familiar to you."
"Kindly look her up in my index, doctor," murmured Holmes, without opening
his eyes. For many years he had adopted a system for docketing all paragraphs
concerning men and things, so that it was difficult to name a subject or a person
on which he could not at once furnish information. In this case I found her
biography sandwiched in between that of a Hebrew rabbi and that of a staff
commander who had written a monograph upon the deep-sea fishes.
"Let me see!" said Holmes. "Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858.
Contralto—hum! La Scala—hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw—

yes! Retired from operatic stage—ha! Living in London—quite so! Your
majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person, wrote her
some compromising letters, and is now desirous of getting those letters back."
"Precisely so. But how—"
"Was there a secret marriage?"
"None."
"No legal papers or certificates?"
"None."
"Then I fail to follow your majesty. If this young person should produce her
letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is she to prove their
authenticity?"
"There is the writing."
"Pooh-pooh! Forgery."
"My private note paper."
"Stolen."
"My own seal."
"Imitated."
"My photograph."
"Bought."
"We were both in the photograph."
"Oh, dear! That is very bad. Your majesty has indeed committed an
indiscretion."
"I was mad—insane."
"You have compromised yourself seriously."
"I was only crown prince then. I was young. I am but thirty now."
"It must be recovered."

"We have tried and failed."
"Your majesty must pay. It must be bought."
"She will not sell."
"Stolen, then."
"Five attempts have been made. Twice burglars in my pay ransacked her house.
Once we diverted her luggage when she traveled. Twice she has been waylaid.
There has been no result."
"No sign of it?"
"Absolutely none."
Holmes laughed. "It is quite a pretty little problem," said he.
"But a very serious one to me," returned the king, reproachfully.
"Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the photograph?"
"To ruin me."
"But how?"
"I am about to be married."
"So I have heard."
"To Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meiningen, second daughter of the King of
Scandinavia. You may know the strict principles of her family. She is herself
the very soul of delicacy. A shadow of a doubt as to my conduct would bring
the matter to an end."
"And Irene Adler?"
"Threatens to send them the photograph. And she will do it. I know that she
will do it. You do not know her, but she has a soul of steel. She has the face of
the most beautiful of women and the mind of the most resolute of men. Rather
than I should marry another woman, there are no lengths to which she would
not go—none."
"You are sure she has not sent it yet?"

"I am sure."
"And why?"
"Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the betrothal was
publicly proclaimed. That will be next Monday."
"Oh, then we have three days yet," said Holmes, with a yawn. "That is very
fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to look into just at
present. Your majesty will, of course, stay in London for the present?"
"Certainly. You will find me at the Langham, under the name of the Count von
Kramm."
"Then I shall drop you a line to let you know how we progress."
"Pray do so; I shall be all anxiety."
"Then, as to money?"
"You have carte blanche."
"Absolutely?"
"I tell you that I would give one of the provinces of my kingdom to have that
photograph."
"And for present expenses?"
The king took a heavy chamois-leather bag from under his cloak, and laid it on
the table.
"There are three hundred pounds in gold, and seven hundred in notes," he said.
Holmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his notebook, and handed it to him.
"And mademoiselle's address?" he asked.
"Is Briony Lodge, Serpentine Avenue, St. John's Wood."
Holmes took a note of it. "One other question," said he, thoughtfully. "Was the
photograph a cabinet?"
"It was."

"Then, good-night, your majesty, and I trust that we shall soon have some good
news for you. And good-night, Watson," he added, as the wheels of the royal
brougham rolled down the street. "If you will be good enough to call to-
morrow afternoon, at three o'clock, I should like to chat this little matter over
with you."

II
At three o'clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not yet
returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the house shortly after
eight o'clock in the morning. I sat down beside the fire, however, with the
intention of awaiting him, however long he might be. I was already deeply
interested in his inquiry, for, though it was surrounded by none of the grim and
strange features which were associated with the two crimes which I have
already recorded, still, the nature of the case and the exalted station of his client
gave it a character of its own. Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation
which my friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of a
situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to
study his system of work, and to follow the quick, subtle methods by which he
disentangled the most inextricable mysteries. So accustomed was I to his
invariable success that the very possibility of his failing had ceased to enter into
my head.
It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking groom,
ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes,
walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to my friend's amazing powers in
the use of disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it was
indeed he. With a nod he vanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged in
five minutes tweed-suited and respectable, as of old. Putting his hands into his
pockets, he stretched out his legs in front of the fire, and laughed heartily for
some minutes.
"Well, really!" he cried, and then he choked, and laughed again until he was
obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the chair.
"What is it?"
"It's quite too funny. I am sure you could never guess how I employed my
morning, or what I ended by doing."
"I can't imagine. I suppose that you have been watching the habits, and,
perhaps, the house, of Miss Irene Adler."

"Quite so, but the sequel was rather unusual. I will tell you, however. I left the
house a little after eight o'clock this morning in the character of a groom out of
work. There is a wonderful sympathy and freemasonry among horsey men. Be
one of them, and you will know all that there is to know. I soon found Briony
Lodge. It is a bijou villa, with a garden at the back, but built out in the front
right up to the road, two stories. Chubb lock to the door. Large sitting room on
the right side, well furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those
preposterous English window fasteners which a child could open. Behind there
was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window could be reached from
the top of the coach-house. I walked round it and examined it closely from
every point of view, but without noting anything else of interest.
"I then lounged down the street, and found, as I expected, that there was a
mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the garden. I lent the hostlers a
hand in rubbing down their horses, and I received in exchange twopence, a
glass of half and half, two fills of shag tobacco, and as much information as I
could desire about Miss Adler, to say nothing of half a dozen other people in
the neighborhood, in whom I was not in the least interested, but whose
biographies I was compelled to listen to."
"And what of Irene Adler?" I asked.
"Oh, she has turned all the men's heads down in that part. She is the daintiest
thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the Serpentine Mews, to a man. She
lives quietly, sings at concerts, drives out at five every day, and returns at seven
sharp for dinner. Seldom goes out at other times, except when she sings. Has
only one male visitor, but a good deal of him. He is dark, handsome, and
dashing; never calls less than once a day, and often twice. He is a Mr. Godfrey
Norton of the Inner Temple. See the advantages of a cabman as a confidant.
They had driven him home a dozen times from Serpentine Mews, and knew all
about him. When I had listened to all that they had to tell, I began to walk up
and down near Briony Lodge once more, and to think over my plan of
campaign.
"This Godfrey Norton was evidently an important factor in the matter. He was a
lawyer. That sounded ominous. What was the relation between them, and what
the object of his repeated visits? Was she his client, his friend, or his mistress?
If the former, she had probably transferred the photograph to his keeping. If the
latter, it was less likely. On the issue of this question depended whether I
should continue my work at Briony Lodge, or turn my attention to the

gentleman's chambers in the Temple. It was a delicate point, and it widened the
field of my inquiry. I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to let you
see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the situation."
"I am following you closely," I answered.
"I was still balancing the matter in my mind, when a hansom cab drove up to
Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprung out. He was a remarkably handsome
man, dark, aquiline, and mustached—evidently the man of whom I had heard.
He appeared to be in a great hurry, shouted to the cabman to wait, and brushed
past the maid who opened the door, with the air of a man who was thoroughly
at home.
"He was in the house about half an hour, and I could catch glimpses of him in
the windows of the sitting room, pacing up and down, talking excitedly and
waving his arms. Of her I could see nothing. Presently he emerged, looking
even more flurried than before. As he stepped up to the cab, he pulled a gold
watch from his pocket and looked at it earnestly. 'Drive like the devil!' he
shouted, 'first to Gross & Hankey's in Regent Street, and then to the Church of
St. Monica in the Edgeware Road. Half a guinea if you do it in twenty minutes!'
"Away they went, and I was just wondering whether I should not do well to
follow them, when up the lane came a neat little landau, the coachman with his
coat only half buttoned, and his tie under his ear, while all the tags of his
harness were sticking out of the buckles. It hadn't pulled up before she shot out
of the hall door and into it. I only caught a glimpse of her at the moment, but
she was a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die for.
"'The Church of St. Monica, John,' she cried; 'and half a sovereign if you reach
it in twenty minutes.'
"This was quite too good to lose, Watson. I was just balancing whether I should
run for it, or whether I should perch behind her landau, when a cab came
through the street. The driver looked twice at such a shabby fare; but I jumped
in before he could object. 'The Church of St. Monica,' said I, 'and half a
sovereign if you reach it in twenty minutes.' It was twenty-five minutes to
twelve, and of course it was clear enough what was in the wind.
"My cabby drove fast. I don't think I ever drove faster, but the others were there
before us. The cab and landau with their steaming horses were in front of the
door when I arrived. I paid the man, and hurried into the church. There was not

a soul there save the two whom I had followed, and a surpliced clergyman, who
seemed to be expostulating with them. They were all three standing in a knot in
front of the altar. I lounged up the side aisle like any other idler who has
dropped into a church. Suddenly, to my surprise, the three at the altar faced
round to me, and Godfrey Norton came running as hard as he could toward me.
"'Thank God!' he cried. 'You'll do. Come! Come!'
"'What then?' I asked.
"'Come, man, come; only three minutes, or it won't be legal.'
"I was half dragged up to the altar, and, before I knew where I was, I found
myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, and vouching for
things of which I knew nothing, and generally assisting in the secure tying up
of Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton, bachelor. It was all done in an
instant, and there was the gentleman thanking me on the one side and the lady
on the other, while the clergyman beamed on me in front. It was the most
preposterous position in which I ever found myself in my life, and it was the
thought of it that started me laughing just now. It seems that there had been
some informality about their license; that the clergyman absolutely refused to
marry them without a witness of some sort, and that my lucky appearance
saved the bridegroom from having to sally out into the streets in search of a
best man. The bride gave me a sovereign, and I mean to wear it on my watch
chain in memory of the occasion."
"This is a very unexpected turn of affairs," said I; "and what then?"
"Well, I found my plans very seriously menaced. It looked as if the pair might
take an immediate departure, and so necessitate very prompt and energetic
measures on my part. At the church door, however, they separated, he driving
back to the Temple, and she to her own house. 'I shall drive out in the park at
five as usual,' she said, as she left him. I heard no more. They drove away in
different directions, and I went off to make my own arrangements."
"Which are?"
"Some cold beef and a glass of beer," he answered, ringing the bell. "I have
been too busy to think of food, and I am likely to be busier still this evening.
By the way, doctor, I shall want your cooperation."
"I shall be delighted."

"You don't mind breaking the law?"
"Not in the least."
"Nor running a chance of arrest?"
"Not in a good cause."
"Oh, the cause is excellent!"
"Then I am your man."
"I was sure that I might rely on you."
"But what is it you wish?"
"When Mrs. Turner has brought in the tray I will make it clear to you. Now," he
said, as he turned hungrily on the simple fare that our landlady had provided, "I
must discuss it while I eat, for I have not much time. It is nearly five now. In
two hours we must be on the scene of action. Miss Irene, or Madame, rather,
returns from her drive at seven. We must be at Briony Lodge to meet her."
"And what then?"
"You must leave that to me. I have already arranged what is to occur. There is
only one point on which I must insist. You must not interfere, come what may.
You understand?"
"I am to be neutral?"
"To do nothing whatever. There will probably be some small unpleasantness.
Do not join in it. It will end in my being conveyed into the house. Four or five
minutes afterwards the sitting-room window will open. You are to station
yourself close to that open window."
"Yes."
"You are to watch me, for I will be visible to you."
"Yes."
"And when I raise my hand—so—you will throw into the room what I give you
to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of fire. You quite follow me?"
"Entirely."

"It is nothing very formidable," he said, taking a long, cigar-shaped roll from
his pocket. "It is an ordinary plumber's smoke-rocket, fitted with a cap at either
end, to make it self-lighting. Your task is confined to that. When you raise your
cry of fire, it will be taken up by quite a number of people. You may then walk
to the end of the street, and I will rejoin you in ten minutes. I hope that I have
made myself clear?"
"I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, and, at the
signal, to throw in this object, then to raise the cry of fire and to wait you at the
corner of the street."
"Precisely."
"Then you may entirely rely on me."
"That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I prepared for the new
role I have to play."
He disappeared into his bedroom, and returned in a few minutes in the
character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist clergyman. His
broad, black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, his sympathetic smile, and
general look of peering and benevolent curiosity were such as Mr. John Hare
alone could have equaled. It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume.
His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part
that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute
reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime.
It was a quarter past six when we left Baker Street, and it still wanted ten
minutes to the hour when we found ourselves in Serpentine Avenue. It was
already dusk, and the lamps were just being lighted as we paced up and down
in front of Briony Lodge, waiting for the coming of its occupant. The house
was just such as I had pictured it from Sherlock Holmes's succinct description,
but the locality appeared to be less private than I expected. On the contrary, for
a small street in a quiet neighborhood, it was remarkably animated. There was a
group of shabbily dressed men smoking and laughing in a corner, a scissors
grinder with his wheel, two guardsmen who were flirting with a nurse girl, and
several well-dressed young men who were lounging up and down with cigars in
their mouths.
"You see," remarked Holmes, as we paced to and fro in front of the house, "this
marriage rather simplifies matters. The photograph becomes a double-edged

weapon now. The chances are that she would be as averse to its being seen by
Mr. Godfrey Norton as our client is to its coming to the eyes of his princess.
Now the question is—where are we to find the photograph?"
"Where, indeed?"
"It is most unlikely that she carries it about with her. It is cabinet size. Too large
for easy concealment about a woman's dress. She knows that the king is
capable of having her waylaid and searched. Two attempts of the sort have
already been made. We may take it, then, that she does not carry it about with
her."
"Where, then?"
"Her banker or her lawyer. There is that double possibility. But I am inclined to
think neither. Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own
secreting. Why should she hand it over to anyone else? She could trust her own
guardianship, but she could not tell what indirect or political influence might be
brought to bear upon a business man. Besides, remember that she had resolved
to use it within a few days. It must be where she can lay her hands upon it. It
must be in her own house."
"But it has twice been burglarized."
"Pshaw! They did not know how to look."
"But how will you look?"
"I will not look."
"What then?"
"I will get her to show me."
"But she will refuse."
"She will not be able to. But I hear the rumble of wheels. It is her carriage.
Now carry out my orders to the letter."
As he spoke, the gleam of the sidelights of a carriage came round the curve of
the avenue. It was a smart little landau which rattled up to the door of Briony
Lodge. As it pulled up one of the loafing men at the corner dashed forward to
open the door in the hope of earning a copper, but was elbowed away by

another loafer who had rushed up with the same intention. A fierce quarrel
broke out which was increased by the two guardsmen, who took sides with one
of the loungers, and by the scissors grinder, who was equally hot upon the other
side. A blow was struck, and in an instant the lady, who had stepped from her
carriage, was the center of a little knot of struggling men who struck savagely
at each other with their fists and sticks. Holmes dashed into the crowd to
protect the lady; but, just as he reached her, he gave a cry and dropped to the
ground, with the blood running freely down his face. At his fall the guardsmen
took to their heels in one direction and the loungers in the other, while a
number of better-dressed people who had watched the scuffle without taking
part in it crowded in to help the lady and to attend to the injured man. Irene
Adler, as I will still call her, had hurried up the steps; but she stood at the top,
with her superb figure outlined against the lights of the hall, looking back into
the street.
"Is the poor gentleman much hurt?" she asked.
"He is dead," cried several voices.
"No, no, there's life in him," shouted another. "But he'll be gone before you can
get him to the hospital."
"He's a brave fellow," said a woman. "They would have had the lady's purse
and watch if it hadn't been for him. They were a gang, and a rough one, too.
Ah! he's breathing now."
"He can't lie in the street. May we bring him in, marm?"
"Surely. Bring him into the sitting room. There is a comfortable sofa. This way,
please." Slowly and solemnly he was borne into Briony Lodge, and laid out in
the principal room, while I still observed the proceedings from my post by the
window. The lamps had been lighted, but the blinds had not been drawn, so that
I could see Holmes as he lay upon the couch. I do not know whether he was
seized with compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I
know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life than when I
saw the beautiful creature against whom I was conspiring, or the grace and
kindliness with which she waited upon the injured man. And yet it would be the
blackest treachery to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had
intrusted to me. I hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from under my
ulster. After all, I thought, we are not injuring her. We are but preventing her
from injuring another.

Holmes had sat upon the couch, and I saw him motion like a man who is in
need of air. A maid rushed across and threw open the window. At the same
instant I saw him raise his hand, and at the signal I tossed my rocket into the
room with a cry of "Fire!" The word was no sooner out of my mouth than the
whole crowd of spectators, well dressed and ill—gentlemen, hostlers, and
servant maids—joined in a general shriek of "Fire!" Thick clouds of smoke
curled through the room, and out at the open window. I caught a glimpse of
rushing figures, and a moment later the voice of Holmes from within assuring
them that it was a false alarm. Slipping through the shouting crowd, I made my
way to the corner of the street, and in ten minutes was rejoiced to find my
friend's arm in mine, and to get away from the scene of uproar. He walked
swiftly and in silence for some few minutes, until we had turned down one of
the quiet streets which led toward the Edgeware Road.
"You did it very nicely, doctor," he remarked. "Nothing could have been better.
It is all right."
"You have the photograph?"
"I know where it is."
"And how did you find out?"
"She showed me, as I told you that she would."
"I am still in the dark."
"I do not wish to make a mystery," said he, laughing. "The matter was perfectly
simple. You, of course, saw that everyone in the street was an accomplice. They
were all engaged for the evening."
"I guessed as much."
"Then, when the row broke out, I had a little moist red paint in the palm of my
hand. I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my face, and became a
piteous spectacle. It is an old trick."
"That also I could fathom."
"Then they carried me in. She was bound to have me in. What else could she
do? And into her sitting room, which was the very room which I suspected. It
lay between that and her bedroom, and I was determined to see which. They

laid me on a couch, I motioned for air, they were compelled to open the
window, and you had your chance."
"How did that help you?"
"It was all-important. When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her
instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. It is a perfectly
overpowering impulse, and I have more than once taken advantage of it. In the
case of the Darlington Substitution Scandal it was of use to me, and also in the
Arnsworth Castle business. A married woman grabs at her baby—an unmarried
one reaches for her jewel box. Now it was clear to me that our lady of to-day
had nothing in the house more precious to her than what we are in quest of. She
would rush to secure it. The alarm of fire was admirably done. The smoke and
shouting were enough to shake nerves of steel. She responded beautifully. The
photograph is in a recess behind a sliding panel just above the right bell-pull.
She was there in an instant, and I caught a glimpse of it as she drew it out.
When I cried out that it was a false alarm, she replaced it, glanced at the rocket,
rushed from the room, and I have not seen her since. I rose, and, making my
excuses, escaped from the house. I hesitated whether to attempt to secure the
photograph at once; but the coachman had come in, and as he was watching me
narrowly, it seemed safer to wait. A little over-precipitance may ruin all."
"And now?" I asked.
"Our quest is practically finished. I shall call with the king to-morrow, and with
you, if you care to come with us. We will be shown into the sitting room to wait
for the lady, but it is probable that when she comes she may find neither us nor
the photograph. It might be a satisfaction to his majesty to regain it with his
own hands."
"And when will you call?"
"At eight in the morning. She will not be up, so that we shall have a clear field.
Besides, we must be prompt, for this marriage may mean a complete change in
her life and habits. I must wire to the king without delay."
We had reached Baker Street, and had stopped at the door. He was searching
his pockets for the key, when some one passing said:
"Good night, Mister Sherlock Holmes."

There were several people on the pavement at the time, but the greeting
appeared to come from a slim youth in an ulster who had hurried by.
"I've heard that voice before," said Holmes, staring down the dimly lighted
street. "Now, I wonder who the deuce that could have been?"

III
I slept at Baker Street that night, and we were engaged upon our toast and
coffee in the morning, when the King of Bohemia rushed into the room.
"You have really got it?" he cried, grasping Sherlock Holmes by either
shoulder, and looking eagerly into his face.
"Not yet."
"But you have hopes?"
"I have hopes."
"Then come. I am all impatience to be gone."
"We must have a cab."
"No, my brougham is waiting."
"Then that will simplify matters." We descended, and started off once more for
Briony Lodge.
"Irene Adler is married," remarked Holmes.
"Married! When?"
"Yesterday."
"But to whom?"
"To an English lawyer named Norton."
"But she could not love him."
"I am in hopes that she does."
"And why in hopes?"
"Because it would spare your majesty all fear of future annoyance. If the lady
loves her husband, she does not love your majesty. If she does not love your
majesty, there is no reason why she should interfere with your majesty's plan."

"It is true. And yet—Well, I wish she had been of my own station. What a
queen she would have made!" He relapsed into a moody silence, which was not
broken until we drew up in Serpentine Avenue.
The door of Briony Lodge was open, and an elderly woman stood upon the
steps. She watched us with a sardonic eye as we stepped from the brougham.
"Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I believe?" said she.
"I am Mr. Holmes," answered my companion, looking at her with a questioning
and rather startled gaze.
"Indeed! My mistress told me that you were likely to call. She left this
morning, with her husband, by the 5:15 train from Charing Cross, for the
Continent."
"What!" Sherlock Holmes staggered back, white with chagrin and surprise.
"Do you mean that she has left England?"
"Never to return."
"And the papers?" asked the king hoarsely. "All is lost!"
"We shall see." He pushed past the servant, and rushed into the drawing-room,
followed by the king and myself. The furniture was scattered about in every
direction, with dismantled shelves, and open drawers, as if the lady had
hurriedly ransacked them before her flight. Holmes rushed at the bell-pull, tore
back a small sliding shutter, and plunging in his hand, pulled out a photograph
and a letter. The photograph was of Irene Adler herself in evening dress; the
letter was superscribed to "Sherlock Holmes, Esq. To be left till called for." My
friend tore it open, and we all three read it together. It was dated at midnight of
the preceding night, and ran in this way:

"MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,—You really did it
very well. You took me in completely. Until after the alarm of
the fire, I had not a suspicion. But then, when I found how I had
betrayed myself, I began to think. I had been warned against you
months ago. I had been told that if the king employed an agent,
it would certainly be you. And your address had been given me.
Yet, with all this, you made me reveal what you wanted to know.
Even after I became suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of
such a dear, kind old clergyman. But, you know, I have been
trained as an actress myself. Male costume is nothing new to
me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives. I sent
John, the coachman, to watch you, ran upstairs, got into my
walking clothes, as I call them, and came down just as you
departed.
"Well, I followed you to the door, and so made sure that I was
really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr. Sherlock
Holmes. Then I, rather imprudently, wished you good night, and
started for the Temple to see my husband.
"We both thought the best resource was flight when pursued by
so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty
when you call to-morrow. As to the photograph, your client may
rest in peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The
king may do what he will without hindrance from one whom he
has cruelly wronged. I keep it only to safeguard myself, and
preserve a weapon which will always secure me from any steps
which he might take in the future. I leave a photograph which he
might care to possess; and I remain, dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
very truly yours,
"IRENE NORTON, née ADLER."
"What a woman—oh, what a woman!" cried the King of Bohemia, when we
had all three read this epistle. "Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she
was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she
was not on my level?"

"From what I have seen of the lady, she seems indeed to be on a very
different level to your majesty," said Holmes coldly. "I am sorry that I have
not been able to bring your majesty's business to a more successful
conclusion."
"On the contrary, my dear sir," cried the king, "nothing could be more
successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The photograph is now as safe
as if it were in the fire."
"I am glad to hear your majesty say so."
"I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can reward
you. This ring—" He slipped an emerald snake ring from his finger, and
held it out upon the palm of his hand.
"Your majesty has something which I should value even more highly," said
Holmes.
"You have but to name it."
"This photograph!"
The king stared at him in amazement.
"Irene's photograph!" he cried. "Certainly, if you wish it."
"I thank your majesty. Then there is no more to be done in the matter. I have
the honor to wish you a very good morning." He bowed, and turning away
without observing the hand which the king had stretched out to him, he set
off in my company for his chambers.
And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of
Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a
woman's wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I
have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or
when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honorable title of
the woman.

The Red-Headed League
I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn
of last year, and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-
faced elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair. With an apology for my
intrusion, I was about to withdraw, when Holmes pulled me abruptly into
the room and closed the door behind me.
"You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson," he
said, cordially.
"I was afraid that you were engaged."
"So I am. Very much so."
"Then I can wait in the next room."
"Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and helper in
many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that he will be of
the utmost use to me in yours also."
The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of greeting,
with a quick little questioning glance from his small, fat-encircled eyes.
"Try the settee," said Holmes, relapsing into his armchair, and putting his
finger tips together, as was his custom when in judicial moods. "I know, my
dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the
conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life. You have shown your
relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if
you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own
little adventures."
"Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me," I observed.
"You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went into
the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that for

strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself,
which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination."
"A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting."
"You did, doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view, for
otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you, until your reason
breaks down under them and acknowledge me to be right. Now, Mr. Jabez
Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this morning, and to
begin a narrative which promises to be one of the most singular which I
have listened to for some time. You have heard me remark that the strangest
and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but
with the smaller crimes, and occasionally, indeed, where there is room for
doubt whether any positive crime has been committed. As far as I have
heard, it is impossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance
of crime or not, but the course of events is certainly among the most
singular that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would have
the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask you, not merely
because my friend, Dr. Watson, has not heard the opening part, but also
because the peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to have every
possible detail from your lips. As a rule, when I have heard some slight
indication of the course of events I am able to guide myself by the
thousands of other similar cases which occur to my memory. In the present
instance I am forced to admit that the facts are, to the best of my belief,
unique."
The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some little
pride, and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the inside pocket of
his greatcoat. As he glanced down the advertisement column, with his head
thrust forward, and the paper flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look
at the man, and endeavored, after the fashion of my companion, to read the
indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.
I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every
mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese,
pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd's check trousers, a
not overclean black frock coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat
with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling

down as an ornament. A frayed top hat and a faded brown overcoat with a
wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I
would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red
head and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his
features.
Sherlock Holmes's quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his head
with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. "Beyond the obvious
facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he takes snuff, that he
is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a
considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else."
Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper,
but his eyes upon my companion.
"How, in the name of good fortune, did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?" he
asked. "How did you know, for example, that I did manual labor? It's as true
as gospel, for I began as a ship's carpenter."
"Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your
left. You have worked with it and the muscles are more developed."
"Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?"
"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, especially
as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arc and compass
breastpin."
"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?"
"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches,
and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it
upon the desk."
"Well, but China?"
"The fish which you have tattooed immediately above your wrist could only
have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks, and
have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining
the fishes' scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in

addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch chain, the matter
becomes even more simple."
Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I thought at
first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in
it after all."
"I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a mistake in
explaining. 'Omne ignotom pro magnifico,' you know, and my poor little
reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid. Can you not
find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?"
"Yes, I have got it now," he answered, with his thick, red finger planted
halfway down the column. "Here it is. This is what began it all. You just
read it for yourself, sir."
I took the paper from him and read as follows:
"To the Red-headed League: On account of the bequest of the
late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pa., U.S.A., there is now
another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to
a salary of four pounds a week for purely nominal services. All
red-headed men who are sound in body and mind and above the
age of twenty-one years are eligible. Apply in person on
Monday, at eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the
League, 7 Pope's Court, Fleet Street."
"What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated, after I had twice read over the
extraordinary announcement.
Holmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in high
spirits. "It is a little off the beaten track, isn't it?" said he. "And now, Mr.
Wilson, off you go at scratch, and tell us all about yourself, your household,
and the effect which this advertisement had upon your fortunes. You will
first make a note, doctor, of the paper and the date."
"It is The Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890. Just two months ago."
"Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson."

"Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Jabez
Wilson, mopping his forehead, "I have a small pawnbroker's business at
Saxe-Coburg Square, near the City. It's not a very large affair, and of late
years it has not done more than just give me a living. I used to be able to
keep two assistants, but now I only keep one; and I would have a job to pay
him but that he is willing to come for half wages, so as to learn the
business."
"What is the name of this obliging youth?" asked Sherlock Holmes.
"His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he's not such a youth either. It's hard to
say his age. I should not wish a smarter assistant, Mr. Holmes; and I know
very well that he could better himself, and earn twice what I am able to give
him. But, after all, if he is satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head?"
"Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an employee who comes
under the full market price. It is not a common experience among
employers in this age. I don't know that your assistant is not as remarkable
as your advertisement."
"Oh, he has his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a fellow for
photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be improving
his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to
develop his pictures. That is his main fault; but, on the whole, he's a good
worker. There's no vice in him."
"He is still with you, I presume?"
"Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple cooking, and
keeps the place clean—that's all I have in the house, for I am a widower,
and never had any family. We live very quietly, sir, the three of us; and we
keep a roof over our heads, and pay our debts, if we do nothing more.
"The first thing that put us out was that advertisement. Spaulding, he came
down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this very paper in his
hand, and he says:
"'I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.'
"'Why that?' I asks.

"'Why,' says he, 'here's another vacancy on the League of the Red-headed
Men. It's worth quite a little fortune to any man who gets it, and I
understand that there are more vacancies than there are men, so that the
trustees are at their wits' end what to do with the money. If my hair would
only change color here's a nice little crib all ready for me to step into.'
"'Why, what is it, then?' I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a very stay-at-
home man, and, as my business came to me instead of my having to go to it,
I was often weeks on end without putting my foot over the door mat. In that
way I didn't know much of what was going on outside, and I was always
glad of a bit of news.
"'Have you never heard of the League of the Red-headed Men?' he asked,
with his eyes open.
"'Never.'
"'Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one of the
vacancies.'
"'And what are they worth?' I asked.
"'Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, and it need
not interfere very much with one's other occupations.'
"Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, for the
business has not been over good for some years, and an extra couple of
hundred would have been very handy.
"'Tell me all about it,' said I.
"'Well,' said he, showing me the advertisement, 'you can see for yourself
that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address where you should
apply for particulars. As far as I can make out, the League was founded by
an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins, who was very peculiar in his
ways. He was himself red-headed, and he had a great sympathy for all red-
headed men; so, when he died, it was found that he had left his enormous
fortune in the hands of trustees, with instructions to apply the interest to the
providing of easy berths to men whose hair is of that color. From all I hear
it is splendid pay, and very little to do.'

"'But,' said I, 'there would be millions of red-headed men who would apply.'
"'Not so many as you might think,' he answered. 'You see it is really
confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This American had started from
London when he was young, and he wanted to do the old town a good turn.
Then, again, I have heard it is of no use your applying if your hair is light
red, or dark red, or anything but real, bright, blazing, fiery red. Now, if you
cared to apply, Mr. Wilson, you would just walk in; but perhaps it would
hardly be worth your while to put yourself out of the way for the sake of a
few hundred pounds.'
"Now it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that my hair is
of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me that, if there was to be
any competition in the matter, I stood as good a chance as any man that I
had ever met. Vincent Spaulding seemed to know so much about it that I
thought he might prove useful, so I just ordered him to put up the shutters
for the day, and to come right away with me. He was very willing to have a
holiday, so we shut the business up, and started off for the address that was
given us in the advertisement.
"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From north,
south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his hair had
tramped into the City to answer the advertisement. Fleet Street was choked
with red-headed folk, and Pope's Court looked like a coster's orange barrow.
I should not have thought there were so many in the whole country as were
brought together by that single advertisement. Every shade of color they
were—straw, lemon, orange, brick, Irish setter, liver, clay; but, as Spaulding
said, there were not many who had the real vivid flame-colored tint. When I
saw how many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but
Spaulding would not hear of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he
pushed and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right
up to the steps which led to the office. There was a double stream upon the
stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected; but we
wedged in as well as we could, and soon found ourselves in the office."
"Your experience has been a most entertaining one," remarked Holmes, as
his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of snuff.
"Pray continue your very interesting statement."

"There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs and a deal
table, behind which sat a small man, with a head that was even redder than
mine. He said a few words to each candidate as he came up, and then he
always managed to find some fault in them which would disqualify them.
Getting a vacancy did not seem to be such a very easy matter after all.
However, when our turn came, the little man was much more favorable to
me than to any of the others, and he closed the door as we entered, so that
he might have a private word with us.
"'This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is willing to fill a
vacancy in the League.'
"'And he is admirably suited for it,' the other answered. 'He has every
requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so fine.' He took a
step backward, cocked his head on one side, and gazed at my hair until I felt
quite bashful. Then suddenly he plunged forward, wrung my hand, and
congratulated me warmly on my success.
"'It would be injustice to hesitate,' said he. 'You will, however, I am sure,
excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.' With that he seized my hair in
both his hands, and tugged until I yelled with the pain. 'There is water in
your eyes,' said he, as he released me. 'I perceive that all is as it should be.
But we have to be careful, for we have twice been deceived by wigs and
once by paint. I could tell you tales of cobbler's wax which would disgust
you with human nature.' He stepped over to the window and shouted
through it at the top of his voice that the vacancy was filled. A groan of
disappointment came up from below, and the folk all trooped away in
different directions, until there was not a red head to be seen except my own
and that of the manager.
"'My name,' said he, 'is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of the
pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. Are you a married
man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?'
"I answered that I had not.
"His face fell immediately.
"'Dear me!' he said, gravely, 'that is very serious indeed! I am sorry to hear
you say that. The fund was, of course, for the propagation and spread of the

red heads as well as for their maintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that
you should be a bachelor.'
"My face lengthened at this, Mr. Holmes, for I thought that I was not to
have the vacancy after all; but, after thinking it over for a few minutes, he
said that it would be all right.
"'In the case of another,' said he, 'the objection might be fatal, but we must
stretch a point in favor of a man with such a head of hair as yours. When
shall you be able to enter upon your new duties?'
"'Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,' said I.
"'Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!' said Vincent Spaulding. 'I shall be
able to look after that for you.'
"'What would be the hours?' I asked.
"'Ten to two.'
"Now a pawnbroker's business is mostly done of an evening, Mr. Holmes,
especially Thursday and Friday evenings, which is just before pay day; so it
would suit me very well to earn a little in the mornings. Besides, I knew
that my assistant was a good man, and that he would see to anything that
turned up.
"'That would suit me very well,' said I. 'And the pay?'
"'Is four pounds a week.'
"'And the work?'
"'Is purely nominal.'
"'What do you call purely nominal?'
"'Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building, the whole
time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position forever. The will is very
clear upon that point. You don't comply with the conditions if you budge
from the office during that time.'
"'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,' said I.

"'No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross, 'neither sickness, nor
business, nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your billet.'
"'And the work?'
"'Is to copy out the "Encyclopædia Britannica." There is the first volume of
it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and blotting paper, but
we provide this table and chair. Will you be ready to-morrow?'
"'Certainly,' I answered.
"'Then, good-by, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you once more
on the important position which you have been fortunate enough to gain.'
He bowed me out of the room, and I went home with my assistant hardly
knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my own good fortune.
"Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low spirits
again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair must be some
great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I could not imagine. It
seemed altogether past belief that anyone could make such a will, or that
they would pay such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the
'Encyclopædia Britannica.' Vincent Spaulding did what he could to cheer
me up, but by bed time I had reasoned myself out of the whole thing.
However, in the morning I determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I
bought a penny bottle of ink, and with a quill pen and seven sheets of
foolscap paper I started off for Pope's Court.
"Well, to my surprise and delight everything was as right as possible. The
table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross was there to see that I
got fairly to work. He started me off upon the letter A, and then he left me;
but he would drop in from time to time to see that all was right with me. At
two o'clock he bade me good-day, complimented me upon the amount that I
had written, and locked the door of the office after me.
"This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager
came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week's work. It
was the same next week, and the same the week after. Every morning I was
there at ten, and every afternoon I left at two. By degrees Mr. Duncan Ross
took to coming in only once of a morning, and then, after a time, he did not
come in at all. Still, of course, I never dared to leave the room for an

instant, for I was not sure when he might come, and the billet was such a
good one, and suited me so well, that I would not risk the loss of it.
"Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots, and
Archery, and Armor, and Architecture, and Attica, and hoped with diligence
that I might get on to the Bs before very long. It cost me something in
foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled a shelf with my writings. And then
suddenly the whole business came to an end."
"To an end?"
"Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as usual at ten
o'clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a little square of cardboard
hammered onto the middle of the panel with a tack. Here it is, and you can
read for yourself."
He held up a piece of white cardboard, about the size of a sheet of note
paper. It read in this fashion:
"THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE IS DISSOLVED.
Oct. 9, 1890."
Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face
behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped
every consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter.
"I cannot see that there is anything very funny," cried our client, flushing up
to the roots of his flaming head. "If you can do nothing better than laugh at
me, I can go elsewhere."
"No, no," cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which he had
half risen. "I really wouldn't miss your case for the world. It is most
refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my saying so,
something just a little funny about it. Pray what steps did you take when
you found the card upon the door?"
"I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the offices
round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it. Finally, I went
to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the ground floor, and I asked
him if he could tell me what had become of the Red-headed League. He

said that he had never heard of any such body. Then I asked him who Mr.
Duncan Ross was. He answered that the name was new to him.
"'Well' said I, 'the gentleman at No. 4.'
"'What, the red-headed man?'
"'Yes.'
"'Oh,' said he, 'his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor, and was
using my room as a temporary convenience until his new premises were
ready. He moved out yesterday.'
"'Where could I find him?'
"'Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17 King Edward
Street, near St. Paul's.'
"I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a
manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever heard of either
Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross."
"And what did you do then?" asked Holmes.
"I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my assistant.
But he could not help me in any way. He could only say that if I waited I
should hear by post. But that was not quite good enough, Mr. Holmes. I did
not wish to lose such a place without a struggle, so, as I had heard that you
were good enough to give advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I
came right away to you."
"And you did very wisely," said Holmes. "Your case is an exceedingly
remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what you have
told me I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from it than might
at first sight appear."
"Grave enough!" said Mr. Jabez Wilson. "Why, I have lost four pound a
week."
"As far as you are personally concerned," remarked Holmes, "I do not see
that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league. On the

contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some thirty pounds, to say
nothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every subject
which comes under the letter A. You have lost nothing by them."
"No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their
object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me. It was a
pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two-and-thirty pounds."
"We shall endeavor to clear up these points for you. And, first, one or two
questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first called your attention
to the advertisement—how long had he been with you?"
"About a month then."
"How did he come?"
"In answer to an advertisement."
"Was he the only applicant?"
"No, I had a dozen."
"Why did you pick him?"
"Because he was handy and would come cheap."
"At half wages, in fact."
"Yes."
"What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?"
"Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face, though he's
not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his forehead."
Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. "I thought as much,"
said he. "Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for earrings?"
"Yes, sir. He told me that a gypsy had done it for him when he was a lad."
"Hum!" said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. "He is still with you?"
"Oh, yes, sir; I have only just left him."

"And has your business been attended to in your absence?"
"Nothing to complain of, sir. There's never very much to do of a morning."
"That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion upon the
subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is Saturday, and I hope that by
Monday we may come to a conclusion."
"Well, Watson," said Holmes, when our visitor had left us, "what do you
make of it all?"
"I make nothing of it," I answered frankly. "It is a most mysterious
business."
"As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it
proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really
puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify. But I
must be prompt over this matter."
"What are you going to do, then?" I asked.
"To smoke," he answered. "It is quite a three-pipe problem, and I beg that
you won't speak to me for fifty minutes." He curled himself up in his chair,
with his thin knees drawn up to his hawklike nose, and there he sat with his
eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some
strange bird. I had come to the conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and
indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his chair with
the gesture of a man who has made up his mind, and put his pipe down
upon the mantelpiece.
"Sarasate plays at St. James's Hall this afternoon," he remarked. "What do
you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours?"
"I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing."
"Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City first, and we
can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal of
German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than
Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect. Come along!"

We traveled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk took
us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had
listened to in the morning. It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel place, where
four lines of dingy, two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-
in inclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass, and a few clumps of faded laurel
bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial
atmosphere. Three gilt balls and a brown board with JABEZ WILSON in
white letters, upon a corner house, announced the place where our red-
headed client carried on his business. Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it
with his head on one side, and looked it all over, with his eyes shining
brightly between puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and
then down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. Finally he
returned to the pawnbroker's and, having thumped vigorously upon the
pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up to the door and
knocked. It was instantly opened by a bright-looking, clean-shaven young
fellow, who asked him to step in.
"Thank you," said Holmes, "I only wished to ask you how you would go
from here to the Strand."
"Third right, fourth left," answered the assistant, promptly, closing the door.
"Smart fellow, that," observed Holmes as we walked away. "He is, in my
judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am not sure
that he has not a claim to be third. I have known something of him before."
"Evidently," said I, "Mr. Wilson's assistant counts for a good deal in this
mystery of the Red-headed League. I am sure that you inquired your way
merely in order that you might see him."
"Not him."
"What then?"
"The knees of his trousers."
"And what did you see?"
"What I expected to see."
"Why did you beat the pavement?"

"My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are spies in
an enemy's country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg Square. Let us
now explore the parts which lie behind it."
The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner from
the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a contrast to it as the
front of a picture does to the back. It was one of the main arteries which
convey the traffic of the City to the north and west. The roadway was
blocked with the immense stream of commerce flowing in a double tide
inward and outward, while the footpaths were black with the hurrying
swarm of pedestrians. It was difficult to realize, as we looked at the line of
fine shops and stately business premises, that they really abutted on the
other side upon the faded and stagnant square which we had just quitted.
"Let me see," said Holmes, standing at the corner, and glancing along the
line, "I should like just to remember the order of the houses here. It is a
hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London. There is Mortimer's,
the tobacconist; the little newspaper shop, the Coburg branch of the City
and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-
building depot. That carries us right on to the other block. And now, doctor,
we've done our work, so it's time we had some play. A sandwich and a cup
of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness, and delicacy,
and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their
conundrums."
My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very
capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the afternoon
he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his
long thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his
languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound,
Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was
possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature alternately
asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I
have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood
which occasionally predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him
from extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was
never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in
his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then it

was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his
brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those
who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on
a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him that
afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James's Hall, I felt that an evil
time might be coming upon those whom he had set himself to hunt down.
"You want to go home, no doubt, doctor," he remarked, as we emerged.
"Yes, it would be as well."
"And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This business
at Saxe-Coburg Square is serious."
"Why serious?"
"A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to believe
that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day being Saturday rather
complicates matters. I shall want your help to-night."
"At what time?"
"Ten will be early enough."
"I shall be at Baker Street at ten."
"Very well. And, I say, doctor! there may be some little danger, so kindly
put your army revolver in your pocket." He waved his hand, turned on his
heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd.
I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbors, but I was always
oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock
Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had seen,
and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only what had
happened, but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business
was still confused and grotesque. As I drove home to my house in
Kensington I thought over it all, from the extraordinary story of the red-
headed copier of the "Encyclopædia" down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg
Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me. What
was this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed? Where were we
going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this

smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant was a formidable man—a man who
might play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair,
and set the matter aside until night should bring an explanation.
It was a quarter-past nine when I started from home and made my way
across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. Two hansoms
were standing at the door, and, as I entered the passage, I heard the sound of
voices from above. On entering his room, I found Holmes in animated
conversation with two men, one of whom I recognized as Peter Jones, the
official police agent; while the other was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a
very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frock coat.
"Ha! our party is complete," said Holmes, buttoning up his pea-jacket, and
taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack. "Watson, I think you know Mr.
Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me introduce you to Mr. Merryweather, who is
to be our companion in to-night's adventure."
"We're hunting in couples again, doctor, you see," said Jones, in his
consequential way. "Our friend here is a wonderful man for starting a chase.
All he wants is an old dog to help him do the running down."
"I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase," observed
Mr. Merryweather gloomily.
"You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir," said the police
agent loftily. "He has his own little methods, which are, if he won't mind
my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic, but he has the
makings of a detective in him. It is not too much to say that once or twice,
as in that business of the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been
more nearly correct than the official force."
"Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right!" said the stranger, with
deference. "Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the first Saturday
night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my rubber."
"I think you will find," said Sherlock Holmes, "that you will play for a
higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play will be
more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake will be some thirty
thousand pounds; and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon whom you
wish to lay your hands."

"John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He's a young man, Mr.
Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I would rather
have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London. He's a
remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather was a Royal Duke,
and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His brain is as cunning as his
fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every turn, we never know
where to find the man himself. He'll crack a crib in Scotland one week, and
be raising money to build an orphanage in Cornwall the next. I've been on
his track for years, and have never set eyes on him yet."
"I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night. I've had
one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree with you that he
is at the head of his profession. It is past ten, however, and quite time that
we started. If you two will take the first hansom, Watson and I will follow
in the second."
Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive, and
lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the afternoon.
We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gaslit streets until we emerged
into Farringdon Street.
"We are close there now," my friend remarked. "This fellow Merryweather
is a bank director and personally interested in the matter. I thought it as well
to have Jones with us also. He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute
imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a
bulldog, and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone.
Here we are, and they are waiting for us."
We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found
ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and following the
guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage, and
through a side door which he opened for us. Within there was a small
corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was opened,
and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated at another
formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to light a lantern, and then
conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling passage, and so, after opening a
third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which was piled all round with crates
and massive boxes.

"You are not very vulnerable from above," Holmes remarked, as he held up
the lantern and gazed about him.
"Nor from below," said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the flags
which lined the floor. "Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!" he remarked,
looking up in surprise.
"I must really ask you to be a little more quiet," said Holmes severely. "You
have already imperiled the whole success of our expedition. Might I beg
that you would have the goodness to sit down upon one of those boxes, and
not to interfere?"
The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a very
injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his knees upon the
floor, and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, began to examine
minutely the cracks between the stones. A few seconds sufficed to satisfy
him, for he sprang to his feet again, and put his glass in his pocket.
"We have at least an hour before us," he remarked, "for they can hardly take
any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed. Then they will not lose
a minute, for the sooner they do their work the longer time they will have
for their escape. We are at present, doctor—as no doubt you have divined—
in the cellar of the City branch of one of the principal London banks. Mr.
Merryweather is the chairman of directors, and he will explain to you that
there are reasons why the more daring criminals of London should take a
considerable interest in this cellar at present."
"It is our French gold," whispered the director. "We have had several
warnings that an attempt might be made upon it."
"Your French gold?"
"Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources, and
borrowed, for that purpose, thirty thousand napoleons from the Bank of
France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack
the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The crate upon which I sit
contains two thousand napoleons packed between layers of lead foil. Our
reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is usually kept in a single
branch office, and the directors have had misgivings upon the subject."

"Which were very well justified," observed Holmes.
"And now it is time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an
hour matters will come to a head. In the meantime, Mr. Merryweather, we
must put the screen over that dark lantern."
"And sit in the dark?"
"I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I thought
that, as we were a partie carrée, you might have your rubber after all. But I
see that the enemy's preparations have gone so far that we cannot risk the
presence of a light. And, first of all, we must choose our positions. These
are daring men, and, though we shall take them at a disadvantage, they may
do us some harm, unless we are careful. I shall stand behind this crate, and
do you conceal yourself behind those. Then, when I flash a light upon them,
close in swiftly. If they fire, Watson, have no compunction about shooting
them down."
I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind
which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his lantern, and
left us in pitch darkness—such an absolute darkness as I have never before
experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to assure us that the light was
still there, ready to flash out at a moment's notice. To me, with my nerves
worked up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and
subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold, dank air of the vault.
"They have but one retreat," whispered Holmes. "That is back through the
house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have done what I asked
you, Jones?"
"I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door."
"Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent and wait."
What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards, it was but an
hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have almost
gone, and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs were weary and stiff,
for I feared to change my position, yet my nerves were worked up to the
highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so acute that I could not only
hear the gentle breathing of my companions, but I could distinguish the

deeper, heavier inbreath of the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note of
the bank director. From my position I could look over the case in the
direction of the floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light.
At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it lengthened
out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any warning or sound, a
gash seemed to open and a hand appeared, a white, almost womanly hand,
which felt about in the center of the little area of light. For a minute or more
the hand, with its writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. Then it was
withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the
single lurid spark, which marked a chink between the stones.
Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending, tearing
sound, one of the broad white stones turned over upon its side, and left a
square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a lantern. Over the
edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face, which looked keenly about it,
and then, with a hand on either side of the aperture, drew itself shoulder-
high and waist-high, until one knee rested upon the edge. In another instant
he stood at the side of the hole, and was hauling after him a companion,
lithe and small like himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.
"It's all clear," he whispered. "Have you the chisel and the bags? Great
Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing for it!"
Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar. The
other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as Jones
clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of a revolver, but
Holmes's hunting crop came down on the man's wrist, and the pistol clinked
upon the stone floor.
"It's no use, John Clay," said Holmes blandly, "you have no chance at all."
"So I see," the other answered, with the utmost coolness. "I fancy that my
pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails."
"There are three men waiting for him at the door," said Holmes.
"Oh, indeed. You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must
compliment you."

"And I you," Holmes answered. "Your red-headed idea was very new and
effective."
"You'll see your pal again presently," said Jones. "He's quicker at climbing
down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the derbies."
"I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands," remarked our
prisoner, as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. "You may not be aware
that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness also, when you
address me, always to say 'sir' and 'please.'"
"All right," said Jones, with a stare and a snigger. "Well, would you please,
sir, march upstairs where we can get a cab to carry your highness to the
police station?"
"That is better," said John Clay serenely. He made a sweeping bow to the
three of us, and walked quietly off in the custody of the detective.
"Really, Mr. Holmes," said Mr. Merryweather, as we followed them from
the cellar, "I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you. There
is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most complete
manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery, that have ever
come within my experience."
"I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. John Clay,"
said Holmes. "I have been at some small expense over this matter, which I
shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond that I am amply repaid by
having had an experience which is in many ways unique, and by hearing the
very remarkable narrative of the Red-headed League."

"You see, Watson," he explained, in the early hours of the morning, as we
sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, "it was perfectly
obvious from the first that the only possible object of this rather fantastic
business of the advertisement of the League, and the copying of the
'Encyclopædia,' must be to get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the
way for a number of hours every day. It was a curious way of managing it,
but really it would be difficult to suggest a better. The method was no doubt

suggested to Clay's ingenious mind by the color of his accomplice's hair.
The four pounds a week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it
to them, who were playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement,
one rogue has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply
for it, and together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the
week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come for half
wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive for securing
the situation."
"But how could you guess what the motive was?"
"Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere vulgar
intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The man's business was a
small one, and there was nothing in his house which could account for such
elaborate preparations, and such an expenditure as they were at. It must
then be something out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the
assistant's fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the
cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clew. Then I made
inquiries as to this mysterious assistant, and found that I had to deal with
one of the coolest and most daring criminals in London. He was doing
something in the cellar—something which took many hours a day for
months on end. What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save
that he was running a tunnel to some other building.
"So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I surprised you
by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was ascertaining whether the
cellar stretched out in front or behind. It was not in front. Then I rang the
bell, and, as I hoped, the assistant answered it. We have had some
skirmishes, but we had never set eyes upon each other before. I hardly
looked at his face. His knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself
have remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of
those hours of burrowing. The only remaining point was what they were
burrowing for. I walked round the corner, saw that the City and Suburban
Bank abutted on our friend's premises, and felt that I had solved my
problem. When you drove home after the concert I called upon Scotland
Yard, and upon the chairman of the bank directors, with the result that you
have seen."

"And how could you tell that they would make their attempt to-night?" I
asked.
"Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that they cared
no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presence; in other words, that they had
completed their tunnel. But it was essential that they should use it soon, as
it might be discovered, or the bullion might be removed. Saturday would
suit them better than any other day, as it would give them two days for their
escape. For all these reasons I expected them to come to-night."
"You reasoned it out beautifully," I exclaimed, in unfeigned admiration. "It
is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true."
"It saved me from ennui," he answered, yawning. "Alas! I already feel it
closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the
commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so."
"And you are a benefactor of the race," said I. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some little use," he remarked. "'L'homme
c'est rien—l'oeuvre c'est tout,' as Gustave Flaubert wrote to Georges
Sands."

Egerton Castle

The Baron's Quarry
"Oh, no, I assure you, you are not boring Mr. Marshfield," said this
personage himself in his gentle voice—that curious voice that could flow on
for hours, promulgating profound and startling theories on every
department of human knowledge or conducting paradoxical arguments
without a single inflection or pause of hesitation. "I am, on the contrary,
much interested in your hunting talk. To paraphrase a well-worn quotation
somewhat widely, nihil humanum a me alienum est. Even hunting stories
may have their point of biological interest; the philologist sometimes pricks
his ear to the jargon of the chase; moreover, I am not incapable of
appreciating the subject matter itself. This seems to excite some derision. I
admit I am not much of a sportsman to look at, nor, indeed, by instinct, yet I
have had some out-of-the-way experiences in that line—generally when
intent on other pursuits. I doubt, for instance, if even you, Major Travers,
notwithstanding your well-known exploits against man and beast,
notwithstanding that doubtful smile of yours, could match the strangeness
of a certain hunting adventure in which I played an important part."
The speaker's small, deep-set, black eyes, that never warmed to anything
more human than a purely speculative scientific interest in his surroundings,
here wandered round the skeptical yet expectant circle with bland
amusement. He stretched out his bloodless fingers for another of his host's
superfine cigars and proceeded, with only such interruptions as were
occasioned by the lighting and careful smoking of the latter.
"I was returning home after my prolonged stay in Petersburg, intending to
linger on my way and test with mine own ears certain among the many
dialects of Eastern Europe—anent which there is a symmetrical little cluster
of philological knotty points it is my modest intention one day to unravel.
However, that is neither here nor there. On the road to Hungary I bethought
myself opportunely of proving the once pressingly offered hospitality of the
Baron Kossowski.

"You may have met the man, Major Travers; he was a tremendous
sportsman, if you like. I first came across him at McNeil's place in remote
Ireland. Now, being in Bukowina, within measurable distance of his
Carpathian abode, and curious to see a Polish lord at home, I remembered
his invitation. It was already of long standing, but it had been warm, born in
fact of a sudden fit of enthusiasm for me"—here a half-mocking smile
quivered an instant under the speaker's black mustache—"which, as it was
characteristic, I may as well tell you about.
"It was on the day of, or, rather, to be accurate, on the day after my arrival,
toward the small hours of the morning, in the smoking room at Rathdrum.
Our host was peacefully snoring over his empty pipe and his seventh glass
of whisky, also empty. The rest of the men had slunk off to bed. The baron,
who all unknown to himself had been a subject of most interesting
observation to me the whole evening, being now practically alone with me,
condescended to turn an eye, as wide awake as a fox's, albeit slightly
bloodshot, upon the contemptible white-faced person who had preferred
spending the raw hours over his papers, within the radius of a glorious fire's
warmth, to creeping slyly over treacherous quagmires in the pursuit of timid
bog creatures (snipe shooting had been the order of the day)-the baron, I
say, became aware of my existence and entered into conversation with me.
"He would no doubt have been much surprised could he have known that he
was already mapped out, craniologically and physiognomically, catalogued
with care and neatly laid by in his proper ethnological box, in my private
type museum; that, as I sat and examined him from my different coigns of
vantage in library, in dining and smoking room that evening, not a look of
his, not a gesture went forth but had significance for me.
"You, I had thought, with your broad shoulders and deep chest; your
massive head that should have gone with a tall stature, not with those short
sturdy limbs; with your thick red hair, that should have been black for that
matter, as should your wide-set yellow eyes—you would be a real puzzle to
one who did not recognize in you equal mixtures of the fair, stalwart and
muscular Slav with the bilious-sanguine, thick-set, wiry Turanian. Your
pedigree would no doubt bear me out: there is as much of the Magyar as of
the Pole in your anatomy. Athlete, and yet a tangle of nerves; a ferocious
brute at bottom, I dare say, for your broad forehead inclines to flatness;

under your bristling beard your jaw must protrude, and the base of your
skull is ominously thick. And, with all that, capable of ideal transports:
when that girl played and sang to-night I saw the swelling of your eyelid
veins, and how that small, tenacious, claw-like hand of yours twitched! You
would be a fine leader of men—but God help the wretches in your power!
"So had I mused upon him. Yet I confess that when we came in closer
contact with each other, even I was not proof against the singular courtesy
of his manner and his unaccountable personal charm.
"Our conversation soon grew interesting; to me as a matter of course, and
evidently to him also. A few general words led to interchange of remarks
upon the country we were both visitors in and so to national characteristics
—Pole and Irishman have not a few in common, both in their nature and
history. An observation which he made, not without a certain flash in his
light eyes and a transient uncovering of the teeth, on the Irish type of female
beauty suddenly suggested to me a stanza of an ancient Polish ballad, very
full of milk-and-blood imagery, of alternating ferocity and voluptuousness.
This I quoted to the astounded foreigner in the vernacular, and this it was
that metamorphosed his mere perfection of civility into sudden warmth,
and, in fact, procured me the invitation in question.
"When I left Rathdrum the baron's last words to me were that if I ever
thought of visiting his country otherwise than in books, he held me bound
to make Yany, his Galician seat, my headquarters of study.
"From Czernowicz, therefore, where I stopped some time, I wrote, received
in due time a few lines of prettily worded reply, and ultimately entered my
sled in the nearest town to, yet at a most forbidding distance from, Yany,
and started on my journey thither.
"The undertaking meant many long hours of undulation and skidding over
the November snow, to the somniferous bell jangle of my dirty little horses,
the only impression of interest being a weird gypsy concert I came in for at
a miserable drinking-booth half buried in the snow where we halted for the
refreshment of man and beast. Here, I remember, I discovered a very
definite connection between the characteristic run of the tsimbol, the
peculiar bite of the Zigeuner's bow on his fiddle-string, and some distinctive
points of Turanian tongues. In other countries, in Spain, for instance, your

gypsy speaks differently on his instrument. But, oddly enough, when I later
attempted to put this observation on paper I could find no word to express
it."
A few of our company evinced signs of sleepiness, but most of us who
knew Marshfield, and that he could, unless he had something novel to say,
be as silent and retiring as he now evinced signs of being copious, awaited
further developments with patience. He has his own deliberate way of
speaking, which he evidently enjoys greatly, though it be occasionally
trying to his listeners.
"On the afternoon of my second day's drive, the snow, which till then had
fallen fine and continuous, ceased, and my Jehu, suddenly interrupting
himself in the midst of some exciting wolf story quite in keeping with the
time of year and the wild surroundings, pointed to a distant spot against the
gray sky to the northwest, between two wood-covered folds of ground—the
first eastern spurs of the great Carpathian chain.
"'There stands Yany,' said he. I looked at my far-off goal with interest. As
we drew nearer, the sinking sun, just dipping behind the hills, tinged the
now distinct frontage with a cold copper-like gleam, but it was only for a
minute; the next the building became nothing more to the eye than a black
irregular silhouette against the crimson sky.
"Before we entered the long, steep avenue of poplars, the early winter
darkness was upon us, rendered all the more depressing by gray mists
which gave a ghostly aspect to such objects as the sheen of the snow
rendered visible. Once or twice there were feeble flashes of light looming in
iridescent halos as we passed little clusters of hovels, but for which I should
have been induced to fancy that the great Hof stood alone in the wilderness,
such was the deathly stillness around. But even as the tall, square building
rose before us above the vapor, yellow lighted in various stories, and
mighty in height and breadth, there broke upon my ear a deep-mouthed,
menacing bay, which gave at once almost alarming reality to the eerie
surroundings. 'His lordship's boar and wolf hounds,' quoth my charioteer
calmly, unmindful of the regular pandemonium, of howls and barks which
ensued as he skillfully turned his horses through the gateway and flogged
the tired beasts into a sort of shambling canter that we might land with

glory before the house door: a weakness common, I believe, to drivers of all
nations.
"I alighted in the court of honor, and while awaiting an answer to my tug at
the bell, stood, broken with fatigue, depressed, chilled and aching,
questioning the wisdom of my proceedings and the amount of comfort,
physical and moral, that was likely to await me in a tête-à-tête visit with a
well-mannered savage in his own home.
"The unkempt tribe of stable retainers who began to gather round me and
my rough vehicle in the gloom, with their evil-smelling sheepskins and
their resigned, battered visages, were not calculated to reassure me. Yet
when the door opened, there stood a smart chasseur and a solemn major-
domo who might but just have stepped out of Mayfair; and there was
displayed a spreading vista of warm, deep-colored halls, with here a statue
and there a stuffed bear, and under foot pile carpets strewn with rarest skins.
"Marveling, yet comforted withal, I followed the solemn butler, who
received me with the deference due to an expected guest and expressed the
master's regret for his enforced absence till dinner time. I traversed vast
rooms, each more sumptuous than the last, feeling the strangeness of the
contrast between the outer desolation and this sybaritic excess of luxury
growing ever more strongly upon me; caught a glimpse of a picture gallery,
where peculiar yet admirably executed latter-day French pictures hung side
by side with ferocious boar hunts of Snyder and such kin; and, at length,
was ushered into a most cheerful room, modern to excess in its comfortable
promise, where, in addition to the tall stove necessary for warmth, there
burned on an open hearth a vastly pleasant fire of resinous logs, and where,
on a low table, awaited me a dainty service of fragrant Russian tea.
"My impression of utter novelty seemed somehow enhanced by this
unexpected refinement in the heart of the solitudes and in such a rugged
shell, and yet, when I came to reflect, it was only characteristic of my
cosmopolitan host. But another surprise was in store for me.
"When I had recovered bodily warmth and mental equilibrium in my downy
armchair, before the roaring logs, and during the delicious absorption of my
second glass of tea, I turned my attention to the French valet, evidently the
baron's own man, who was deftly unpacking my portmanteau, and who,

unless my practiced eye deceived me, asked for nothing better than to
entertain me with agreeable conversation the while.
"'Your master is out, then?' quoth I, knowing that the most trivial remark
would suffice to start him.
"True, Monseigneur was out; he was desolated in despair (this with the
national amiable and imaginative instinct); 'but it was doubtless important
business. M. le Baron had the visit of his factor during the midday meal;
had left the table hurriedly, and had not been seen since. Madame la
Baronne had been a little suffering, but she would receive monsieur!'
"'Madame!' exclaimed I, astounded, 'is your master then married?—since
when?'—visions of a fair Tartar, fit mate for my baron, immediately
springing somewhat alluringly before my mental vision. But the answer
dispelled the picturesque fancy.
"'Oh, yes,' said the man, with a somewhat peculiar expression. 'Yes,
Monseigneur is married. Did Monsieur not know? And yet it was from
England that Monseigneur brought back his wife.'
"'An Englishwoman!'
"My first thought was one of pity; an Englishwoman alone in this
wilderness—two days' drive from even a railway station—and at the mercy
of Kossowski! But the next minute I reversed my judgment. Probably she
adored her rufous lord, took his veneer of courtesy—a veneer of the most
exquisite polish, I grant you, but perilously thin—for the very perfection of
chivalry. Or perchance it was his inner savageness itself that charmed her;
the most refined women often amaze one by the fascination which the
preponderance of the brute in the opposite sex seems to have for them.
"I was anxious to hear more.
"'Is it not dull for the lady here at this time of the year?'
"The valet raised his shoulders with a gesture of despair that was almost
passionate.
"Dull! Ah, monsieur could not conceive to himself the dullness of it. That
poor Madame la Baronne! not even a little child to keep her company on

the long, long days when there was nothing but snow in the heaven and on
the earth and the howling of the wind and the dogs to cheer her. At the
beginning, indeed, it had been different; when the master first brought home
his bride the house was gay enough. It was all redecorated and refurnished
to receive her (monsieur should have seen it before, a mere rendezvous-de-
chasse—for the matter of that so were all the country houses in these parts).
Ah, that was the good time! There were visits month after month; parties,
sleighing, dancing, trips to St. Petersburg and Vienna. But this year it
seemed they were to have nothing but boars and wolves. How madame
could stand it—well, it was not for him to speak—and heaving a deep sigh
he delicately inserted my white tie round my collar, and with a flourish
twisted it into an irreproachable bow beneath my chin. I did not think it
right to cross-examine the willing talker any further, especially as, despite
his last asseveration, there were evidently volumes he still wished to pour
forth; but I confess that, as I made my way slowly out of my room along the
noiseless length of passage, I was conscious of an unwonted, not to say
vulgar, curiosity concerning the woman who had captivated such a man as
the Baron Kossowski.
"In a fit of speculative abstraction I must have taken the wrong turning, for
I presently found myself in a long, narrow passage. I did not remember. I
was retracing my steps when there came the sound of rapid footfalls upon
stone flags; a little door flew open in the wall close to me, and a small,
thick-set man, huddled in the rough sheepskin of the Galician peasant, with
a mangy fur cap on his head, nearly ran headlong into my arms. I was about
condescendingly to interpellate him in my best Polish, when I caught the
gleam of an angry yellow eye and noted the bristle of a red beard—
Kossowski!
"Amazed, I fell back a step in silence. With a growl like an uncouth animal
disturbed, he drew his filthy cap over his brow with a savage gesture and
pursued his way down the corridor at a sort of wild-boar trot.
"This first meeting between host and guest was so odd, so incongruous, that
it afforded me plenty of food for a fresh line of conjecture as I traced my
way back to the picture gallery, and from thence successfully to the drawing
room, which, as the door was ajar, I could not this time mistake.

"It was large and lofty and dimly lit by shaded lamps; through the rosy
gloom I could at first only just make out a slender figure by the hearth; but
as I advanced, this was resolved into a singularly graceful woman in
clinging, fur-trimmed velvet gown, who, with one hand resting on the high
mantelpiece, the other hanging listlessly by her side, stood gazing down at
the crumbling wood fire as if in a dream.
"My friends are kind enough to say that I have a cat-like tread; I know not
how that may be; at any rate the carpet I was walking upon was thick
enough to smother a heavier footfall: not until I was quite close to her did
my hostess become aware of my presence. Then she started violently and
looked over her shoulder at me with dilating eyes. Evidently a nervous
creature, I saw the pulse in her throat, strained by her attitude, flutter like a
terrified bird.
"The next instant she had stretched out her hand with sweet English words
of welcome, and the face, which I had been comparing in my mind to that
of Guido's Cenci, became transformed by the arch and exquisite smile of a
Greuse. For more than two years I had had no intercourse with any of my
nationality. I could conceive the sound of his native tongue under such
circumstances moving a man in a curious unexpected fashion.
"I babbled some commonplace reply, after which there was silence while
we stood opposite each other, she looking at me expectantly. At length, with
a sigh checked by a smile and an overtone of sadness in a voice that yet
tried to be sprightly:
"'Am I then so changed, Mr. Marshfield?' she asked. And all at once I knew
her: the girl whose nightingale throat had redeemed the desolation of the
evenings at Rathdrum, whose sunny beauty had seemed (even to my
celebrated cold-blooded æstheticism) worthy to haunt a man's dreams. Yes,
there was the subtle curve of the waist, the warm line of throat, the dainty
foot, the slender tip-tilted fingers—witty fingers, as I had classified them—
which I now shook like a true Briton, instead of availing myself of the
privilege the country gave me, and kissing her slender wrist.
"But she was changed; and I told her so with unconventional frankness,
studying her closely as I spoke.

"'I am afraid,' I said gravely, 'that this place does not agree with you.'
"She shrank from my scrutiny with a nervous movement and flushed to the
roots of her red-brown hair. Then she answered coldly that I was wrong,
that she was in excellent health, but that she could not expect any more than
other people to preserve perennial youth (I rapidly calculated she might be
two-and-twenty), though, indeed, with a little forced laugh, it was scarcely
flattering to hear one had altered out of all recognition. Then, without
allowing me time to reply, she plunged into a general topic of conversation
which, as I should have been obtuse indeed not to take the hint, I did my
best to keep up.
"But while she talked of Vienna and Warsaw, of her distant neighbors, and
last year's visitors, it was evident that her mind was elsewhere; her eye
wandered, she lost the thread of her discourse, answered me at random, and
smiled her piteous smile incongruously.
"However lonely she might be in her solitary splendor, the company of a
countryman was evidently no such welcome diversion.
"After a little while she seemed to feel herself that she was lacking in
cordiality, and, bringing her absent gaze to bear upon me with a puzzled
strained look: 'I fear you will find it very dull,' she said, 'my husband is so
wrapped up this winter in his country life and his sport. You are the first
visitor we have had. There is nothing but guns and horses here, and you do
not care for these things.'
"The door creaked behind us; and the baron entered, in faultless evening
dress. Before she turned toward him I was sharp enough to catch again the
upleaping of a quick dread in her eyes, not even so much dread perhaps, I
thought afterwards, as horror—the horror we notice in some animals at the
nearing of a beast of prey. It was gone in a second, and she was smiling. But
it was a revelation.
"Perhaps he beat her in Russian fashion, and she, as an Englishwoman, was
narrow-minded enough to resent this; or perhaps, merely, I had the
misfortune to arrive during a matrimonial misunderstanding.
"The baron would not give me leisure to reflect; he was so very effusive in
his greeting—not a hint of our previous meeting—unlike my hostess, all in

all to me; eager to listen, to reply; almost affectionate, full of references to
old times and genial allusions. No doubt when he chose he could be the
most charming of men; there were moments when, looking at him in his
quiet smile and restrained gesture, the almost exaggerated politeness of his
manner to his wife, whose fingers he had kissed with pretty, old-fashioned
gallantry upon his entrance, I asked myself, Could that encounter in the
passage have been a dream? Could that savage in the sheepskin be my
courteous entertainer?
"Just as I came in, did I hear my wife say there was nothing for you to do in
this place?" he said presently to me. Then, turning to her:
"You do not seem to know Mr. Marshfield. Wherever he can open his eyes
there is for him something to see which might not interest other men. He
will find things in my library which I have no notion of. He will discover
objects for scientific observation in all the members of my household, not
only in the good-looking maids—though he could, I have no doubt, tell
their points as I could those of a horse. We have maidens here of several
distinct races, Marshfield. We have also witches, and Jew leeches, and holy
daft people. In any case, Yany, with all its dependencies, material, male and
female, are at your disposal, for what you can make out of them.
"'It is good," he went on gayly, 'that you should happen to have this happy
disposition, for I fear that, no later than to-morrow, I may have to absent
myself from home. I have heard that there are news of wolves—they
threaten to be a greater pest than usual this winter, but I am going to drive
them on quite a new plan, and it will go hard with me if I don't come even
with them. Well for you, by the way, Marshfield, that you did not pass
within their scent to-day.' Then, musingly: 'I should not give much for the
life of a traveler who happened to wander in these parts just now.' Here he
interrupted himself hastily and went over to his wife, who had sunk back on
her chair, livid, seemingly on the point of swooning.
"His gaze was devouring; so might a man look at the woman he adored, in
his anxiety.
"'What! faint, Violet, alarmed!' His voice was subdued, yet there was an
unmistakable thrill of emotion in it.

"'Pshaw!' thought I to myself, 'the man is a model husband.'
"She clinched her hands, and by sheer force of will seemed to pull herself
together. These nervous women have often an unexpected fund of strength.
"'Come, that is well,' said the baron with a flickering smile; 'Mr. Marshfield
will think you but badly acclimatized to Poland if a little wolf scare can
upset you. My dear wife is so soft-hearted,' he went on to me, 'that she is
capable of making herself quite ill over the sad fate that might have, but has
not, overcome you. Or, perhaps,' he added, in a still gentler voice, 'her fear
is that I may expose myself to danger for the public weal.'
"She turned her head away, but I saw her set her teeth as if to choke a sob.
The baron chuckled in his throat and seemed to luxuriate in the pleasant
thought.
"At this moment folding doors were thrown open, and supper was
announced. I offered my arm, she rose and took it in silence. This silence
she maintained during the first part of the meal, despite her husband's
brilliant conversation and almost uproarious spirits. But by and by a bright
color mounted to her cheeks and luster to her eyes. I suppose you will think
me horribly unpoetical if I add that she drank several glasses of champagne
one after the other, a fact which perhaps may account for the change.
"At any rate she spoke and laughed and looked lovely, and I did not wonder
that the baron could hardly keep his eyes off her. But whether it was her
wifely anxiety or not—it was evident her mind was not at ease through it
all, and I fancied that her brightness was feverish, her merriment slightly
hysterical.
"After supper—an exquisite one it was—we adjourned together, in foreign
fashion, to the drawing-room; the baron threw himself into a chair and,
somewhat with the air of a pasha, demanded music. He was flushed; the
veins of his forehead were swollen and stood out like cords; the wine drunk
at table was potent: even through my phlegmatic frame it ran hotly.
"She hesitated a moment or two, then docilely sat down to the piano. That
she could sing I have already made clear: how she could sing, with what
pathos, passion, as well as perfect art, I had never realized before.

"When the song was ended she remained for a while, with eyes lost in
distance, very still, save for her quick breathing. It was clear she was moved
by the music; indeed she must have thrown her whole soul into it.
"At first we, the audience, paid her the rare compliment of silence. Then the
baron broke forth into loud applause. 'Brava, brava! that was really said con
amore. A delicious love song, delicious—but French! You must sing one of
our Slav melodies for Marshfield before you allow us to go and smoke.'
"She started from her reverie with a flush, and after a pause struck slowly a
few simple chords, then began one of those strangely sweet, yet intensely
pathetic Russian airs, which give one a curious revelation of the profound,
endless melancholy lurking in the national mind.
"'What do you think of it?' asked the baron of me when it ceased.
"'What I have always thought of such music—it is that of a hopeless people;
poetical, crushed, and resigned.'
"He gave a loud laugh. 'Hear the analyst, the psychologue—why, man, it is
a love song! Is it possible that we, uncivilized, are truer realists than our
hypercultured Western neighbors? Have we gone to the root of the matter,
in our simple way?'
"The baroness got up abruptly. She looked white and spent; there were
bister circles round her eyes.
"'I am tired,' she said, with dry lips. 'You will excuse me, Mr. Marshfield, I
must really go to bed.'
"'Go to bed, go to bed,' cried her husband gayly. Then, quoting in Russian
from the song she had just sung: 'Sleep, my little soft white dove: my little
innocent tender lamb!' She hurried from the room. The baron laughed again,
and, taking me familiarly by the arm, led me to his own set of apartments
for the promised smoke. He ensconced me in an armchair, placed cigars of
every description and a Turkish pipe ready to my hand, and a little table on
which stood cut-glass flasks and beakers in tempting array.
"After I had selected my cigar with some precautions, I glanced at him over
a careless remark, and was startled to see a sudden alteration in his whole

look and attitude.
"'You will forgive me, Marshfield,' he said, as he caught my eye, speaking
with spasmodic politeness. 'It is more than probable that I shall have to set
out upon this chase I spoke of to-night, and I must now go and change my
clothes, that I may be ready to start at any moment. This is the hour when it
is most likely these hell beasts are to be got at. You have all you want, I
hope,' interrupting an outbreak of ferocity by an effort after his former
courtesy.
"It was curious to watch the man of the world struggling with the primitive
man.
"'But, baron,' said I, 'I do not at all see the fun of sticking at home like this.
You know my passion for witnessing everything new, strange, and
outlandish. You will surely not refuse me such an opportunity for
observation as a midnight wolf raid. I will do my best not to be in the way if
you will take me with you.'
"At first it seemed as if he had some difficulty in realizing the drift of my
words, he was so engrossed by some inner thought. But as I repeated them,
he gave vent to a loud cachinnation.
"'By heaven! I like your spirit,' he exclaimed, clapping me strongly on the
shoulder. 'Of course you shall come. You shall,' he repeated, 'and I promise
you a sight, a hunt such as you never heard or dreamed of—you will be able
to tell them in England the sort of thing we can do here in that line—such
wolves are rare quarry,' he added, looking slyly at me, 'and I have a new
plan for getting at them.'
"There was a long pause, and then there rose in the stillness the unearthly
howling of the baron's hounds, a cheerful sound which only their owner's
somewhat loud converse of the evening had kept from becoming
excessively obtrusive.
"'Hark at them—the beauties!' cried he, showing his short, strong teeth,
pointed like a dog's in a wide grin of anticipative delight. 'They have been
kept on pretty short commons, poor things! They are hungry. By the way,
Marshfield, you can sit tight to a horse, I trust? If you were to roll off, you
know, these splendid fellows—they would chop you up in a second. They

would chop you up,' he repeated unctuously, 'snap, crunch, gobble, and
there would be an end of you!'
"'If I could not ride a decent horse without being thrown,' I retorted, a little
stung by his manner, 'after my recent three months' torture with the Guard
Cossacks, I should indeed be a hopeless subject. Do not think of frightening
me from the exploit, but say frankly if my company would be displeasing.'
"'Tut!' he said, waving his hand impatiently, 'it is your affair. I have warned
you. Go and get ready if you want to come. Time presses.'
"I was determined to be of the fray; my blood was up. I have hinted that the
baron's Tokay had stirred it.
"I went to my room and hurriedly donned clothes more suitable for rough
night work. My last care was to slip into my pockets a brace of double-
barreled pistols which formed part of my traveling kit. When I returned I
found the baron already booted and spurred; this without metaphor. He was
stretched full length on the divan, and did not speak as I came in, or even
look at me. Chewing an unlit cigar, with eyes fixed on the ceiling, he was
evidently following some absorbing train of ideas.
"The silence was profound; time went by; it grew oppressive; at length,
wearied out, I fell, over my chibouque, into a doze filled with puzzling
visions, out of which I was awakened with a start. My companion had
sprung up, very lightly, to his feet. In his throat was an odd, half-suppressed
cry, grewsome to hear. He stood on tiptoe, with eyes fixed, as though
looking through the wall, and I distinctly saw his ears point in the intensity
of his listening.
"After a moment, with hasty, noiseless energy, and without the slightest
ceremony, he blew the lamps out, drew back the heavy curtains and threw
the tall window wide open. A rush of icy air, and the bright rays of the
moon—gibbous, I remember, in her third quarter—filled the room. Outside
the mist had condensed, and the view was unrestricted over the white plains
at the foot of the hill.
"The baron stood motionless in the open window, callous to the cold in
which, after a minute, I could hardly keep my teeth from chattering, his
head bent forward, still listening. I listened too, with 'all my ears,' but could

not catch a sound; indeed the silence over the great expanse of snow might
have been called awful; even the dogs were mute.
"Presently, far, far away, came a faint tinkle of bells; so faint, at first, that I
thought it was but fancy, then distincter. It was even more eerie than the
silence, I thought, though I knew it could come but from some passing
sleigh. All at once that ceased, and again my duller senses could perceive
nothing, though I saw by my host's craning neck that he was more on the
alert than ever. But at last I too heard once more, this time not bells, but as
it were the tread of horses muffled by the snow, intermittent and dull, yet
drawing nearer. And then in the inner silence of the great house it seemed to
me I caught the noise of closing doors; but here the hounds, as if suddenly
becoming alive to some disturbance, raised the same fearsome concert of
yells and barks with which they had greeted my arrival, and listening
became useless.
"I had risen to my feet. My host, turning from the window, seized my
shoulder with a fierce grip, and bade me 'hold my noise'; for a second or
two I stood motionless under his iron talons, then he released me with an
exultant whisper: "Now for our chase!" and made for the door with a spring.
Hastily gulping down a mouthful of arrack from one of the bottles on the
table, I followed him, and, guided by the sound of his footsteps before me,
groped my way through passages as black as Erebus.
"After a time, which seemed a long one, a small door was flung open in
front, and I saw Kossowski glide into the moonlit courtyard and cross the
square. When I too came out he was disappearing into the gaping darkness
of the open stable door, and there I overtook him.
"A man who seemed to have been sleeping in a corner jumped up at our
entrance, and led out a horse ready saddled. In obedience to a gruff order
from his master, as the latter mounted, he then brought forward another
which he had evidently thought to ride himself and held the stirrup for me.
"We came delicately forth, and the Cossack hurriedly barred the great door
behind us. I caught a glimpse of his worn, scarred face by the moonlight, as
he peeped after us for a second before shutting himself in; it was stricken
with terror.

"The baron trotted briskly toward the kennels, from whence there was now
issuing a truly infernal clangor, and, as my steed followed suit of his own
accord, I could see how he proceeded dexterously to unbolt the gates
without dismounting, while the beasts within dashed themselves against
them and tore the ground in their fury of impatience.
"He smiled, as he swung back the barriers at last, and his 'beauties' came
forth. Seven or eight monstrous brutes, hounds of a kind unknown to me:
fulvous and sleek of coat, tall on their legs, square-headed, long-tailed,
deep-chested; with terrible jaws slobbering in eagerness. They leaped
around and up at us, much to our horses' distaste. Kossowski, still smiling,
lashed at them unsparingly with his hunting whip, and they responded, not
with yells of pain, but with snarls of fury.
"Managing his restless steed and his cruel whip with consummate ease, my
host drove the unruly crew before him out of the precincts, then halted and
bent down from his saddle to examine some slight prints in the snow which
led, not the way I had come, but toward what seemed another avenue. In a
second or two the hounds were gathered round this spot, their great snake-
like tails quivering, nose to earth, yelping with excitement. I had some ado
to manage my horse, and my eyesight was far from being as keen as the
baron's, but I had then no doubt he had come already upon wolf tracks, and
I shuddered mentally, thinking of the sleigh bells.
"Suddenly Kossowski raised himself from his strained position; under his
low fur cap his face, with its fixed smile, looked scarcely human in the
white light: and then we broke into a hand canter just as the hounds dashed,
in a compact body, along the trail.
"But we had not gone more than a few hundred yards before they began to
falter, then straggled, stopped and ran back and about with dismal cries. It
was clear to me they had lost the scent. My companion reined in his horse,
and mine, luckily a well-trained brute, halted of himself.
"We had reached a bend in a broad avenue of firs and larches, and just
where we stood, and where the hounds ever returned and met nose to nose
in frantic conclave, the snow was trampled and soiled, and a little farther on
planed in a great sweep, as if by a turning sleigh. Beyond was a double-
furrowed track of skaits and regular hoof prints leading far away.

"Before I had time to reflect upon the bearing of this unexpected
interruption, Kossowski, as if suddenly possessed by a devil, fell upon the
hounds with his whip, flogging them upon the new track, uttering the while
the most savage cries I have ever heard issue from human throat. The
disappointed beasts were nothing loath to seize upon another trail; after a
second of hesitation they had understood, and were off upon it at a tearing
pace, we after them at the best speed of our horses.
"Some unformed idea that we were going to escort, or rescue, benighted
travelers flickered dimly in my mind as I galloped through the night air; but
when I managed to approach my companion and called out to him for
explanation, he only turned half round and grinned at me.
"Before us lay now the white plain, scintillating under the high moon's rays.
That light is deceptive; I could be sure of nothing upon the wide expanse
but of the dark, leaping figures of the hounds already spread out in a
straggling line, some right ahead, others just in front of us. In a short time
also the icy wind, cutting my face mercilessly as we increased our pace,
well nigh blinded me with tears of cold.
"I can hardly realize how long this pursuit after an unseen prey lasted; I can
only remember that I was getting rather faint with fatigue, and
ignominiously held on to my pommel, when all of a sudden the black
outline of a sleigh merged into sight in front of us.
"I rubbed my smarting eyes with my benumbed hand; we were gaining
upon it second by second; two of those hell hounds of the baron's were
already within a few leaps of it.
"Soon I was able to make out two figures, one standing up and urging the
horses on with whip and voice, the other clinging to the back seat and
looking toward us in an attitude of terror. A great fear crept into my half-
frozen brain—were we not bringing deadly danger instead of help to these
travelers? Great God! did the baron mean to use them as a bait for his new
method of wolf hunting?
"I would have turned upon Kossowski with a cry of expostulation or
warning, but he, urging on his hounds as he galloped on their flank, howling

and gesticulating like a veritable Hun, passed me by like a flash—and all at
once I knew."
Marshfield paused for a moment and sent his pale smile round upon his
listeners, who now showed no signs of sleepiness; he knocked the ash from
his cigar, twisted the latter round in his mouth, and added dryly:
"And I confess it seemed to me a little strong even for a baron in the
Carpathians. The travelers were our quarry. But the reason why the Lord of
Yany had turned man-hunter I was yet to learn. Just then I had to direct my
energies to frustrating his plans. I used my spurs mercilessly. While I drew
up even with him I saw the two figures in the sleigh change places; he who
had hitherto driven now faced back, while his companion took the reins,
there was the pale blue sheen of a revolver barrel under the moonlight,
followed by a yellow flash, and the nearest hound rolled over in the snow.
"With an oath the baron twisted round in his saddle to call up and urge on
the remainder. My horse had taken fright at the report and dashed
irresistibly forward, bringing me at once almost level with the fugitives, and
the next instant the revolver was turned menacingly toward me. There was
no time to explain; my pistol was already drawn, and as another of the
brutes bounded up, almost under my horse's feet, I loosed it upon him. I
must have let off both barrels at once, for the weapon flew out of my hand,
but the hound's back was broken. I presume the traveler understood; at any
rate, he did not fire at me.
"In moments of intense excitement like these, strangely enough, the mind is
extraordinarily open to impressions. I shall never forget that man's
countenance in the sledge, as he stood upright and defied us in his mortal
danger; it was young, very handsome, the features not distorted, but set into
a sort of desperate, stony calm, and I knew it, beyond all doubt, for that of
an Englishman. And then I saw his companion—it was the baron's wife.
And I understood why the bells had been removed.
"It takes a long time to say this; it only required an instant to see it. The
loud explosion of my pistol had hardly ceased to ring before the baron, with
a fearful imprecation, was upon me. First he lashed at me with his whip as
we tore along side by side, and then I saw him wind the reins round his off
arm and bend over, and I felt his angry fingers close tightly on my right

foot. The next instant I should have been lifted out of my saddle, but there
came another shot from the sledge. The baron's horse plunged and
stumbled, and the baron, hanging on to my foot with a fierce grip, was
wrenched from his seat. His horse, however, was up again immediately, and
I was released, and then I caught a confused glimpse of the frightened and
wounded animal galloping wildly away to the right, leaving a black track of
blood behind him in the snow, his master, entangled in the reins, running
with incredible swiftness by his side and endeavoring to vault back into the
saddle.
"And now came to pass a terrible thing which, in his savage plans, my host
had doubtless never anticipated.
"One of the hounds that had during this short check recovered lost ground,
coming across this hot trail of blood, turned away from his course, and with
a joyous yell darted after the running man. In another instant the remainder
of the pack was upon the new scent.
"As soon as I could stop my horse, I tried to turn him in the direction the
new chase had taken, but just then, through the night air, over the receding
sound of the horse's scamper and the sobbing of the pack in full cry, there
came a long scream, and after that a sickening silence. And I knew that
somewhere yonder, under the beautiful moonlight, the Baron Kossowski
was being devoured by his starving dogs.
"I looked round, with the sweat on my face, vaguely, for some human being
to share the horror of the moment, and I saw, gliding away, far away in the
white distance, the black silhouette of the sledge."
"Well?" said we, in divers tones of impatience, curiosity, or horror,
according to our divers temperaments, as the speaker uncrossed his legs and
gazed at us in mild triumph, with all the air of having said his say, and
satisfactorily proved his point.
"Well," repeated he, "what more do you want to know? It will interest you
but slightly, I am sure, to hear how I found my way back to the Hof; or how
I told as much as I deemed prudent of the evening's grewsome work to the
baron's servants, who, by the way, to my amazement, displayed the
profoundest and most unmistakable sorrow at the tidings, and sallied forth

(at their head the Cossack who had seen us depart) to seek for his remains.
Excuse the unpleasantness of the remark: I fear the dogs must have left very
little of him, he had dieted them so carefully. However, since it was to have
been a case of 'chop, crunch, and gobble,' as the baron had it, I preferred
that that particular fate should have overtaken him rather than me—or, for
that matter, either of those two country people of ours in the sledge.
"Nor am I going to inflict upon you," continued Marshfield, after draining
his glass, "a full account of my impressions when I found myself once more
in that immense, deserted, and stricken house, so luxuriously prepared for
the mistress who had fled from it; how I philosophized over all this,
according to my wont; the conjectures I made as to the first acts of the
drama; the untold sufferings my countrywoman must have endured from the
moment her husband first grew jealous till she determined on this desperate
step; as to how and when she had met her lover, how they communicated,
and how the baron had discovered the intended flitting in time to concoct
his characteristic revenge.
"One thing you may be sure of, I had no mind to remain at Yany an hour
longer than necessary. I even contrived to get well clear of the
neighborhood before the lady's absence was discovered. Luckily for me—or
I might have been taxed with connivance, though indeed the simple
household did not seem to know what suspicion was, and accepted my
account with childlike credence—very typical, and very convenient to me at
the same time."
"But how do you know," said one of us, "that the man was her lover? He
might have been her brother or some other relative."
"That," said Marshfield, with his little flat laugh, "I happen to have
ascertained—and, curiously enough, only a few weeks ago. It was at the
play, between the acts, from my comfortable seat (the first row in the pit). I
was looking leisurely round the house when I caught sight of a woman, in a
box close by, whose head was turned from me, and who presented the
somewhat unusual spectacle of a young neck and shoulders of the most
exquisite contour—and perfectly gray hair; and not dull gray, but rather of a
pleasing tint like frosted silver. This aroused my curiosity. I brought my
glasses to a focus on her and waited patiently till she turned round. Then I

recognized the Baroness Kassowski, and I no longer wondered at the young
hair being white.
"Yet she looked placid and happy; strangely so, it seemed to me, under the
sudden reviving in my memory of such scenes as I have now described. But
presently I understood further: beside her, in close attendance, was the man
of the sledge, a handsome fellow with much of a military air about him.
"During the course of the evening, as I watched, I saw a friend of mine
come into the box, and at the end I slipped out into the passage to catch him
as he came out.
"'Who is the woman with the white hair?' I asked. Then, in the fragmentary
style approved of by ultra-fashionable young men—this earnest-languid
mode of speech presents curious similarities in all languages—he told me:
'Most charming couple in London—awfully pretty, wasn't she?—he had
been in the Guards—attaché at Vienna once—they adored each other. White
hair, devilish queer, wasn't it? Suited her, somehow. And then she had been
married to a Russian, or something, somewhere in the wilds, and their
names were—' But do you know," said Marshfield, interrupting himself, "I
think I had better let you find that out for yourselves, if you care."

Stanley J. Weyman

The Fowl in the Pot
An Episode Adapted from the Memoirs of Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of
Sully
What I am going to relate may seem to some merely to be curious and on a
party with the diverting story of M. Boisrosé, which I have set down in an
earlier part of my memoirs. But among the calumnies of those who have
never ceased to attack me since the death of the late king, the statement that
I kept from his majesty things which should have reached his ears has
always had a prominent place, though a thousand times refuted by my
friends, and those who from an intimate acquaintance with events could
judge how faithfully I labored to deserve the confidence with which my
master honored me. Therefore, I take it in hand to show by an example,
trifling in itself, the full knowledge of affairs which the king had, and to
prove that in many matters, which were never permitted to become known
to the idlers of the court, he took a personal share, worthy as much of
Haroun as of Alexander.
It was my custom, before I entered upon those negotiations with the Prince
of Condé which terminated in the recovery of the estate of Villebon, where I
now principally reside, to spend a part of the autumn and winter at Rosny.
On these occasions I was in the habit of leaving Paris with a considerable
train of Swiss, pages, valets, and grooms, together with the maids of honor
and waiting women of the duchess. We halted to take dinner at Poissy, and
generally contrived to reach Rosny toward nightfall, so as to sup by the
light of flambeaux in a manner enjoyable enough, though devoid of that
state which I have ever maintained, and enjoined upon my children, as at
once the privilege and burden of rank.
At the time of which I am speaking I had for my favorite charger the sorrel
horse which the Duke of Mercoeur presented to me with a view to my good
offices at the time of the king's entry into Paris; and which I honestly
transferred to his majesty in accordance with a principle laid down in
another place. The king insisted on returning it to me, and for several years

I rode it on these annual visits to Rosny. What was more remarkable was
that on each of these occasions it cast a shoe about the middle of the
afternoon, and always when we were within a short league of the village of
Aubergenville. Though I never had with me less than half a score of led
horses, I had such an affection for the sorrel that I preferred to wait until it
was shod, rather than accommodate myself to a nag of less easy paces; and
would allow my household to precede me, staying behind myself with at
most a guard or two, my valet, and a page.
The forge at Aubergenville was kept by a smith of some skill, a cheerful
fellow, whom I always remembered to reward, considering my own
position rather than his services, with a gold livre. His joy at receiving what
was to him the income of a year was great, and never failed to reimburse
me; in addition to which I took some pleasure in unbending, and learning
from this simple peasant and loyal man, what the taxpayers were saying of
me and my reforms—a duty I always felt I owed to the king my master.
As a man of breeding it would ill become me to set down the homely truths
I thus learned. The conversations of the vulgar are little suited to a
nobleman's memoirs; but in this I distinguish between the Duke of Sully
and the king's minister, and it is in the latter capacity that I relate what
passed on these diverting occasions. "Ho, Simon," I would say, encouraging
the poor man as he came bowing and trembling before me, "how goes it,
my friend?"
"Badly," he would answer, "very badly until your lordship came this way."
"And how is that, little man?"
"Oh, it is the roads," he always replied, shaking his bald head as he began to
set about his business. "The roads since your lordship became surveyor-
general are so good that not one horse in a hundred casts a shoe; and then
there are so few highwaymen now that not one robber's plates do I replace
in a twelvemonth. There is where it is."
At this I was highly delighted.
"Still, since I began to pass this way times have not been so bad with you,
Simon," I would answer.

Thereto he had one invariable reply.
"No; thanks to Ste. Geneviève and your lordship, whom we call in this
village the poor man's friend, I have a fowl in the pot."
This phrase so pleased me that I repeated it to the king. It tickled his fancy
also, and for some years it was a very common remark of that good and
great ruler, that he hoped to live to see every peasant with a fowl in his pot.
"But why," I remember I once asked this honest fellow—it was on the last
occasion of the sorrel falling lame there—"do you thank Ste. Geneviève?"
"She is my patron saint," he answered.
"Then you are a Parisian?"
"Your lordship is always right."
"But does her saintship do you any good?" I asked curiously.
"Certainly, by your lordship's leave. My wife prays to her and she loosens
the nails in the sorrel's shoes."
"In fact she pays off an old grudge," I answered, "for there was a time when
Paris liked me little; but hark ye, master smith, I am not sure that this is not
an act of treason to conspire with Madame Geneviève against the comfort
of the king's minister. What think you, you rascal; can you pass the justice
elm without a shiver?"
This threw the simple fellow into a great fear, which the sight of the livre of
gold speedily converted into joy as stupendous. Leaving him still staring at
his fortune I rode away; but when we had gone some little distance, the
aspect of his face, when I charged him with treason, or my own unassisted
discrimination suggested a clew to the phenomenon.
"La Trape," I said to my valet—the same who was with me at Cahors
—"what is the name of the innkeeper at Poissy, at whose house we are
accustomed to dine?"
"Andrew, may it please your lordship."

"Andrew! I thought so!" I exclaimed, smiting my thigh. "Simon and
Andrew his brother! Answer, knave, and, if you have permitted me to be
robbed these many times, tremble for your ears. Is he not brother to the
smith at Aubergenville who has just shod my horse?"
La Trape professed to be ignorant on this point, but a groom who had stayed
behind with me, having sought my permission to speak, said it was so,
adding that Master Andrew had risen in the world through large dealings in
hay, which he was wont to take daily into Paris and sell, and that he did not
now acknowledge or see anything of his brother the smith, though it was
believed that he retained a sneaking liking for him.
On receiving this confirmation of my suspicions, my vanity as well as my
sense of justice led me to act with the promptitude which I have exhibited
in greater emergencies. I rated La Trape for his carelessness of my interests
in permitting this deception to be practiced on me; and the main body of my
attendants being now in sight, I ordered him to take two Swiss and arrest
both brothers without delay. It wanted yet three hours of sunset, and I
judged that, by hard riding, they might reach Rosny with their prisoners
before bedtime.
I spent some time while still on the road in considering what punishment I
should inflict on the culprits; and finally laid aside the purpose I had at first
conceived of putting them to death—an infliction they had richly deserved
—in favor of a plan which I thought might offer me some amusement. For
the execution of this I depended upon Maignan, my equerry, who was a
man of lively imagination, being the same who had of his own motion
arranged and carried out the triumphal procession, in which I was borne to
Rosny after the battle of Ivry. Before I sat down to supper I gave him his
directions; and as I had expected, news was brought to me while I was at
table that the prisoners had arrived.
Thereupon I informed the duchess and the company generally, for, as was
usual, a number of my country neighbors had come to compliment me on
my return, that there was some sport of a rare kind on foot; and we
adjourned, Maignan, followed by four pages bearing lights, leading the way
to that end of the terrace which abuts on the linden avenue. Here, a score of
grooms holding torches aloft had been arranged in a circle so that the

impromptu theater thus formed, which Maignan had ordered with much
taste, was as light as in the day. On a sloping bank at one end seats had been
placed for those who had supped at my table, while the rest of the company
found such places of vantage as they could; their number, indeed,
amounting, with my household, to two hundred persons. In the center of the
open space a small forge fire had been kindled, the red glow of which added
much to the strangeness of the scene; and on the anvil beside it were ranged
a number of horses' and donkeys' shoes, with a full complement of the tools
used by smiths. All being ready I gave the word to bring in the prisoners,
and escorted by La Trape and six of my guards, they were marched into the
arena. In their pale and terrified faces, and the shaking limbs which could
scarce support them to their appointed stations, I read both the
consciousness of guilt and the apprehension of immediate death; it was
plain that they expected nothing less. I was very willing to play with their
fears, and for some time looked at them in silence, while all wondered with
lively curiosity what would ensue. I then addressed them gravely, telling the
innkeeper that I knew well he had loosened each year a shoe of my horse, in
order that his brother might profit by the job of replacing it; and went on to
reprove the smith for the ingratitude which had led him to return my bounty
by the conception of so knavish a trick.
Upon this they confessed their guilt, and flinging themselves upon their
knees with many tears and prayers begged for mercy. This, after a decent
interval, I permitted myself to grant. "Your lives, which are forfeited, shall
be spared," I pronounced. "But punished you must be. I therefore ordain
that Simon, the smith, at once fit, nail, and properly secure a pair of iron
shoes to Andrew's heels, and that then Andrew, who by that time will have
picked up something of the smith's art, do the same to Simon. So will you
both learn to avoid such shoeing tricks for the future."
It may well be imagined that a judgment so whimsical, and so justly
adapted to the offense, charmed all save the culprits; and in a hundred ways
the pleasure of those present was evinced, to such a degree, indeed, that
Maignan had some difficulty in restoring silence and gravity to the
assemblage. This done, however, Master Andrew was taken in hand and his
wooden shoes removed. The tools of his trade were placed before the smith,
who cast glances so piteous, first at his brother's feet and then at the shoes
on the anvil, as again gave rise to a prodigious amount of merriment, my

pages in particular well-nigh forgetting my presence, and rolling about in a
manner unpardonable at another time. However, I rebuked them sharply,
and was about to order the sentence to be carried into effect, when the
remembrance of the many pleasant simplicities which the smith had uttered
to me, acting upon a natural disposition to mercy, which the most
calumnious of my enemies have never questioned, induced me to give the
prisoners a chance of escape. "Listen," I said, "Simon and Andrew. Your
sentence has been pronounced, and will certainly be executed unless you
can avail yourself of the condition I now offer. You shall have three
minutes; if in that time either of you can make a good joke, he shall go free.
If not, let a man attend to the bellows, La Trape!"
This added a fresh satisfaction to my neighbors, who were well assured now
that I had not promised them a novel entertainment without good grounds;
for the grimaces of the two knaves thus bidden to jest if they would save
their skins, were so diverting they would have made a nun laugh. They
looked at me with their eyes as wide as plates, and for the whole of the time
of grace never a word could they utter save howls for mercy. "Simon," I
said gravely, when the time was up, "have you a joke? No. Andrew, my
friend, have you a joke? No. Then—"
I was going on to order the sentence to be carried out, when the innkeeper
flung himself again upon his knees, and cried out loudly—as much to my
astonishment as to the regret of the bystanders, who were bent on seeing so
strange a shoeing feat—"One word, my lord; I can give you no joke, but I
can do a service, an eminent service to the king. I can disclose a
conspiracy!"
I was somewhat taken aback by this sudden and public announcement. But I
had been too long in the king's employment not to have remarked how
strangely things are brought to light. On hearing the man's words therefore
—which were followed by a stricken silence—I looked sharply at the faces
of such of those present as it was possible to suspect, but failed to observe
any sign of confusion or dismay, or anything more particular than so abrupt
a statement was calculated to produce. Doubting much whether the man
was not playing with me, I addressed him sternly, warning him to beware,
lest in his anxiety to save his heels by falsely accusing others, he should

lose his head. For that if his conspiracy should prove to be an invention of
his own, I should certainly consider it my duty to hang him forthwith.
He heard me out, but nevertheless persisted in his story, adding desperately,
"It is a plot, my lord, to assassinate you and the king on the same day."
This statement struck me a blow; for I had good reason to know that at that
time the king had alienated many by his infatuation for Madame de
Verneuil; while I had always to reckon firstly with all who hated him, and
secondly with all whom my pursuit of his interests injured, either in reality
or appearance. I therefore immediately directed that the prisoners should be
led in close custody to the chamber adjoining my private closet, and taking
the precaution to call my guards about me, since I knew not what attempt
despair might not breed, I withdrew myself, making such apologies to the
company as the nature of the case permitted.
I ordered Simon the smith to be first brought to me, and in the presence of
Maignan only, I severely examined him as to his knowledge of any
conspiracy. He denied, however, that he had ever heard of the matters
referred to by his brother, and persisted so firmly in the denial that I was
inclined to believe him. In the end he was taken out and Andrew was
brought in. The innkeeper's demeanor was such as I have often observed in
intriguers brought suddenly to book. He averred the existence of the
conspiracy, and that its objects were those which he had stated. He also
offered to give up his associates, but conditioned that he should do this in
his own way; undertaking to conduct me and one other person—but no
more, lest the alarm should be given—to a place in Paris on the following
night, where we could hear the plotters state their plans and designs. In this
way only, he urged, could proof positive be obtained.
I was much startled by this proposal, and inclined to think it a trap; but
further consideration dispelled my fears. The innkeeper had held no parley
with anyone save his guards and myself since his arrest, and could neither
have warned his accomplices, nor acquainted them with any design the
execution of which should depend on his confession to me. I therefore
accepted his terms—with a private reservation that I should have help at
hand—and before daybreak next morning left Rosny, which I had only seen
by torchlight, with my prisoner and a select body of Swiss. We entered Paris

in the afternoon in three parties, with as little parade as possible, and went
straight to the Arsenal, whence, as soon as evening fell, I hurried with only
two armed attendants to the Louvre.
A return so sudden and unexpected was as great a surprise to the court as to
the king, and I was not slow to mark with an inward smile the discomposure
which appeared very clearly on the faces of several, as the crowd in the
chamber fell back for me to approach my master. I was careful, however, to
remember that this might arise from other causes than guilt. The king
received me with his wonted affection; and divining at once that I must
have something important to communicate, withdrew with me to the farther
end of the chamber, where we were out of earshot of the court. I there
related the story to his majesty, keeping back nothing.
He shook his head, saying merely: "The fish to escape the frying pan, grand
master, will jump into the fire. And human nature, save in the case of you
and me, who can trust one another, is very fishy."
I was touched by this gracious compliment, but not convinced. "You have
not seen the man, sire," I said, "and I have had that advantage."
"And believe him?"
"In part," I answered with caution. "So far at least as to be assured that he
thinks to save his skin, which he will only do if he be telling the truth. May
I beg you, sire," I added hastily, seeing the direction of his glance, "not to
look so fixedly at the Duke of Epernon? He grows uneasy."
"Conscience makes—you know the rest."
"Nay, sire, with submission," I replied, "I will answer for him; if he be not
driven by fear to do something reckless."
"Good! I take your warranty, Duke of Sully," the king said, with the easy
grace which came so natural to him. "But now in this matter what would
you have me do?"
"Double your guards, sire, for to-night—that is all. I will answer for the
Bastile and the Arsenal; and holding these we hold Paris."

But thereupon I found that the king had come to a decision, which I felt it to
be my duty to combat with all my influence. He had conceived the idea of
being the one to accompany me to the rendezvous. "I am tired of the dice,"
he complained, "and sick of tennis, at which I know everybody's strength.
Madame de Verneuil is at Fontainebleau, the queen is unwell. Ah, Sully, I
would the old days were back when we had Nerac for our Paris, and knew
the saddle better than the armchair!"
"A king must think of his people," I reminded him.
"The fowl in the pot? To be sure. So I will—to-morrow," he replied. And in
the end he would be obeyed. I took my leave of him as if for the night, and
retired, leaving him at play with the Duke of Epernon. But an hour later,
toward eight o'clock, his majesty, who had made an excuse to withdraw to
his closet, met me outside the eastern gate of the Louvre.
He was masked, and attended only by Coquet, his master of the household.
I too wore a mask and was esquired by Maignan, under whose orders were
four Swiss—whom I had chosen because they were unable to speak French
—guarding the prisoner Andrew. I bade Maignan follow the innkeeper's
directions, and we proceeded in two parties through the streets on the left
bank of the river, past the Châtelet and Bastile, until we reached an obscure
street near the water, so narrow that the decrepit wooden houses shut out
well-nigh all view of the sky. Here the prisoner halted and called upon me
to fulfill the terms of my agreement. I bade Maignan therefore to keep with
the Swiss at a distance of fifty paces, but to come up should I whistle or
otherwise give the alarm; and myself with the king and Andrew proceeded
onward in the deep shadow of the houses. I kept my hand on my pistol,
which I had previously shown to the prisoner, intimating that on the first
sign of treachery I should blow out his brains. However, despite precaution,
I felt uncomfortable to the last degree. I blamed myself severely for
allowing the king to expose himself and the country to this unnecessary
danger; while the meanness of the locality, the fetid air, the darkness of the
night, which was wet and tempestuous, and the uncertainty of the event
lowered my spirits, and made every splash in the kennel and stumble on the
reeking, slippery pavements—matters over which the king grew merry—
seem no light troubles to me.

Arriving at a house, which, if we might judge in the darkness, seemed to be
of rather greater pretensions than its fellows, our guide stopped, and
whispered to us to mount some steps to a raised wooden gallery, which
intervened between the lane and the doorway. On this, besides the door, a
couple of unglazed windows looked out. The shutter of one was ajar, and
showed us a large, bare room, lighted by a couple of rushlights. Directing us
to place ourselves close to this shutter, the innkeeper knocked at the door in
a peculiar fashion, and almost immediately entered, going at once into the
lighted room. Peering cautiously through the window we were surprised to
find that the only person within, save the newcomer, was a young woman,
who, crouching over a smoldering fire, was crooning a lullaby while she
attended to a large black pot.
"Good evening, mistress!" said the innkeeper, advancing to the fire with a
fair show of nonchalance.
"Good evening, Master Andrew," the girl replied, looking up and nodding,
but showing no sign of surprise at his appearance. "Martin is away, but he
may return at any moment."
"Is he still of the same mind?"
"Quite."
"And what of Sully? Is he to die then?" he asked.
"They have decided he must," the girl answered gloomily. It may be
believed that I listened with all my ears, while the king by a nudge in my
side seemed to rally me on the destiny so coolly arranged for me. "Martin
says it is no good killing the other unless he goes too—they have been so
long together. But it vexes me sadly, Master Andrew," she added with a
sudden break in her voice. "Sadly it vexes me. I could not sleep last night
for thinking of it, and the risk Martin runs. And I shall sleep less when it is
done."
"Pooh-pooh!" said that rascally innkeeper. "Think less about it. Things will
grow worse and worse if they are let live. The King has done harm enough
already. And he grows old besides."

"That is true!" said the girl. "And no doubt the sooner he is put out of the
way the better. He is changed sadly. I do not say a word for him. Let him
die. It is killing Sully that troubles me—that and the risk Martin runs."
At this I took the liberty of gently touching the king. He answered by an
amused grimace; then by a motion of his hand he enjoined silence. We
stooped still farther forward so as better to command the room. The girl was
rocking herself to and fro in evident distress of mind. "If we killed the
King," she continued, "Martin declares we should be no better off, as long
as Sully lives. Both or neither, he says. But I do not know. I cannot bear to
think of it. It was a sad day when we brought Epernon here, Master
Andrew; and one I fear we shall rue as long as we live."
It was now the king's turn to be moved. He grasped my wrist so forcibly
that I restrained a cry with difficulty. "Epernon!" he whispered harshly in
my ear. "They are Epernon's tools! Where is your guaranty now, Rosny?"
I confess that I trembled. I knew well that the king, particular in small
courtesies, never forgot to call his servants by their correct titles, save in
two cases; when he indicated by the seeming error, as once in Marshal
Biron's affair, his intention to promote or degrade them; or when he was
moved to the depths of his nature and fell into an old habit. I did not dare to
reply, but listened greedily for more information.
"When is it to be done?" asked the innkeeper, sinking his voice and
glancing round, as if he would call especial attention to this.
"That depends upon Master la Rivière," the girl answered. "To-morrow
night, I understand, if Master la Rivière can have the stuff ready."
I met the king's eyes. They shone fiercely in the faint light, which issuing
from the window fell on him. Of all things he hated treachery most, and La
Rivière was his first body physician, and at this very time, as I well knew,
was treating him for a slight derangement which the king had brought upon
himself by his imprudence. This doctor had formerly been in the
employment of the Bouillon family, who had surrendered his services to the
king. Neither I nor his majesty had trusted the Duke of Bouillon for the last
year past, so that we were not surprised by this hint that he was privy to the
design.

Despite our anxiety not to miss a word, an approaching step warned us at
this moment to draw back. More than once before we had done so to escape
the notice of a wayfarer passing up and down. But this time I had a
difficulty in inducing the king to adopt the precaution. Yet it was well that I
succeeded, for the person who came stumbling along toward us did not
pass, but, mounting the steps, walked by within touch of us and entered the
house.
"The plot thickens," muttered the king. "Who is this?"
At the moment he asked I was racking my brain to remember. I have a good
eye and a fair recollection for faces, and this was one I had seen several
times. The features were so familiar that I suspected the man of being a
courtier in disguise, and I ran over the names of several persons whom I
knew to be Bouillon's secret agents. But he was none of these, and obeying
the king's gesture, I bent myself again to the task of listening.
The girl looked up on the man's entrance, but did not rise. "You are late,
Martin," she said.
"A little," the newcomer answered. "How do you do, Master Andrew? What
cheer? What, still vexing, mistress?" he added contemptuously to the girl.
"You have too soft a heart for this business!"
She sighed, but made no answer.
"You have made up your mind to it, I hear?" said the innkeeper.
"That is it. Needs must when the devil drives!" replied the man jauntily. He
had a downcast, reckless, luckless air, yet in his face I thought I still saw
traces of a better spirit.
"The devil in this case was Epernon," quoth Andrew.
"Aye, curse him! I would I had cut his dainty throat before he crossed my
threshold," cried the desperado. "But there, it is too late to say that now.
What has to be done, has to be done."
"How are you going about it? Poison, the mistress says."

"Yes; but if I had my way," the man growled fiercely, "I would out one of
these nights and cut the dogs' throats in the kennel!"
"You could never escape, Martin!" the girl cried, rising in excitement. "It
would be hopeless. It would merely be throwing away your own life."
"Well, it is not to be done that way, so there is an end of it," quoth the man
wearily. "Give me my supper. The devil take the king and Sully too! He will
soon have them."
On this Master Andrew rose, and I took his movement toward the door for a
signal for us to retire. He came out at once, shutting the door behind him as
he bade the pair within a loud good night. He found us standing in the street
waiting for him and forthwith fell on his knees in the mud and looked up at
me, the perspiration standing thick on his white face. "My lord," he cried
hoarsely, "I have earned my pardon!"
"If you go on," I said encouragingly, "as you have begun, have no fear."
Without more ado I whistled up the Swiss and bade Maignan go with them
and arrest the man and woman with as little disturbance as possible. While
this was being done we waited without, keeping a sharp eye upon the
informer, whose terror, I noted with suspicion, seemed to be in no degree
diminished. He did not, however, try to escape, and Maignan presently
came to tell us that he had executed the arrest without difficulty or
resistance.
The importance of arriving at the truth before Epernon and the greater
conspirators should take the alarm was so vividly present to the minds of
the king and myself, that we did not hesitate to examine the prisoners in
their house, rather than hazard the delay and observation which their
removal to a more fit place must occasion. Accordingly, taking the
precaution to post Coquet in the street outside, and to plant a burly Swiss in
the doorway, the king and I entered. I removed my mask as I did so, being
aware of the necessity of gaining the prisoners' confidence, but I begged the
king to retain his. As I had expected, the man immediately recognized me
and fell on his knees, a nearer view confirming the notion I had previously
entertained that his features were familiar to me, though I could not
remember his name. I thought this a good starting-point for my

examination, and bidding Maignan withdraw, I assumed an air of mildness
and asked the fellow his name.
"Martin, only, please your lordship," he answered; adding, "once I sold you
two dogs, sir, for the chase, and to your lady a lapdog called Ninette no
larger than her hand."
I remembered the knave, then, as a fashionable dog dealer, who had been
much about the court in the reign of Henry the Third and later; and I saw at
once how convenient a tool he might be made, since he could be seen in
converse with people of all ranks without arousing suspicion. The man's
face as he spoke expressed so much fear and surprise that I determined to
try what I had often found successful in the case of greater criminals, to
squeeze him for a confession while still excited by his arrest, and before he
should have had time to consider what his chances of support at the hands
of his confederates might be. I charged him therefore solemnly to tell the
whole truth as he hoped for the king's mercy. He heard me, gazing at me
piteously; but his only answer, to my surprise, was that he had nothing to
confess.
"Come, come," I replied sternly, "this will avail you nothing; if you do not
speak quickly, rogue, and to the point, we shall find means to compel you.
Who counseled you to attempt his majesty's life?"
On this he stared so stupidly at me, and exclaimed with so real an
appearance of horror: "How? I attempt the king's life? God forbid!" that I
doubted that we had before us a more dangerous rascal than I had thought,
and I hastened to bring him to the point.
"What, then," I cried, frowning, "of the stuff Master la Rivière is to give
you to take the king's life to-morrow night? Oh, we know something, I
assure you; bethink you quickly, and find your tongue if you would have an
easy death."
I expected to see his self-control break down at this proof of our knowledge
of his design, but he only stared at me with the same look of bewilderment.
I was about to bid them bring in the informer that I might see the two front
to front, when the female prisoner, who had hitherto stood beside her
companion in such distress and terror as might be expected in a woman of

that class, suddenly stopped her tears and lamentations. It occurred to me
that she might make a better witness. I turned to her, but when I would have
questioned her she broke into a wild scream of hysterical laughter.
From that I remember that I learned nothing, though it greatly annoyed me.
But there was one present who did—the king. He laid his hand on my
shoulder, gripping it with a force that I read as a command to be silent.
"Where," he said to the man, "do you keep the King and Sully and Epernon,
my friend?"
"The King and Sully—with the lordship's leave," said the man quickly, with
a frightened glance at me—"are in the kennels at the back of the house, but
it is not safe to go near them. The King is raving mad, and—and the other
dog is sickening. Epernon we had to kill a month back. He brought the
disease here, and I have had such losses through him as have nearly ruined
me, please your lordship."
"Get up—get up, man!" cried the king, and tearing off his mask he stamped
up and down the room, so torn by paroxysms of laughter that he choked
himself when again and again he attempted to speak.
I too now saw the mistake, but I could not at first see it in the same light.
Commanding myself as well as I could, I ordered one of the Swiss to fetch
in the innkeeper, but to admit no one else.
The knave fell on his knees as soon as he saw me, his cheeks shaking like a
jelly.
"Mercy, mercy!" was all he could say.
"You have dared to play with me?" I whispered.
"You bade me joke," he sobbed, "you bade me."
I was about to say that it would be his last joke in this world—for my anger
was fully aroused—when the king intervened.
"Nay," he said, laying his hand softly on my shoulder. "It has been the most
glorious jest. I would not have missed it for a kingdom. I command you,
Sully, to forgive him."

Thereupon his majesty strictly charged the three that they should not on
peril of their lives mention the circumstances to anyone. Nor to the best of
my belief did they do so, being so shrewdly scared when they recognized
the king that I verily think they never afterwards so much as spoke of the
affair to one another. My master further gave me on his own part his most
gracious promise that he would not disclose the matter even to Madame de
Verneuil or the queen, and upon these representations he induced me freely
to forgive the innkeeper. So ended this conspiracy, on the diverting details
of which I may seem to have dwelt longer than I should; but alas! in
twenty-one years of power I investigated many, and this one only can I
regard with satisfaction. The rest were so many warnings and predictions of
the fate which, despite all my care and fidelity, was in store for the great
and good master I served.

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Pavilion on the Links

I
I was a great solitary when I was young. I made it my pride to keep aloof
and suffice for my own entertainment; and I may say that I had neither
friends nor acquaintances until I met that friend who became my wife and
the mother of my children. With one man only was I on private terms; this
was R. Northmour, Esquire, of Graden Easter, in Scotland. We had met at
college; and though there was not much liking between us, nor even much
intimacy, we were so nearly of a humor that we could associate with ease to
both. Misanthropes, we believed ourselves to be; but I have thought since
that we were only sulky fellows. It was scarcely a companionship, but a co-
existence in unsociability. Northmour's exceptional violence of temper
made it no easy affair for him to keep the peace with anyone but me; and as
he respected my silent ways, and let me come and go as I pleased, I could
tolerate his presence without concern. I think we called each other friends.
When Northmour took his degree and I decided to leave the university
without one, he invited me on a long visit to Graden Easter; and it was thus
that I first became acquainted with the scene of my adventures. The
mansion house of Graden stood in a bleak stretch of country some three
miles from the shore of the German Ocean. It was as large as a barrack; and
as it had been built of a soft stone, liable to consume in the eager air of the
seaside, it was damp and draughty within and half ruinous without. It was
impossible for two young men to lodge with comfort in such a dwelling.
But there stood in the northern part of the estate, in a wilderness of links
and blowing sand hills, and between a plantation and the sea, a small
pavilion or belvedere, of modern design, which was exactly suited to our
wants; and in this hermitage, speaking little, reading much, and rarely
associating except at meals, Northmour and I spent four tempestuous winter
months. I might have stayed longer; but one March night there sprung up
between us a dispute, which rendered my departure necessary. Northmour
spoke hotly, I remember, and I suppose I must have made some tart
rejoinder. He leaped from his chair and grappled me; I had to fight, without
exaggeration, for my life; and it was only with a great effort that I mastered
him, for he was near as strong in body as myself, and seemed filled with the

devil. The next morning, we met on our usual terms; but I judged it more
delicate to withdraw; nor did he attempt to dissuade me.
It was nine years before I revisited the neighborhood. I traveled at that time
with a tilt-cart, a tent, and a cooking stove, tramping all day beside the
wagon, and at night, whenever it was possible, gypsying in a cove of the
hills, or by the side of a wood. I believe I visited in this manner most of the
wild and desolate regions both in England and Scotland; and, as I had
neither friends nor relations, I was troubled with no correspondence, and
had nothing in the nature of headquarters, unless it was the office of my
solicitors, from whom I drew my income twice a year. It was a life in which
I delighted; and I fully thought to have grown old upon the march, and at
last died in a ditch.
It was my whole business to find desolate corners, where I could camp
without the fear of interruption; and hence, being in another part of the
same shire, I bethought me suddenly of the Pavilion on the Links. No
thoroughfare passed within three miles of it. The nearest town, and that was
but a fisher village, was at a distance of six or seven. For ten miles of
length, and from a depth varying from three miles to half a mile, this belt of
barren country lay along the sea. The beach, which was the natural
approach, was full of quicksands. Indeed I may say there is hardly a better
place of concealment in the United Kingdom. I determined to pass a week
in the Sea-Wood of Graden Easter, and making a long stage, reached it
about sundown on a wild September day.
The country, I have said, was mixed sand hill and links; links being a
Scottish name for sand which has ceased drifting and become more or less
solidly covered with turf. The pavilion stood on an even space: a little
behind it, the wood began in a hedge of elders huddled together by the
wind; in front, a few tumbled sand hills stood between it and the sea. An
outcropping of rock had formed a bastion for the sand, so that there was
here a promontory in the coast line between two shallow bays; and just
beyond the tides, the rock again cropped out and formed an islet of small
dimensions but strikingly designed. The quicksands were of great extent at
low water, and had an infamous reputation in the country. Close in shore,
between the islet and the promontory, it was said they would swallow a man
in four minutes and a half; but there may have been little ground for this

precision. The district was alive with rabbits, and haunted by gulls which
made a continual piping about the pavilion. On summer days the outlook
was bright and even gladsome; but at sundown in September, with a high
wind, and a heavy surf rolling in close along the links, the place told of
nothing but dead mariners and sea disaster. A ship beating to windward on
the horizon, and a huge truncheon of wreck half buried in the sands at my
feet, completed the innuendo of the scene.
The pavilion—it had been built by the last proprietor, Northmour's uncle, a
silly and prodigal virtuoso—presented little signs of age. It was two stories
in height, Italian in design, surrounded by a patch of garden in which
nothing had prospered but a few coarse flowers; and looked, with its
shuttered windows, not like a house that had been deserted, but like one that
had never been tenanted by man. Northmour was plainly from home;
whether, as usual, sulking in the cabin of his yacht, or in one of his fitful
and extravagant appearances in the world of society, I had, of course, no
means of guessing. The place had an air of solitude that daunted even a
solitary like myself; the wind cried in the chimneys with a strange and
wailing note; and it was with a sense of escape, as if I were going indoors,
that I turned away and, driving my cart before me, entered the skirts of the
wood.
The Sea-Wood of Graden had been planted to shelter the cultivated fields
behind, and check the encroachments of the blowing sand. As you advanced
into it from coastward, elders were succeeded by other hardy shrubs; but the
timber was all stunted and bushy; it led a life of conflict; the trees were
accustomed to swing there all night long in fierce winter tempests; and even
in early spring, the leaves were already flying, and autumn was beginning,
in this exposed plantation. Inland the ground rose into a little hill, which,
along with the islet, served as a sailing mark for seamen. When the hill was
open of the islet to the north, vessels must bear well to the eastward to clear
Graden Ness and the Graden Bullers. In the lower ground, a streamlet ran
among the trees, and, being dammed with dead leaves and clay of its own
carrying, spread out every here and there, and lay in stagnant pools. One or
two ruined cottages were dotted about the wood; and, according to
Northmour, these were ecclesiastical foundations, and in their time had
sheltered pious hermits.

I found a den, or small hollow, where there was a spring of pure water; and
there, clearing away the brambles, I pitched the tent, and made a fire to
cook my supper. My horse I picketed farther in the wood where there was a
patch of sward. The banks of the den not only concealed the light of my
fire, but sheltered me from the wind, which was cold as well as high.
The life I was leading made me both hardy and frugal. I never drank but
water, and rarely eat anything more costly than oatmeal; and I required so
little sleep, that, although I rose with the peep of day, I would often lie long
awake in the dark or starry watches of the night. Thus in Graden Sea-Wood,
although I fell thankfully asleep by eight in the evening I was awake again
before eleven with a full possession of my faculties, and no sense of
drowsiness or fatigue. I rose and sat by the fire, watching the trees and
clouds tumultuously tossing and fleeing overhead, and hearkening to the
wind and the rollers along the shore; till at length, growing weary of
inaction, I quitted the den, and strolled toward the borders of the wood. A
young moon, buried in mist, gave a faint illumination to my steps; and the
light grew brighter as I walked forth into the links. At the same moment, the
wind, smelling salt of the open ocean and carrying particles of sand, struck
me with its full force, so that I had to bow my head.
When I raised it again to look about me, I was aware of a light in the
pavilion. It was not stationary; but passed from one window to another, as
though some one were reviewing the different apartments with a lamp or
candle. I watched it for some seconds in great surprise. When I had arrived
in the afternoon the house had been plainly deserted; now it was as plainly
occupied. It was my first idea that a gang of thieves might have broken in
and be now ransacking Northmour's cupboards, which were many and not
ill supplied. But what should bring thieves at Graden Easter? And, again, all
the shutters had been thrown open, and it would have been more in the
character of such gentry to close them. I dismissed the notion, and fell back
upon another. Northmour himself must have arrived, and was now airing
and inspecting the pavilion.
I have said that there was no real affection between this man and me; but,
had I loved him like a brother, I was then so much more in love with
solitude that I should none the less have shunned his company. As it was, I
turned and ran for it; and it was with genuine satisfaction that I found

myself safely back beside the fire. I had escaped an acquaintance; I should
have one more night in comfort. In the morning, I might either slip away
before Northmour was abroad, or pay him as short a visit as I chose.
But when morning came, I thought the situation so diverting that I forgot
my shyness. Northmour was at my mercy; I arranged a good practical jest,
though I knew well that my neighbor was not the man to jest with in
security; and, chuckling beforehand over its success, took my place among
the elders at the edge of the wood, whence I could command the door of the
pavilion. The shutters were all once more closed, which I remember
thinking odd; and the house, with its white walls and green venetians,
looked spruce and habitable in the morning light. Hour after hour passed,
and still no sign of Northmour. I knew him for a sluggard in the morning;
but, as it drew on toward noon, I lost my patience. To say the truth, I had
promised myself to break my fast in the pavilion, and hunger began to prick
me sharply. It was a pity to let the opportunity go by without some cause for
mirth; but the grosser appetite prevailed, and I relinquished my jest with
regret, and sallied from the wood.
The appearance of the house affected me, as I drew near, with disquietude.
It seemed unchanged since last evening; and I had expected it, I scarce
knew why, to wear some external signs of habitation. But no: the windows
were all closely shuttered, the chimneys breathed no smoke, and the front
door itself was closely padlocked. Northmour, therefore, had entered by the
back; this was the natural, and indeed, the necessary conclusion; and you
may judge of my surprise when, on turning the house, I found the back door
similarly secured.
My mind at once reverted to the original theory of thieves; and I blamed
myself sharply for my last night's inaction. I examined all the windows on
the lower story, but none of them had been tampered with; I tried the
padlocks, but they were both secure. It thus became a problem how the
thieves, if thieves they were, had managed to enter the house. They must
have got, I reasoned, upon the roof of the outhouse where Northmour used
to keep his photographic battery; and from thence, either by the window of
the study or that of my old bedroom, completed their burglarious entry.

I followed what I supposed was their example; and, getting on the roof,
tried the shutters of each room. Both were secure; but I was not to be
beaten; and, with a little force, one of them flew open, grazing, as it did so,
the back of my hand. I remember, I put the wound to my mouth, and stood
for perhaps half a minute licking it like a dog, and mechanically gazing
behind me over the waste links and the sea; and, in that space of time, my
eye made note of a large schooner yacht some miles to the northeast. Then I
threw up the window and climbed in.
I went over the house, and nothing can express my mystification. There was
no sign of disorder, but, on the contrary, the rooms were unusually clean
and pleasant. I found fires laid, ready for lighting; three bedrooms prepared
with a luxury quite foreign to Northmour's habits, and with water in the
ewers and the beds turned down; a table set for three in the dining-room;
and an ample supply of cold meats, game, and vegetables on the pantry
shelves. There were guests expected, that was plain; but why guests, when
Northmour hated society? And, above all, why was the house thus stealthily
prepared at dead of night? and why were the shutters closed and the doors
padlocked?
I effaced all traces of my visit, and came forth from the window feeling
sobered and concerned.
The schooner yacht was still in the same place; and it flashed for a moment
through my mind that this might be the "Red Earl" bringing the owner of
the pavilion and his guests. But the vessel's head was set the other way.

II
I returned to the den to cook myself a meal, of which I stood in great need,
as well as to care for my horse, whom I had somewhat neglected in the
morning. From time to time I went down to the edge of the wood; but there
was no change in the pavilion, and not a human creature was seen all day
upon the links. The schooner in the offing was the one touch of life within
my range of vision. She, apparently with no set object, stood off and on or
lay to, hour after hour; but as the evening deepened, she drew steadily
nearer. I became more convinced that she carried Northmour and his
friends, and that they would probably come ashore after dark; not only
because that was of a piece with the secrecy of the preparations, but
because the tide would not have flowed sufficiently before eleven to cover
Graden Floe and the other sea quags that fortified the shore against
invaders.
All day the wind had been going down, and the sea along with it; but there
was a return toward sunset of the heavy weather of the day before. The
night set in pitch dark. The wind came off the sea in squalls, like the firing
of a battery of cannon; now and then there was a flaw of rain, and the surf
rolled heavier with the rising tide. I was down at my observatory among the
elders, when a light was run up to the masthead of the schooner, and
showed she was closer in than when I had last seen her by the dying
daylight. I concluded that this must be a signal to Northmour's associates on
shore; and, stepping forth into the links, looked around me for something in
response.
A small footpath ran along the margin of the wood, and formed the most
direct communication between the pavilion and the mansion house; and, as
I cast my eyes to that side, I saw a spark of light, not a quarter of a mile
away, and rapidly approaching. From its uneven course it appeared to be the
light of a lantern carried by a person who followed the windings of the path,
and was often staggered, and taken aback by the more violent squalls. I
concealed myself once more among the elders, and waited eagerly for the
newcomer's advance. It proved to be a woman; and, as she passed within

half a rod of my ambush, I was able to recognize the features. The deaf and
silent old dame, who had nursed Northmour in his childhood, was his
associate in this underhand affair.
I followed her at a little distance, taking advantage of the innumerable
heights and hollows, concealed by the darkness, and favored not only by the
nurse's deafness, but by the uproar of the wind and surf. She entered the
pavilion, and, going at once to the upper story, opened and set a light in one
of the windows that looked toward the sea. Immediately afterwards the light
at the schooner's masthead was run down and extinguished. Its purpose had
been attained, and those on board were sure that they were expected. The
old woman resumed her preparations; although the other shutters remained
closed, I could see a glimmer going to and fro about the house; and a gush
of sparks from one chimney after another soon told me that the fires were
being kindled.
Northmour and his guests, I was now persuaded, would come ashore as
soon as there was water on the floe. It was a wild night for boat service; and
I felt some alarm mingle with my curiosity as I reflected on the danger of
the landing. My old acquaintance, it was true, was the most eccentric of
men; but the present eccentricity was both disquieting and lugubrious to
consider. A variety of feelings thus led me toward the beach, where I lay flat
on my face in a hollow within six feet of the track that led to the pavilion.
Thence, I should have the satisfaction of recognizing the arrivals, and, if
they should prove to be acquaintances, greeting them as soon as they
landed.
Some time before eleven, while the tide was still dangerously low, a boat's
lantern appeared close in shore; and, my attention being thus awakened, I
could perceive another still far to seaward, violently tossed, and sometimes
hidden by the billows. The weather, which was getting dirtier as the night
went on, and the perilous situation of the yacht upon a lee shore, had
probably driven them to attempt a landing at the earliest possible moment.
A little afterwards, four yachtsmen carrying a very heavy chest, and guided
by a fifth with a lantern, passed close in front of me as I lay, and were
admitted to the pavilion by the nurse. They returned to the beach, and
passed me a third time with another chest, larger but apparently not so

heavy as the first. A third time they made the transit; and on this occasion
one of the yachtsmen carried a leather portmanteau, and the others a lady's
trunk and carriage bag. My curiosity was sharply excited. If a woman were
among the guests of Northmour, it would show a change in his habits, and
an apostasy from his pet theories of life, well calculated to fill me with
surprise. When he and I dwelt there together, the pavilion had been a temple
of misogyny. And now, one of the detested sex was to be installed under its
roof. I remembered one or two particulars, a few notes of daintiness and
almost of coquetry which had struck me the day before as I surveyed the
preparations in the house; their purpose was now clear, and I thought myself
dull not to have perceived it from the first.
While I was thus reflecting, a second lantern drew near me from the beach.
It was carried by a yachtsman whom I had not yet seen, and who was
conducting two other persons to the pavilion. These two persons were
unquestionably the guests for whom the house was made ready; and,
straining eye and ear, I set myself to watch them as they passed. One was an
unusually tall man, in a traveling hat slouched over his eyes, and a highland
cape closely buttoned and turned up so as to conceal his face. You could
make out no more of him than that he was, as I have said, unusually tall,
and walked feebly with a heavy stoop. By his side, and either clinging to
him or giving him support—I could not make out which—was a young, tall,
and slender figure of a woman. She was extremely pale; but in the light of
the lantern her face was so marred by strong and changing shadows, that
she might equally well have been as ugly as sin or as beautiful as I
afterwards found her to be.
When they were just abreast of me, the girl made some remark which was
drowned by the noise of the wind.
"Hush!" said her companion; and there was something in the tone with
which the word was uttered that thrilled and rather shook my spirits. It
seemed to breathe from a bosom laboring under the deadliest terror; I have
never heard another syllable so expressive; and I still hear it again when I
am feverish at night, and my mind runs upon old times. The man turned
toward the girl as he spoke; I had a glimpse of much red beard and a nose
which seemed to have been broken in youth; and his light eyes seemed
shining in his face with some strong and unpleasant emotion.

But these two passed on and were admitted in their turn to the pavilion.
One by one, or in groups, the seamen returned to the beach. The wind
brought me the sound of a rough voice crying, "Shove off!" Then, after a
pause, another lantern drew near. It was Northmour alone.
My wife and I, a man and a woman, have often agreed to wonder how a
person could be, at the same time, so handsome and so repulsive as
Northmour. He had the appearance of a finished gentleman; his face bore
every mark of intelligence and courage; but you had only to look at him,
even in his most amiable moment, to see that he had the temper of a slaver
captain. I never knew a character that was both explosive and revengeful to
the same degree; he combined the vivacity of the south with the sustained
and deadly hatreds of the north; and both traits were plainly written on his
face, which was a sort of danger signal. In person, he was tall, strong, and
active; his hair and complexion very dark; his features handsomely
designed, but spoiled by a menacing expression.
At that moment he was somewhat paler than by nature; he wore a heavy
frown; and his lips worked, and he looked sharply round him as he walked,
like a man besieged with apprehensions. And yet I thought he had a look of
triumph underlying all, as though he had already done much, and was near
the end of an achievement.
Partly from a scruple of delicacy—which I dare say came too late—partly
from the pleasure of startling an acquaintance, I desired to make my
presence known to him without delay.
I got suddenly to my feet, and stepped forward.
"Northmour!" said I.
I have never had so shocking a surprise in all my days. He leaped on me
without a word; something shone in his hand; and he struck for my heart
with a dagger. At the same moment I knocked him head over heels.
Whether it was my quickness, or his own uncertainty, I know not; but the
blade only grazed my shoulder, while the hilt and his fist struck me
violently on the mouth.

I fled, but not far. I had often and often observed the capabilities of the sand
hills for protracted ambush or stealthy advances and retreats; and, not ten
yards from the scene of the scuffle, plumped down again upon the grass.
The lantern had fallen and gone out. But what was my astonishment to see
Northmour slip at a bound into the pavilion, and hear him bar the door
behind him with a clang of iron!
He had not pursued me. He had run away. Northmour, whom I knew for the
most implacable and daring of men, had run away! I could scarce believe
my reason; and yet in this strange business, where all was incredible, there
was nothing to make a work about in an incredibility more or less. For why
was the pavilion secretly prepared? Why had Northmour landed with his
guests at dead of night, in half a gale of wind, and with the floe scarce
covered? Why had he sought to kill me? Had he not recognized my voice? I
wondered. And, above all, how had he come to have a dagger ready in his
hand? A dagger, or even a sharp knife, seemed out of keeping with the age
in which we lived; and a gentleman landing from his yacht on the shore of
his own estate, even although it was at night and with some mysterious
circumstances, does not usually, as a matter of fact, walk thus prepared for
deadly onslaught. The more I reflected, the further I felt at sea. I
recapitulated the elements of mystery, counting them on my fingers: the
pavilion secretly prepared for guests; the guests landed at the risk of their
lives and to the imminent peril of the yacht; the guests, or at least one of
them, in undisguised and seemingly causeless terror; Northmour with a
naked weapon; Northmour stabbing his most intimate acquaintance at a
word; last, and not least strange, Northmour fleeing from the man whom he
had sought to murder, and barricading himself, like a hunted creature,
behind the door of the pavilion. Here were at least six separate causes for
extreme surprise; each part and parcel with the others, and forming all
together one consistent story. I felt almost ashamed to believe my own
senses.
As I thus stood, transfixed with wonder, I began to grow painfully
conscious of the injuries I had received in the scuffle; skulked round among
the sand hills; and, by a devious path, regained the shelter of the wood. On
the way, the old nurse passed again within several yards of me, still carrying
her lantern, on the return journey to the mansion house of Graden. This
made a seventh suspicious feature in the case. Northmour and his guests, it

appeared, were to cook and do the cleaning for themselves, while the old
woman continued to inhabit the big empty barrack among the policies.
There must surely be great cause for secrecy, when so many inconveniences
were confronted to preserve it.
So thinking, I made my way to the den. For greater security, I trod out the
embers of the fire, and lighted my lantern to examine the wound upon my
shoulder. It was a trifling hurt, although it bled somewhat freely, and I
dressed it as well as I could (for its position made it difficult to reach) with
some rag and cold water from the spring. While I was thus busied, I
mentally declared war against Northmour and his mystery. I am not an
angry man by nature, and I believe there was more curiosity than
resentment in my heart. But war I certainly declared; and, by way of
preparation, I got out my revolver, and, having drawn the charges, cleaned
and reloaded it with scrupulous care. Next I became preoccupied about my
horse. It might break loose, or fall to neighing, and so betray my camp in
the Sea-Wood. I determined to rid myself of its neighborhood; and long
before dawn I was leading it over the links in the direction of the fisher
village.

III
For two days I skulked round the pavilion, profiting by the uneven surface
of the links. I became an adept in the necessary tactics. These low hillocks
and shallow dells, running one into another, became a kind of cloak of
darkness for my inthralling, but perhaps dishonorable, pursuit.
Yet, in spite of this advantage, I could learn but little of Northmour or his
guests.
Fresh provisions were brought under cover of darkness by the old woman
from the mansion house. Northmour, and the young lady, sometimes
together, but more often singly, would walk for an hour or two at a time on
the beach beside the quicksand. I could not but conclude that this
promenade was chosen with an eye to secrecy; for the spot was open only
to seaward. But it suited me not less excellently; the highest and most
accidented of the sand hills immediately adjoined; and from these, lying flat
in a hollow, I could overlook Northmour or the young lady as they walked.
The tall man seemed to have disappeared. Not only did he never cross the
threshold, but he never so much as showed face at a window; or, at least,
not so far as I could see; for I dared not creep forward beyond a certain
distance in the day, since the upper floors commanded the bottoms of the
links; and at night, when I could venture further, the lower windows were
barricaded as if to stand a siege. Sometimes I thought the tall man must be
confined to bed, for I remembered the feebleness of his gait; and sometimes
I thought he must have gone clear away, and that Northmour and the young
lady remained alone together in the pavilion. The idea, even then,
displeased me.
Whether or not this pair were man and wife, I had seen abundant reason to
doubt the friendliness of their relation. Although I could hear nothing of
what they said, and rarely so much as glean a decided expression on the
face of either, there was a distance, almost a stiffness, in their bearing which
showed them to be either unfamiliar or at enmity. The girl walked faster
when she was with Northmour than when she was alone; and I conceived

that any inclination between a man and a woman would rather delay than
accelerate the step. Moreover, she kept a good yard free of him, and trailed
her umbrella, as if it were a barrier, on the side between them. Northmour
kept sidling closer; and, as the girl retired from his advance, their course lay
at a sort of diagonal across the beach, and would have landed them in the
surf had it been long enough continued. But, when this was imminent, the
girl would unostentatiously change sides and put Northmour between her
and the sea. I watched these maneuvers, for my part, with high enjoyment
and approval, and chuckled to myself at every move.
On the morning of the third day, she walked alone for some time, and I
perceived, to my great concern, that she was more than once in tears. You
will see that my heart was already interested more than I supposed. She had
a firm yet airy motion of the body, and carried her head with unimaginable
grace; every step was a thing to look at, and she seemed in my eyes to
breathe sweetness and distinction.
The day was so agreeable, being calm and sunshiny, with a tranquil sea, and
yet with a healthful piquancy and vigor in the air, that, contrary to custom,
she was tempted forth a second time to walk. On this occasion she was
accompanied by Northmour, and they had been but a short while on the
beach, when I saw him take forcible possession of her hand. She struggled,
and uttered a cry that was almost a scream. I sprung to my feet, unmindful
of my strange position; but, ere I had taken a step, I saw Northmour
bareheaded and bowing very low, as if to apologize; and dropped again at
once into my ambush. A few words were interchanged; and then, with
another bow, he left the beach to return to the pavilion. He passed not far
from me, and I could see him, flushed and lowering, and cutting savagely
with his cane among the grass. It was not without satisfaction that I
recognized my own handiwork in a great cut under his right eye, and a
considerable discoloration round the socket.
For some time the girl remained where he had left her, looking out past the
islet and over the bright sea. Then with a start, as one who throws off
preoccupation and puts energy again upon its mettle, she broke into a rapid
and decisive walk. She also was much incensed by what had passed. She
had forgotten where she was. And I beheld her walk straight into the
borders of the quicksand where it is most abrupt and dangerous. Two or

three steps farther and her life would have been in serious jeopardy, when I
slid down the face of the sand hill, which is there precipitous, and, running
halfway forward, called to her to stop.
She did so, and turned round. There was not a tremor of fear in her
behavior, and she marched directly up to me like a queen. I was barefoot,
and clad like a common sailor, save for an Egyptian scarf round my waist;
and she probably took me at first for some one from the fisher village,
straying after bait. As for her, when I thus saw her face to face, her eyes set
steadily and imperiously upon mine, I was filled with admiration and
astonishment, and thought her even more beautiful than I had looked to find
her. Nor could I think enough of one who, acting with so much boldness,
yet preserved a maidenly air that was both quaint and engaging; for my wife
kept an old-fashioned precision of manner through all her admirable life—
an excellent thing in woman, since it sets another value on her sweet
familiarities.
"What does this mean?" she asked.
"You were walking," I told her, "directly into Graden Floe."
"You do not belong to these parts," she said again. "You speak like an
educated man."
"I believe I have a right to that name," said I, "although in this disguise."
But her woman's eye had already detected the sash.
"Oh!" she said; "your sash betrays you."
"You have said the word betray," I resumed. "May I ask you not to betray
me? I was obliged to disclose myself in your interest; but if Northmour
learned my presence it might be worse than disagreeable for me."
"Do you know," she asked, "to whom you are speaking?"
"Not to Mr. Northmour's wife?" I asked, by way of answer.
She shook her head. All this while she was studying my face with an
embarrassing intentness. Then she broke out—

"You have an honest face. Be honest like your face, sir, and tell me what
you want and what you are afraid of. Do you think I could hurt you? I
believe you have far more power to injure me! And yet you do not look
unkind. What do you mean—you, a gentleman—by skulking like a spy
about this desolate place? Tell me," she said, "who is it you hate?"
"I hate no one," I answered; "and I fear no one face to face. My name is
Cassilis—Frank Cassilis. I lead the life of a vagabond for my own good
pleasure. I am one of Northmour's oldest friends; and three nights ago,
when I addressed him on these links, he stabbed me in the shoulder with a
knife."
"It was you!" she said.
"Why he did so," I continued, disregarding the interruption, "is more than I
can guess, and more than I care to know. I have not many friends, nor am I
very susceptible to friendship; but no man shall drive me from a place by
terror. I had camped in the Graden Sea-Wood ere he came; I camp in it still.
If you think I mean harm to you or yours, madame, the remedy is in your
hand. Tell him that my camp is in the Hemlock Den, and to-night he can
stab me in safety while I sleep."
With this I doffed my cap to her, and scrambled up once more among the
sand hills. I do not know why, but I felt a prodigious sense of injustice, and
felt like a hero and a martyr; while as a matter of fact, I had not a word to
say in my defense, nor so much as one plausible reason to offer for my
conduct. I had stayed at Graden out of a curiosity natural enough, but
undignified; and though there was another motive growing in along with the
first, it was not one which, at that period, I could have properly explained to
the lady of my heart.
Certainly, that night, I thought of no one else; and, though her whole
conduct and position seemed suspicious, I could not find it in my heart to
entertain a doubt of her integrity. I could have staked my life that she was
clear of blame, and, though all was dark at the present, that the explanation
of the mystery would show her part in these events to be both right and
needful. It was true, let me cudgel my imagination as I pleased, that I could
invent no theory of her relations to Northmour; but I felt none the less sure
of my conclusion because it was founded on instinct in place of reason, and,

as I may say, went to sleep that night with the thought of her under my
pillow.
Next day she came out about the same hour alone, and, as soon as the sand
hills concealed her from the pavilion, drew nearer to the edge, and called
me by name in guarded tones. I was astonished to observe that she was
deadly pale, and seemingly under the influence of strong emotion.
"Mr. Cassilis!" she cried; "Mr. Cassilis!"
I appeared at once, and leaped down upon the beach. A remarkable air of
relief overspread her countenance as soon as she saw me.
"Oh!" she cried, with a hoarse sound, like one whose bosom had been
lightened of a weight. And then, "Thank God you are still safe!" she added;
"I knew, if you were, you would be here." (Was not this strange? So swiftly
and wisely does Nature prepare our hearts for these great lifelong
intimacies, that both my wife and I had been given a presentiment on this
the second day of our acquaintance. I had even then hoped that she would
seek me; she had felt sure that she would find me.) "Do not," she went on
swiftly, "do not stay in this place. Promise me that you sleep no longer in
that wood. You do not know how I suffer; all last night I could not sleep for
thinking of your peril."
"Peril!" I repeated. "Peril from whom? From Northmour?"
"Not so," she said. "Did you think I would tell him after what you said?"
"Not from Northmour?" I repeated. "Then how? From whom? I see none to
be afraid of."
"You must not ask me," was her reply, "for I am not free to tell you. Only
believe me, and go hence—believe me, and go away quickly, quickly, for
your life!"
An appeal to his alarm is never a good plan to rid oneself of a spirited
young man. My obstinacy was but increased by what she said, and I made it
a point of honor to remain. And her solicitude for my safety still more
confirmed me in the resolve.

"You must not think me inquisitive, madame," I replied, "but, if Graden is
so dangerous a place, you yourself perhaps remain here at some risk."
She only looked at me reproachfully.
"You and your father—" I resumed; but she interrupted me almost with a
gasp.
"My father! How do you know that?" she cried.
"I saw you together when you landed," was my answer; and I do not know
why, but it seemed satisfactory to both of us, as indeed it was truth. "But," I
continued, "you need have no fear from me. I see you have some reason to
be secret, and, you may believe me, your secret is as safe with me as if I
were in Graden Floe. I have scarce spoken to anyone for years; my horse is
my only companion, and even he, poor beast, is not beside me. You see,
then, you may count on me for silence. So tell me the truth, my dear young
lady, are you not in danger?"
"Mr. Northmour says you are an honorable man," she returned, "and I
believe it when I see you. I will tell you so much; you are right: we are in
dreadful, dreadful danger, and you share it by remaining where you are."
"Ah!" said I; "you have heard of me from Northmour? And he gives me a
good character?"
"I asked him about you last night," was her reply. "I pretended," she
hesitated, "I pretended to have met you long ago, and spoken to you of him.
It was not true; but I could not help myself without betraying you, and you
had put me in a difficulty. He praised you highly."
"And—you may permit me one question—does this danger come from
Northmour?" I asked.
"From Mr. Northmour?" she cried. "Oh, no, he stays with us to share it."
"While you propose that I should run away?" I said. "You do not rate me
very high."
"Why should you stay?" she asked. "You are no friend of ours."

I know not what came over me, for I had not been conscious of a similar
weakness since I was a child, but I was so mortified by this retort that my
eyes pricked and filled with tears, as I continued to gaze upon her face.
"No, no," she said, in a changed voice; "I did not mean the words unkindly."
"It was I who offended," I said; and I held out my hand with a look of
appeal that somehow touched her, for she gave me hers at once, and even
eagerly. I held it for awhile in mine, and gazed into her eyes. It was she who
first tore her hand away, and, forgetting all about her request and the
promise she had sought to extort, ran at the top of her speed, and without
turning, till she was out of sight. And then I knew that I loved her, and
thought in my glad heart that she—she herself—was not indifferent to my
suit. Many a time she has denied it in after days, but it was with a smiling
and not a serious denial. For my part, I am sure our hands would not have
lain so closely in each other if she had not begun to melt to me already.
And, when all is said, it is no great contention, since, by her own avowal,
she began to love me on the morrow.
And yet on the morrow very little took place. She came and called me down
as on the day before, upbraided me for lingering at Graden, and, when she
found I was still obdurate, began to ask me more particularly as to my
arrival. I told her by what series of accidents I had come to witness their
disembarkation, and how I had determined to remain, partly from the
interest which had been awakened in me by Northmour's guests, and partly
because of his own murderous attack. As to the former, I fear I was
disingenuous, and led her to regard herself as having been an attraction to
me from the first moment that I saw her on the links. It relieves my heart to
make this confession even now, when my wife is with God, and already
knows all things, and the honesty of my purpose even in this; for while she
lived, although it often pricked my conscience, I had never the hardihood to
undeceive her. Even a little secret, in such a married life as ours, is like the
rose leaf which kept the princess from her sleep.
From this the talk branched into other subjects, and I told her much about
my lonely and wandering existence; she, for her part, giving ear, and saying
little. Although we spoke very naturally, and latterly on topics that might
seem indifferent, we were both sweetly agitated. Too soon it was time for

her to go; and we separated, as if by mutual consent, without shaking hands,
for both knew that, between us, it was no idle ceremony.
The next, and that was the fourth day of our acquaintance, we met in the
same spot, but early in the morning, with much familiarity and yet much
timidity on either side. While she had once more spoken about my danger—
and that, I understood, was her excuse for coming—I, who had prepared a
great deal of talk during the night, began to tell her how highly I valued her
kind interest, and how no one had ever cared to hear about my life, nor had
I ever cared to relate it, before yesterday. Suddenly she interrupted me,
saying with vehemence—
"And yet, if you knew who I was, you would not so much as speak to me!"
I told her such a thought was madness, and, little as we had met, I counted
her already a dear friend; but my protestations seemed only to make her
more desperate.
"My father is in hiding!" she cried.
"My dear," I said, forgetting for the first time to add "young lady," "what do
I care? If I were in hiding twenty times over, would it make one thought of
change in you?"
"Ah, but the cause!" she cried, "the cause! It is"—she faltered for a second
—"it is disgraceful to us!"

IV
This was my wife's story, as I drew it from her among tears and sobs. Her
name was Clara Huddlestone: it sounded very beautiful in my ears; but not
so beautiful as that other name of Clara Cassilis, which she wore during the
longer and, I thank God, the happier portion of her life. Her father, Bernard
Huddlestone, had been a private banker in a very large way of business.
Many years before, his affairs becoming disordered, he had been led to try
dangerous, and at last criminal, expedients to retrieve himself from ruin. All
was in vain; he became more and more cruelly involved, and found his
honor lost at the same moment with his fortune. About this period,
Northmour had been courting his daughter with great assiduity, though with
small encouragement; and to him, knowing him thus disposed in his favor,
Bernard Huddlestone turned for help in his extremity. It was not merely ruin
and dishonor, nor merely a legal condemnation, that the unhappy man had
brought upon his head. It seems he could have gone to prison with a light
heart. What he feared, what kept him awake at night or recalled him from
slumber into frenzy, was some secret, sudden, and unlawful attempt upon
his life. Hence, he desired to bury his existence and escape to one of the
islands in the South Pacific, and it was in Northmour's yacht, the "Red
Earl," that he designed to go. The yacht picked them up clandestinely upon
the coast of Wales, and had once more deposited them at Graden, till she
could be refitted and provisioned for the longer voyage. Nor could Clara
doubt that her hand had been stipulated as the price of passage. For,
although Northmour was neither unkind, nor even discourteous, he had
shown himself in several instances somewhat overbold in speech and
manner.
I listened, I need not say, with fixed attention, and put many questions as to
the more mysterious part. It was in vain. She had no clear idea of what the
blow was, nor of how it was expected to fall. Her father's alarm was
unfeigned and physically prostrating, and he had thought more than once of
making an unconditional surrender to the police. But the scheme was finally
abandoned, for he was convinced that not even the strength of our English
prisons could shelter him from his pursuers. He had had many affairs in

Italy, and with Italians resident in London, in the latter years of his
business; and these last, as Clara fancied, were somehow connected with
the doom that threatened him. He had shown great terror at the presence of
an Italian seaman on board the "Red Earl," and had bitterly and repeatedly
accused Northmour in consequence. The latter had protested that Beppo
(that was the seaman's name) was a capital fellow, and could be trusted to
the death; but Mr. Huddlestone had continued ever since to declare that all
was lost, that it was only a question of days, and that Beppo would be the
ruin of him yet.
I regarded the whole story as the hallucination of a mind shaken by
calamity. He had suffered heavy loss by his Italian transactions; and hence
the sight of an Italian was hateful to him, and the principal part in his
nightmare would naturally enough be played by one of that nation.
"What your father wants," I said, "is a good doctor and some calming
medicine."
"But Mr. Northmour?" objected Clara. "He is untroubled by losses, and yet
he shares in this terror."
I could not help laughing at what I considered her simplicity.
"My dear," said I, "you have told me yourself what reward he has to look
for. All is fair in love, you must remember; and if Northmour foments your
father's terrors, it is not at all because he is afraid of any Italian man, but
simply because he is infatuated with a charming English woman."
She reminded me of his attack upon myself on the night of the
disembarkation, and this I was unable to explain. In short, and from one
thing to another, it was agreed between us that I should set out at once for
the fisher village, Graden Wester, as it was called, look up all the
newspapers I could find, and see for myself if there seemed any basis of
fact for these continued alarms. The next morning, at the same hour and
place, I was to make my report to Clara. She said no more on that occasion
about my departure; nor, indeed, did she make it a secret that she clung to
the thought of my proximity as something helpful and pleasant; and, for my
part, I could not have left her, if she had gone upon her knees to ask it.

I reached Graden Wester before ten in the forenoon; for in those days I was
an excellent pedestrian, and the distance, as I think I have said, was little
over seven miles; fine walking all the way upon the springy turf. The
village is one of the bleakest on that coast, which is saying much: there is a
church in the hollow; a miserable haven in the rocks, where many boats
have been lost as they returned from fishing; two or three score of stone
houses arranged along the beach and in two streets, one leading from the
harbor, and another striking out from it at right angles; and, at the corner of
these two, a very dark and cheerless tavern, by way of principal hotel.
I had dressed myself somewhat more suitably to my station in life, and at
once called upon the minister in his little manse beside the graveyard. He
knew me, although it was more than nine years since we had met; and when
I told him that I had been long upon a walking tour, and was behind with
the news, readily lent me an armful of newspapers, dating from a month
back to the day before. With these I sought the tavern, and, ordering some
breakfast, sat down to study the "Huddlestone Failure."
It had been, it appeared, a very flagrant case. Thousands of persons were
reduced to poverty; and one in particular had blown out his brains as soon
as payment was suspended. It was strange to myself that, while I read these
details, I continued rather to sympathize with Mr. Huddlestone than with his
victims; so complete already was the empire of my love for my wife. A
price was naturally set upon the banker's head; and, as the case was
inexcusable and the public indignation thoroughly aroused, the unusual
figure of £750 was offered for his capture. He was reported to have large
sums of money in his possession. One day, he had been heard of in Spain;
the next, there was sure intelligence that he was still lurking between
Manchester and Liverpool, or along the border of Wales; and the day after,
a telegram would announce his arrival in Cuba or Yucatan. But in all this
there was no word of an Italian, nor any sign of mystery.
In the very last paper, however, there was one item not so clear. The
accountants who were charged to verify the failure had, it seemed, come
upon the traces of a very large number of thousands, which figured for
some time in the transactions of the house of Huddlestone; but which came
from nowhere, and disappeared in the same mysterious fashion. It was only
once referred to by name, and then under the initials "X.X."; but it had

plainly been floated for the first time into the business at a period of great
depression some six years ago. The name of a distinguished royal personage
had been mentioned by rumor in connection with this sum. "The cowardly
desperado"—such, I remember, was the editorial expression—was
supposed to have escaped with a large part of this mysterious fund still in
his possession.
I was still brooding over the fact, and trying to torture it into some
connection with Mr. Huddlestone's danger, when a man entered the tavern
and asked for some bread and cheese with a decided foreign accent.
"Siete Italiano?" said I.
"Si, Signor," was his reply.
I said it was unusually far north to find one of his compatriots; at which he
shrugged his shoulders, and replied that a man would go anywhere to find
work. What work he could hope to find at Graden Wester, I was totally
unable to conceive; and the incident struck so unpleasantly upon my mind,
that I asked the landlord, while he was counting me some change, whether
he had ever before seen an Italian in the village. He said he had once seen
some Norwegians, who had been shipwrecked on the other side of Graden
Ness and rescued by the lifeboat from Cauldhaven.
"No!" said I; "but an Italian, like the man who has just had bread and
cheese."
"What?" cried he, "yon black-avised fellow wi' the teeth? Was he an I-
talian? Weel, yon's the first that ever I saw, an' I dare say he's like to be the
last."
Even as he was speaking, I raised my eyes, and, casting a glance into the
street, beheld three men in earnest conversation together, and not thirty
yards away. One of them was my recent companion in the tavern parlor; the
other two, by their handsome sallow features and soft hats, should evidently
belong to the same race. A crowd of village children stood around them,
gesticulating and talking gibberish in imitation. The trio looked singularly
foreign to the bleak dirty street in which they were standing and the dark
gray heaven that overspread them; and I confess my incredulity received at
that moment a shock from which it never recovered. I might reason with

myself as I pleased, but I could not argue down the effect of what I had
seen, and I began to share in the Italian terror.
It was already drawing toward the close of the day before I had returned the
newspapers to the manse, and got well forward on to the links on my way
home. I shall never forget that walk. It grew very cold and boisterous; the
wind sung in the short grass about my feet; thin rain showers came running
on the gusts; and an immense mountain range of clouds began to arise out
of the bosom of the sea. It would be hard to imagine a more dismal evening;
and whether it was from these external influences, or because my nerves
were already affected by what I had heard and seen, my thoughts were as
gloomy as the weather.
The upper windows of the pavilion commanded a considerable spread of
links in the direction of Graden Wester. To avoid observation, it was
necessary to hug the beach until I had gained cover from the higher sand
hills on the little headland, when I might strike across, through the hollows,
for the margin of the wood. The sun was about setting; the tide was low, and
all the quicksands uncovered; and I was moving along, lost in unpleasant
thought, when I was suddenly thunderstruck to perceive the prints of human
feet. They ran parallel to my own course, but low down upon the beach,
instead of along the border of the turf; and, when I examined them, I saw at
once, by the size and coarseness of the impression, that it was a stranger to
me and to those of the pavilion who had recently passed that way. Not only
so; but from the recklessness of the course which he had followed, steering
near to the most formidable portions of the sand, he was evidently a
stranger to the country and to the ill-repute of Graden beach.
Step by step I followed the prints; until, a quarter of a mile farther, I beheld
them die away into the southeastern boundary of Graden Floe. There,
whoever he was, the miserable man had perished. One or two gulls, who
had, perhaps, seen him disappear, wheeled over his sepulcher with their
usual melancholy piping. The sun had broken through the clouds by a last
effort, and colored the wide level of quicksands with a dusky purple. I stood
for some time gazing at the spot, chilled and disheartened by my own
reflections, and with a strong and commanding consciousness of death. I
remember wondering how long the tragedy had taken, and whether his
screams had been audible at the pavilion. And then, making a strong

resolution, I was about to tear myself away, when a gust fiercer than usual
fell upon this quarter of the beach, and I saw, now whirling high in air, now
skimming lightly across the surface of the sands, a soft, black, felt hat,
somewhat conical in shape, such as I had remarked already on the heads of
the Italians.
I believe, but I am not sure, that I uttered a cry. The wind was driving the
hat shoreward, and I ran round the border of the floe to be ready against its
arrival. The gust fell, dropping the hat for awhile upon the quicksand, and
then, once more freshening, landed it a few yards from where I stood. I
seized it with the interest you may imagine. It had seen some service;
indeed, it was rustier than either of those I had seen that day upon the street.
The lining was red, stamped with the name of the maker, which I have
forgotten, and that of the place of manufacture, Venedig. This (it is not yet
forgotten) was the name given by the Austrians to the beautiful city of
Venice, then, and for long after, a part of their dominions.
The shock was complete. I saw imaginary Italians upon every side; and for
the first, and, I may say, for the last time in my experience, became
overpowered by what is called a panic terror. I knew nothing, that is, to be
afraid of, and yet I admit that I was heartily afraid; and it was with sensible
reluctance that I returned to my exposed and solitary camp in the Sea-
Wood.
There I eat some cold porridge which had been left over from the night
before, for I was disinclined to make a fire; and, feeling strengthened and
reassured, dismissed all these fanciful terrors from my mind, and lay down
to sleep with composure.
How long I may have slept it is impossible for me to guess; but I was
awakened at last by a sudden, blinding flash of light into my face. It woke
me like a blow. In an instant I was upon my knees. But the light had gone as
suddenly as it came. The darkness was intense. And, as it was blowing great
guns from the sea, and pouring with rain, the noises of the storm effectually
concealed all others.
It was, I dare say, half a minute before I regained my self-possession. But
for two circumstances, I should have thought I had been awakened by some
new and vivid form of nightmare. First, the flap of my tent, which I had

shut carefully when I retired, was now unfastened; and, second, I could still
perceive, with a sharpness that excluded any theory of hallucination, the
smell of hot metal and of burning oil. The conclusion was obvious. I had
been awakened by some one flashing a bull's-eye lantern in my face. It had
been but a flash, and away. He had seen my face, and then gone. I asked
myself the object of so strange a proceeding, and the answer came pat. The
man, whoever he was, had thought to recognize me, and he had not. There
was another question unresolved; and to this, I may say, I feared to give an
answer; if he had recognized me, what would he have done?
My fears were immediately diverted from myself, for I saw that I had been
visited in a mistake; and I became persuaded that some dreadful danger
threatened the pavilion. It required some nerve to issue forth into the black
and intricate thicket which surrounded and overhung the den; but I groped
my way to the links, drenched with rain, beaten upon and deafened by the
gusts, and fearing at every step to lay my hand upon some lurking
adversary. The darkness was so complete that I might have been surrounded
by an army and yet none the wiser, and the uproar of the gale so loud that
my hearing was as useless as my sight.
For the rest of that night, which seemed interminably long, I patrolled the
vicinity of the pavilion, without seeing a living creature or hearing any
noise but the concert of the wind, the sea, and the rain. A light in the upper
story filtered through a cranny of the shutter, and kept me company till the
approach of dawn.

V
With the first peep of day, I retired from the open to my old lair among the
sand hills, there to await the coming of my wife. The morning was gray,
wild, and melancholy; the wind moderated before sunrise, and then went
about, and blew in puffs from the shore; the sea began to go down, but the
rain still fell without mercy. Over all the wilderness of links there was not a
creature to be seen. Yet I felt sure the neighborhood was alive with skulking
foes. The light that had been so suddenly and surprisingly flashed upon my
face as I lay sleeping, and the hat that had been blown ashore by the wind
from over Graden Floe, were two speaking signals of the peril that
environed Clara and the party in the pavilion.
It was, perhaps, half-past seven, or nearer eight, before I saw the door open,
and that dear figure come toward me in the rain. I was waiting for her on
the beach before she had crossed the sand hills.
"I have had such trouble to come!" she cried. "They did not wish me to go
walking in the rain."
"Clara," I said, "you are not frightened!"
"No," said she, with a simplicity that filled my heart with confidence. For
my wife was the bravest as well as the best of women; in my experience, I
have not found the two go always together, but with her they did; and she
combined the extreme of fortitude with the most endearing and beautiful
virtues.
I told her what had happened; and, though her cheek grew visibly paler, she
retained perfect control over her senses.
"You see now that I am safe," said I, in conclusion. "They do not mean to
harm me; for, had they chosen, I was a dead man last night."
She laid her hand upon my arm.
"And I had no presentiment!" she cried.

Her accent thrilled me with delight. I put my arm about her, and strained her
to my side; and, before either of us was aware, her hands were on my
shoulders and my lips upon her mouth. Yet up to that moment no word of
love had passed between us. To this day I remember the touch of her cheek,
which was wet and cold with the rain; and many a time since, when she has
been washing her face, I have kissed it again for the sake of that morning on
the beach. Now that she is taken from me, and I finish my pilgrimage alone,
I recall our old loving kindnesses and the deep honesty and affection which
united us, and my present loss seems but a trifle in comparison.
We may have thus stood for some seconds—for time passes quickly with
lovers—before we were startled by a peal of laughter close at hand. It was
not natural mirth, but seemed to be affected in order to conceal an angrier
feeling. We both turned, though I still kept my left arm about Clara's waist;
nor did she seek to withdraw herself; and there, a few paces off upon the
beach, stood Northmour, his head lowered, his hands behind his back, his
nostrils white with passion.
"Ah! Cassilis!" he said, as I disclosed my face.
"That same," said I; for I was not at all put about.
"And so, Miss Huddlestone," he continued slowly, but savagely, "this is
how you keep your faith to your father and to me? This is the value you set
upon your father's life? And you are so infatuated with this young
gentleman that you must brave ruin, and decency, and common human
caution—"
"Miss Huddlestone—" I was beginning to interrupt him, when he, in his
turn, cut in brutally—
"You hold your tongue," said he; "I am speaking to that girl."
"That girl, as you call her, is my wife," said I; and my wife only leaned a
little nearer, so that I knew she had affirmed my words.
"Your what?" he cried. "You lie!"
"Northmour," I said, "we all know you have a bad temper, and I am the last
man to be irritated by words. For all that, I propose that you speak lower,

for I am convinced that we are not alone."
He looked round him, and it was plain my remark had in some degree
sobered his passion. "What do you mean?" he asked.
I only said one word: "Italians."
He swore a round oath, and looked at us, from one to the other.
"Mr. Cassilis knows all that I know," said my wife.
"What I want to know," he broke out, "is where the devil Mr. Cassilis comes
from, and what the devil Mr. Cassilis is doing here. You say you are
married; that I do not believe. If you were, Graden Floe would soon divorce
you; four minutes and a half, Cassilis. I keep my private cemetery for my
friends."
"It took somewhat longer," said I, "for that Italian."
He looked at me for a moment half daunted, and then, almost civilly, asked
me to tell my story. "You have too much the advantage of me, Cassilis," he
added. I complied of course; and he listened, with several ejaculations,
while I told him how I had come to Graden: that it was I whom he had tried
to murder on the night of landing; and what I had subsequently seen and
heard of the Italians.
"Well," said he, when I had done, "it is here at last; there is no mistake
about that. And what, may I ask, do you propose to do?"
"I propose to stay with you and lend a hand," said I.
"You are a brave man," he returned, with a peculiar intonation.
"I am not afraid," said I.
"And so," he continued, "I am to understand that you two are married? And
you stand up to it before my face, Miss Huddlestone?"
"We are not yet married," said Clara; "but we shall be as soon as we can."
"Bravo!" cried Northmour. "And the bargain? D——n it, you're not a fool,
young woman; I may call a spade a spade with you. How about the bargain?

You know as well as I do what your father's life depends upon. I have only
to put my hands under my coat tails and walk away, and his throat would be
cut before the evening."
"Yes, Mr. Northmour," returned Clara, with great spirit; "but that is what
you will never do. You made a bargain that was unworthy of a gentleman;
but you are a gentleman for all that, and you will never desert a man whom
you have begun to help."
"Aha!" said he. "You think I will give my yacht for nothing? You think I
will risk my life and liberty for love of the old gentleman; and then, I
suppose, be best man at the wedding, to wind up? Well," he added, with an
odd smile, "perhaps you are not altogether wrong. But ask Cassilis here. He
knows me. Am I a man to trust? Am I safe and scrupulous? Am I kind?"
"I know you talk a great deal, and sometimes, I think, very foolishly,"
replied Clara, "but I know you are a gentleman, and I am not the least
afraid."
He looked at her with a peculiar approval and admiration; then, turning to
me, "Do you think I would give her up without a struggle, Frank?" said he.
"I tell you plainly, you look out. The next time we come to blows—"
"Will make the third," I interrupted, smiling.
"Aye, true; so it will," he said. "I had forgotten. Well, the third time's lucky."
"The third time, you mean, you will have the crew of the 'Red Earl' to help,"
I said.
"Do you hear him?" he asked, turning to my wife.
"I hear two men speaking like cowards," said she. "I should despise myself
either to think or speak like that. And neither of you believe one word that
you are saying, which makes it the more wicked and silly."
"She's a trump!" cried Northmour. "But she's not yet Mrs. Cassilis. I say no
more. The present is not for me."
Then my wife surprised me.

"I leave you here," she said suddenly. "My father has been too long alone.
But remember this: you are to be friends, for you are both good friends to
me."
She has since told me her reason for this step. As long as she remained, she
declares that we two would have continued to quarrel; and I suppose that
she was right, for when she was gone we fell at once into a sort of
confidentiality.
Northmour stared after her as she went away over the sand hill.
"She is the only woman in the world!" he exclaimed with an oath. "Look at
her action."
I, for my part, leaped at this opportunity for a little further light.
"See here, Northmour," said I; "we are all in a tight place, are we not?"
"I believe you, my boy," he answered, looking me in the eyes, and with
great emphasis. "We have all hell upon us, that's the truth. You may believe
me or not, but I'm afraid of my life."
"Tell me one thing," said I. "What are they after, these Italians? What do
they want with Mr. Huddlestone?"
"Don't you know?" he cried. "The black old scamp had carbonari funds on
a deposit—two hundred and eighty thousand; and of course he gambled it
away on stocks. There was to have been a revolution in the Tridentino, or
Parma; but the revolution is off, and the whole wasp's nest is after
Huddlestone. We shall all be lucky if we can save our skins."
"The carbonari!" I exclaimed; "God help him indeed!"
"Amen!" said Northmour. "And now, look here: I have said that we are in a
fix; and, frankly, I shall be glad of your help. If I can't save Huddlestone, I
want at least to save the girl. Come and stay in the pavilion; and, there's my
hand on it, I shall act as your friend until the old man is either clear or dead.
But," he added, "once that is settled, you become my rival once again, and I
warn you—mind yourself."
"Done!" said I; and we shook hands.

"And now let us go directly to the fort," said Northmour; and he began to
lead the way through the rain.

VI
We were admitted to the pavilion by Clara, and I was surprised by the
completeness and security of the defenses. A barricade of great strength,
and yet easy to displace, supported the door against any violence from
without; and the shutters of the dining-room, into which I was led directly,
and which was feebly illuminated by a lamp, were even more elaborately
fortified. The panels were strengthened by bars and crossbars; and these, in
their turn, were kept in position by a system of braces and struts, some
abutting on the floor, some on the roof, and others, in fine, against the
opposite wall of the apartment. It was at once a solid and well-designed
piece of carpentry; and I did not seek to conceal my admiration.
"I am the engineer," said Northmour. "You remember the planks in the
garden? Behold them?"
"I did not know you had so many talents," said I.
"Are you armed?" he continued, pointing to an array of guns and pistols, all
in admirable order, which stood in line against the wall or were displayed
upon the sideboard.
"Thank you," I returned; "I have gone armed since our last encounter. But,
to tell you the truth, I have had nothing to eat since early yesterday
evening."
Northmour produced some cold meat, to which I eagerly set myself, and a
bottle of good Burgundy, by which, wet as I was, I did not scruple to profit.
I have always been an extreme temperance man on principle; but it is
useless to push principle to excess, and on this occasion I believe that I
finished three quarters of the bottle. As I eat, I still continued to admire the
preparations for defense.
"We could stand a siege," I said at length.
"Ye—es," drawled Northmour; "a very little one, per—haps. It is not so
much the strength of the pavilion I misdoubt; it is the double danger that

kills me. If we get to shooting, wild as the country is, some one is sure to
hear it, and then—why then it's the same thing, only different, as they say:
caged by law, or killed by carbonari. There's the choice. It is a devilish bad
thing to have the law against you in this world, and so I tell the old
gentleman upstairs. He is quite of my way of thinking."
"Speaking of that," said I, "what kind of person is he?"
"Oh, he!" cried the other; "he's a rancid fellow, as far as he goes. I should
like to have his neck wrung to-morrow by all the devils in Italy. I am not in
this affair for him. You take me? I made a bargain for missy's hand, and I
mean to have it too."
"That, by the way," said I. "I understand. But how will Mr. Huddlestone
take my intrusion?"
"Leave that to Clara," returned Northmour.
I could have struck him in the face for his coarse familiarity; but I respected
the truce, as, I am bound to say, did Northmour, and so long as the danger
continued not a cloud arose in our relation. I bear him this testimony with
the most unfeigned satisfaction; nor am I without pride when I look back
upon my own behavior. For surely no two men were ever left in a position
so invidious and irritating.
As soon as I had done eating, we proceeded to inspect the lower floor.
Window by window we tried the different supports, now and then making
an inconsiderable change; and the strokes of the hammer sounded with
startling loudness through the house. I proposed, I remember, to make loop-
holes; but he told me they were already made in the windows of the upper
story. It was an anxious business, this inspection, and left me down-hearted.
There were two doors and five windows to protect, and, counting Clara,
only four of us to defend them against an unknown number of foes. I
communicated my doubts to Northmour, who assured me, with unmoved
composure, that he entirely shared them.
"Before morning," said he, "we shall all be butchered and buried in Graden
Floe. For me, that is written."

I could not help shuddering at the mention of the quicksand, but reminded
Northmour that our enemies had spared me in the wood.
"Do not flatter yourself," said he. "Then you were not in the same boat with
the old gentleman; now you are. It's the floe for all of us, mark my words."
I trembled for Clara; and just then her dear voice was heard calling us to
come upstairs. Northmour showed me the way, and, when he had reached
the landing, knocked at the door of what used to be called My Uncle's
Bedroom, as the founder of the pavilion had designed it especially for
himself.
"Come in, Northmour; come in, dear Mr. Cassilis," said a voice from
within.
Pushing open the door, Northmour admitted me before him into the
apartment. As I came in I could see the daughter slipping out by the side
door into the study, which had been prepared as her bedroom. In the bed,
which was drawn back against the wall, instead of standing, as I had last
seen it, boldly across the window, sat Bernard Huddlestone, the defaulting
banker. Little as I had seen of him by the shifting light of the lantern on the
links, I had no difficulty in recognizing him for the same. He had a long and
sallow countenance, surrounded by a long red beard and side-whiskers. His
broken nose and high cheek-bones gave him somewhat the air of a
Kalmuck, and his light eyes shone with the excitement of a high fever. He
wore a skull-cap of black silk; a huge Bible lay open before him on the bed,
with a pair of gold spectacles in the place, and a pile of other books lay on
the stand by his side. The green curtains lent a cadaverous shade to his
cheek; and, as he sat propped on pillows, his great stature was painfully
hunched, and his head protruded till it overhung his knees. I believe if he
had not died otherwise, he must have fallen a victim to consumption in the
course of but a very few weeks.
He held out to me a hand, long, thin, and disagreeably hairy.
"Come in, come in, Mr. Cassilis," said he. "Another protector—ahem!—
another protector. Always welcome as a friend of my daughter's, Mr.
Cassilis. How they have rallied about me, my daughter's friends! May God
in heaven bless and reward them for it!"

I gave him my hand, of course, because I could not help it; but the
sympathy I had been prepared to feel for Clara's father was immediately
soured by his appearance, and the wheedling, unreal tones in which he
spoke.
"Cassilis is a good man," said Northmour; "worth ten."
"So I hear," cried Mr. Huddlestone eagerly; "so my girl tells me. Ah, Mr.
Cassilis, my sin has found me out, you see! I am very low, very low; but I
hope equally penitent. We must all come to the throne of grace at last, Mr.
Cassilis. For my part, I come late indeed; but with unfeigned humility, I
trust."
"Fiddle-de-dee!" said Northmour roughly.
"No, no, dear Northmour!" cried the banker. "You must not say that; you
must not try to shake me. You forget, my dear, good boy, you forget I may
be called this very night before my Maker."
His excitement was pitiful to behold; and I felt myself grow indignant with
Northmour, whose infidel opinions I well knew, and heartily despised, as he
continued to taunt the poor sinner out of his humor of repentance.
"Pooh, my dear Huddlestone!" said he. "You do yourself injustice. You are a
man of the world inside and out, and were up to all kinds of mischief before
I was born. Your conscience is tanned like South American leather—only
you forgot to tan your liver, and that, if you will believe me, is the seat of
the annoyance."
"Rogue, rogue! bad boy!" said Mr. Huddlestone, shaking his finger. "I am
no precisian, if you come to that; I always hated a precisian; but I never lost
hold of something better through it all. I have been a bad boy, Mr. Cassilis;
I do not seek to deny that; but it was after my wife's death, and you know,
with a widower, it's a different thing: sinful—I won't say no; but there is a
gradation, we shall hope. And talking of that—Hark!" he broke out
suddenly, his hand raised, his fingers spread, his face racked with interest
and terror. "Only the rain, bless God!" he added, after a pause, and with
indescribable relief.

For some seconds he lay back among the pillows like a man near to
fainting; then he gathered himself together, and, in somewhat tremulous
tones, began once more to thank me for the share I was prepared to take in
his defense.
"One question, sir," said I, when he had paused. "Is it true that you have
money with you?"
He seemed annoyed by the question, but admitted with reluctance that he
had a little.
"Well," I continued, "it is their money they are after, is it not? Why not give
it up to them?"
"Ah!" replied he, shaking his head, "I have tried that already, Mr. Cassilis;
and alas! that it should be so, but it is blood they want."
"Huddlestone, that's a little less than fair," said Northmour. "You should
mention that what you offered them was upward of two hundred thousand
short. The deficit is worth a reference; it is for what they call a cool sum,
Frank. Then, you see, the fellows reason in their clear Italian way; and it
seems to them, as indeed it seems to me, that they may just as well have
both while they're about it—money and blood together, by George, and no
more trouble for the extra pleasure."
"Is it in the pavilion?" I asked.
"It is; and I wish it were in the bottom of the sea instead," said Northmour;
and then suddenly—"What are you making faces at me for?" he cried to Mr.
Huddlestone, on whom I had unconsciously turned my back. "Do you think
Cassilis would sell you?"
Mr. Huddlestone protested that nothing had been further from his mind.
"It is a good thing," retorted Northmour in his ugliest manner. "You might
end by wearying us. What were you going to say?" he added, turning to me.
"I was going to propose an occupation for the afternoon," said I. "Let us
carry that money out, piece by piece, and lay it down before the pavilion
door. If the carbonari come, why, it's theirs at any rate."

"No, no," cried Mr. Huddlestone; "it does not, it cannot, belong to them! It
should be distributed pro rata among all my creditors."
"Come now, Huddlestone," said Northmour, "none of that."
"Well, but my daughter," moaned the wretched man.
"Your daughter will do well enough. Here are two suitors, Cassilis and I,
neither of us beggars, between whom she has to choose. And as for
yourself, to make an end of arguments, you have no right to a farthing, and,
unless I'm much mistaken, you are going to die."
It was certainly very cruelly said; but Mr. Huddlestone was a man who
attracted little sympathy; and, although I saw him wince and shudder, I
mentally indorsed the rebuke; nay, I added a contribution of my own.
"Northmour and I," I said, "are willing enough to help you to save your life,
but not to escape with stolen property."
He struggled for awhile with himself, as though he were on the point of
giving way to anger, but prudence had the best of the controversy.
"My dear boys," he said, "do with me or my money what you will. I leave
all in your hands. Let me compose myself."
And so we left him, gladly enough I am sure.
The last that I saw, he had once more taken up his great Bible, and with
tremulous hands was adjusting his spectacles to read.

VII
The recollection of that afternoon will always be graven on my mind.
Northmour and I were persuaded that an attack was imminent; and if it had
been in our power to alter in any way the order of events, that power would
have been used to precipitate rather than delay the critical moment. The
worst was to be anticipated; yet we could conceive no extremity so
miserable as the suspense we were now suffering. I have never been an
eager, though always a great, reader; but I never knew books so insipid as
those which I took up and cast aside that afternoon in the pavilion. Even
talk became impossible, as the hours went on. One or other was always
listening for some sound, or peering from an upstairs window over the
links. And yet not a sign indicated the presence of our foes.
We debated over and over again my proposal with regard to the money; and
had we been in complete possession of our faculties, I am sure we should
have condemned it as unwise; but we were flustered with alarm, grasped at
a straw, and determined, although it was as much as advertising Mr.
Huddlestone's presence in the pavilion, to carry my proposal into effect.
The sum was part in specie, part in bank paper, and part in circular notes
payable to the name of James Gregory. We took it out, counted it, inclosed
it once more in a dispatch box belonging to Northmour, and prepared a
letter in Italian which he tied to the handle. It was signed by both of us
under oath, and declared that this was all the money which had escaped the
failure of the house of Huddlestone. This was, perhaps, the maddest action
ever perpetrated by two persons professing to be sane. Had the dispatch box
fallen into other hands than those for which it was intended, we stood
criminally convicted on our own written testimony; but, as I have said, we
were neither of us in a condition to judge soberly, and had a thirst for action
that drove us to do something, right or wrong, rather than endure the agony
of waiting. Moreover, as we were both convinced that the hollows of the
links were alive with hidden spies upon our movements, we hoped that our
appearance with the box might lead to a parley, and, perhaps, a
compromise.

It was nearly three when we issued from the pavilion. The rain had taken
off; the sun shone quite cheerfully. I had never seen the gulls fly so close
about the house or approach so fearlessly to human beings. On the very
doorstep one flapped heavily past our heads, and uttered its wild cry in my
very ear.
"There is an omen for you," said Northmour, who like all freethinkers was
much under the influence of superstition. "They think we are already dead."
I made some light rejoinder, but it was with half my heart; for the
circumstance had impressed me.
A yard or two before the gate, on a patch of smooth turf, we set down the
dispatch box; and Northmour waved a white handkerchief over his head.
Nothing replied. We raised our voices, and cried aloud in Italian that we
were there as ambassadors to arrange the quarrel, but the stillness remained
unbroken save by the seagulls and the surf. I had a weight at my heart when
we desisted; and I saw that even Northmour was unusually pale. He looked
over his shoulder nervously, as though he feared that some one had crept
between him and the pavilion door.
"By God," he said in a whisper, "this is too much for me!"
I replied in the same key: "Suppose there should be none, after all!"
"Look there," he returned, nodding with his head, as though he had been
afraid to point.
I glanced in the direction indicated; and there, from the northern quarter of
the Sea-Wood, beheld a thin column of smoke rising steadily against the
now cloudless sky.
"Northmour," I said (we still continued to talk in whispers), "it is not
possible to endure this suspense. I prefer death fifty times over. Stay you
here to watch the pavilion; I will go forward and make sure, if I have to
walk right into their camp."
He looked once again all round him with puckered eyes, and then nodded
assentingly to my proposal.

My heart beat like a sledge hammer as I set out walking rapidly in the
direction of the smoke; and, though up to that moment I had felt chill and
shivering, I was suddenly conscious of a glow of heat all over my body. The
ground in this direction was very uneven; a hundred men might have lain
hidden in as many square yards about my path. But I who had not practiced
the business in vain, chose such routes as cut at the very root of
concealment, and, by keeping along the most convenient ridges,
commanded several hollows at a time. It was not long before I was
rewarded for my caution. Coming suddenly on to a mound somewhat more
elevated than the surrounding hummocks, I saw, not thirty yards away, a
man bent almost double, and running as fast as his attitude permitted, along
the bottom of a gully. I had dislodged one of the spies from his ambush. As
soon as I sighted him, I called loudly both in English and Italian; and he,
seeing concealment was no longer possible, straightened himself out, leaped
from the gully, and made off as straight as an arrow for the borders of the
wood. It was none of my business to pursue; I had learned what I wanted—
that we were beleaguered and watched in the pavilion; and I returned at
once, and walked as nearly as possible in my old footsteps, to where
Northmour awaited me beside the dispatch box. He was even paler than
when I had left him, and his voice shook a little.
"Could you see what he was like?" he asked.
"He kept his back turned," I replied.
"Let us get into the house, Frank. I don't think I'm a coward, but I can stand
no more of this," he whispered.
All was still and sunshiny about the pavilion, as we turned to reenter it;
even the gulls had flown in a wider circuit, and were seen flickering along
the beach and sand hills; and this loneliness terrified me more than a
regiment under arms. It was not until the door was barricaded that I could
draw a full inspiration and relieve the weight that lay upon my bosom.
Northmour and I exchanged a steady glance; and I suppose each made his
own reflections on the white and startled aspect of the other.
"You were right," I said. "All is over. Shake hands, old man, for the last
time."

"Yes," replied he, "I will shake hands; for, as sure as I am here, I bear no
malice. But, remember, if, by some impossible accident, we should give the
slip to these blackguards, I'll take the upper hand of you by fair or foul."
"Oh," said I, "you weary me!"
He seemed hurt, and walked away in silence to the foot of the stairs, where
he paused.
"You do not understand," said he. "I am not a swindler, and I guard myself;
that is all. I may weary you or not, Mr. Cassilis, I do not care a rush; I speak
for my own satisfaction, and not for your amusement. You had better go
upstairs and court the girl; for my part, I stay here."
"And I stay with you," I returned. "Do you think I would steal a march,
even with your permission?"
"Frank," he said, smiling, "it's a pity you are an ass, for you have the
makings of a man. I think I must be fey to-day; you cannot irritate me even
when you try. Do you know," he continued softly, "I think we are the two
most miserable men in England, you and I? we have got on to thirty without
wife or child, or so much as a shop to look after—poor, pitiful, lost devils,
both! And now we clash about a girl! As if there were not several millions
in the United Kingdom! Ah, Frank, Frank, the one who loses his throw, be it
you or me, he has my pity! It were better for him—how does the Bible say?
—that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the
depth of the sea. Let us take a drink," he concluded suddenly, but without
any levity of tone.
I was touched by his words, and consented. He sat down on the table in the
dining-room, and held up the glass of sherry to his eye.
"If you beat me, Frank," he said, "I shall take to drink. What will you do, if
it goes the other way?"
"God knows," I returned.
"Well," said he, "here is a toast in the meantime: 'Italia irredenta!'"
The remainder of the day was passed in the same dreadful tedium and
suspense. I laid the table for dinner, while Northmour and Clara prepared

the meal together in the kitchen. I could hear their talk as I went to and fro,
and was surprised to find it ran all the time upon myself. Northmour again
bracketed us together, and rallied Clara on a choice of husbands; but he
continued to speak of me with some feeling, and uttered nothing to my
prejudice unless he included himself in the condemnation. This awakened a
sense of gratitude in my heart, which combined with the immediateness of
our peril to fill my eyes with tears. After all, I thought—and perhaps the
thought was laughably vain—we were here three very noble human beings
to perish in defense of a thieving banker.
Before we sat down to table, I looked forth from an upstairs window. The
day was beginning to decline; the links were utterly deserted; the dispatch
box still lay untouched where we had left it hours before.
Mr. Huddlestone, in a long yellow dressing gown, took one end of the table,
Clara the other; while Northmour and I faced each other from the sides. The
lamp was brightly trimmed; the wine was good; the viands, although mostly
cold, excellent of their sort. We seemed to have agreed tacitly; all reference
to the impending catastrophe was carefully avoided; and, considering our
tragic circumstances, we made a merrier party than could have been
expected. From time to time, it is true, Northmour or I would rise from table
and make a round of the defenses; and, on each of these occasions, Mr.
Huddlestone was recalled to a sense of his tragic predicament, glanced up
with ghastly eyes, and bore for an instant on his countenance the stamp of
terror. But he hastened to empty his glass, wiped his forehead with his
handkerchief, and joined again in the conversation.
I was astonished at the wit and information he displayed. Mr. Huddlestone's
was certainly no ordinary character; he had read and observed for himself;
his gifts were sound; and, though I could never have learned to love the
man, I began to understand his success in business, and the great respect in
which he had been held before his failure. He had, above all, the talent of
society; and though I never heard him speak but on this one and most
unfavorable occasion, I set him down among the most brilliant
conversationalists I ever met.
He was relating with great gusto, and seemingly no feeling of shame, the
maneuvers of a scoundrelly commission merchant whom he had known and

studied in his youth, and we were all listening with an odd mixture of mirth
and embarrassment, when our little party was brought abruptly to an end in
the most startling manner.
A noise like that of a wet finger on the window pane interrupted Mr.
Huddlestone's tale; and in an instant we were all four as white as paper, and
sat tongue-tied and motionless round the table.
"A snail," I said at last; for I had heard that these animals make a noise
somewhat similar in character.
"Snail be d——d!" said Northmour. "Hush!"
The same sound was repeated twice at regular intervals; and then a
formidable voice shouted through the shutters the Italian word, "Traditore!"
Mr. Huddlestone threw his head in the air; his eyelids quivered; next
moment he fell insensible below the table. Northmour and I had each run to
the armory and seized a gun. Clara was on her feet with her hand at her
throat.
So we stood waiting, for we thought the hour of attack was certainly come;
but second passed after second, and all but the surf remained silent in the
neighborhood of the pavilion.
"Quick," said Northmour; "upstairs with him before they come."

VIII
Somehow or other, by hook and crook, and between the three of us, we got
Bernard Huddlestone bundled upstairs and laid upon the bed in My Uncle's
Room. During the whole process, which was rough enough, he gave no sign
of consciousness, and he remained, as we had thrown him, without
changing the position of a finger. His daughter opened his shirt and began
to wet his head and bosom; while Northmour and I ran to the window. The
weather continued clear; the moon, which was now about full, had risen and
shed a very clear light upon the links; yet, strain our eyes as we might, we
could distinguish nothing moving. A few dark spots, more or less, on the
uneven expanse were not to be identified; they might be crouching men,
they might be shadows; it was impossible to be sure.
"Thank God," said Northmour, "Aggie is not coming to-night."
Aggie was the name of the old nurse; he had not thought of her until now;
but that he should think of her at all was a trait that surprised me in the man.
We were again reduced to waiting. Northmour went to the fireplace and
spread his hands before the red embers, as if he were cold. I followed him
mechanically with my eyes, and in so doing turned my back upon the
window. At that moment a very faint report was audible from without, and a
ball shivered a pane of glass, and buried itself in the shutter two inches from
my head. I heard Clara scream; and though I whipped instantly out of range
and into a corner, she was there, so to speak, before me, beseeching to know
if I were hurt. I felt that I could stand to be shot at every day and all day
long, with such remarks of solicitude for a reward; and I continued to
reassure her, with, the tenderest caresses and in complete forgetfulness of
our situation, till the voice of Northmour recalled me to myself.
"An air gun," he said. "They wish to make no noise."
I put Clara aside, and looked at him. He was standing with his back to the
fire and his hands clasped behind him; and I knew by the black look on his
face, that passion was boiling within. I had seen just such a look before he

attacked me, that March night, in the adjoining chamber; and, though I
could make every allowance for his anger, I confess I trembled for the
consequences. He gazed straight before him; but he could see us with the
tail of his eye, and his temper kept rising like a gale of wind. With regular
battle awaiting us outside, this prospect of an internecine strife within the
walls began to daunt me.
Suddenly, as I was thus closely watching his expression and prepared
against the worst, I saw a change, a flash, a look of relief, upon his face. He
took up the lamp which stood beside him on the table, and turned to us with
an air of some excitement.
"There is one point that we must know," said he. "Are they going to butcher
the lot of us, or only Huddlestone? Did they take you for him, or fire at you
for your own beaux yeux?"
"They took me for him, for certain," I replied. "I am near as tall, and my
head is fair."
"I am going to make sure," returned Northmour; and he stepped up to the
window, holding the lamp above his head, and stood there, quietly
affronting death, for half a minute.
Clara sought to rush forward and pull him from the place of danger; but I
had the pardonable selfishness to hold her back by force.
"Yes," said Northmour, turning coolly from the window, "it's only
Huddlestone they want."
"Oh, Mr. Northmour!" cried Clara; but found no more to add; the temerity
she had just witnessed seeming beyond, the reach of words.
He, on his part, looked at me, cocking his head, with a fire of triumph in his
eyes; and I understood at once that he had thus hazarded his life, merely to
attract Clara's notice, and depose me from my position as the hero of the
hour. He snapped his fingers.
"The fire is only beginning," said he. "When they warm up to their work,
they won't be so particular."

A voice was now heard hailing us from the entrance. From the window we
could see the figure of a man in the moonlight; he stood motionless, his face
uplifted to ours, and a rag of something white on his extended arm; and as
we looked right down upon him, though he was a good many yards distant
on the links, we could see the moonlight glitter on his eyes.
He opened his lips again, and spoke for some minutes on end, in a key so
loud that he might have been heard in every corner of the pavilion, and as
far away as the borders of the wood. It was the same voice that had already
shouted, "Traditore!" through the shutters of the dining-room; this time it
made a complete and clear statement. If the traitor "Oddlestone" were given
up, all others should be spared; if not, no one should escape to tell the tale.
"Well, Huddlestone, what do you say to that?" asked Northmour, turning to
the bed.
Up to that moment the banker had given no sign of life, and I, at least, had
supposed him to be still lying in a faint; but he replied at once, and in such
tones as I have never heard elsewhere, save from a delirious patient, adjured
and besought us not to desert him. It was the most hideous and abject
performance that my imagination can conceive.
"Enough," cried Northmour; and then he threw open the window, leaned out
into the night, and in a tone of exultation, and with a total forgetfulness of
what was due to the presence of a lady, poured out upon the ambassador a
string of the most abominable raillery both in English and Italian, and bade
him be gone where he had come from. I believe that nothing so delighted
Northmour at that moment as the thought that we must all infallibly perish
before the night was out.
Meantime, the Italian put his flag of truce into his pocket, and disappeared,
at a leisurely pace, among the sand hills.
"They make honorable war," said Northmour. "They are all gentlemen and
soldiers. For the credit of the thing, I wish we could change sides—you and
I, Frank, and you, too, missy, my darling—and leave that being on the bed
to some one else. Tut! Don't look shocked! We are all going post to what
they call eternity, and may as well be above board while there's time. As far
as I am concerned, if I could first strangle Huddlestone and then get Clara

in my arms, I could die with some pride and satisfaction. And as it is, by
God, I'll have a kiss!"
Before I could do anything to interfere, he had rudely embraced and
repeatedly kissed the resisting girl. Next moment I had pulled him away
with fury, and flung him heavily against the wall. He laughed loud and
long, and I feared his wits had given way under the strain; for even in the
best of days he had been a sparing and a quiet laugher.
"Now, Frank," said he, when his mirth was somewhat appeased, "it's your
turn. Here's my hand. Good-bye, farewell!" Then, seeing me stand rigid and
indignant, and holding Clara to my side—"Man!" he broke out, "are you
angry? Did you think we were going to die with all the airs and graces of
society? I took a kiss; I'm glad I did it; and now you can take another if you
like, and square accounts."
I turned from him with a feeling of contempt which I did not seek to
dissemble.
"As you please," said he. "You've been a prig in life; a prig you'll die."
And with that he sat down in a chair, a rifle over his knee, and amused
himself with snapping the lock; but I could see that his ebullition of light
spirits (the only one I ever knew him to display) had already come to an
end, and was succeeded by a sullen, scowling humor.
All this time our assailants might have been entering the house, and we
been none the wiser; we had in truth almost forgotten the danger that so
imminently overhung our days. But just then Mr. Huddlestone uttered a cry,
and leaped from the bed.
I asked him what was wrong.
"Fire!" he cried. "They have set the house on fire!"
Northmour was on his feet in an instant, and he and I ran through the door
of communication with the study. The room was illuminated by a red and
angry light. Almost at the moment of our entrance, a tower of flame arose in
front of the window, and, with a tingling report, a pane fell inward on the

carpet. They had set fire to the lean-to outhouse, where Northmour used to
nurse his negatives.
"Hot work," said Northmour. "Let us try in your old room."
We ran thither in a breath, threw up the casement, and looked forth. Along
the whole back wall of the pavilion piles of fuel had been arranged and
kindled; and it is probable they had been drenched with mineral oil, for, in
spite of the morning's rain, they all burned bravely. The fire had taken a
firm hold already on the outhouse, which blazed higher and higher every
moment; the back door was in the center of a red-hot bonfire; the eaves we
could see, as we looked upward, were already smoldering, for the roof
overhung, and was supported by considerable beams of wood. At the same
time, hot, pungent, and choking volumes of smoke began to fill the house.
There was not a human being to be seen to right or left.
"Ah, well!" said Northmour, "here's the end, thank God!"
And we returned to My Uncle's Room. Mr. Huddlestone was putting on his
boots, still violently trembling, but with an air of determination such as I
had not hitherto observed. Clara stood close by him, with her cloak in both
hands ready to throw about her shoulders, and a strange look in her eyes, as
if she were half hopeful, half doubtful of her father.
"Well, boys and girls," said Northmour, "how about a sally? The oven is
heating; it is not good to stay here and be baked; and, for my part, I want to
come to my hands with them, and be done."
"There's nothing else left," I replied.
And both Clara and Mr. Huddlestone, though with a very different
intonation, added, "Nothing."
As we went downstairs the heat was excessive, and the roaring of the fire
filled our ears; and we had scarce reached the passage before the stairs
window fell in, a branch of flame shot brandishing through the aperture,
and the interior of the pavilion became lighted up with that dreadful and
fluctuating glare. At the same moment we heard the fall of something heavy
and inelastic in the upper story. The whole pavilion, it was plain, had gone

alight like a box of matches, and now not only flamed sky high to land and
sea, but threatened with every moment to crumble and fall in about our ears.
Northmour and I cocked our revolvers. Mr. Huddlestone, who had already
refused a firearm, put us behind him with a manner of command.
"Let Clara open the door," said he. "So, if they fire a volley, she will be
protected. And in the meantime stand behind me. I am the scapegoat; my
sins have found me out."
I heard him, as I stood breathless by his shoulder, with my pistol ready,
pattering off prayers in a tremulous, rapid whisper; and, I confess, horrid as
the thought may seem, I despised him for thinking of supplications in a
moment so critical and thrilling. In the meantime, Clara, who was dead
white but still possessed her faculties, had displaced the barricade from the
front door. Another moment, and she had pulled it open. Firelight and
moonlight illuminated the links with confused and changeful luster, and far
away against the sky we could see a long trail of glowing smoke.
Mr. Huddlestone, filled for the moment with a strength greater than his
own, struck Northmour and myself a back-hander in the chest; and while
we were thus for the moment incapacitated from action, lifting his arms
above his head like one about to dive, he ran straight forward out of the
pavilion.
"Here am I!" he cried—"Huddlestone! Kill me, and spare the others!"
His sudden appearance daunted, I suppose, our hidden enemies; for
Northmour and I had time to recover, to seize Clara between us, one by
each arm, and to rush forth to his assistance, ere anything further had taken
place. But scarce had we passed the threshold when there came near a
dozen reports and flashes from every direction among the hollows of the
links. Mr. Huddlestone staggered, uttered a weird and freezing cry, threw up
his arms over his head, and fell backward on the turf.
"Traditore! Traditore!" cried the invisible avengers.
And just then a part of the roof of the pavilion fell in, so rapid was the
progress of the fire. A loud, vague, and horrible noise accompanied the
collapse, and a vast volume of flame went soaring up to heaven. It must

have been visible at that moment from twenty miles out at sea, from the
shore at Graden Wester, and far inland from the peak of Graystiel, the most
eastern summit of the Caulder Hills. Bernard Huddlestone, although God
knows what were his obsequies, had a fine pyre at the moment of his death.

IX
I should have the greatest difficulty to tell you what followed next after this
tragic circumstance. It is all to me, as I look back upon it, mixed, strenuous,
and ineffectual, like the struggles of a sleeper in a nightmare. Clara, I
remember, uttered a broken sigh and would have fallen forward to earth,
had not Northmour and I supported her insensible body. I do not think we
were attacked: I do not remember even to have seen an assailant; and I
believe we deserted Mr. Huddlestone without a glance. I only remember
running like a man in a panic, now carrying Clara altogether in my own
arms, now sharing her weight with Northmour, now scuffling confusedly
for the possession of that dear burden. Why we should have made for my
camp in the Hemlock Den, or how we reached it, are points lost forever to
my recollection. The first moment at which I became definitely sure, Clara
had been suffered to fall against the outside of my little tent, Northmour and
I were tumbling together on the ground, and he, with contained ferocity,
was striking for my head with the butt of his revolver. He had already twice
wounded me on the scalp; and it is to the consequent loss of blood that I am
tempted to attribute the sudden clearness of my mind.
I caught him by the wrist.
"Northmour," I remember saying, "you can kill me afterwards. Let us first
attend to Clara."
He was at that moment uppermost. Scarcely had the words passed my lips,
when he had leaped to his feet and ran toward the tent; and the next
moment, he was straining Clara to his heart and covering her unconscious
hands and face with his caresses.
"Shame!" I cried. "Shame to you, Northmour!"
And, giddy though I still was, I struck him repeatedly upon the head and
shoulders.
He relinquished his grasp, and faced me in the broken moonlight.

"I had you under, and I let you go," said he; "and now you strike me!
Coward!"
"You are the coward," I retorted. "Did she wish your kisses while she was
still sensible of what you wanted? Not she! And now she may be dying; and
you waste this precious time, and abuse her helplessness. Stand aside, and
let me help her."
He confronted me for a moment, white and menacing; then suddenly he
stepped aside.
"Help her then," said he.
I threw myself on my knees beside her, and loosened, as well as I was able,
her dress and corset; but while I was thus engaged, a grasp descended on
my shoulder.
"Keep your hands off her," said Northmour, fiercely. "Do you think I have
no blood in my veins?"
"Northmour," I cried, "if you will neither help her yourself, nor let me do
so, do you know that I shall have to kill you?"
"That is better!" he cried. "Let her die also, where's the harm? Step aside
from that girl! and stand up to fight."
"You will observe," said I, half rising, "that I have not kissed her yet."
"I dare you to," he cried.
I do not know what possessed me; it was one of the things I am most
ashamed of in my life, though, as my wife used to say, I knew that my
kisses would be always welcome were she dead or living; down I fell again
upon my knees, parted the hair from her forehead, and, with the dearest
respect, laid my lips for a moment on that cold brow. It was such a caress as
a father might have given; it was such a one as was not unbecoming from a
man soon to die to a woman already dead.
"And now," said I, "I am at your service, Mr. Northmour."
But I saw, to my surprise, that he had turned his back upon me.

"Do you hear?" I asked.
"Yes," said he, "I do. If you wish to fight, I am ready. If not, go on and save
Clara. All is one to me."
I did not wait to be twice bidden; but, stooping again over Clara, continued
my efforts to revive her. She still lay white and lifeless; I began to fear that
her sweet spirit had indeed fled beyond recall, and horror and a sense of
utter desolation seized upon my heart. I called her by name with the most
endearing inflections; I chafed and beat her hands; now I laid her head low,
now supported it against my knee; but all seemed to be in vain, and the lids
still lay heavy on her eyes.
"Northmour," I said, "there is my hat. For God's sake bring some water
from the spring."
Almost in a moment he was by my side with the water.
"I have brought it in my own," he said. "You do not grudge me the
privilege?"
"Northmour," I was beginning to say, as I laved her head and breast; but he
interrupted me savagely.
"Oh, you hush up!" he said. "The best thing you can do is to say nothing."
I had certainly no desire to talk, my mind being swallowed up in concern
for my dear love and her condition; so I continued in silence to do my best
toward her recovery, and, when the hat was empty, returned it to him, with
one word—"More." He had, perhaps, gone several times upon this errand,
when Clara reopened her eyes.
"Now," said he, "since she is better, you can spare me, can you not? I wish
you a good night, Mr. Cassilis."
And with that he was gone among the thicket. I made a fire, for I had now
no fear of the Italians, who had even spared all the little possessions left in
my encampment; and, broken as she was by the excitement and the hideous
catastrophe of the evening, I managed, in one way or another—by
persuasion, encouragement, warmth, and such simple remedies as I could

lay my hand on—to bring her back to some composure of mind and
strength of body.
Day had already come, when a sharp "Hist!" sounded from the thicket. I
started from the ground; but the voice of Northmour was heard adding, in
the most tranquil tones: "Come here, Cassilis, and alone; I want to show
you something."
I consulted Clara with my eyes, and, receiving her tacit permission, left her
alone, and clambered out of the den. At some distance off I saw Northmour
leaning against an elder; and, as soon as he perceived me, he began walking
seaward. I had almost overtaken him as he reached the outskirts of the
wood.
"Look," said he, pausing.
A couple of steps more brought me out of the foliage. The light of the
morning lay cold and clear over that well-known scene. The pavilion was
but a blackened wreck; the roof had fallen in, one of the gables had fallen
out; and, far and near, the face of the links was cicatrized with little patches
of burned furze. Thick smoke still went straight upward in the windless air
of the morning, and a great pile of ardent cinders filled the bare walls of the
house, like coals in an open grate. Close by the islet a schooner yacht lay to,
and a well-manned boat was pulling vigorously for the shore.
"The 'Red Earl'!" I cried. "The 'Red Earl' twelve hours too late!"
"Feel in your pocket, Frank. Are you armed?" asked Northmour.
I obeyed him, and I think I must have become deadly pale. My revolver had
been taken from me.
"You see, I have you in my power," he continued. "I disarmed you last night
while you were nursing Clara; but this morning—here—take your pistol.
No thanks!" he cried, holding up his hand. "I do not like them; that is the
only way you can annoy me now."
He began to walk forward across the links to meet the boat, and I followed
a step or two behind. In front of the pavilion I paused to see where Mr.

Huddlestone had fallen; but there was no sign of him, nor so much as a
trace of blood.
"Graden Floe," said Northmour.
He continued to advance till we had come to the head of the beach.
"No farther, please," said he. "Would you like to take her to Graden
House?"
"Thank you," replied I; "I shall try to get her to the minister at Graden
Wester."
The prow of the boat here grated on the beach, and a sailor jumped ashore
with a line in his hand.
"Wait a minute, lads!" cried Northmour; and then lower and to my private
ear, "You had better say nothing of all this to her," he added.
"On the contrary!" I broke out, "she shall know everything that I can tell."
"You do not understand," he returned, with an air of great dignity. "It will be
nothing to her; she expects it of me. Good-by!" he added, with a nod.
I offered him my hand.
"Excuse me," said he. "It's small, I know; but I can't push things quite so far
as that. I don't wish any sentimental business, to sit by your hearth a white-
haired wanderer, and all that. Quite the contrary: I hope to God I shall never
again clap eyes on either one of you."
"Well, God bless you, Northmour!" I said heartily.
"Oh, yes," he returned.
He walked down the beach; and the man who was ashore gave him an arm
on board, and then shoved off and leaped into the bows himself. Northmour
took the tiller; the boat rose to the waves, and the oars between the
tholepins sounded crisp and measured in the morning air.
They were not yet half way to the "Red Earl," and I was still watching their
progress, when the sun rose out of the sea.

One word more, and my story is done. Years after, Northmour was killed
fighting under the colors of Garibaldi for the liberation of the Tyrol.

Wilkie Collins

The Dream Woman
A Mystery in Four Narratives

THE FIRST NARRATIVE
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT OF THE FACTS BY PERCY FAIRBANK

I
"Hullo, there! Hostler! Hullo-o-o!"
"My dear! why don't you look for the bell?"
"I have looked—there is no bell."
"And nobody in the yard. How very extraordinary! Call again, dear."
"Hostler! Hullo, there! Hostler-r-r!"
My second call echoes through empty space, and rouses nobody—produces,
in short, no visible result. I am at the end of my resources—I don't know
what to say or what to do next. Here I stand in the solitary inn yard of a
strange town, with two horses to hold, and a lady to take care of. By way of
adding to my responsibilities, it so happens that one of the horses is dead
lame, and that the lady is my wife.
Who am I?—you will ask.
There is plenty of time to answer the question. Nothing happens; and
nobody appears to receive us. Let me introduce myself and my wife.
I am Percy Fairbank—English gentleman—age (let us say) forty—no
profession—moderate politics—middle height—fair complexion—easy
character—plenty of money.
My wife is a French lady. She was Mademoiselle Clotilde Delorge—when I
was first presented to her at her father's house in France. I fell in love with
her—I really don't know why. It might have been because I was perfectly
idle, and had nothing else to do at the time. Or it might have been because
all my friends said she was the very last woman whom I ought to think of
marrying. On the surface, I must own, there is nothing in common between
Mrs. Fairbank and me. She is tall; she is dark; she is nervous, excitable,
romantic; in all her opinions she proceeds to extremes. What could such a
woman see in me? what could I see in her? I know no more than you do. In

some mysterious manner we exactly suit each other. We have been man and
wife for ten years, and our only regret is, that we have no children. I don't
know what you may think; I call that—upon the whole—a happy marriage.
So much for ourselves. The next question is—what has brought us into the
inn yard? and why am I obliged to turn groom, and hold the horses?
We live for the most part in France—at the country house in which my wife
and I first met. Occasionally, by way of variety, we pay visits to my friends
in England. We are paying one of those visits now. Our host is an old
college friend of mine, possessed of a fine estate in Somersetshire; and we
have arrived at his house—called Farleigh Hall—toward the close of the
hunting season.
On the day of which I am now writing—destined to be a memorable day in
our calendar—the hounds meet at Farleigh Hall. Mrs. Fairbank and I are
mounted on two of the best horses in my friend's stables. We are quite
unworthy of that distinction; for we know nothing and care nothing about
hunting. On the other hand, we delight in riding, and we enjoy the breezy
Spring morning and the fair and fertile English landscape surrounding us on
every side. While the hunt prospers, we follow the hunt. But when a check
occurs—when time passes and patience is sorely tried; when the bewildered
dogs run hither and thither, and strong language falls from the lips of
exasperated sportsmen—we fail to take any further interest in the
proceedings. We turn our horses' heads in the direction of a grassy lane,
delightfully shaded by trees. We trot merrily along the lane, and find
ourselves on an open common. We gallop across the common, and follow
the windings of a second lane. We cross a brook, we pass through a village,
we emerge into pastoral solitude among the hills. The horses toss their
heads, and neigh to each other, and enjoy it as much as we do. The hunt is
forgotten. We are as happy as a couple of children; we are actually singing a
French song—when in one moment our merriment comes to an end. My
wife's horse sets one of his forefeet on a loose stone, and stumbles. His
rider's ready hand saves him from falling. But, at the first attempt he makes
to go on, the sad truth shows itself—a tendon is strained; the horse is lame.
What is to be done? We are strangers in a lonely part of the country. Look
where we may, we see no signs of a human habitation. There is nothing for

it but to take the bridle road up the hill, and try what we can discover on the
other side. I transfer the saddles, and mount my wife on my own horse. He
is not used to carry a lady; he misses the familiar pressure of a man's legs
on either side of him; he fidgets, and starts, and kicks up the dust. I follow
on foot, at a respectful distance from his heels, leading the lame horse. Is
there a more miserable object on the face of creation than a lame horse? I
have seen lame men and lame dogs who were cheerful creatures; but I never
yet saw a lame horse who didn't look heartbroken over his own misfortune.
For half an hour my wife capers and curvets sideways along the bridle road.
I trudge on behind her; and the heartbroken horse halts behind me. Hard by
the top of the hill, our melancholy procession passes a Somersetshire
peasant at work in a field. I summon the man to approach us; and the man
looks at me stolidly, from the middle of the field, without stirring a step. I
ask at the top of my voice how far it is to Farleigh Hall. The Somersetshire
peasant answers at the top of his voice:
"Vourteen mile. Gi' oi a drap o' zyder."
I translate (for my wife's benefit) from the Somersetshire language into the
English language. We are fourteen miles from Farleigh Hall; and our friend
in the field desires to be rewarded, for giving us that information, with a
drop of cider. There is the peasant, painted by himself! Quite a bit of
character, my dear! Quite a bit of character!
Mrs. Fairbank doesn't view the study of agricultural human nature with my
relish. Her fidgety horse will not allow her a moment's repose; she is
beginning to lose her temper.
"We can't go fourteen miles in this way," she says. "Where is the nearest
inn? Ask that brute in the field!"
I take a shilling from my pocket and hold it up in the sun. The shilling
exercises magnetic virtues. The shilling draws the peasant slowly toward
me from the middle of the field. I inform him that we want to put up the
horses and to hire a carriage to take us back to Farleigh Hall. Where can we
do that? The peasant answers (with his eye on the shilling):
"At Oonderbridge, to be zure." (At Underbridge, to be sure.)

"Is it far to Underbridge?"
The peasant repeats, "Var to Oonderbridge?"—and laughs at the question.
"Hoo-hoo-hoo!" (Underbridge is evidently close by—if we could only find
it.) "Will you show us the way, my man?" "Will you gi' oi a drap of zyder?"
I courteously bend my head, and point to the shilling. The agricultural
intelligence exerts itself. The peasant joins our melancholy procession. My
wife is a fine woman, but he never once looks at my wife—and, more
extraordinary still, he never even looks at the horses. His eyes are with his
mind—and his mind is on the shilling.
We reach the top of the hill—and, behold on the other side, nestling in a
valley, the shrine of our pilgrimage, the town of Underbridge! Here our
guide claims his shilling, and leaves us to find out the inn for ourselves. I
am constitutionally a polite man. I say "Good morning" at parting. The
guide looks at me with the shilling between his teeth to make sure that it is
a good one. "Marnin!" he says savagely—and turns his back on us, as if we
had offended him. A curious product, this, of the growth of civilization. If I
didn't see a church spire at Underbridge, I might suppose that we had lost
ourselves on a savage island.

II
Arriving at the town, we had no difficulty in finding the inn. The town is
composed of one desolate street; and midway in that street stands the inn—
an ancient stone building sadly out of repair. The painting on the sign-board
is obliterated. The shutters over the long range of front windows are all
closed. A cock and his hens are the only living creatures at the door. Plainly,
this is one of the old inns of the stage-coach period, ruined by the railway.
We pass through the open arched doorway, and find no one to welcome us.
We advance into the stable yard behind; I assist my wife to dismount—and
there we are in the position already disclosed to view at the opening of this
narrative. No bell to ring. No human creature to answer when I call. I stand
helpless, with the bridles of the horses in my hand. Mrs. Fairbank saunters
gracefully down the length of the yard and does—what all women do, when
they find themselves in a strange place. She opens every door as she passes
it, and peeps in. On my side, I have just recovered my breath, I am on the
point of shouting for the hostler for the third and last time, when I hear Mrs.
Fairbank suddenly call to me:
"Percy! come here!"
Her voice is eager and agitated. She has opened a last door at the end of the
yard, and has started back from some sight which has suddenly met her
view. I hitch the horses' bridles on a rusty nail in the wall near me, and join
my wife. She has turned pale, and catches me nervously by the arm.
"Good heavens!" she cries; "look at that!"
I look—and what do I see? I see a dingy little stable, containing two stalls.
In one stall a horse is munching his corn. In the other a man is lying asleep
on the litter.
A worn, withered, woebegone man in a hostler's dress. His hollow wrinkled
cheeks, his scanty grizzled hair, his dry yellow skin, tell their own tale of
past sorrow or suffering. There is an ominous frown on his eyebrows—
there is a painful nervous contraction on the side of his mouth. I hear him

breathing convulsively when I first look in; he shudders and sighs in his
sleep. It is not a pleasant sight to see, and I turn round instinctively to the
bright sunlight in the yard. My wife turns me back again in the direction of
the stable door.
"Wait!" she says. "Wait! he may do it again."
"Do what again?"
"He was talking in his sleep, Percy, when I first looked in. He was dreaming
some dreadful dream. Hush! he's beginning again."
I look and listen. The man stirs on his miserable bed. The man speaks in a
quick, fierce whisper through his clinched teeth. "Wake up! Wake up, there!
Murder!"
There is an interval of silence. He moves one lean arm slowly until it rests
over his throat; he shudders, and turns on his straw; he raises his arm from
his throat, and feebly stretches it out; his hand clutches at the straw on the
side toward which he has turned; he seems to fancy that he is grasping at
the edge of something. I see his lips begin to move again; I step softly into
the stable; my wife follows me, with her hand fast clasped in mine. We both
bend over him. He is talking once more in his sleep—strange talk, mad talk,
this time.
"Light gray eyes" (we hear him say), "and a droop in the left eyelid—flaxen
hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it—all right, mother! afair, white arms
with a down on them—little, lady's hand, with a reddish look round the
fingernails—the knife—the cursed knife—first on one side, then on the
other—aha, you she-devil! where is the knife?"
He stops and grows restless on a sudden. We see him writhing on the straw.
He throws up both his hands and gasps hysterically for breath. His eyes
open suddenly. For a moment they look at nothing, with a vacant glitter in
them—then they close again in deeper sleep. Is he dreaming still? Yes; but
the dream seems to have taken a new course. When he speaks next, the tone
is altered; the words are few—sadly and imploringly repeated over and over
again. "Say you love me! I am so fond of you. Say you love me! say you
love me!" He sinks into deeper and deeper sleep, faintly repeating those
words. They die away on his lips. He speaks no more.

By this time Mrs. Fairbank has got over her terror; she is devoured by
curiosity now. The miserable creature on the straw has appealed to the
imaginative side of her character. Her illimitable appetite for romance
hungers and thirsts for more. She shakes me impatiently by the arm.
"Do you hear? There is a woman at the bottom of it, Percy! There is love
and murder in it, Percy! Where are the people of the inn? Go into the yard,
and call to them again."
My wife belongs, on her mother's side, to the South of France. The South of
France breeds fine women with hot tempers. I say no more. Married men
will understand my position. Single men may need to be told that there are
occasions when we must not only love and honor—we must also obey—our
wives.
I turn to the door to obey my wife, and find myself confronted by a stranger
who has stolen on us unawares. The stranger is a tiny, sleepy, rosy old man,
with a vacant pudding-face, and a shining bald head. He wears drab
breeches and gaiters, and a respectable square-tailed ancient black coat. I
feel instinctively that here is the landlord of the inn.
"Good morning, sir," says the rosy old man. "I'm a little hard of hearing.
Was it you that was a-calling just now in the yard?"
Before I can answer, my wife interposes. She insists (in a shrill voice,
adapted to our host's hardness of hearing) on knowing who that unfortunate
person is sleeping on the straw. "Where does he come from? Why does he
say such dreadful things in his sleep? Is he married or single? Did he ever
fall in love with a murderess? What sort of a looking woman was she? Did
she really stab him or not? In short, dear Mr. Landlord, tell us the whole
story!"
Dear Mr. Landlord waits drowsily until Mrs. Fairbank has quite done—then
delivers himself of his reply as follows:
"His name's Francis Raven. He's an Independent Methodist. He was forty-
five year old last birthday. And he's my hostler. That's his story."
My wife's hot southern temper finds its way to her foot, and expresses itself
by a stamp on the stable yard.

The landlord turns himself sleepily round, and looks at the horses. "A fine
pair of horses, them two in the yard. Do you want to put 'em in my stables?"
I reply in the affirmative by a nod. The landlord, bent on making himself
agreeable to my wife, addresses her once more. "I'm a-going to wake
Francis Raven. He's an Independent Methodist. He was forty-five year old
last birthday. And he's my hostler. That's his story."
Having issued this second edition of his interesting narrative, the landlord
enters the stable. We follow him to see how he will wake Francis Raven,
and what will happen upon that. The stable broom stands in a corner; the
landlord takes it—advances toward the sleeping hostler—and coolly stirs
the man up with a broom as if he was a wild beast in a cage. Francis Raven
starts to his feet with a cry of terror—looks at us wildly, with a horrid glare
of suspicion in his eyes—recovers himself the next moment—and suddenly
changes into a decent, quiet, respectable serving-man.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am. I beg your pardon, sir."
The tone and manner in which he makes his apologies are both above his
apparent station in life. I begin to catch the infection of Mrs. Fairbank's
interest in this man. We both follow him out into the yard to see what he
will do with the horses. The manner in which he lifts the injured leg of the
lame horse tells me at once that he understands his business. Quickly and
quietly, he leads the animal into an empty stable; quickly and quietly, he
gets a bucket of hot water, and puts the lame horse's leg into it. "The warm
water will reduce the swelling, sir. I will bandage the leg afterwards." All
that he does is done intelligently; all that he says, he says to the purpose.
Nothing wild, nothing strange about him now. Is this the same man whom
we heard talking in his sleep?—the same man who woke with that cry of
terror and that horrid suspicion in his eyes? I determine to try him with one
or two questions.

III
"Not much to do here," I say to the hostler.
"Very little to do, sir," the hostler replies.
"Anybody staying in the house?"
"The house is quite empty, sir."
"I thought you were all dead. I could make nobody hear me."
"The landlord is very deaf, sir, and the waiter is out on an errand."
"Yes; and you were fast asleep in the stable. Do you often take a nap in the
daytime?"
The worn face of the hostler faintly flushes. His eyes look away from my
eyes for the first time. Mrs. Fairbank furtively pinches my arm. Are we on
the eve of a discovery at last? I repeat my question. The man has no civil
alternative but to give me an answer. The answer is given in these words:
"I was tired out, sir. You wouldn't have found me asleep in the daytime but
for that."
"Tired out, eh? You had been hard at work, I suppose?"
"No, sir."
"What was it, then?"
He hesitates again, and answers unwillingly, "I was up all night."
"Up all night? Anything going on in the town?"
"Nothing going on, sir."
"Anybody ill?"
"Nobody ill, sir."

That reply is the last. Try as I may, I can extract nothing more from him. He
turns away and busies himself in attending to the horse's leg. I leave the
stable to speak to the landlord about the carriage which is to take us back to
Farleigh Hall. Mrs. Fairbank remains with the hostler, and favors me with a
look at parting. The look says plainly, "I mean to find out why he was up all
night. Leave him to Me."
The ordering of the carriage is easily accomplished. The inn possesses one
horse and one chaise. The landlord has a story to tell of the horse, and a
story to tell of the chaise. They resemble the story of Francis Raven—with
this exception, that the horse and chaise belong to no religious persuasion.
"The horse will be nine year old next birthday. I've had the shay for four-
and-twenty year. Mr. Max, of Underbridge, he bred the horse; and Mr.
Pooley, of Yeovil, he built the shay. It's my horse and my shay. And that's
their story!" Having relieved his mind of these details, the landlord
proceeds to put the harness on the horse. By way of assisting him, I drag the
chaise into the yard. Just as our preparations are completed, Mrs. Fairbank
appears. A moment or two later the hostler follows her out. He has
bandaged the horse's leg, and is now ready to drive us to Farleigh Hall. I
observe signs of agitation in his face and manner, which suggest that my
wife has found her way into his confidence. I put the question to her
privately in a corner of the yard. "Well? Have you found out why Francis
Raven was up all night?"
Mrs. Fairbank has an eye to dramatic effect. Instead of answering plainly,
Yes or No, she suspends the interest and excites the audience by putting a
question on her side.
"What is the day of the month, dear?"
"The day of the month is the first of March."
"The first of March, Percy, is Francis Raven's birthday."
I try to look as if I was interested—and don't succeed.
"Francis was born," Mrs. Fairbank proceeds gravely, "at two o'clock in the
morning."

I begin to wonder whether my wife's intellect is going the way of the
landlord's intellect. "Is that all?" I ask.
"It is not all," Mrs. Fairbank answers. "Francis Raven sits up on the
morning of his birthday because he is afraid to go to bed."
"And why is he afraid to go to bed?"
"Because he is in peril of his life."
"On his birthday?"
"On his birthday. At two o'clock in the morning. As regularly as the
birthday comes round."
There she stops. Has she discovered no more than that? No more thus far. I
begin to feel really interested by this time. I ask eagerly what it means?
Mrs. Fairbank points mysteriously to the chaise—with Francis Raven
(hitherto our hostler, now our coachman) waiting for us to get in. The chaise
has a seat for two in front, and a seat for one behind. My wife casts a
warning look at me, and places herself on the seat in front.
The necessary consequence of this arrangement is that Mrs. Fairbank sits by
the side of the driver during a journey of two hours and more. Need I state
the result? It would be an insult to your intelligence to state the result. Let
me offer you my place in the chaise. And let Francis Raven tell his terrible
story in his own words.

THE SECOND NARRATIVE
THE HOSTLER'S STORY.—TOLD BY HIMSELF

IV
It is now ten years ago since I got my first warning of the great trouble of
my life in the Vision of a Dream.
I shall be better able to tell you about it if you will please suppose
yourselves to be drinking tea along with us in our little cottage in
Cambridgeshire, ten years since.
The time was the close of day, and there were three of us at the table,
namely, my mother, myself, and my mother's sister, Mrs. Chance. These
two were Scotchwomen by birth, and both were widows. There was no
other resemblance between them that I can call to mind. My mother had
lived all her life in England, and had no more of the Scotch brogue on her
tongue than I have. My aunt Chance had never been out of Scotland until
she came to keep house with my mother after her husband's death. And
when she opened her lips you heard broad Scotch, I can tell you, if you ever
heard it yet!
As it fell out, there was a matter of some consequence in debate among us
that evening. It was this: whether I should do well or not to take a long
journey on foot the next morning.
Now the next morning happened to be the day before my birthday; and the
purpose of the journey was to offer myself for a situation as groom at a
great house in the neighboring county to ours. The place was reported as
likely to fall vacant in about three weeks' time. I was as well fitted to fill it
as any other man. In the prosperous days of our family, my father had been
manager of a training stable, and he had kept me employed among the
horses from my boyhood upward. Please to excuse my troubling you with
these small matters. They all fit into my story farther on, as you will soon
find out. My poor mother was dead against my leaving home on the
morrow.
"You can never walk all the way there and all the way back again by to-
morrow night," she says. "The end of it will be that you will sleep away

from home on your birthday. You have never done that yet, Francis, since
your father's death, I don't like your doing it now. Wait a day longer, my son
—only one day."
For my own part, I was weary of being idle, and I couldn't abide the notion
of delay. Even one day might make all the difference. Some other man
might take time by the forelock, and get the place.
"Consider how long I have been out of work," I says, "and don't ask me to
put off the journey. I won't fail you, mother. I'll get back by to-morrow
night, if I have to pay my last sixpence for a lift in a cart."
My mother shook her head. "I don't like it, Francis—I don't like it!" There
was no moving her from that view. We argued and argued, until we were
both at a deadlock. It ended in our agreeing to refer the difference between
us to my mother's sister, Mrs. Chance.
While we were trying hard to convince each other, my aunt Chance sat as
dumb as a fish, stirring her tea and thinking her own thoughts. When we
made our appeal to her, she seemed as it were to wake up. "Ye baith refer it
to my puir judgment?" she says, in her broad Scotch. We both answered
Yes. Upon that my aunt Chance first cleared the tea-table, and then pulled
out from the pocket of her gown a pack of cards.
Don't run away, if you please, with the notion that this was done lightly,
with a view to amuse my mother and me. My aunt Chance seriously
believed that she could look into the future by telling fortunes on the cards.
She did nothing herself without first consulting the cards. She could give no
more serious proof of her interest in my welfare than the proof which she
was offering now. I don't say it profanely; I only mention the fact—the
cards had, in some incomprehensible way, got themselves jumbled up
together with her religious convictions. You meet with people nowadays
who believe in spirits working by way of tables and chairs. On the same
principle (if there is any principle in it) my aunt Chance believed in
Providence working by way of the cards.
"Whether you are right, Francie, or your mither—whether ye will do weel
or ill, the morrow, to go or stay—the cairds will tell it. We are a' in the
hands of Proavidence. The cairds will tell it."

Hearing this, my mother turned her head aside, with something of a sour
look in her face. Her sister's notions about the cards were little better than
flat blasphemy to her mind. But she kept her opinion to herself. My aunt
Chance, to own the truth, had inherited, through her late husband, a pension
of thirty pounds a year. This was an important contribution to our
housekeeping, and we poor relations were bound to treat her with a certain
respect. As for myself, if my poor father never did anything else for me
before he fell into difficulties, he gave me a good education, and raised me
(thank God) above superstitions of all sorts. However, a very little amused
me in those days; and I waited to have my fortune told, as patiently as if I
believed in it too!
My aunt began her hocus pocus by throwing out all the cards in the pack
under seven. She shuffled the rest with her left hand for luck; and then she
gave them to me to cut. "Wi' yer left hand, Francie. Mind that! Pet your
trust in Proavidence—but dinna forget that your luck's in yer left hand!" A
long and roundabout shifting of the cards followed, reducing them in
number until there were just fifteen of them left, laid out neatly before my
aunt in a half circle. The card which happened to lie outermost, at the right-
hand end of the circle, was, according to rule in such cases, the card chosen
to represent Me. By way of being appropriate to my situation as a poor
groom out of employment, the card was—the King of Diamonds.
"I tak' up the King o' Diamants," says my aunt. "I count seven cairds fra'
richt to left; and I humbly ask a blessing on what follows." My aunt shut her
eyes as if she was saying grace before meat, and held up to me the seventh
card. I called the seventh card—the Queen of Spades. My aunt opened her
eyes again in a hurry, and cast a sly look my way. "The Queen o' Spades
means a dairk woman. Ye'll be thinking in secret, Francie, of a dairk
woman?"
When a man has been out of work for more than three months, his mind
isn't troubled much with thinking of women—light or dark. I was thinking
of the groom's place at the great house, and I tried to say so. My aunt
Chance wouldn't listen. She treated my interpretation with contempt. "Hoot-
toot! there's the caird in your hand! If ye're no thinking of her the day, ye'll
be thinking of her the morrow. Where's the harm of thinking of a dairk

woman! I was ance a dairk woman myself, before my hair was gray. Haud
yer peace, Francie, and watch the cairds."
I watched the cards as I was told. There were seven left on the table. My
aunt removed two from one end of the row and two from the other, and
desired me to call the two outermost of the three cards now left on the table.
I called the Ace of Clubs and the Ten of Diamonds. My aunt Chance lifted
her eyes to the ceiling with a look of devout gratitude which sorely tried my
mother's patience. The Ace of Clubs and the Ten of Diamonds, taken
together, signified—first, good news (evidently the news of the groom's
place); secondly, a journey that lay before me (pointing plainly to my
journey to-morrow!); thirdly and lastly, a sum of money (probably the
groom's wages!) waiting to find its way into my pockets. Having told my
fortune in these encouraging terms, my aunt declined to carry the
experiment any further. "Eh, lad! it's a clean tempting o' Proavidence to ask
mair o' the cairds than the cairds have tauld us noo. Gae yer ways to-
morrow to the great hoose. A dairk woman will meet ye at the gate; and
she'll have a hand in getting ye the groom's place, wi' a' the gratifications
and pairquisites appertaining to the same. And, mebbe, when yer poaket's
full o' money, ye'll no' be forgetting yer aunt Chance, maintaining her ain
unblemished widowhood—wi' Proavidence assisting—on thratty punds a
year!"
I promised to remember my aunt Chance (who had the defect, by the way,
of being a terribly greedy person after money) on the next happy occasion
when my poor empty pockets were to be filled at last. This done, I looked at
my mother. She had agreed to take her sister for umpire between us, and her
sister had given it in my favor. She raised no more objections. Silently, she
got on her feet, and kissed me, and sighed bitterly—and so left the room.
My aunt Chance shook her head. "I doubt, Francie, yer puir mither has but a
heathen notion of the vairtue of the cairds!"
By daylight the next morning I set forth on my journey. I looked back at the
cottage as I opened the garden gate. At one window was my mother, with
her handkerchief to her eyes. At the other stood my aunt Chance, holding up
the Queen of Spades by way of encouraging me at starting. I waved my
hands to both of them in token of farewell, and stepped out briskly into the
road. It was then the last day of February. Be pleased to remember, in

connection with this, that the first of March was the day, and two o'clock in
the morning the hour of my birth.

V
Now you know how I came to leave home. The next thing to tell is, what
happened on the journey.
I reached the great house in reasonably good time considering the distance.
At the very first trial of it, the prophecy of the cards turned out to be wrong.
The person who met me at the lodge gate was not a dark woman—in fact,
not a woman at all—but a boy. He directed me on the way to the servants'
offices; and there again the cards were all wrong. I encountered, not one
woman, but three—and not one of the three was dark. I have stated that I
am not superstitious, and I have told the truth. But I must own that I did feel
a certain fluttering at the heart when I made my bow to the steward, and
told him what business had brought me to the house. His answer completed
the discomfiture of aunt Chance's fortune-telling. My ill-luck still pursued
me. That very morning another man had applied for the groom's place, and
had got it.
I swallowed my disappointment as well as I could, and thanked the steward,
and went to the inn in the village to get the rest and food which I sorely
needed by this time.
Before starting on my homeward walk I made some inquiries at the inn, and
ascertained that I might save a few miles, on my return, by following a new
road. Furnished with full instructions, several times repeated, as to the
various turnings I was to take, I set forth, and walked on till the evening
with only one stoppage for bread and cheese. Just as it was getting toward
dark, the rain came on and the wind began to rise; and I found myself, to
make matters worse, in a part of the country with which I was entirely
unacquainted, though I guessed myself to be some fifteen miles from home.
The first house I found to inquire at, was a lonely roadside inn, standing on
the outskirts of a thick wood. Solitary as the place looked, it was welcome
to a lost man who was also hungry, thirsty, footsore, and wet. The landlord
was civil and respectable-looking; and the price he asked for a bed was
reasonable enough. I was grieved to disappoint my mother. But there was

no conveyance to be had, and I could go no farther afoot that night. My
weariness fairly forced me to stop at the inn.
I may say for myself that I am a temperate man. My supper simply
consisted of some rashers of bacon, a slice of home-made bread, and a pint
of ale. I did not go to bed immediately after this moderate meal, but sat up
with the landlord, talking about my bad prospects and my long run of ill-
luck, and diverging from these topics to the subjects of horse-flesh and
racing. Nothing was said, either by myself, my host, or the few laborers
who strayed into the tap-room, which could, in the slightest degree, excite
my mind, or set my fancy—which is only a small fancy at the best of times
—playing tricks with my common sense.
At a little after eleven the house was closed. I went round with the landlord,
and held the candle while the doors and lower windows were being secured.
I noticed with surprise the strength of the bolts, bars, and iron-sheathed
shutters.
"You see, we are rather lonely here," said the landlord. "We never have had
any attempts to break in yet, but it's always as well to be on the safe side.
When nobody is sleeping here, I am the only man in the house. My wife
and daughter are timid, and the servant girl takes after her missuses.
Another glass of ale, before you turn in?—No!—Well, how such a sober
man as you comes to be out of a place is more than I can understand for
one.—Here's where you're to sleep. You're the only lodger to-night, and I
think you'll say my missus has done her best to make you comfortable.
You're quite sure you won't have another glass of ale?—Very well. Good
night."
It was half-past eleven by the clock in the passage as we went upstairs to
the bedroom. The window looked out on the wood at the back of the house.
I locked my door, set my candle on the chest of drawers, and wearily got me
ready for bed. The bleak wind was still blowing, and the solemn, surging
moan of it in the wood was very dreary to hear through the night silence.
Feeling strangely wakeful, I resolved to keep the candle alight until I began
to grow sleepy. The truth is, I was not quite myself. I was depressed in mind
by my disappointment of the morning; and I was worn out in body by my
long walk. Between the two, I own I couldn't face the prospect of lying

awake in the darkness, listening to the dismal moan of the wind in the
wood.
Sleep stole on me before I was aware of it; my eyes closed, and I fell off to
rest, without having so much as thought of extinguishing the candle.
The next thing that I remember was a faint shivering that ran through me
from head to foot, and a dreadful sinking pain at my heart, such as I had
never felt before. The shivering only disturbed my slumbers—the pain
woke me instantly. In one moment I passed from a state of sleep to a state
of wakefulness—my eyes wide open—my mind clear on a sudden as if by a
miracle. The candle had burned down nearly to the last morsel of tallow, but
the unsnuffed wick had just fallen off, and the light was, for the moment,
fair and full.
Between the foot of the bed and the closet door, I saw a person in my room.
The person was a woman, standing looking at me, with a knife in her hand.
It does no credit to my courage to confess it—but the truth is the truth. I
was struck speechless with terror. There I lay with my eyes on the woman;
there the woman stood (with the knife in her hand) with her eyes on me.
She said not a word as we stared each other in the face; but she moved after
a little—moved slowly toward the left-hand side of the bed.
The light fell full on her face. A fair, fine woman, with yellowish flaxen
hair, and light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. I noticed these
things and fixed them in my mind, before she was quite round at the side of
the bed. Without saying a word; without any change in the stony stillness of
her face; without any noise following her footfall, she came closer and
closer; stopped at the bed-head; and lifted the knife to stab me. I laid my
arm over my throat to save it; but, as I saw the blow coming, I threw my
hand across the bed to the right side, and jerked my body over that way, just
as the knife came down, like lightning, within a hair's breadth of my
shoulder.
My eyes fixed on her arm and her hand—she gave me time to look at them
as she slowly drew the knife out of the bed. A white, well-shaped arm, with
a pretty down lying lightly over the fair skin. A delicate lady's hand, with a
pink flush round the finger nails.

She drew the knife out, and passed back again slowly to the foot of the bed;
she stopped there for a moment looking at me; then she came on without
saying a word; without any change in the stony stillness of her face; without
any noise following her footfall—came on to the side of the bed where I
now lay.
Getting near me, she lifted the knife again, and I drew myself away to the
left side. She struck, as before right into the mattress, with a swift
downward action of her arm; and she missed me, as before; by a hair's
breadth. This time my eyes wandered from her to the knife. It was like the
large clasp knives which laboring men use to cut their bread and bacon
with. Her delicate little fingers did not hide more than two thirds of the
handle; I noticed that it was made of buckhorn, clean and shining as the
blade was, and looking like new.
For the second time she drew the knife out of the bed, and suddenly hid it
away in the wide sleeve of her gown. That done, she stopped by the bedside
watching me. For an instant I saw her standing in that position—then the
wick of the spent candle fell over into the socket. The flame dwindled to a
little blue point, and the room grew dark.
A moment, or less, if possible, passed so—and then the wick flared up,
smokily, for the last time. My eyes were still looking for her over the right-
hand side of the bed when the last flash of light came. Look as I might, I
could see nothing. The woman with the knife was gone.
I began to get back to myself again. I could feel my heart beating; I could
hear the woeful moaning of the wind in the wood; I could leap up in bed,
and give the alarm before she escaped from the house. "Murder! Wake up
there! Murder!"
Nobody answered to the alarm. I rose and groped my way through the
darkness to the door of the room. By that way she must have got in. By that
way she must have gone out.
The door of the room was fast locked, exactly as I had left it on going to
bed! I looked at the window. Fast locked too!
Hearing a voice outside, I opened the door. There was the landlord, coming
toward me along the passage, with his burning candle in one hand, and his

gun in the other.
"What is it?" he says, looking at me in no very friendly way.
I could only answer in a whisper, "A woman, with a knife in her hand. In
my room. A fair, yellow-haired woman. She jabbed at me with the knife,
twice over."
He lifted his candle, and looked at me steadily from head to foot. "She
seems to have missed you—twice over."
"I dodged the knife as it came down. It struck the bed each time. Go in, and
see."
The landlord took his candle into the bedroom immediately. In less than a
minute he came out again into the passage in a violent passion.
"The devil fly away with you and your woman with the knife! There isn't a
mark in the bedclothes anywhere. What do you mean by coming into a
man's place and frightening his family out of their wits by a dream?"
A dream? The woman who had tried to stab me, not a living human being
like myself? I began to shake and shiver. The horrors got hold of me at the
bare thought of it.
"I'll leave the house," I said. "Better be out on the road in the rain and dark,
than back in that room, after what I've seen in it. Lend me the light to get
my clothes by, and tell me what I'm to pay."
The landlord led the way back with his light into the bedroom. "Pay?" says
he. "You'll find your score on the slate when you go downstairs. I wouldn't
have taken you in for all the money you've got about you, if I had known
your dreaming, screeching ways beforehand. Look at the bed—where's the
cut of a knife in it? Look at the window—is the lock bursted? Look at the
door (which I heard you fasten yourself)—is it broke in? A murdering
woman with a knife in my house! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
My eyes followed his hand as it pointed first to the bed—then to the
window—then to the door. There was no gainsaying it. The bed sheet was
as sound as on the day it was made. The window was fast. The door hung
on its hinges as steady as ever. I huddled my clothes on without speaking.

We went downstairs together. I looked at the clock in the bar-room. The
time was twenty minutes past two in the morning. I paid my bill, and the
landlord let me out. The rain had ceased; but the night was dark, and the
wind was bleaker than ever. Little did the darkness, or the cold, or the doubt
about the way home matter to me. My mind was away from all these things.
My mind was fixed on the vision in the bedroom. What had I seen trying to
murder me? The creature of a dream? Or that other creature from the world
beyond the grave, whom men call ghost? I could make nothing of it as I
walked along in the night; I had made nothing by it by midday—when I
stood at last, after many times missing my road, on the doorstep of home.

VI
My mother came out alone to welcome me back. There were no secrets
between us two. I told her all that had happened, just as I have told it to
you. She kept silence till I had done. And then she put a question to me.
"What time was it, Francis, when you saw the Woman in your Dream?"
I had looked at the clock when I left the inn, and I had noticed that the
hands pointed to twenty minutes past two. Allowing for the time consumed
in speaking to the landlord, and in getting on my clothes, I answered that I
must have first seen the Woman at two o'clock in the morning. In other
words, I had not only seen her on my birthday, but at the hour of my birth.
My mother still kept silence. Lost in her own thoughts, she took me by the
hand, and led me into the parlor. Her writing-desk was on the table by the
fireplace. She opened it, and signed to me to take a chair by her side.
"My son! your memory is a bad one, and mine is fast failing me. Tell me
again what the Woman looked like. I want her to be as well known to both
of us, years hence, as she is now."
I obeyed; wondering what strange fancy might be working in her mind. I
spoke; and she wrote the words as they fell from my lips:
"Light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair, with a golden-
yellow streak in it. White arms, with a down upon them. Little, lady's
hands, with a rosy-red look about the finger nails."
"Did you notice how she was dressed, Francis?"
"No, mother."
"Did you notice the knife?"
"Yes. A large clasp knife, with a buckhorn handle, as good as new."

My mother added the description of the knife. Also the year, month, day of
the week, and hour of the day when the Dream-Woman appeared to me at
the inn. That done, she locked up the paper in her desk.
"Not a word, Francis, to your aunt. Not a word to any living soul. Keep
your Dream a secret between you and me."
The weeks passed, and the months passed. My mother never returned to the
subject again. As for me, time, which wears out all things, wore out my
remembrance of the Dream. Little by little, the image of the Woman grew
dimmer and dimmer. Little by little, she faded out of my mind.

VII
The story of the warning is now told. Judge for yourself if it was a true
warning or a false, when you hear what happened to me on my next
birthday.
In the Summer time of the year, the Wheel of Fortune turned the right way
for me at last. I was smoking my pipe one day, near an old stone quarry at
the entrance to our village, when a carriage accident happened, which gave
a new turn, as it were, to my lot in life. It was an accident of the commonest
kind—not worth mentioning at any length. A lady driving herself; a
runaway horse; a cowardly man-servant in attendance, frightened out of his
wits; and the stone quarry too near to be agreeable—that is what I saw, all
in a few moments, between two whiffs of my pipe. I stopped the horse at
the edge of the quarry, and got myself a little hurt by the shaft of the chaise.
But that didn't matter. The lady declared I had saved her life; and her
husband, coming with her to our cottage the next day, took me into his
service then and there. The lady happened to be of a dark complexion; and
it may amuse you to hear that my aunt Chance instantly pitched on that
circumstance as a means of saving the credit of the cards. Here was the
promise of the Queen of Spades performed to the very letter, by means of "a
dark woman," just as my aunt had told me. "In the time to come, Francis,
beware o' pettin' yer ain blinded intairpretation on the cairds. Ye're ower
ready, I trow, to murmur under dispensation of Proavidence that ye canna
fathom—like the Eesraelites of auld. I'll say nae mair to ye. Mebbe when
the mony's powering into yer poakets, ye'll no forget yer aunt Chance, left
like a sparrow on the housetop, wi' a sma' annuitee o' thratty punds a year."
I remained in my situation (at the West-end of London) until the Spring of
the New Year. About that time, my master's health failed. The doctors
ordered him away to foreign parts, and the establishment was broken up.
But the turn in my luck still held good. When I left my place, I left it—
thanks to the generosity of my kind master—with a yearly allowance
granted to me, in remembrance of the day when I had saved my mistress's

life. For the future, I could go back to service or not, as I pleased; my little
income was enough to support my mother and myself.
My master and mistress left England toward the end of February. Certain
matters of business to do for them detained me in London until the last day
of the month. I was only able to leave for our village by the evening train,
to keep my birthday with my mother as usual. It was bedtime when I got to
the cottage; and I was sorry to find that she was far from well. To make
matters worse, she had finished her bottle of medicine on the previous day,
and had omitted to get it replenished, as the doctor had strictly directed. He
dispensed his own medicines, and I offered to go and knock him up. She
refused to let me do this; and, after giving me my supper, sent me away to
my bed.
I fell asleep for a little, and woke again. My mother's bed-chamber was next
to mine. I heard my aunt Chance's heavy footsteps going to and fro in the
room, and, suspecting something wrong, knocked at the door. My mother's
pains had returned upon her; there was a serious necessity for relieving her
sufferings as speedily as possible, I put on my clothes, and ran off, with the
medicine bottle in my hand, to the other end of the village, where the doctor
lived. The church clock chimed the quarter to two on my birthday just as I
reached his house. One ring of the night bell brought him to his bedroom
window to speak to me. He told me to wait, and he would let me in at the
surgery door. I noticed, while I was waiting, that the night was wonderfully
fair and warm for the time of year. The old stone quarry where the carriage
accident had happened was within view. The moon in the clear heavens lit it
up almost as bright as day.
In a minute or two the doctor let me into the surgery. I closed the door,
noticing that he had left his room very lightly clad. He kindly pardoned my
mother's neglect of his directions, and set to work at once at compounding
the medicine. We were both intent on the bottle; he filling it, and I holding
the light—when we heard the surgery door suddenly opened from the street.

VIII
Who could possibly be up and about in our quiet village at the second hour
of the morning?
The person who opened the door appeared within range of the light of the
candle. To complete our amazement, the person proved to be a woman! She
walked up to the counter, and standing side by side with me, lifted her veil.
At the moment when she showed her face, I heard the church clock strike
two. She was a stranger to me, and a stranger to the doctor. She was also,
beyond all comparison, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my
life.
"I saw the light under the door," she said. "I want some medicine."
She spoke quite composedly, as if there was nothing at all extraordinary in
her being out in the village at two in the morning, and following me into the
surgery to ask for medicine! The doctor stared at her as if he suspected his
own eyes of deceiving him. "Who are you?" he asked. "How do you come
to be wandering about at this time in the morning?"
She paid no heed to his questions. She only told him coolly what she
wanted. "I have got a bad toothache. I want a bottle of laudanum."
The doctor recovered himself when she asked for the laudanum. He was on
his own ground, you know, when it came to a matter of laudanum; and he
spoke to her smartly enough this time.
"Oh, you have got the toothache, have you? Let me look at the tooth."
She shook her head, and laid a two-shilling piece on the counter. "I won't
trouble you to look at the tooth," she said. "There is the money. Let me have
the laudanum, if you please."
The doctor put the two-shilling piece back again in her hand. "I don't sell
laudanum to strangers," he answered. "If you are in any distress of body or
mind, that is another matter. I shall be glad to help you."

She put the money back in her pocket. "You can't help me," she said, as
quietly as ever. "Good morning."
With that, she opened the surgery door to go out again into the street. So far,
I had not spoken a word on my side. I had stood with the candle in my hand
(not knowing I was holding it)—with my eyes fixed on her, with my mind
fixed on her like a man bewitched. Her looks betrayed, even more plainly
than her words, her resolution, in one way or another, to destroy herself.
When she opened the door, in my alarm at what might happen I found the
use of my tongue.
"Stop!" I cried out. "Wait for me. I want to speak to you before you go
away." She lifted her eyes with a look of careless surprise and a mocking
smile on her lips.
"What can you have to say to me?" She stopped, and laughed to herself.
"Why not?" she said. "I have got nothing to do, and nowhere to go." She
turned back a step, and nodded to me. "You're a strange man—I think I'll
humor you—I'll wait outside." The door of the surgery closed on her. She
was gone.
I am ashamed to own what happened next. The only excuse for me is that I
was really and truly a man bewitched. I turned me round to follow her out,
without once thinking of my mother. The doctor stopped me.
"Don't forget the medicine," he said. "And if you will take my advice, don't
trouble yourself about that woman. Rouse up the constable. It's his business
to look after her—not yours."
I held out my hand for the medicine in silence: I was afraid I should fail in
respect if I trusted myself to answer him. He must have seen, as I saw, that
she wanted the laudanum to poison herself. He had, to my mind, taken a
very heartless view of the matter. I just thanked him when he gave me the
medicine—and went out.
She was waiting for me as she had promised; walking slowly to and fro—a
tall, graceful, solitary figure in the bright moonbeams. They shed over her
fair complexion, her bright golden hair, her large gray eyes, just the light
that suited them best. She looked hardly mortal when she first turned to
speak to me.

"Well?" she said. "And what do you want?"
In spite of my pride, or my shyness, or my better sense—whichever it might
me—all my heart went out to her in a moment. I caught hold of her by the
hands, and owned what was in my thoughts, as freely as if I had known her
for half a lifetime.
"You mean to destroy yourself," I said. "And I mean to prevent you from
doing it. If I follow you about all night, I'll prevent you from doing it."
She laughed. "You saw yourself that he wouldn't sell me the laudanum. Do
you really care whether I live or die?" She squeezed my hands gently as she
put the question: her eyes searched mine with a languid, lingering look in
them that ran through me like fire. My voice died away on my lips; I
couldn't answer her.
She understood, without my answering. "You have given me a fancy for
living, by speaking kindly to me," she said. "Kindness has a wonderful
effect on women, and dogs, and other domestic animals. It is only men who
are superior to kindness. Make your mind easy—I promise to take as much
care of myself as if I was the happiest woman living! Don't let me keep you
here, out of your bed. Which way are you going?"
Miserable wretch that I was, I had forgotten my mother—with the medicine
in my hand! "I am going home," I said. "Where are you staying? At the
inn?"
She laughed her bitter laugh, and pointed to the stone quarry. "There is my
inn for to-night," she said. "When I got tired of walking about, I rested
there."
We walked on together, on my way home. I took the liberty of asking her if
she had any friends.
"I thought I had one friend left," she said, "or you would never have met me
in this place. It turns out I was wrong. My friend's door was closed in my
face some hours since; my friend's servants threatened me with the police. I
had nowhere else to go, after trying my luck in your neighborhood; and
nothing left but my two-shilling piece and these rags on my back. What
respectable innkeeper would take me into his house? I walked about,

wondering how I could find my way out of the world without disfiguring
myself, and without suffering much pain. You have no river in these parts. I
didn't see my way out of the world, till I heard you ringing at the doctor's
house. I got a glimpse at the bottles in the surgery, when he let you in, and I
thought of the laudanum directly. What were you doing there? Who is that
medicine for? Your wife?"
"I am not married!"
She laughed again. "Not married! If I was a little better dressed there might
be a chance for ME. Where do you live? Here?"
We had arrived, by this time, at my mother's door. She held out her hand to
say good-by. Houseless and homeless as she was, she never asked me to
give her a shelter for the night. It was my proposal that she should rest,
under my roof, unknown to my mother and my aunt. Our kitchen was built
out at the back of the cottage: she might remain there unseen and unheard
until the household was astir in the morning. I led her into the kitchen, and
set a chair for her by the dying embers of the fire. I dare say I was to blame
—shamefully to blame, if you like. I only wonder what you would have
done in my place. On your word of honor as a man, would you have let that
beautiful creature wander back to the shelter of the stone quarry like a stray
dog? God help the woman who is foolish enough to trust and love you, if
you would have done that!
I left her by the fire, and went to my mother's room.

IX
If you have ever felt the heartache, you will know what I suffered in secret
when my mother took my hand, and said, "I am sorry, Francis, that your
night's rest has been disturbed through me." I gave her the medicine; and I
waited by her till the pains abated. My aunt Chance went back to her bed;
and my mother and I were left alone. I noticed that her writing-desk, moved
from its customary place, was on the bed by her side. She saw me looking
at it. "This is your birthday, Francis," she said. "Have you anything to tell
me?" I had so completely forgotten my Dream, that I had no notion of what
was passing in her mind when she said those words. For a moment there
was a guilty fear in me that she suspected something. I turned away my
face, and said, "No, mother; I have nothing to tell." She signed to me to
stoop down over the pillow and kiss her. "God bless you, my love!" she
said; "and many happy returns of the day." She patted my hand, and closed
her weary eyes, and, little by little, fell off peaceably into sleep.
I stole downstairs again. I think the good influence of my mother must have
followed me down. At any rate, this is true: I stopped with my hand on the
closed kitchen door, and said to myself: "Suppose I leave the house, and
leave the village, without seeing her or speaking to her more?"
Should I really have fled from temptation in this way, if I had been left to
myself to decide? Who can tell? As things were, I was not left to decide.
While my doubt was in my mind, she heard me, and opened the kitchen
door. My eyes and her eyes met. That ended it.
We were together, unsuspected and undisturbed, for the next two hours.
Time enough for her to reveal the secret of her wasted life. Time enough for
her to take possession of me as her own, to do with me as she liked. It is
needless to dwell here on the misfortunes which had brought her low; they
are misfortunes too common to interest anybody.
Her name was Alicia Warlock. She had been born and bred a lady. She had
lost her station, her character, and her friends. Virtue shuddered at the sight
of her; and Vice had got her for the rest of her days. Shocking and common,

as I told you. It made no difference to me. I have said it already—I say it
again—I was a man bewitched. Is there anything so very wonderful in that?
Just remember who I was. Among the honest women in my own station in
life, where could I have found the like of her? Could they walk as she
walked? and look as she looked? When they gave me a kiss, did their lips
linger over it as hers did? Had they her skin, her laugh, her foot, her hand,
her touch? She never had a speck of dirt on her: I tell you her flesh was a
perfume. When she embraced me, her arms folded round me like the wings
of angels; and her smile covered me softly with its light like the sun in
heaven. I leave you to laugh at me, or to cry over me, just as your temper
may incline. I am not trying to excuse myself—I am trying to explain. You
are gentle-folks; what dazzled and maddened me, is everyday experience to
you. Fallen or not, angel or devil, it came to this—she was a lady; and I was
a groom.
Before the house was astir, I got her away (by the workmen's train) to a
large manufacturing town in our parts.
Here—with my savings in money to help her—she could get her outfit of
decent clothes and her lodging among strangers who asked no questions so
long as they were paid. Here—now on one pretense and now on another—I
could visit her, and we could both plan together what our future lives were
to be. I need not tell you that I stood pledged to make her my wife. A man
in my station always marries a woman of her sort.
Do you wonder if I was happy at this time? I should have been perfectly
happy but for one little drawback. It was this: I was never quite at my ease
in the presence of my promised wife.
I don't mean that I was shy with her, or suspicious of her, or ashamed of her.
The uneasiness I am speaking of was caused by a faint doubt in my mind
whether I had not seen her somewhere, before the morning when we met at
the doctor's house. Over and over again, I found myself wondering whether
her face did not remind me of some other face—what other I never could
tell. This strange feeling, this one question that could never be answered,
vexed me to a degree that you would hardly credit. It came between us at
the strangest times—oftenest, however, at night, when the candles were lit.
You have known what it is to try and remember a forgotten name—and to

fail, search as you may, to find it in your mind. That was my case. I failed to
find my lost face, just as you failed to find your lost name.
In three weeks we had talked matters over, and had arranged how I was to
make a clean breast of it at home. By Alicia's advice, I was to describe her
as having been one of my fellow servants during the time I was employed
under my kind master and mistress in London. There was no fear now of
my mother taking any harm from the shock of a great surprise. Her health
had improved during the three weeks' interval. On the first evening when
she was able to take her old place at tea time, I summoned my courage, and
told her I was going to be married. The poor soul flung her arms round my
neck, and burst out crying for joy. "Oh, Francis!" she says, "I am so glad
you will have somebody to comfort you and care for you when I am gone!"
As for my aunt Chance, you can anticipate what she did, without being told.
Ah, me! If there had really been any prophetic virtue in the cards, what a
terrible warning they might have given us that night! It was arranged that I
was to bring my promised wife to dinner at the cottage on the next day.

X
I own I was proud of Alicia when I led her into our little parlor at the
appointed time. She had never, to my mind, looked so beautiful as she
looked that day. I never noticed any other woman's dress—I noticed hers as
carefully as if I had been a woman myself! She wore a black silk gown,
with plain collar and cuffs, and a modest lavender-colored bonnet, with one
white rose in it placed at the side. My mother, dressed in her Sunday best,
rose up, all in a flutter, to welcome her daughter-in-law that was to be. She
walked forward a few steps, half smiling, half in tears—she looked Alicia
full in the face—and suddenly stood still. Her cheeks turned white in an
instant; her eyes stared in horror; her hands dropped helplessly at her sides.
She staggered back, and fell into the arms of my aunt, standing behind her.
It was no swoon—she kept her senses. Her eyes turned slowly from Alicia
to me. "Francis," she said, "does that woman's face remind you of
nothing?".
Before I could answer, she pointed to her writing-desk on the table at the
fireside. "Bring it!" she cried, "bring it!".
At the same moment I felt Alicia's hand on my shoulder, and saw Alicia's
face red with anger—and no wonder!
"What does this mean?" she asked. "Does your mother want to insult me?".
I said a few words to quiet her; what they were I don't remember—I was so
confused and astonished at the time. Before I had done, I heard my mother
behind me.
My aunt had fetched her desk. She had opened it; she had taken a paper
from it. Step by step, helping herself along by the wall, she came nearer and
nearer, with the paper in her hand. She looked at the paper—she looked in
Alicia's face—she lifted the long, loose sleeve of her gown, and examined
her hand and arm. I saw fear suddenly take the place of anger in Alicia's
eyes. She shook herself free of my mother's grasp. "Mad!" she said to

herself, "and Francis never told me!" With those words she ran out of the
room.
I was hastening out after her, when my mother signed to me to stop. She
read the words written on the paper. While they fell slowly, one by one,
from her lips, she pointed toward the open door.
"Light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair, with a gold-
yellow streak in it. White arms, with a down upon them. Little, lady's hand,
with a rosy-red look about the finger nails. The Dream Woman, Francis!
The Dream Woman!"
Something darkened the parlor window as those words were spoken. I
looked sidelong at the shadow. Alicia Warlock had come back! She was
peering in at us over the low window blind. There was the fatal face which
had first looked at me in the bedroom of the lonely inn. There, resting on
the window blind, was the lovely little hand which had held the murderous
knife. I had seen her before we met in the village. The Dream Woman! The
Dream Woman!

XI
I expect nobody to approve of what I have next to tell of myself. In three
weeks from the day when my mother had identified her with the Woman of
the Dream, I took Alicia Warlock to church, and made her my wife. I was a
man bewitched. Again and again I say it—I was a man bewitched!
During the interval before my marriage, our little household at the cottage
was broken up. My mother and my aunt quarreled. My mother, believing in
the Dream, entreated me to break off my engagement. My aunt, believing in
the cards, urged me to marry.
This difference of opinion produced a dispute between them, in the course
of which my aunt Chance—quite unconscious of having any superstitious
feelings of her own—actually set out the cards which prophesied happiness
to me in my married life, and asked my mother how anybody but "a blinded
heathen could be fule enough, after seeing those cairds, to believe in a
dream!" This was, naturally, too much for my mother's patience; hard words
followed on either side; Mrs. Chance returned in dudgeon to her friends in
Scotland. She left me a written statement of my future prospects, as
revealed by the cards, and with it an address at which a post-office order
would reach her. "The day was not that far off," she remarked, "when
Francie might remember what he owed to his aunt Chance, maintaining her
ain unbleemished widowhood on thratty punds a year."
Having refused to give her sanction to my marriage, my mother also refused
to be present at the wedding, or to visit Alicia afterwards. There was no
anger at the bottom of this conduct on her part. Believing as she did in this
Dream, she was simply in mortal fear of my wife. I understood this, and I
made allowances for her. Not a cross word passed between us. My one
happy remembrance now—though I did disobey her in the matter of my
marriage—is this: I loved and respected my good mother to the last.
As for my wife, she expressed no regret at the estrangement between her
mother-in-law and herself. By common consent, we never spoke on that
subject. We settled in the manufacturing town which I have already

mentioned, and we kept a lodging-house. My kind master, at my request,
granted me a lump sum in place of my annuity. This put us into a good
house, decently furnished. For a while things went well enough. I may
describe myself at this time of my life as a happy man.
My misfortunes began with a return of the complaint with which my mother
had already suffered. The doctor confessed, when I asked him the question,
that there was danger to be dreaded this time. Naturally, after hearing this, I
was a good deal away at the cottage. Naturally also, I left the business of
looking after the house, in my absence, to my wife. Little by little, I found
her beginning to alter toward me. While my back was turned, she formed
acquaintances with people of the doubtful and dissipated sort. One day, I
observed something in her manner which forced the suspicion on me that
she had been drinking. Before the week was out, my suspicion was a
certainty. From keeping company with drunkards, she had grown to be a
drunkard herself.
I did all a man could do to reclaim her. Quite useless! She had never really
returned the love I felt for her: I had no influence; I could do nothing. My
mother, hearing of this last worse trouble, resolved to try what her influence
could do. Ill as she was, I found her one day dressed to go out.
"I am not long for this world, Francis," she said. "I shall not feel easy on my
deathbed, unless I have done my best to the last to make you happy. I mean
to put my own fears and my own feelings out of the question, and go with
you to your wife, and try what I can do to reclaim her. Take me home with
you, Francis. Let me do all I can to help my son, before it is too late."
How could I disobey her? We took the railway to the town: it was only half
an hour's ride. By one o'clock in the afternoon we reached my house. It was
our dinner hour, and Alicia was in the kitchen. I was able to take my mother
quietly into the parlor and then to prepare my wife for the visit. She had
drunk but little at that early hour; and, luckily, the devil in her was tamed
for the time.
She followed me into the parlor, and the meeting passed off better than I
had ventured to forecast; with this one drawback, that my mother—though
she tried hard to control herself—shrank from looking my wife in the face

when she spoke to her. It was a relief to me when Alicia began to prepare
the table for dinner.
She laid the cloth, brought in the bread tray, and cut some slices for us from
the loaf. Then she returned to the kitchen. At that moment, while I was still
anxiously watching my mother, I was startled by seeing the same ghastly
change pass over her face which had altered it in the morning when Alicia
and she first met. Before I could say a word, she started up with a look of
horror.
"Take me back!—home, home again, Francis! Come with me, and never go
back more!"
I was afraid to ask for an explanation; I could only sign her to be silent, and
help her quickly to the door. As we passed the bread tray on the table, she
stopped and pointed to it.
"Did you see what your wife cut your bread with?" she asked.
"No, mother; I was not noticing. What was it?"
"Look!"
I did look. A new clasp knife, with a buckhorn handle, lay with the loaf in
the bread tray. I stretched out my hand to possess myself of it. At the same
moment, there was a noise in the kitchen, and my mother caught me by the
arm.
"The knife of the Dream! Francis, I'm faint with fear—take me away before
she comes back!"
I couldn't speak to comfort or even to answer her. Superior as I was to
superstition, the discovery of the knife staggered me. In silence, I helped
my mother out of the house; and took her home.
I held out my hand to say good-by. She tried to stop me.
"Don't go back, Francis! don't go back!".
"I must get the knife, mother. I must go back by the next train." I held to
that resolution. By the next train I went back.

XII
My wife had, of course, discovered our secret departure from the house.
She had been drinking. She was in a fury of passion. The dinner in the
kitchen was flung under the grate; the cloth was off the parlor table. Where
was the knife?
I was foolish enough to ask for it. She refused to give it to me. In the course
of the dispute between us which followed, I discovered that there was a
horrible story attached to the knife. It had been used in a murder—years
since—and had been so skillfully hidden that the authorities had been
unable to produce it at the trial. By help of some of her disreputable friends,
my wife had been able to purchase this relic of a bygone crime. Her
perverted nature set some horrid unacknowledged value on the knife.
Seeing there was no hope of getting it by fair means, I determined to search
for it, later in the day, in secret. The search was unsuccessful. Night came
on, and I left the house to walk about the streets. You will understand what
a broken man I was by this time, when I tell you I was afraid to sleep in the
same room with her!
Three weeks passed. Still she refused to give up the knife; and still that fear
of sleeping in the same room with her possessed me. I walked about at
night, or dozed in the parlor, or sat watching by my mother's bedside.
Before the end of the first week in the new month, the worst misfortune of
all befell me—my mother died. It wanted then but a short time to my
birthday. She had longed to live till that day. I was present at her death. Her
last words in this world were addressed to me. "Don't go back, my son—
don't go back!"
I was obliged to go back, if it was only to watch my wife. In the last days of
my mother's illness she had spitefully added a sting to my grief by declaring
she would assert her right to attend the funeral. In spite of all that I could do
or say, she held to her word. On the day appointed for the burial she forced
herself, inflamed and shameless with drink, into my presence, and swore
she would walk in the funeral procession to my mother's grave.

This last insult—after all I had gone through already—was more than I
could endure. It maddened me. Try to make allowances for a man beside
himself. I struck her.
The instant the blow was dealt, I repented it. She crouched down, silent, in
a corner of the room, and eyed me steadily. It was a look that cooled my hot
blood in an instant. There was no time now to think of making atonement. I
could only risk the worst, and make sure of her till the funeral was over. I
locked her into her bedroom.
When I came back, after laying my mother in the grave, I found her sitting
by the bedside, very much altered in look and bearing, with a bundle on her
lap. She faced me quietly; she spoke with a curious stillness in her voice—
strangely and unnaturally composed in look and manner.
"No man has ever struck me yet," she said. "My husband shall have no
second opportunity. Set the door open, and let me go."
She passed me, and left the room. I saw her walk away up the street. Was
she gone for good?
All that night I watched and waited. No footstep came near the house. The
next night, overcome with fatigue, I lay down on the bed in my clothes,
with the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning. My
slumber was not disturbed. The third night, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth,
passed, and nothing happened. I lay down on the seventh night, still
suspicious of something happening; still in my clothes; still with the door
locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning.
My rest was disturbed. I awoke twice, without any sensation of uneasiness.
The third time, that horrid shivering of the night at the lonely inn, that awful
sinking pain at the heart, came back again, and roused me in an instant. My
eyes turned to the left-hand side of the bed. And there stood, looking at me
—
The Dream Woman again? No! My wife. The living woman, with the face
of the Dream—in the attitude of the Dream—the fair arm up; the knife
clasped in the delicate white hand.

I sprang upon her on the instant; but not quickly enough to stop her from
hiding the knife. Without a word from me, without a cry from her, I
pinioned her in a chair. With one hand I felt up her sleeve; and there, where
the Dream Woman had hidden the knife, my wife had hidden it—the knife
with the buckhorn handle, that looked like new.
What I felt when I made that discovery I could not realize at the time, and I
can't describe now. I took one steady look at her with the knife in my hand.
"You meant to kill me?" I said.
"Yes," she answered; "I meant to kill you." She crossed her arms over her
bosom, and stared me coolly in the face. "I shall do it yet," she said. "With
that knife."
I don't know what possessed me—I swear to you I am no coward; and yet I
acted like a coward. The horrors got hold of me. I couldn't look at her—I
couldn't speak to her. I left her (with the knife in my hand), and went out
into the night.
There was a bleak wind abroad, and the smell of rain was in the air. The
church clocks chimed the quarter as I walked beyond the last house in the
town. I asked the first policeman I met what hour that was, of which the
quarter past had just struck.
The man looked at his watch, and answered, "Two o'clock." Two in the
morning. What day of the month was this day that had just begun? I
reckoned it up from the date of my mother's funeral. The horrid parallel
between the dream and the reality was complete—it was my birthday!
Had I escaped, the mortal peril which the dream foretold? or had I only
received a second warning? As that doubt crossed my mind I stopped on my
way out of the town. The air had revived me—I felt in some degree like my
own self again. After a little thinking, I began to see plainly the mistake I
had made in leaving my wife free to go where she liked and to do as she
pleased.
I turned instantly, and made my way back to the house. It was still dark. I
had left the candle burning in the bedchamber. When I looked up to the
window of the room now, there was no light in it. I advanced to the house

door. On going away, I remembered to have closed it; on trying it now, I
found it open.
I waited outside, never losing sight of the house till daylight. Then I
ventured indoors—listened, and heard nothing—looked into the kitchen,
scullery, parlor, and found nothing—went up at last into the bedroom. It
was empty.
A picklock lay on the floor, which told me how she had gained entrance in
the night. And that was the one trace I could find of the Dream Woman.

XIII
I waited in the house till the town was astir for the day, and then I went to
consult a lawyer. In the confused state of my mind at the time, I had one
clear notion of what I meant to do: I was determined to sell my house and
leave the neighborhood. There were obstacles in the way which I had not
counted on. I was told I had creditors to satisfy before I could leave—I,
who had given my wife the money to pay my bills regularly every week!
Inquiry showed that she had embezzled every farthing of the money I had
intrusted to her. I had no choice but to pay over again.
Placed in this awkward position, my first duty was to set things right, with
the help of my lawyer. During my forced sojourn in the town I did two
foolish things. And, as a consequence that followed, I heard once more, and
heard for the last time, of my wife.
In the first place, having got possession of the knife, I was rash enough to
keep it in my pocket. In the second place, having something of importance
to say to my lawyer, at a late hour of the evening, I went to his house after
dark—alone and on foot. I got there safely enough. Returning, I was seized
on from behind by two men, dragged down a passage and robbed—not only
of the little money I had about me, but also of the knife. It was the lawyer's
opinion (as it was mine) that the thieves were among the disreputable
acquaintances formed by my wife, and that they had attacked me at her
instigation. To confirm this view I received a letter the next day, without
date or address, written in Alicia's hand. The first line informed me that the
knife was back again in her possession. The second line reminded me of the
day when I struck her. The third line warned me that she would wash out
the stain of that blow in my blood, and repeated the words, "I shall do it
with the knife!"
These things happened a year ago. The law laid hands on the men who had
robbed me; but from that time to this, the law has failed completely to find
a trace of my wife.

My story is told. When I had paid the creditors and paid the legal expenses,
I had barely five pounds left out of the sale of my house; and I had the
world to begin over again. Some months since—drifting here and there—I
found my way to Underbridge. The landlord of the inn had known
something of my father's family in times past. He gave me (all he had to
give) my food, and shelter in the yard. Except on market days, there is
nothing to do. In the coming winter the inn is to be shut up, and I shall have
to shift for myself. My old master would help me if I applied to him—but I
don't like to apply: he has done more for me already than I deserve.
Besides, in another year who knows but my troubles may all be at an end?
Next winter will bring me nigh to my next birthday, and my next birthday
may be the day of my death. Yes! it's true I sat up all last night; and I heard
two in the morning strike: and nothing happened. Still, allowing for that, the
time to come is a time I don't trust. My wife has got the knife—my wife is
looking for me. I am above superstition, mind! I don't say I believe in
dreams; I only say, Alicia Warlock is looking for me. It is possible I may be
wrong. It is possible I may be right. Who can tell?

THE THIRD NARRATIVE
THE STORY CONTINUED BY PERCY FAIRBANK

XIV
We took leave of Francis Raven at the door of Farleigh Hall, with the
understanding that he might expect to hear from us again.
The same night Mrs. Fairbank and I had a discussion in the sanctuary of our
own room. The topic was "The Hostler's Story"; and the question in dispute
between us turned on the measure of charitable duty that we owed to the
hostler himself.
The view I took of the man's narrative was of the purely matter-of-fact kind.
Francis Raven had, in my opinion, brooded over the misty connection
between his strange dream and his vile wife, until his mind was in a state of
partial delusion on that subject. I was quite willing to help him with a trifle
of money, and to recommend him to the kindness of my lawyer, if he was
really in any danger and wanted advice. There my idea of my duty toward
this afflicted person began and ended.
Confronted with this sensible view of the matter, Mrs. Fairbank's romantic
temperament rushed, as usual, into extremes. "I should no more think of
losing sight of Francis Raven when his next birthday comes round," says
my wife, "than I should think of laying down a good story with the last
chapters unread. I am positively determined, Percy, to take him back with
us when we return to France, in the capacity of groom. What does one man
more or less among the horses matter to people as rich as we are?" In this
strain the partner of my joys and sorrows ran on, perfectly impenetrable to
everything that I could say on the side of common sense. Need I tell my
married brethren how it ended? Of course I allowed my wife to irritate me,
and spoke to her sharply.
Of course my wife turned her face away indignantly on the conjugal pillow,
and burst into tears. Of course upon that, "Mr." made his excuses, and
"Mrs." had her own way.
Before the week was out we rode over to Underbridge, and duly offered to
Francis Raven a place in our service as supernumerary groom.

At first the poor fellow seemed hardly able to realize his own extraordinary
good fortune. Recovering himself, he expressed his gratitude modestly and
becomingly. Mrs. Fairbank's ready sympathies overflowed, as usual, at her
lips. She talked to him about our home in France, as if the worn, gray-
headed hostler had been a child. "Such a dear old house, Francis; and such
pretty gardens! Stables! Stables ten times as big as your stables here—quite
a choice of rooms for you. You must learn the name of our house—Maison
Rouge. Our nearest town is Metz. We are within a walk of the beautiful
River Moselle. And when we want a change we have only to take the
railway to the frontier, and find ourselves in Germany."
Listening, so far, with a very bewildered face, Francis started and changed
color when my wife reached the end of her last sentence. "Germany?" he
repeated.
"Yes. Does Germany remind you of anything?"
The hostler's eyes looked down sadly on the ground. "Germany reminds me
of my wife," he replied.
"Indeed! How?"
"She once told me she had lived in Germany—long before I knew her—in
the time when she was a young girl."
"Was she living with relations or friends?"
"She was living as governess in a foreign family."
"In what part of Germany?"
"I don't remember, ma'am. I doubt if she told me."
"Did she tell you the name of the family?"
"Yes, ma'am. It was a foreign name, and it has slipped my memory long
since. The head of the family was a wine grower in a large way of business
—I remember that."
"Did you hear what sort of wine he grew? There are wine growers in our
neighborhood. Was it Moselle wine?"

"I couldn't say, ma'am, I doubt if I ever heard."
There the conversation dropped. We engaged to communicate with Francis
Raven before we left England, and took our leave. I had made arrangements
to pay our round of visits to English friends, and to return to Maison Rouge
in the summer. On the eve of departure, certain difficulties in connection
with the management of some landed property of mine in Ireland obliged us
to alter our plans. Instead of getting back to our house in France in the
Summer, we only returned a week or two before Christmas. Francis Raven
accompanied us, and was duly established, in the nominal capacity of stable
keeper, among the servants at Maison Rouge.
Before long, some of the objections to taking him into our employment,
which I had foreseen and had vainly mentioned to my wife, forced
themselves on our attention in no very agreeable form. Francis Raven failed
(as I had feared he would) to get on smoothly with his fellow-servants They
were all French; and not one of them understood English. Francis, on his
side, was equally ignorant of French. His reserved manners, his melancholy
temperament, his solitary ways—all told against him. Our servants called
him "the English Bear." He grew widely known in the neighborhood under
his nickname. Quarrels took place, ending once or twice in blows. It
became plain, even to Mrs. Fairbank herself, that some wise change must be
made. While we were still considering what the change was to be, the
unfortunate hostler was thrown on our hands for some time to come by an
accident in the stables. Still pursued by his proverbial ill-luck, the poor
wretch's leg was broken by a kick from a horse.
He was attended to by our own surgeon, in his comfortable bedroom at the
stables. As the date of his birthday drew near, he was still confined to his
bed.
Physically speaking, he was doing very well. Morally speaking, the surgeon
was not satisfied. Francis Raven was suffering under some mysterious
mental disturbance, which interfered seriously with his rest at night.
Hearing this, I thought it my duty to tell the medical attendant what was
preying on the patient's mind. As a practical man, he shared my opinion that
the hostler was in a state of delusion on the subject of his Wife and his

Dream. "Curable delusion, in my opinion," the surgeon added, "if the
experiment could be fairly tried."
"How can it be tried?" I asked. Instead of replying, the surgeon put a
question to me, on his side.
"Do you happen to know," he said, "that this year is Leap Year?"
"Mrs. Fairbank reminded me of it yesterday," I answered. "Otherwise I
might not have known it."
"Do you think Francis Raven knows that this year is Leap Year?"
(I began to see dimly what my friend was driving at.)
"It depends," I answered, "on whether he has got an English almanac.
Suppose he has not got the almanac—what then?"
"In that case," pursued the surgeon, "Francis Raven is innocent of all
suspicion that there is a twenty-ninth day in February this year. As a
necessary consequence—what will he do? He will anticipate the appearance
of the Woman with the Knife, at two in the morning of the twenty-ninth of
February, instead of the first of March. Let him suffer all his superstitious
terrors on the wrong day. Leave him, on the day that is really his birthday,
to pass a perfectly quiet night, and to be as sound asleep as other people at
two in the morning. And then, when he wakes comfortably in time for his
breakfast, shame him out of his delusion by telling him the truth."
I agreed to try the experiment. Leaving the surgeon to caution Mrs.
Fairbank on the subject of Leap Year, I went to the stables to see Mr. Raven.

XV
The poor fellow was full of forebodings of the fate in store for him on the
ominous first of March. He eagerly entreated me to order one of the men
servants to sit up with him on the birthday morning. In granting his request,
I asked him to tell me on which day of the week his birthday fell. He
reckoned the days on his fingers; and proved his innocence of all suspicion
that it was Leap Year, by fixing on the twenty-ninth of February, in the full
persuasion that it was the first of March. Pledged to try the surgeon's
experiment, I left his error uncorrected, of course. In so doing, I took my
first step blindfold toward the last act in the drama of the Hostler's Dream.
The next day brought with it a little domestic difficulty, which indirectly
and strangely associated itself with the coming end.
My wife received a letter, inviting us to assist in celebrating the "Silver
Wedding" of two worthy German neighbors of ours—Mr. and Mrs.
Beldheimer. Mr. Beldheimer was a large wine grower on the banks of the
Moselle. His house was situated on the frontier line of France and
Germany; and the distance from our house was sufficiently considerable to
make it necessary for us to sleep under our host's roof. Under these
circumstances, if we accepted the invitation, a comparison of dates showed
that we should be away from home on the morning of the first of March.
Mrs. Fairbank—holding to her absurd resolution to see with her own eyes
what might, or might not, happen to Francis Raven on his birthday—flatly
declined to leave Maison Rouge. "It's easy to send an excuse," she said, in
her off-hand manner.
I failed, for my part, to see any easy way out of the difficulty. The
celebration of a "Silver Wedding" in Germany is the celebration of twenty-
five years of happy married life; and the host's claim upon the consideration
of his friends on such an occasion is something in the nature of a royal
"command." After considerable discussion, finding my wife's obstinacy
invincible, and feeling that the absence of both of us from the festival
would certainly offend our friends, I left Mrs. Fairbank to make her excuses

for herself, and directed her to accept the invitation so far as I was
concerned. In so doing, I took my second step, blindfold, toward the last act
in the drama of the Hostler's Dream.
A week elapsed; the last days of February were at hand. Another domestic
difficulty happened; and, again, this event also proved to be strangely
associated with the coming end.
My head groom at the stables was one Joseph Rigobert. He was an ill-
conditioned fellow, inordinately vain of his personal appearance, and by no
means scrupulous in his conduct with women. His one virtue consisted of
his fondness for horses, and in the care he took of the animals under his
charge. In a word, he was too good a groom to be easily replaced, or he
would have quitted my service long since. On the occasion of which I am
now writing, he was reported to me by my steward as growing idle and
disorderly in his habits. The principal offense alleged against him was, that
he had been seen that day in the city of Metz, in the company of a woman
(supposed to be an Englishwoman), whom he was entertaining at a tavern,
when he ought to have been on his way back to Maison Rouge. The man's
defense was that "the lady" (as he called her) was an English stranger,
unacquainted with the ways of the place, and that he had only shown her
where she could obtain some refreshments at her own request. I
administered the necessary reprimand, without troubling myself to inquire
further into the matter. In failing to do this, I took my third step, blindfold,
toward the last act in the drama of the Hostler's Dream.
On the evening of the twenty-eighth, I informed the servants at the stables
that one of them must watch through the night by the Englishman's bedside.
Joseph Rigobert immediately volunteered for the duty—as a means, no
doubt, of winning his way back to my favor. I accepted his proposal.
That day the surgeon dined with us. Toward midnight he and I left the
smoking room, and repaired to Francis Raven's bedside. Rigobert was at his
post, with no very agreeable expression on his face. The Frenchman and the
Englishman had evidently not got on well together so far. Francis Raven lay
helpless on his bed, waiting silently for two in the morning and the Dream
Woman.

"I have come, Francis, to bid you good night," I said, cheerfully. "To-
morrow morning I shall look in at breakfast time, before I leave home on a
journey."
"Thank you for all your kindness, sir. You will not see me alive to-morrow
morning. She will find me this time. Mark my words—she will find me this
time."
"My good fellow! she couldn't find you in England. How in the world is she
to find you in France?"
"It's borne in on my mind, sir, that she will find me here. At two in the
morning on my birthday I shall see her again, and see her for the last time."
"Do you mean that she will kill you?"
"I mean that, sir, she will kill me—with the knife."
"And with Rigobert in the room to protect you?"
"I am a doomed man. Fifty Rigoberts couldn't protect me."
"And you wanted somebody to sit up with you?"
"Mere weakness, sir. I don't like to be left alone on my deathbed."
I looked at the surgeon. If he had encouraged me, I should certainly, out of
sheer compassion, have confessed to Francis Raven the trick that we were
playing him. The surgeon held to his experiment; the surgeon's face plainly
said—"No."
The next day (the twenty-ninth of February) was the day of the "Silver
Wedding." The first thing in the morning, I went to Francis Raven's room.
Rigobert met me at the door.
"How has he passed the night?" I asked.
"Saying his prayers, and looking for ghosts," Rigobert answered. "A lunatic
asylum is the only proper place for him."
I approached the bedside. "Well, Francis, here you are, safe and sound, in
spite of what you said to me last night."

His eyes rested on mine with a vacant, wondering look.
"I don't understand it," he said.
"Did you see anything of your wife when the clock struck two?"
"No, sir."
"Did anything happen?"
"Nothing happened, sir."
"Doesn't this satisfy you that you were wrong?"
His eyes still kept their vacant, wondering look. He only repeated the words
he had spoken already: "I don't understand it."
I made a last attempt to cheer him. "Come, come, Francis! keep a good
heart. You will be out of bed in a fortnight."
He shook his head on the pillow. "There's something wrong," he said. "I
don't expect you to believe me, sir. I only say there's something wrong—
and time will show it."
I left the room. Half an hour later I started for Mr. Beldheimer's house;
leaving the arrangements for the morning of the first of March in the hands
of the doctor and my wife.

XVI
The one thing which principally struck me when I joined the guests at the
"Silver Wedding" is also the one thing which it is necessary to mention
here. On this joyful occasion a noticeable lady present was out of spirits.
That lady was no other than the heroine of the festival, the mistress of the
house!
In the course of the evening I spoke to Mr. Beldheimer's eldest son on the
subject of his mother. As an old friend of the family, I had a claim on his
confidence which the young man willingly recognized.
"We have had a very disagreeable matter to deal with," he said; "and my
mother has not recovered the painful impression left on her mind. Many
years since, when my sisters were children, we had an English governess in
the house. She left us, as we then understood, to be married. We heard no
more of her until a week or ten days since, when my mother received a
letter, in which our ex-governess described herself as being in a condition of
great poverty and distress. After much hesitation she had ventured—at the
suggestion of a lady who had been kind to her—to write to her former
employers, and to appeal to their remembrance of old times. You know my
mother: she is not only the most kind-hearted, but the most innocent of
women—it is impossible to persuade her of the wickedness that there is in
the world. She replied by return of post, inviting the governess to come here
and see her, and inclosing the money for her traveling expenses. When my
father came home, and heard what had been done, he wrote at once to his
agent in London to make inquiries, inclosing the address on the governess'
letter. Before he could receive the agent's reply the governess, arrived. She
produced the worst possible impression on his mind. The agent's letter,
arriving a few days later, confirmed his suspicions. Since we had lost sight
of her, the woman had led a most disreputable life. My father spoke to her
privately: he offered—on condition of her leaving the house—a sum of
money to take her back to England. If she refused, the alternative would be
an appeal to the authorities and a public scandal. She accepted the money,
and left the house. On her way back to England she appears to have stopped

at Metz. You will understand what sort of woman she is when I tell you that
she was seen the other day in a tavern, with your handsome groom, Joseph
Rigobert."
While my informant was relating these circumstances, my memory was at
work. I recalled what Francis Raven had vaguely told us of his wife's
experience in former days as governess in a German family. A suspicion of
the truth suddenly flashed across my mind. "What was the woman's name?"
I asked.
Mr. Beldheimer's son answered: "Alicia Warlock."
I had but one idea when I heard that reply—to get back to my house without
a moment's needless delay. It was then ten o'clock at night—the last train to
Metz had left long since. I arranged with my young friend—after duly
informing him of the circumstances—that I should go by the first train in
the morning, instead of staying to breakfast with the other guests who slept
in the house.
At intervals during the night I wondered uneasily how things were going on
at Maison Rouge. Again and again the same question occurred to me, on my
journey home in the early morning—the morning of the first of March. As
the event proved, but one person in my house knew what really happened at
the stables on Francis Raven's birthday. Let Joseph Rigobert take my place
as narrator, and tell the story of the end to You—as he told it, in times past,
to his lawyer and to Me.

FOURTH (AND LAST) NARRATIVE
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH RIGOBERT: ADDRESSED TO THE ADVOCATE WHO
DEFENDED HIM AT HIS TRIAL

Respected Sir,—On the twenty-seventh of February I was sent, on business
connected with the stables at Maison Rouge, to the city of Metz. On the
public promenade I met a magnificent woman. Complexion, blond.
Nationality, English. We mutually admired each other; we fell into

conversation. (She spoke French perfectly—with the English accent.) I
offered refreshment; my proposal was accepted. We had a long and
interesting interview—we discovered that we were made for each other. So
far, Who is to blame?
Is it my fault that I am a handsome man—universally agreeable as such to
the fair sex? Is it a criminal offense to be accessible to the amiable
weakness of love? I ask again, Who is to blame? Clearly, nature. Not the
beautiful lady—not my humble self.
To resume. The most hard-hearted person living will understand that two
beings made for each other could not possibly part without an appointment
to meet again.
I made arrangements for the accommodation of the lady in the village near
Maison Rouge. She consented to honor me with her company at supper, in
my apartment at the stables, on the night of the twenty-ninth. The time fixed
on was the time when the other servants were accustomed to retire—eleven
o'clock.
Among the grooms attached to the stables was an Englishman, laid up with
a broken leg. His name was Francis. His manners were repulsive; he was
ignorant of the French language. In the kitchen he went by the nickname of
the "English Bear." Strange to say, he was a great favorite with my master
and my mistress. They even humored certain superstitious terrors to which
this repulsive person was subject—terrors into the nature of which I, as an
advanced freethinker, never thought it worth my while to inquire.
On the evening of the twenty-eighth the Englishman, being a prey to the
terrors which I have mentioned, requested that one of his fellow servants
might sit up with him for that night only. The wish that he expressed was
backed by Mr. Fairbank's authority. Having already incurred my master's
displeasure—in what way, a proper sense of my own dignity forbids me to
relate—I volunteered to watch by the bedside of the English Bear. My
object was to satisfy Mr. Fairbank that I bore no malice, on my side, after
what had occurred between us. The wretched Englishman passed a night of
delirium. Not understanding his barbarous language, I could only gather
from his gesture that he was in deadly fear of some fancied apparition at his
bedside. From time to time, when this madman disturbed my slumbers, I