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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Fog, by Richard Harding Davis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: In the Fog
+
+Author: Richard Harding Davis
+
+Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7884]
+Posting Date: July 30, 2009
+Last Updated: September 26, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE FOG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred
+
+
+
+
+
+IN THE FOG
+
+
+By Richard Harding Davis
+
+
+[Illustration: 01 I cannot tell you how much I have to thank you for]
+
+
+[Illustration: 02 The four strangers at supper were seated together]
+
+
+
+
+IN THE FOG
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The Grill is the club most difficult of access in the world. To be
+placed on its rolls distinguishes the new member as greatly as though he
+had received a vacant Garter or had been caricatured in “Vanity Fair.”
+
+Men who belong to the Grill Club never mention that fact. If you were
+to ask one of them which clubs he frequents, he will name all save that
+particular one. He is afraid if he told you he belonged to the Grill,
+that it would sound like boasting.
+
+The Grill Club dates back to the days when Shakespeare’s Theatre stood
+on the present site of the “Times” office. It has a golden Grill which
+Charles the Second presented to the Club, and the original manuscript
+of “Tom and Jerry in London,” which was bequeathed to it by Pierce Egan
+himself. The members, when they write letters at the Club, still use
+sand to blot the ink.
+
+The Grill enjoys the distinction of having blackballed, without
+political prejudice, a Prime Minister of each party. At the same sitting
+at which one of these fell, it elected, on account of his brogue and his
+bulls, Quiller, Q. C., who was then a penniless barrister.
+
+When Paul Preval, the French artist who came to London by royal command
+to paint a portrait of the Prince of Wales, was made an honorary
+member--only foreigners may be honorary members--he said, as he signed
+his first wine card, “I would rather see my name on that, than on a
+picture in the Louvre.”
+
+At which Quiller remarked, “That is a devil of a compliment, because
+the only men who can read their names in the Louvre to-day have been
+dead fifty years.”
+
+On the night after the great fog of 1897 there were five members in
+the Club, four of them busy with supper and one reading in front of the
+fireplace. There is only one room to the Club, and one long table. At
+the far end of the room the fire of the grill glows red, and, when the
+fat falls, blazes into flame, and at the other there is a broad bow
+window of diamond panes, which looks down upon the street. The four men
+at the table were strangers to each other, but as they picked at the
+grilled bones, and sipped their Scotch and soda, they conversed with
+such charming animation that a visitor to the Club, which does
+not tolerate visitors, would have counted them as friends of long
+acquaintance, certainly not as Englishmen who had met for the first
+time, and without the form of an introduction. But it is the etiquette
+and tradition of the Grill, that whoever enters it must speak with
+whomever he finds there. It is to enforce this rule that there is but
+one long table, and whether there are twenty men at it or two, the
+waiters, supporting the rule, will place them side by side.
+
+For this reason the four strangers at supper were seated together, with
+the candles grouped about them, and the long length of the table cutting
+a white path through the outer gloom.
+
+“I repeat,” said the gentleman with the black pearl stud, “that the days
+for romantic adventure and deeds of foolish daring have passed, and that
+the fault lies with ourselves. Voyages to the pole I do not catalogue
+as adventures. That African explorer, young Chetney, who turned up
+yesterday after he was supposed to have died in Uganda, did nothing
+adventurous. He made maps and explored the sources of rivers. He was
+in constant danger, but the presence of danger does not constitute
+adventure. Were that so, the chemist who studies high explosives, or
+who investigates deadly poisons, passes through adventures daily. No,
+‘adventures are for the adventurous.’ But one no longer ventures. The
+spirit of it has died of inertia. We are grown too practical, too just,
+above all, too sensible. In this room, for instance, members of this
+Club have, at the sword’s point, disputed the proper scanning of one
+of Pope’s couplets. Over so weighty a matter as spilled Burgundy on a
+gentleman’s cuff, ten men fought across this table, each with his
+rapier in one hand and a candle in the other. All ten were wounded. The
+question of the spilled Burgundy concerned but two of them. The eight
+others engaged because they were men of ‘spirit.’ They were, indeed, the
+first gentlemen of the day. To-night, were you to spill Burgundy on
+my cuff, were you even to insult me grossly, these gentlemen would not
+consider it incumbent upon them to kill each other. They would separate
+us, and to-morrow morning appear as witnesses against us at Bow Street.
+We have here to-night, in the persons of Sir Andrew and myself, an
+illustration of how the ways have changed.”
+
+The men around the table turned and glanced toward the gentleman in
+front of the fireplace. He was an elderly and somewhat portly person,
+with a kindly, wrinkled countenance, which wore continually a smile
+of almost childish confidence and good-nature. It was a face which the
+illustrated prints had made intimately familiar. He held a book from him
+at arm’s-length, as if to adjust his eyesight, and his brows were knit
+with interest.
+
+[Illustration: 03 The men around the table turned]
+
+“Now, were this the eighteenth century,” continued the gentleman with
+the black pearl, “when Sir Andrew left the Club to-night I would have
+him bound and gagged and thrown into a sedan chair. The watch would not
+interfere, the passers-by would take to their heels, my hired bullies
+and ruffians would convey him to some lonely spot where we would guard
+him until morning. Nothing would come of it, except added reputation to
+myself as a gentleman of adventurous spirit, and possibly an essay in
+the ‘Tatler,’ with stars for names, entitled, let us say, ‘The Budget
+and the Baronet.’”
+
+“But to what end, sir?” inquired the youngest of the members. “And
+why Sir Andrew, of all persons--why should you select him for this
+adventure?”
+
+The gentleman with the black pearl shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“It would prevent him speaking in the House to-night. The Navy Increase
+Bill,” he added gloomily. “It is a Government measure, and Sir Andrew
+speaks for it. And so great is his influence and so large his following
+that if he does”--the gentleman laughed ruefully--“if he does, it will
+go through. Now, had I the spirit of our ancestors,” he exclaimed, “I
+would bring chloroform from the nearest chemist’s and drug him in that
+chair. I would tumble his unconscious form into a hansom cab, and hold
+him prisoner until daylight. If I did, I would save the British taxpayer
+the cost of five more battleships, many millions of pounds.”
+
+[Illustration: 04 I would tumble his unconscious form into a hansom cab]
+
+The gentlemen again turned, and surveyed the baronet with freshened
+interest. The honorary member of the Grill, whose accent already had
+betrayed him as an American, laughed softly.
+
+“To look at him now,” he said, “one would not guess he was deeply
+concerned with the affairs of state.”
+
+The others nodded silently.
+
+“He has not lifted his eyes from that book since we first entered,”
+ added the youngest member. “He surely cannot mean to speak to-night.”
+
+“Oh, yes, he will speak,” muttered the one with the black pearl moodily.
+“During these last hours of the session the House sits late, but when
+the Navy bill comes up on its third reading he will be in his place--and
+he will pass it.”
+
+The fourth member, a stout and florid gentleman of a somewhat sporting
+appearance, in a short smoking-jacket and black tie, sighed enviously.
+
+“Fancy one of us being as cool as that, if he knew he had to stand up
+within an hour and rattle off a speech in Parliament. I ‘d be in a devil
+of a funk myself. And yet he is as keen over that book he’s reading as
+though he had nothing before him until bedtime.”
+
+“Yes, see how eager he is,” whispered the youngest member. “He does
+not lift his eyes even now when he cuts the pages. It is probably an
+Admiralty Report, or some other weighty work of statistics which bears
+upon his speech.”
+
+The gentleman with the black pearl laughed morosely.
+
+“The weighty work in which the eminent statesman is so deeply
+engrossed,” he said, “is called ‘The Great Rand Robbery.’ It is a
+detective novel, for sale at all bookstalls.”
+
+The American raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
+
+“‘The Great Rand Robbery’?” he repeated incredulously. “What an odd
+taste!”
+
+“It is not a taste, it is his vice,” returned the gentleman with the
+pearl stud. “It is his one dissipation. He is noted for it. You, as a
+stranger, could hardly be expected to know of this idiosyncrasy. Mr.
+Gladstone sought relaxation in the Greek poets, Sir Andrew finds his in
+Gaboriau. Since I have been a member of Parliament I have never seen him
+in the library without a shilling shocker in his hands. He brings them
+even into the sacred precincts of the House, and from the Government
+benches reads them concealed inside his hat. Once started on a tale of
+murder, robbery, and sudden death, nothing can tear him from it, not
+even the call of the division bell, nor of hunger, nor the prayers of
+the party Whip. He gave up his country house because when he journeyed
+to it in the train he would become so absorbed in his detective
+stories that he was invariably carried past his station.” The member of
+Parliament twisted his pearl stud nervously, and bit at the edge of his
+mustache. “If it only were the first pages of ‘The Rand Robbery’ that
+he were reading,” he murmured bitterly, “instead of the last! With such
+another book as that, I swear I could hold him here until morning. There
+would be no need of chloroform to keep him from the House.”
+
+The eyes of all were fastened upon Sir Andrew, and each saw with
+fascination that with his forefinger he was now separating the last two
+pages of the book. The member of Parliament struck the table softly with
+his open palm.
+
+“I would give a hundred pounds,” he whispered, “if I could place in his
+hands at this moment a new story of Sherlock Holmes--a thousand pounds,”
+ he added wildly--“five thousand pounds!”
+
+The American observed the speaker sharply, as though the words bore to
+him some special application, and then at an idea which apparently had
+but just come to him, smiled in great embarrassment.
+
+Sir Andrew ceased reading, but, as though still under the influence of
+the book, sat looking blankly into the open fire. For a brief space no
+one moved until the baronet withdrew his eyes and, with a sudden start
+of recollection, felt anxiously for his watch. He scanned its face
+eagerly, and scrambled to his feet.
+
+The voice of the American instantly broke the silence in a high, nervous
+accent.
+
+“And yet Sherlock Holmes himself,” he cried, “could not decipher the
+mystery which to-night baffles the police of London.”
+
+At these unexpected words, which carried in them something of the tone
+of a challenge, the gentlemen about the table started as suddenly as
+though the American had fired a pistol in the air, and Sir Andrew halted
+abruptly and stood observing him with grave surprise.
+
+The gentleman with the black pearl was the first to recover.
+
+“Yes, yes,” he said eagerly, throwing himself across the table. “A
+mystery that baffles the police of London.
+
+[Illustration: 05 “My name,” he said, “is Sears.”]
+
+“I have heard nothing of it. Tell us at once, pray do--tell us at once.”
+
+The American flushed uncomfortably, and picked uneasily at the
+tablecloth.
+
+“No one but the police has heard of it,” he murmured, “and they only
+through me. It is a remarkable crime, to, which, unfortunately, I am the
+only person who can bear witness. Because I am the only witness, I
+am, in spite of my immunity as a diplomat, detained in London by the
+authorities of Scotland Yard. My name,” he said, inclining his head
+politely, “is Sears, Lieutenant Ripley Sears of the United States Navy,
+at present Naval Attache to the Court of Russia. Had I not been detained
+to-day by the police I would have started this morning for Petersburg.”
+
+The gentleman with the black pearl interrupted with so pronounced an
+exclamation of excitement and delight that the American stammered and
+ceased speaking.
+
+“Do you hear, Sir Andrew!” cried the member of Parliament jubilantly.
+“An American diplomat halted by our police because he is the only
+witness of a most remarkable crime--_the_ most remarkable crime, I
+believe you said, sir,” he added, bending eagerly toward the naval
+officer, “which has occurred in London in many years.”
+
+The American moved his head in assent and glanced at the two other
+members. They were looking doubtfully at him, and the face of each
+showed that he was greatly perplexed.
+
+Sir Andrew advanced to within the light of the candles and drew a chair
+toward him.
+
+“The crime must be exceptional indeed,” he said, “to justify the police
+in interfering with a representative of a friendly power. If I were not
+forced to leave at once, I should take the liberty of asking you to tell
+us the details.”
+
+The gentleman with the pearl pushed the chair toward Sir Andrew, and
+motioned him to be seated.
+
+“You cannot leave us now,” he exclaimed. “Mr. Sears is just about to
+tell us of this remarkable crime.”
+
+He nodded vigorously at the naval officer and the American, after first
+glancing doubtfully toward the servants at the far end of the room,
+leaned forward across the table. The others drew their chairs nearer and
+bent toward him. The baronet glanced irresolutely at his watch, and with
+an exclamation of annoyance snapped down the lid. “They can wait,” he
+muttered. He seated himself quickly and nodded at Lieutenant Sears.
+
+“If you will be so kind as to begin, sir,” he said impatiently.
+
+“Of course,” said the American, “you understand that I understand that
+I am speaking to gentlemen. The confidences of this Club are inviolate.
+Until the police give the facts to the public press, I must consider you
+my confederates. You have heard nothing, you know no one connected with
+this mystery. Even I must remain anonymous.”
+
+The gentlemen seated around him nodded gravely.
+
+“Of course,” the baronet assented with eagerness, “of course.”
+
+“We will refer to it,” said the gentleman with the black pearl, “as ‘The
+Story of the Naval Attache.’”
+
+“I arrived in London two days ago,” said the American, “and I engaged a
+room at the Bath Hotel. I know very few people in London, and even the
+members of our embassy were strangers to me. But in Hong Kong I had
+become great pals with an officer in your navy, who has since retired,
+and who is now living in a small house in Rutland Gardens opposite the
+Knightsbridge barracks. I telegraphed him that I was in London, and
+yesterday morning I received a most hearty invitation to dine with him
+the same evening at his house. He is a bachelor, so we dined alone and
+talked over all our old days on the Asiatic Station, and of the changes
+which had come to us since we had last met there. As I was leaving the
+next morning for my post at Petersburg, and had many letters to write,
+I told him, about ten o’clock, that I must get back to the hotel, and he
+sent out his servant to call a hansom.
+
+“For the next quarter of an hour, as we sat talking, we could hear the
+cab whistle sounding violently from the doorstep, but apparently with no
+result.
+
+“‘It cannot be that the cabmen are on strike,’ my friend said, as he
+rose and walked to the window.
+
+“He pulled back the curtains and at once called to me.
+
+“‘You have never seen a London fog, have you?’ he asked. ‘Well, come
+here. This is one of the best, or, rather, one of the worst, of them.’ I
+joined him at the window, but I could see nothing. Had I not known that
+the house looked out upon the street I would have believed that I was
+facing a dead wall. I raised the sash and stretched out my head, but
+still I could see nothing. Even the light of the street lamps opposite,
+and in the upper windows of the barracks, had been smothered in the
+yellow mist. The lights of the room in which I stood penetrated the fog
+only to the distance of a few inches from my eyes.
+
+“Below me the servant was still sounding his whistle, but I could afford
+to wait no longer, and told my friend that I would try and find the way
+to my hotel on foot. He objected, but the letters I had to write were
+for the Navy Department, and, besides, I had always heard that to be out
+in a London fog was the most wonderful experience, and I was curious to
+investigate one for myself.
+
+“My friend went with me to his front door, and laid down a course for me
+to follow. I was first to walk straight across the street to the brick
+wall of the Knightsbridge Barracks. I was then to feel my way along the
+wall until I came to a row of houses set back from the sidewalk. They
+would bring me to a cross street. On the other side of this street was
+a row of shops which I was to follow until they joined the iron railings
+of Hyde Park. I was to keep to the railings until I reached the gates
+at Hyde Park Corner, where I was to lay a diagonal course across
+Piccadilly, and tack in toward the railings of Green Park. At the end
+of these railings, going east, I would find the Walsingham, and my own
+hotel.
+
+“To a sailor the course did not seem difficult, so I bade my friend
+goodnight and walked forward until my feet touched the paving. I
+continued upon it until I reached the curbing of the sidewalk. A few
+steps further, and my hands struck the wall of the barracks. I turned
+in the direction from which I had just come, and saw a square of faint
+light cut in the yellow fog. I shouted ‘All right,’ and the voice of
+my friend answered, ‘Good luck to you.’ The light from his open door
+disappeared with a bang, and I was left alone in a dripping, yellow
+darkness. I have been in the Navy for ten years, but I have never known
+such a fog as that of last night, not even among the icebergs of Behring
+Sea. There one at least could see the light of the binnacle, but last
+night I could not even distinguish the hand by which I guided myself
+along the barrack wall. At sea a fog is a natural phenomenon. It is as
+familiar as the rainbow which follows a storm, it is as proper that
+a fog should spread upon the waters as that steam shall rise from a
+kettle. But a fog which springs from the paved streets, that rolls
+between solid house-fronts, that forces cabs to move at half speed, that
+drowns policemen and extinguishes the electric lights of the music hall,
+that to me is incomprehensible. It is as out of place as a tidal wave on
+Broadway.
+
+“As I felt my way along the wall, I encountered other men who were
+coming from the opposite direction, and each time when we hailed each
+other I stepped away from the wall to make room for them to pass. But
+the third time I did this, when I reached out my hand, the wall had
+disappeared, and the further I moved to find it the further I seemed
+to be sinking into space. I had the unpleasant conviction that at any
+moment I might step over a precipice. Since I had set out I had heard
+no traffic in the street, and now, although I listened some minutes, I
+could only distinguish the occasional footfalls of pedestrians. Several
+times I called aloud, and once a jocular gentleman answered me, but only
+to ask me where I thought he was, and then even he was swallowed up in
+the silence. Just above me I could make out a jet of gas which I guessed
+came from a street lamp, and I moved over to that, and, while I tried
+to recover my bearings, kept my hand on the iron post. Except for this
+flicker of gas, no larger than the tip of my finger, I could distinguish
+nothing about me. For the rest, the mist hung between me and the world
+like a damp and heavy blanket.
+
+“I could hear voices, but I could not tell from whence they came, and
+the scrape of a foot moving cautiously, or a muffled cry as some one
+stumbled, were the only sounds that reached me.
+
+“I decided that until some one took me in tow I had best remain where
+I was, and it must have been for ten minutes that I waited by the lamp,
+straining my ears and hailing distant footfalls. In a house near me some
+people were dancing to the music of a Hungarian band. I even fancied I
+could hear the windows shake to the rhythm of their feet, but I could
+not make out from which part of the compass the sounds came. And
+sometimes, as the music rose, it seemed close at my hand, and again, to
+be floating high in the air above my head. Although I was surrounded by
+thousands of householders--13--I was as completely lost as though I
+had been set down by night in the Sahara Desert. There seemed to be no
+reason in waiting longer for an escort, so I again set out, and at once
+bumped against a low iron fence. At first I believed this to be an
+area railing, but on following it I found that it stretched for a long
+distance, and that it was pierced at regular intervals with gates. I was
+standing uncertainly with my hand on one of these when a square of light
+suddenly opened in the night, and in it I saw, as you see a picture
+thrown by a biograph in a darkened theatre, a young gentleman in
+evening dress, and back of him the lights of a hall. I guessed from its
+elevation and distance from the side-walk that this light must come
+from the door of a house set back from the street, and I determined
+to approach it and ask the young man to tell me where I was. But in
+fumbling with the lock of the gate I instinctively bent my head, and
+when I raised it again the door had partly closed, leaving only a narrow
+shaft of light. Whether the young man had re-entered the house, or had
+left it I could not tell, but I hastened to open the gate, and as I
+stepped forward I found myself upon an asphalt walk. At the same instant
+there was the sound of quick steps upon the path, and some one rushed
+past me. I called to him, but he made no reply, and I heard the gate
+click and the footsteps hurrying away upon the sidewalk.
+
+[Illustration: 06 A square of light suddenly opened in the night]
+
+“Under other circumstances the young man’s rudeness, and his
+recklessness in dashing so hurriedly through the mist, would have struck
+me as peculiar, but everything was so distorted by the fog that at the
+moment I did not consider it. The door was still as he had left it,
+partly open. I went up the path, and, after much fumbling, found the
+knob of the door-bell and gave it a sharp pull. The bell answered me
+from a great depth and distance, but no movement followed from inside
+the house, and although I pulled the bell again and again I could hear
+nothing save the dripping of the mist about me. I was anxious to be on
+my way, but unless I knew where I was going there was little chance
+of my making any speed, and I was determined that until I learned my
+bearings I would not venture back into the fog. So I pushed the door
+open and stepped into the house.
+
+“I found myself in a long and narrow hall, upon which doors opened from
+either side. At the end of the hall was a staircase with a balustrade
+which ended in a sweeping curve. The balustrade was covered with heavy
+Persian rugs, and the walls of the hall were also hung with them. The
+door on my left was closed, but the one nearer me on the right was open,
+and as I stepped opposite to it I saw that it was a sort of reception
+or waiting-room, and that it was empty. The door below it was also open,
+and with the idea that I would surely find some one there, I walked on
+up the hall. I was in evening dress, and I felt I did not look like
+a burglar, so I had no great fear that, should I encounter one of the
+inmates of the house, he would shoot me on sight. The second door in the
+hall opened into a dining-room. This was also empty. One person had
+been dining at the table, but the cloth had not been cleared away, and
+a nickering candle showed half-filled wineglasses and the ashes of
+cigarettes. The greater part of the room was in complete darkness.
+
+“By this time I had grown conscious of the fact that I was wandering
+about in a strange house, and that, apparently, I was alone in it.
+The silence of the place began to try my nerves, and in a sudden,
+unexplainable panic I started for the open street. But as I turned,
+I saw a man sitting on a bench, which the curve of the balustrade had
+hidden from me. His eyes were shut, and he was sleeping soundly.
+
+“The moment before I had been bewildered because I could see no one, but
+at sight of this man I was much more bewildered.
+
+“He was a very large man, a giant in height, with long yellow hair which
+hung below his shoulders. He was dressed in a red silk shirt that was
+belted at the waist and hung outside black velvet trousers which, in
+turn, were stuffed into high black boots. I recognized the costume at
+once as that of a Russian servant, but what a Russian servant in his
+native livery could be doing in a private house in Knightsbridge was
+incomprehensible.
+
+“I advanced and touched the man on the shoulder, and after an effort he
+awoke, and, on seeing me, sprang to his feet and began bowing rapidly
+and making deprecatory gestures. I had picked up enough Russian in
+Petersburg to make out that the man was apologizing for having fallen
+asleep, and I also was able to explain to him that I desired to see his
+master.
+
+“He nodded vigorously, and said, ‘Will the Excellency come this way? The
+Princess is here.’
+
+“I distinctly made out the word ‘princess,’ and I was a good deal
+embarrassed. I had thought it would be easy enough to explain my
+intrusion to a man, but how a woman would look at it was another matter,
+and as I followed him down the hall I was somewhat puzzled.
+
+“As we advanced, he noticed that the front door was standing open, and
+with an exclamation of surprise, hastened toward it and closed it. Then
+he rapped twice on the door of what was apparently the drawing-room.
+There was no reply to his knock, and he tapped again, and then timidly,
+and cringing subserviently, opened the door and stepped inside. He
+withdrew himself at once and stared stupidly at me, shaking his head.
+
+“‘She is not there,’ he said. He stood for a moment gazing blankly
+through the open door, and then hastened toward the dining-room. The
+solitary candle which still burned there seemed to assure him that the
+room also was empty. He came back and bowed me toward the drawing-room.
+‘She is above,’ he said; ‘I will inform the Princess of the Excellency’s
+presence.’
+
+“Before I could stop him he had turned and was running up the staircase,
+leaving me alone at the open door of the drawing-room. I decided that
+the adventure had gone quite far enough, and if I had been able to
+explain to the Russian that I had lost my way in the fog, and only
+wanted to get back into the street again, I would have left the house on
+the instant.
+
+“Of course, when I first rang the bell of the house I had no other
+expectation than that it would be answered by a parlor-maid who would
+direct me on my way. I certainly could not then foresee that I would
+disturb a Russian princess in her boudoir, or that I might be thrown out
+by her athletic bodyguard. Still, I thought I ought not now to leave
+the house without making some apology, and, if the worst should come,
+I could show my card. They could hardly believe that a member of an
+Embassy had any designs upon the hat-rack.
+
+“The room in which I stood was dimly lighted, but I could see that, like
+the hall, it was hung with heavy Persian rugs. The corners were filled
+with palms, and there was the unmistakable odor in the air of Russian
+cigarettes, and strange, dry scents that carried me back to the bazaars
+of Vladivostock. Near the front windows was a grand piano, and at the
+other end of the room a heavily carved screen of some black wood,
+picked out with ivory. The screen was overhung with a canopy of silken
+draperies, and formed a sort of alcove. In front of the alcove was
+spread the white skin of a polar bear, and set on that was one of those
+low Turkish coffee tables. It held a lighted spirit-lamp and two gold
+coffee cups. I had heard no movement from above stairs, and it must have
+been fully three minutes that I stood waiting, noting these details of
+the room and wondering at the delay, and at the strange silence.
+
+“And then, suddenly, as my eye grew more used to the half-light, I saw,
+projecting from behind the screen as though it were stretched along the
+back of a divan, the hand of a man and the lower part of his arm. I
+was as startled as though I had come across a footprint on a deserted
+island. Evidently the man had been sitting there since I had come into
+the room, even since I had entered the house, and he had heard the
+servant knocking upon the door. Why he had not declared himself I could
+not understand, but I supposed that possibly he was a guest, with no
+reason to interest himself in the Princess’s other visitors, or perhaps,
+for some reason, he did not wish to be observed. I could see nothing of
+him except his hand, but I had an unpleasant feeling that he had been
+peering at me through the carving in the screen, and that he still was
+doing so. I moved my feet noisily on the floor and said tentatively, ‘I
+beg your pardon.’
+
+“There was no reply, and the hand did not stir. Apparently the man
+was bent upon ignoring me, but as all I wished was to apologize for my
+intrusion and to leave the house, I walked up to the alcove and peered
+around it. Inside the screen was a divan piled with cushions, and on the
+end of it nearer me the man was sitting. He was a young Englishman with
+light yellow hair and a deeply bronzed face.
+
+“He was seated with his arms stretched out along the back of the divan,
+and with his head resting against a cushion. His attitude was one of
+complete ease. But his mouth had fallen open, and his eyes were set with
+an expression of utter horror. At the first glance I saw that he was
+quite dead.
+
+“For a flash of time I was too startled to act, but in the same flash I
+was convinced that the man had met his death from no accident, that he
+had not died through any ordinary failure of the laws of nature. The
+expression on his face was much too terrible to be misinterpreted. It
+spoke as eloquently as words. It told me that before the end had come he
+had watched his death approach and threaten him.
+
+“I was so sure he had been murdered that I instinctively looked on the
+floor for the weapon, and, at the same moment, out of concern for my
+own safety, quickly behind me; but the silence of the house continued
+unbroken.
+
+“I have seen a great number of dead men; I was on the Asiatic Station
+during the Japanese-Chinese war. I was in Port Arthur after the
+massacre. So a dead man, for the single reason that he is dead, does not
+repel me, and, though I knew that there was no hope that this man was
+alive, still for decency’s sake, I felt his pulse, and while I kept my
+ears alert for any sound from the floors above me, I pulled open his
+shirt and placed my hand upon his heart. My fingers instantly touched
+upon the opening of a wound, and as I withdrew them I found them wet
+with blood. He was in evening dress, and in the wide bosom of his
+shirt I found a narrow slit, so narrow that in the dim light it was
+scarcely discernable. The wound was no wider than the smallest blade of
+a pocket-knife, but when I stripped the shirt away from the chest and
+left it bare, I found that the weapon, narrow as it was, had been long
+enough to reach his heart. There is no need to tell you how I felt as I
+stood by the body of this boy, for he was hardly older than a boy, or
+of the thoughts that came into my head. I was bitterly sorry for this
+stranger, bitterly indignant at his murderer, and, at the same time,
+selfishly concerned for my own safety and for the notoriety which I saw
+was sure to follow. My instinct was to leave the body where it lay, and
+to hide myself in the fog, but I also felt that since a succession of
+accidents had made me the only witness to a crime, my duty was to make
+myself a good witness and to assist to establish the facts of this
+murder.
+
+“That it might possibly be a suicide, and not a murder, did not disturb
+me for a moment. The fact that the weapon had disappeared, and the
+expression on the boy’s face were enough to convince, at least me, that
+he had had no hand in his own death. I judged it, therefore, of the
+first importance to discover who was in the house, or, if they had
+escaped from it, who had been in the house before I entered it. I had
+seen one man leave it; but all I could tell of him was that he was a
+young man, that he was in evening dress, and that he had fled in such
+haste that he had not stopped to close the door behind him.
+
+“The Russian servant I had found apparently asleep, and, unless he acted
+a part with supreme skill, he was a stupid and ignorant boor, and as
+innocent of the murder as myself. There was still the Russian princess
+whom he had expected to find, or had pretended to expect to find, in the
+same room with the murdered man. I judged that she must now be either
+upstairs with the servant, or that she had, without his knowledge,
+already fled from the house. When I recalled his apparently genuine
+surprise at not finding her in the drawing-room, this latter supposition
+seemed the more probable. Nevertheless, I decided that it was my duty to
+make a search, and after a second hurried look for the weapon among the
+cushions of the divan, and upon the floor, I cautiously crossed the hall
+and entered the dining-room.
+
+“The single candle was still flickering in the draught, and showed only
+the white cloth. The rest of the room was draped in shadows. I picked up
+the candle, and, lifting it high above my head, moved around the corner
+of the table. Either my nerves were on such a stretch that no shock
+could strain them further, or my mind was inoculated to horrors, for
+I did not cry out at what I saw nor retreat from it. Immediately at my
+feet was the body of a beautiful woman, lying at full length upon the
+floor, her arms flung out on either side of her, and her white face and
+shoulders gleaming dully in the unsteady light of the candle. Around her
+throat was a great chain of diamonds, and the light played upon these
+and made them flash and blaze in tiny flames. But the woman who wore
+them was dead, and I was so certain as to how she had died that without
+an instant’s hesitation I dropped on my knees beside her and placed
+my hands above her heart. My fingers again touched the thin slit of a
+wound. I had no doubt in my mind but that this was the Russian princess,
+and when I lowered the candle to her face I was assured that this
+was so. Her features showed the finest lines of both the Slav and the
+Jewess; the eyes were black, the hair blue-black and wonderfully heavy,
+and her skin, even in death, was rich in color. She was a surpassingly
+beautiful woman.
+
+[Illustration: 07 At my feet was the body of a beautiful woman]
+
+“I rose and tried to light another candle with the one I held, but
+I found that my hand was so unsteady that I could not keep the wicks
+together. It was my intention to again search for this strange dagger
+which had been used to kill both the English boy and the beautiful
+princess, but before I could light the second candle I heard footsteps
+descending the stairs, and the Russian servant appeared in the doorway.
+
+“My face was in darkness, or I am sure that at the sight of it he would
+have taken alarm, for at that moment I was not sure but that this man
+himself was the murderer. His own face was plainly visible to me in the
+light from the hall, and I could see that it wore an expression of dull
+bewilderment. I stepped quickly toward him and took a firm hold upon his
+wrist.
+
+“‘She is not there,’ he said. ‘The Princess has gone. They have all
+gone.’
+
+“‘Who have gone?’ I demanded. ‘Who else has been here?’
+
+“‘The two Englishmen,’ he said.
+
+“‘What two Englishmen?’ I demanded. ‘What are their names?’
+
+“The man now saw by my manner that some question of great moment hung
+upon his answer, and he began to protest that he did not know the names
+of the visitors and that until that evening he had never seen them.
+
+“I guessed that it was my tone which frightened him, so I took my hand
+off his wrist and spoke less eagerly.
+
+“‘How long have they been here?’ I asked, ‘and when did they go?’
+
+“He pointed behind him toward the drawing-room.
+
+“‘One sat there with the Princess,’ he said; ‘the other came after I
+had placed the coffee in the drawing-room. The two Englishmen talked
+together and the Princess returned here to the table. She sat there in
+that chair, and I brought her cognac and cigarettes. Then I sat outside
+upon the bench. It was a feast day, and I had been drinking. Pardon,
+Excellency, but I fell asleep. When I woke, your Excellency was standing
+by me, but the Princess and the two Englishmen had gone. That is all I
+know.’
+
+“I believed that the man was telling me the truth. His fright had
+passed, and he was now apparently puzzled, but not alarmed.
+
+“‘You must remember the names of the Englishmen,’ I urged. ‘Try to
+think. When you announced them to the Princess what name did you give?’
+
+“At this question he exclaimed with pleasure, and, beckoning to me,
+ran hurriedly down the hall and into the drawing-room. In the corner
+furthest from the screen was the piano, and on it was a silver tray. He
+picked this up and, smiling with pride at his own intelligence, pointed
+at two cards that lay upon it. I took them up and read the names
+engraved upon them.”
+
+The American paused abruptly, and glanced at the faces about him. “I
+read the names,” he repeated. He spoke with great reluctance.
+
+“Continue!” cried the Baronet, sharply.
+
+“I read the names,” said the American with evident distaste, “and the
+family name of each was the same. They were the names of two brothers.
+One is well known to you. It is that of the African explorer of whom
+this gentleman was just speaking. I mean the Earl of Chetney. The other
+was the name of his brother, Lord Arthur Chetney.”
+
+The men at the table fell back as though a trapdoor had fallen open at
+their feet.
+
+“Lord Chetney!” they exclaimed in chorus. They glanced at each other and
+back to the American with every expression of concern and disbelief.
+
+“It is impossible!” cried the Baronet. “Why, my dear sir, young Chetney
+only arrived from Africa yesterday. It was so stated in the evening
+papers.”
+
+The jaw of the American set in a resolute square, and he pressed his
+lips together.
+
+“You are perfectly right, sir,” he said, “Lord Chetney did arrive in
+London yesterday morning, and yesterday night I found his dead body.”
+
+The youngest member present was the first to recover. He seemed much
+less concerned over the identity of the murdered man than at the
+interruption of the narrative.
+
+“Oh, please let him go on!” he cried. “What happened then? You say you
+found two visiting cards. How do you know which card was that of the
+murdered man?”
+
+The American, before he answered, waited until the chorus of
+exclamations had ceased. Then he continued as though he had not been
+interrupted.
+
+“The instant I read the names upon the cards,” he said, “I ran to the
+screen and, kneeling beside the dead man, began a search through his
+pockets. My hand at once fell upon a card-case, and I found on all
+the cards it contained the title of the Earl of Chetney. His watch and
+cigarette-case also bore his name. These evidences, and the fact of his
+bronzed skin, and that his cheekbones were worn with fever, convinced
+me that the dead man was the African explorer, and the boy who had fled
+past me in the night was Arthur, his younger brother.
+
+“I was so intent upon my search that I had forgotten the servant, and
+I was still on my knees when I heard a cry behind me. I turned, and saw
+the man gazing down at the body in abject horror.
+
+“Before I could rise, he gave another cry of terror, and, flinging
+himself into the hall, raced toward the door to the street. I leaped
+after him, shouting to him to halt, but before I could reach the hall he
+had torn open the door, and I saw him spring out into the yellow fog. I
+cleared the steps in a jump and ran down the garden walk but just as
+the gate clicked in front of me. I had it open on the instant, and,
+following the sound of the man’s footsteps, I raced after him across the
+open street. He, also, could hear me, and he instantly stopped running,
+and there was absolute silence. He was so near that I almost fancied I
+could hear him panting, and I held my own breath to listen. But I could
+distinguish nothing but the dripping of the mist about us, and from far
+off the music of the Hungarian band, which I had heard when I first lost
+myself.
+
+“All I could see was the square of light from the door I had left open
+behind me, and a lamp in the hall beyond it flickering in the draught.
+But even as I watched it, the flame of the lamp was blown violently to
+and fro, and the door, caught in the same current of air, closed slowly.
+I knew if it shut I could not again enter the house, and I rushed madly
+toward it. I believe I even shouted out, as though it were something
+human which I could compel to obey me, and then I caught my foot against
+the curb and smashed into the sidewalk. When I rose to my feet I was
+dizzy and half stunned, and though I thought then that I was moving
+toward the door, I know now that I probably turned directly from it;
+for, as I groped about in the night, calling frantically for the police,
+my fingers touched nothing but the dripping fog, and the iron railings
+for which I sought seemed to have melted away. For many minutes I beat
+the mist with my arms like one at blind man’s buff, turning sharply in
+circles, cursing aloud at my stupidity and crying continually for help.
+At last a voice answered me from the fog, and I found myself held in the
+circle of a policeman’s lantern.
+
+“That is the end of my adventure. What I have to tell you now is what I
+learned from the police.
+
+“At the station-house to which the man guided me I related what you have
+just heard. I told them that the house they must at once find was one
+set back from the street within a radius of two hundred yards from
+the Knightsbridge Barracks, that within fifty yards of it some one was
+giving a dance to the music of a Hungarian band, and that the railings
+before it were as high as a man’s waist and filed to a point. With that
+to work upon, twenty men were at once ordered out into the fog to search
+for the house, and Inspector Lyle himself was despatched to the home of
+Lord Edam, Chetney’s father, with a warrant for Lord Arthur’s arrest. I
+was thanked and dismissed on my own recognizance.
+
+“This morning, Inspector Lyle called on me, and from him I learned the
+police theory of the scene I have just described.
+
+“Apparently I had wandered very far in the fog, for up to noon to-day
+the house had not been found, nor had they been able to arrest Lord
+Arthur. He did not return to his father’s house last night, and there is
+no trace of him; but from what the police knew of the past lives of the
+people I found in that lost house, they have evolved a theory, and their
+theory is that the murders were committed by Lord Arthur.
+
+“The infatuation of his elder brother, Lord Chetney, for a Russian
+princess, so Inspector Lyle tells me, is well known to every one. About
+two years ago the Princess Zichy, as she calls herself, and he were
+constantly together, and Chetney informed his friends that they were
+about to be married. The woman was notorious in two continents, and when
+Lord Edam heard of his son’s infatuation he appealed to the police for
+her record.
+
+“It is through his having applied to them that they know so much
+concerning her and her relations with the Chetneys. From the police Lord
+Edam learned that Madame Zichy had once been a spy in the employ of the
+Russian Third Section, but that lately she had been repudiated by her
+own government and was living by her wits, by blackmail, and by her
+beauty. Lord Edam laid this record before his son, but Chetney either
+knew it already or the woman persuaded him not to believe in it, and the
+father and son parted in great anger. Two days later the marquis altered
+his will, leaving all of his money to the younger brother, Arthur.
+
+“The title and some of the landed property he could not keep from
+Chetney, but he swore if his son saw the woman again that the will
+should stand as it was, and he would be left without a penny.
+
+“This was about eighteen months ago, when apparently Chetney tired of
+the Princess, and suddenly went off to shoot and explore in Central
+Africa. No word came from him, except that twice he was reported as
+having died of fever in the jungle, and finally two traders reached
+the coast who said they had seen his body. This was accepted by all
+as conclusive, and young Arthur was recognized as the heir to the Edam
+millions. On the strength of this supposition he at once began to borrow
+enormous sums from the money lenders. This is of great importance, as
+the police believe it was these debts which drove him to the murder of
+his brother. Yesterday, as you know, Lord Chetney suddenly returned from
+the grave, and it was the fact that for two years he had been considered
+as dead which lent such importance to his return and which gave rise
+to those columns of detail concerning him which appeared in all the
+afternoon papers. But, obviously, during his absence he had not tired of
+the Princess Zichy, for we know that a few hours after he reached London
+he sought her out. His brother, who had also learned of his reappearance
+through the papers, probably suspected which would be the house he would
+first visit, and followed him there, arriving, so the Russian servant
+tells us, while the two were at coffee in the drawing-room. The
+Princess, then, we also learn from the servant, withdrew to the
+dining-room, leaving the brothers together. What happened one can only
+guess.
+
+“Lord Arthur knew now that when it was discovered he was no longer the
+heir, the money-lenders would come down upon him. The police believe
+that he at once sought out his brother to beg for money to cover the
+post-obits, but that, considering the sum he needed was several hundreds
+of thousands of pounds, Chetney refused to give it him. No one knew
+that Arthur had gone to seek out his brother. They were alone. It is
+possible, then, that in a passion of disappointment, and crazed with
+the disgrace which he saw before him, young Arthur made himself the heir
+beyond further question. The death of his brother would have availed
+nothing if the woman remained alive. It is then possible that he crossed
+the hall, and with the same weapon which made him Lord Edam’s heir
+destroyed the solitary witness to the murder. The only other person
+who could have seen it was sleeping in a drunken stupor, to which fact
+undoubtedly he owed his life. And yet,” concluded the Naval Attache,
+leaning forward and marking each word with his finger, “Lord Arthur
+blundered fatally. In his haste he left the door of the house open, so
+giving access to the first passer-by, and he forgot that when he entered
+it he had handed his card to the servant. That piece of paper may yet
+send him to the gallows. In the mean time he has disappeared completely,
+and somewhere, in one of the millions of streets of this great capital,
+in a locked and empty house, lies the body of his brother, and of the
+woman his brother loved, undiscovered, unburied, and with their murder
+unavenged.”
+
+In the discussion which followed the conclusion of the story of the
+Naval Attache the gentleman with the pearl took no part. Instead, he
+arose, and, beckoning a servant to a far corner of the room, whispered
+earnestly to him until a sudden movement on the part of Sir Andrew
+caused him to return hurriedly to the table.
+
+“There are several points in Mr. Sears’s story I want explained,” he
+cried. “Be seated, Sir Andrew,” he begged. “Let us have the opinion of
+an expert. I do not care what the police think, I want to know what you
+think.”
+
+But Sir Henry rose reluctantly from his chair.
+
+“I should like nothing better than to discuss this,” he said. “But it
+is most important that I proceed to the House. I should have been there
+some time ago.” He turned toward the servant and directed him to call a
+hansom.
+
+The gentleman with the pearl stud looked appealingly at the Naval
+Attache. “There are surely many details that you have not told us,” he
+urged. “Some you have forgotten.”
+
+The Baronet interrupted quickly.
+
+“I trust not,” he said, “for I could not possibly stop to hear them.”
+
+“The story is finished,” declared the Naval Attache; “until Lord Arthur
+is arrested or the bodies are found there is nothing more to tell of
+either Chetney or the Princess Zichy.”
+
+“Of Lord Chetney perhaps not,” interrupted the sporting-looking
+gentleman with the black tie, “but there’ll always be something to tell
+of the Princess Zichy. I know enough stories about her to fill a book.
+She was a most remarkable woman.” The speaker dropped the end of his
+cigar into his coffee cup and, taking his case from his pocket, selected
+a fresh one. As he did so he laughed and held up the case that the
+others might see it. It was an ordinary cigar-case of well-worn
+pig-skin, with a silver clasp.
+
+“The only time I ever met her,” he said, “she tried to rob me of this.”
+
+The Baronet regarded him closely.
+
+“She tried to rob you?” he repeated.
+
+[Illustration: 08 The Princess Zichy]
+
+“Tried to rob me of this,” continued the gentleman in the black tie,
+“and of the Czarina’s diamonds.” His tone was one of mingled admiration
+and injury.
+
+“The Czarina’s diamonds!” exclaimed the Baronet. He glanced quickly and
+suspiciously at the speaker, and then at the others about the table.
+But their faces gave evidence of no other emotion than that of ordinary
+interest.
+
+“Yes, the Czarina’s diamonds,” repeated the man with the black tie.
+“It was a necklace of diamonds. I was told to take them to the Russian
+Ambassador in Paris who was to deliver them at Moscow. I am a Queen’s
+Messenger,” he added.
+
+“Oh, I see,” exclaimed Sir Andrew in a tone of relief. “And you say
+that this same Princess Zichy, one of the victims of this double murder,
+endeavored to rob you of--of--that cigar-case.”
+
+“And the Czarina’s diamonds,” answered the Queen’s Messenger
+imperturbably. “It’s not much of a story, but it gives you an idea
+of the woman’s character. The robbery took place between Paris and
+Marseilles.”
+
+The Baronet interrupted him with an abrupt movement. “No, no,” he cried,
+shaking his head in protest. “Do not tempt me. I really cannot listen. I
+must be at the House in ten minutes.”
+
+“I am sorry,” said the Queen’s Messenger. He turned to those seated
+about him. “I wonder if the other gentlemen--” he inquired tentatively.
+There was a chorus of polite murmurs, and the Queen’s Messenger, bowing
+his head in acknowledgment, took a preparatory sip from his glass. At
+the same moment the servant to whom the man with the black pearl had
+spoken, slipped a piece of paper into his hand. He glanced at it,
+frowned, and threw it under the table.
+
+The servant bowed to the Baronet.
+
+“Your hansom is waiting, Sir Andrew,” he said.
+
+“The necklace was worth twenty thousand pounds,” began the Queen’s
+Messenger. “It was a present from the Queen of England to celebrate--”
+ The Baronet gave an exclamation of angry annoyance.
+
+“Upon my word, this is most provoking,” he interrupted. “I really ought
+not to stay. But I certainly mean to hear this.” He turned irritably to
+the servant. “Tell the hansom to wait,” he commanded, and, with an air
+of a boy who is playing truant, slipped guiltily into his chair.
+
+The gentleman with the black pearl smiled blandly, and rapped upon the
+table.
+
+“Order, gentlemen,” he said. “Order for the story of the Queen’s
+Messenger and the Czarina’s diamonds.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+“The necklace was a present from the Queen of England to the Czarina of
+Russia,” began the Queen’s Messenger. “It was to celebrate the occasion
+of the Czar’s coronation. Our Foreign Office knew that the Russian
+Ambassador in Paris was to proceed to Moscow for that ceremony, and I
+was directed to go to Paris and turn over the necklace to him. But when
+I reached Paris I found he had not expected me for a week later and was
+taking a few days’ vacation at Nice. His people asked me to leave the
+necklace with them at the Embassy, but I had been charged to get a
+receipt for it from the Ambassador himself, so I started at once for
+Nice The fact that Monte Carlo is not two thousand miles from Nice may
+have had something to do with making me carry out my instructions so
+carefully. Now, how the Princess Zichy came to find out about the
+necklace I don’t know, but I can guess. As you have just heard, she was
+at one time a spy in the service of the Russian government. And after
+they dismissed her she kept up her acquaintance with many of the Russian
+agents in London. It is probable that through one of them she learned
+that the necklace was to be sent to Moscow, and which one of the Queen’s
+Messengers had been detailed to take it there. Still, I doubt if even
+that knowledge would have helped her if she had not also known something
+which I supposed no one else in the world knew but myself and one other
+man. And, curiously enough, the other man was a Queen’s Messenger too,
+and a friend of mine. You must know that up to the time of this robbery
+I had always concealed my despatches in a manner peculiarly my own. I
+got the idea from that play called ‘A Scrap of Paper.’ In it a man wants
+to hide a certain compromising document. He knows that all his rooms
+will be secretly searched for it, so he puts it in a torn envelope and
+sticks it up where any one can see it on his mantel shelf. The result is
+that the woman who is ransacking the house to find it looks in all the
+unlikely places, but passes over the scrap of paper that is just under
+her nose. Sometimes the papers and packages they give us to carry about
+Europe are of very great value, and sometimes they are special makes of
+cigarettes, and orders to court dressmakers. Sometimes we know what we
+are carrying and sometimes we do not. If it is a large sum of money or a
+treaty, they generally tell us. But, as a rule, we have no knowledge of
+what the package contains; so, to be on the safe side, we naturally
+take just as great care of it as though we knew it held the terms of
+an ultimatum or the crown jewels. As a rule, my confreres carry the
+official packages in a despatch-box, which is just as obvious as a
+lady’s jewel bag in the hands of her maid. Every one knows they are
+carrying something of value. They put a premium on dishonesty.
+Well, after I saw the ‘Scrap of Paper’ play, I determined to put the
+government valuables in the most unlikely place that any one would
+look for them. So I used to hide the documents they gave me inside my
+riding-boots, and small articles, such as money or jewels, I carried
+in an old cigar-case. After I took to using my case for that purpose I
+bought a new one, exactly like it, for my cigars. But to avoid mistakes,
+I had my initials placed on both sides of the new one, and the moment
+I touched the case, even in the dark, I could tell which it was by the
+raised initials.
+
+“No one knew of this except the Queen’s Messenger of whom I spoke.
+We once left Paris together on the Orient Express. I was going to
+Constantinople and he was to stop off at Vienna. On the journey I told
+him of my peculiar way of hiding things and showed him my cigar-case. If
+I recollect rightly, on that trip it held the grand cross of St. Michael
+and St. George, which the Queen was sending to our Ambassador. The
+Messenger was very much entertained at my scheme, and some months later
+when he met the Princess he told her about it as an amusing story. Of
+course, he had no idea she was a Russian spy. He didn’t know anything at
+all about her, except that she was a very attractive woman.
+
+“It was indiscreet, but he could not possibly have guessed that she
+could ever make any use of what he told her.
+
+“Later, after the robbery, I remembered that I had informed this young
+chap of my secret hiding-place, and when I saw him again I questioned
+him about it. He was greatly distressed, and said he had never seen the
+importance of the secret. He remembered he had told several people of
+it, and among others the Princess Zichy. In that way I found out that it
+was she who had robbed me, and I know that from the moment I left London
+she was following me and that she knew then that the diamonds were
+concealed in my cigar-case.
+
+“My train for Nice left Paris at ten in the morning. When I travel at
+night I generally tell the _chef de gare_ that I am a Queen’s Messenger,
+and he gives me a compartment to myself, but in the daytime I take
+whatever offers. On this morning I had found an empty compartment, and
+I had tipped the guard to keep every one else out, not from any fear of
+losing the diamonds, but because I wanted to smoke. He had locked the
+door, and as the last bell had rung I supposed I was to travel alone, so
+I began to arrange my traps and make myself comfortable. The diamonds
+in the cigar-case were in the inside pocket of my waistcoat, and as they
+made a bulky package, I took them out, intending to put them in my hand
+bag. It is a small satchel like a bookmaker’s, or those hand bags that
+couriers carry. I wear it slung from a strap across my shoulder, and, no
+matter whether I am sitting or walking, it never leaves me.
+
+“I took the cigar-case which held the necklace from my inside pocket
+and the case which held the cigars out of the satchel, and while I was
+searching through it for a box of matches I laid the two cases beside me
+on the seat.
+
+“At that moment the train started, but at the same instant there was a
+rattle at the lock of the compartment, and a couple of porters lifted
+and shoved a woman through the door, and hurled her rugs and umbrellas
+in after her.
+
+“Instinctively I reached for the diamonds. I shoved them quickly into
+the satchel and, pushing them far down to the bottom of the bag, snapped
+the spring lock. Then I put the cigars in the pocket of my coat, but
+with the thought that now that I had a woman as a travelling companion I
+would probably not be allowed to enjoy them.
+
+“One of her pieces of luggage had fallen at my feet, and a roll of rugs
+had landed at my side. I thought if I hid the fact that the lady was
+not welcome, and at once endeavored to be civil, she might permit me
+to smoke. So I picked her hand bag off the floor and asked her where I
+might place it.
+
+“As I spoke I looked at her for the first time, and saw that she was a
+most remarkably handsome woman.
+
+“She smiled charmingly and begged me not to disturb myself. Then she
+arranged her own things about her, and, opening her dressing-bag, took
+out a gold cigarette case.
+
+“‘Do you object to smoke?’ she asked.
+
+“I laughed and assured her I had been in great terror lest she might
+object to it herself.
+
+“‘If you like cigarettes,’ she said, ‘will you try some of these? They
+are rolled especially for my husband in Russia, and they are supposed to
+be very good.’
+
+“I thanked her, and took one from her case, and I found it so much
+better than my own that I continued to smoke her cigarettes throughout
+the rest of the journey. I must say that we got on very well. I judged
+from the coronet on her cigarette-case, and from her manner, which was
+quite as well bred as that of any woman I ever met, that she was some
+one of importance, and though she seemed almost too good looking to be
+respectable, I determined that she was some _grande dame_ who was so
+assured of her position that she could afford to be unconventional. At
+first she read her novel, and then she made some comment on the scenery,
+and finally we began to discuss the current politics of the Continent.
+She talked of all the cities in Europe, and seemed to know every one
+worth knowing. But she volunteered nothing about herself except that she
+frequently made use of the expression, ‘When my husband was stationed at
+Vienna,’ or ‘When my husband was promoted to Rome.’ Once she said to me,
+‘I have often seen you at Monte Carlo. I saw you when you won the pigeon
+championship.’ I told her that I was not a pigeon shot, and she gave a
+little start of surprise. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she said; ‘I thought
+you were Morton Hamilton, the English champion.’ As a matter of fact,
+I do look like Hamilton, but I know now that her object was to make
+me think that she had no idea as to who I really was. She needn’t have
+acted at all, for I certainly had no suspicions of her, and was only too
+pleased to have so charming a companion.
+
+“The one thing that should have made me suspicious was the fact that
+at every station she made some trivial excuse to get me out of the
+compartment. She pretended that her maid was travelling back of us in
+one of the second-class carriages, and kept saying she could not imagine
+why the woman did not come to look after her, and if the maid did not
+turn up at the next stop, would I be so very kind as to get out and
+bring her whatever it was she pretended she wanted.
+
+“I had taken my dressing-case from the rack to get out a novel, and had
+left it on the seat opposite to mine, and at the end of the compartment
+farthest from her. And once when I came back from buying her a cup of
+chocolate, or from some other fool errand, I found her standing at my
+end of the compartment with both hands on the dressing-bag. She looked
+at me without so much as winking an eye, and shoved the case carefully
+into a corner. ‘Your bag slipped off on the floor,’ she said. ‘If you’ve
+got any bottles in it, you had better look and see that they’re not
+broken.’
+
+“And I give you my word, I was such an ass that I did open the case and
+looked all through it. She must have thought I _was_ a Juggins. I get
+hot all over whenever I remember it. But in spite of my dulness, and her
+cleverness, she couldn’t gain anything by sending me away, because what
+she wanted was in the hand bag and every time she sent me away the hand
+bag went with me.
+
+“After the incident of the dressing-case her manner changed. Either in
+my absence she had had time to look through it, or, when I was examining
+it for broken bottles, she had seen everything it held.
+
+“From that moment she must have been certain that the cigar-case, in
+which she knew I carried the diamonds, was in the bag that was fastened
+to my body, and from that time on she probably was plotting how to get
+it from me. Her anxiety became most apparent. She dropped the great lady
+manner, and her charming condescension went with it. She ceased talking,
+and, when I spoke, answered me irritably, or at random. No doubt her
+mind was entirely occupied with her plan. The end of our journey was
+drawing rapidly nearer, and her time for action was being cut down with
+the speed of the express train. Even I, unsuspicious as I was, noticed
+that something was very wrong with her. I really believe that before we
+reached Marseilles if I had not, through my own stupidity, given her the
+chance she wanted, she might have stuck a knife in me and rolled me out
+on the rails. But as it was, I only thought that the long journey had
+tired her. I suggested that it was a very trying trip, and asked her if
+she would allow me to offer her some of my cognac.
+
+“She thanked me and said, ‘No,’ and then suddenly her eyes lighted, and
+she exclaimed, ‘Yes, thank you, if you will be so kind.’
+
+“My flask was in the hand bag, and I placed it on my lap and with my
+thumb slipped back the catch. As I keep my tickets and railroad guide in
+the bag, I am so constantly opening it that I never bother to lock
+it, and the fact that it is strapped to me has always been sufficient
+protection. But I can appreciate now what a satisfaction, and what a
+torment too, it must have been to that woman when she saw that the bag
+opened without a key.
+
+“While we were crossing the mountains I had felt rather chilly and had
+been wearing a light racing coat. But after the lamps were lighted
+the compartment became very hot and stuffy, and I found the coat
+uncomfortable. So I stood up, and, after first slipping the strap of the
+bag over my head, I placed the bag in the seat next me and pulled off
+the racing coat. I don’t blame myself for being careless; the bag was
+still within reach of my hand, and nothing would have happened if
+at that exact moment the train had not stopped at Arles. It was the
+combination of my removing the bag and our entering the station at the
+same instant which gave the Princess Zichy the chance she wanted to rob
+me.
+
+“I needn’t say that she was clever enough to take it. The train ran into
+the station at full speed and came to a sudden stop. I had just thrown
+my coat into the rack, and had reached out my hand for the bag. In
+another instant I would have had the strap around my shoulder. But at
+that moment the Princess threw open the door of the compartment and
+beckoned wildly at the people on the platform. ‘Natalie!’ she called,
+‘Natalie! here I am. Come here! This way!’ She turned upon me in the
+greatest excitement. ‘My maid!’ she cried. ‘She is looking for me. She
+passed the window without seeing me. Go, please, and bring her back.’
+She continued pointing out of the door and beckoning me with her other
+hand. There certainly was something about that woman’s tone which made
+one jump. When she was giving orders you had no chance to think of
+anything else. So I rushed out on my errand of mercy, and then rushed
+back again to ask what the maid looked like.
+
+[Illustration: 09 This gave the Princess Zichy the chance]
+
+“‘In black,’ she answered, rising and blocking the door of the
+compartment. ‘All in black, with a bonnet!’
+
+“The train waited three minutes at Aries, and in that time I suppose I
+must have rushed up to over twenty women and asked, ‘Are you Natalie?’
+The only reason I wasn’t punched with an umbrella or handed over to the
+police was that they probably thought I was crazy.
+
+“When I jumped back into the compartment the Princess was seated where
+I had left her, but her eyes were burning with happiness. She placed her
+hand on my arm almost affectionately, and said in a hysterical way, ‘You
+are very kind to me. I am so sorry to have troubled you.’
+
+“I protested that every woman on the platform was dressed in black.
+
+“‘Indeed I am so sorry,’ she said, laughing; and she continued to laugh
+until she began to breathe so quickly that I thought she was going to
+faint.
+
+“I can see now that the last part of that journey must have been a
+terrible half hour for her. She had the cigar-case safe enough, but she
+knew that she herself was not safe. She understood if I were to open my
+bag, even at the last minute, and miss the case, I would know positively
+that she had taken it. I had placed the diamonds in the bag at the very
+moment she entered the compartment, and no one but our two selves had
+occupied it since. She knew that when we reached Marseilles she would
+either be twenty thousand pounds richer than when she left Paris, or
+that she would go to jail. That was the situation as she must have read
+it, and I don’t envy her her state of mind during that last half hour.
+It must have been hell.
+
+[Illustration: 10 She knew she would be twenty thousand pounds richer]
+
+“I saw that something was wrong, and in my innocence I even wondered if
+possibly my cognac had not been a little too strong. For she suddenly
+developed into a most brilliant conversationalist, and applauded and
+laughed at everything I said, and fired off questions at me like a
+machine gun, so that I had no time to think of anything but of what she
+was saying. Whenever I stirred she stopped her chattering and leaned
+toward me, and watched me like a cat over a mouse-hole. I wondered how I
+could have considered her an agreeable travelling companion. I thought
+I would have preferred to be locked in with a lunatic. I don’t like to
+think how she would have acted if I had made a move to examine the bag,
+but as I had it safely strapped around me again, I did not open it, and
+I reached Marseilles alive. As we drew into the station she shook hands
+with me and grinned at me like a Cheshire cat.
+
+“‘I cannot tell you,’ she said, ‘how much I have to thank you for.’ What
+do you think of that for impudence!
+
+“I offered to put her in a carriage, but she said she must find Natalie,
+and that she hoped we would meet again at the hotel. So I drove off by
+myself, wondering who she was, and whether Natalie was not her keeper.
+
+“I had to wait several hours for the train to Nice, and as I wanted to
+stroll around the city I thought I had better put the diamonds in the
+safe of the hotel. As soon as I reached my room I locked the door,
+placed the hand bag on the table and opened it. I felt among the things
+at the top of it, but failed to touch the cigar-case. I shoved my hand
+in deeper, and stirred the things about, but still I did not reach it.
+A cold wave swept down my spine, and a sort of emptiness came to the pit
+of my stomach. Then I turned red-hot, and the sweat sprung out all over
+me. I wet my lips with my tongue, and said to myself, ‘Don’t be an ass.
+Pull yourself together, pull yourself together. Take the things out, one
+at a time. It’s there, of course it’s there. Don’t be an ass.’
+
+“So I put a brake on my nerves and began very carefully to pick out the
+things one by one, but after another second I could not stand it, and
+I rushed across the room and threw out everything on the bed. But the
+diamonds were not among them. I pulled the things about and tore them
+open and shuffled and rearranged and sorted them, but it was no use. The
+cigar-case was gone. I threw everything in the dressing-case out on the
+floor, although I knew it was useless to look for it there. I knew that
+I had put it in the bag. I sat down and tried to think. I remembered I
+had put it in the satchel at Paris just as that woman had entered the
+compartment, and I had been alone with her ever since, so it was she
+who had robbed me. But how? It had never left my shoulder. And then I
+remembered that it had--that I had taken it off when I had changed
+my coat and for the few moments that I was searching for Natalie. I
+remembered that the woman had sent me on that goose chase, and that at
+every other station she had tried to get rid of me on some fool errand.
+
+[Illustration: 11 I threw out everything on the bed]
+
+“I gave a roar like a mad bull, and I jumped down the stairs six steps
+at a time.
+
+“I demanded at the office if a distinguished lady of title, possibly a
+Russian, had just entered the hotel.
+
+“As I expected, she had not. I sprang into a cab and inquired at two
+other hotels, and then I saw the folly of trying to catch her without
+outside help, and I ordered the fellow to gallop to the office of the
+Chief of Police. I told my story, and the ass in charge asked me to calm
+myself, and wanted to take notes. I told him this was no time for taking
+notes, but for doing something. He got wrathy at that, and I demanded
+to be taken at once to his Chief. The Chief, he said, was very busy, and
+could not see me. So I showed him my silver greyhound. In eleven years I
+had never used it but once before. I stated in pretty vigorous language
+that I was a Queen’s Messenger, and that if the Chief of Police did not
+see me instantly he would lose his official head. At that the fellow
+jumped off his high horse and ran with me to his Chief,--a smart young
+chap, a colonel in the army, and a very intelligent man.
+
+“I explained that I had been robbed in a French railway carriage of a
+diamond necklace belonging to the Queen of England, which her Majesty
+was sending as a present to the Czarina of Russia. I pointed out to him
+that if he succeeded in capturing the thief he would be made for life,
+and would receive the gratitude of three great powers.
+
+[Illustration: 12 Threw everything in the dressing-case out on the floor]
+
+“He wasn’t the sort that thinks second thoughts are best. He saw Russian
+and French decorations sprouting all over his chest, and he hit a bell,
+and pressed buttons, and yelled out orders like the captain of a penny
+steamer in a fog. He sent her description to all the city gates, and
+ordered all cabmen and railway porters to search all trains leaving
+Marseilles. He ordered all passengers on outgoing vessels to be
+examined, and telegraphed the proprietors of every hotel and pension to
+send him a complete list of their guests within the hour. While I was
+standing there he must have given at least a hundred orders, and sent
+out enough commissaires, sergeants de ville, gendarmes, bicycle police,
+and plain-clothes Johnnies to have captured the entire German army.
+When they had gone he assured me that the woman was as good as arrested
+already. Indeed, officially, she was arrested; for she had no more
+chance of escape from Marseilles than from the Chateau D’If.
+
+“He told me to return to my hotel and possess my soul in peace. Within
+an hour he assured me he would acquaint me with her arrest.
+
+“I thanked him, and complimented him on his energy, and left him. But I
+didn’t share in his confidence. I felt that she was a very clever woman,
+and a match for any and all of us. It was all very well for him to be
+jubilant. He had not lost the diamonds, and had everything to gain if he
+found them; while I, even if he did recover the necklace, would only
+be where I was before I lost them, and if he did not recover it I was a
+ruined man. It was an awful facer for me. I had always prided myself on
+my record. In eleven years I had never mislaid an envelope, nor missed
+taking the first train. And now I had failed in the most important
+mission that had ever been intrusted to me. And it wasn’t a thing that
+could be hushed up, either. It was too conspicuous, too spectacular. It
+was sure to invite the widest notoriety. I saw myself ridiculed all over
+the Continent, and perhaps dismissed, even suspected of having taken the
+thing myself.
+
+“I was walking in front of a lighted cafe, and I felt so sick and
+miserable that I stopped for a pick-me-up. Then I considered that if I
+took one drink I would probably, in my present state of mind, not want
+to stop under twenty, and I decided I had better leave it alone. But
+my nerves were jumping like a frightened rabbit, and I felt I must
+have something to quiet them, or I would go crazy. I reached for my
+cigarette-case, but a cigarette seemed hardly adequate, so I put it back
+again and took out this cigar-case, in which I keep only the strongest
+and blackest cigars. I opened it and stuck in my fingers, but instead
+of a cigar they touched on a thin leather envelope. My heart stood
+perfectly still. I did not dare to look, but I dug my finger nails into
+the leather and I felt layers of thin paper, then a layer of cotton, and
+then they scratched on the facets of the Czarina’s diamonds!
+
+“I stumbled as though I had been hit in the face, and fell back into one
+of the chairs on the sidewalk. I tore off the wrappings and spread out
+the diamonds on the cafe table; I could not believe they were real. I
+twisted the necklace between my fingers and crushed it between my palms
+and tossed it up in the air. I believe I almost kissed it. The women
+in the cafe stood tip on the chairs to see better, and laughed and
+screamed, and the people crowded so close around me that the waiters
+had to form a bodyguard. The proprietor thought there was a fight, and
+called for the police. I was so happy I didn’t care. I laughed, too, and
+gave the proprietor a five-pound note, and told him to stand every one
+a drink. Then I tumbled into a fiacre and galloped off to my friend the
+Chief of Police. I felt very sorry for him. He had been so happy at the
+chance I gave him, and he was sure to be disappointed when he learned I
+had sent him off on a false alarm.
+
+“But now that I had found the necklace, I did not want him to find the
+woman. Indeed, I was most anxious that she should get clear away, for
+if she were caught the truth would come out, and I was likely to get a
+sharp reprimand, and sure to be laughed at.
+
+“I could see now how it had happened. In my haste to hide the diamonds
+when the woman was hustled into the carriage, I had shoved the cigars
+into the satchel, and the diamonds into the pocket of my coat. Now that
+I had the diamonds safe again, it seemed a very natural mistake. But I
+doubted if the Foreign Office would think so. I was afraid it might not
+appreciate the beautiful simplicity of my secret hiding-place. So, when
+I reached the police station, and found that the woman was still at
+large, I was more than relieved.
+
+“As I expected, the Chief was extremely chagrined when he learned of my
+mistake, and that there was nothing for him to do. But I was feeling so
+happy myself that I hated to have any one else miserable, so I suggested
+that this attempt to steal the Czarina’s necklace might be only the
+first of a series of such attempts by an unscrupulous gang, and that I
+might still be in danger.
+
+“I winked at the Chief and the Chief smiled at me, and we went to Nice
+together in a saloon car with a guard of twelve carabineers and twelve
+plain-clothes men, and the Chief and I drank champagne all the way.
+We marched together up to the hotel where the Russian Ambassador was
+stopping, closely surrounded by our escort of carabineers, and delivered
+the necklace with the most profound ceremony. The old Ambassador was
+immensely impressed, and when we hinted that already I had been made the
+object of an attack by robbers, he assured us that his Imperial Majesty
+would not prove ungrateful.
+
+“I wrote a swinging personal letter about the invaluable services of
+the Chief to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and they gave him
+enough Russian and French medals to satisfy even a French soldier. So,
+though he never caught the woman, he received his just reward.”
+
+The Queen’s Messenger paused and surveyed the faces of those about him
+in some embarrassment.
+
+“But the worst of it is,” he added, “that the story must have got about;
+for, while the Princess obtained nothing from me but a cigar-case and
+five excellent cigars, a few weeks after the coronation the Czar sent
+me a gold cigar-case with his monogram in diamonds. And I don’t know yet
+whether that was a coincidence, or whether the Czar wanted me to know
+that he knew that I had been carrying the Czarina’s diamonds in my
+pigskin cigar-case. What do you fellows think?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Sir Andrew rose with disapproval written in every lineament.
+
+“I thought your story would bear upon the murder,” he said. “Had I
+imagined it would have nothing whatsoever to do with it I would not have
+remained.” He pushed back his chair and bowed stiffly. “I wish you good
+night,” he said.
+
+There was a chorus of remonstrance, and under cover of this and the
+Baronet’s answering protests a servant for the second time slipped a
+piece of paper into the hand of the gentleman with the pearl stud. He
+read the lines written upon it and tore it into tiny fragments.
+
+The youngest member, who had remained an interested but silent listener
+to the tale of the Queen’s Messenger, raised his hand commandingly.
+
+“Sir Andrew,” he cried, “in justice to Lord Arthur Chetney I must ask
+you to be seated. He has been accused in our hearing of a most serious
+crime, and I insist that you remain until you have heard me clear his
+character.”
+
+“You!” cried the Baronet.
+
+“Yes,” answered the young man briskly. “I would have spoken sooner,”
+ he explained, “but that I thought this gentleman”--he inclined his head
+toward the Queen’s Messenger--“was about to contribute some facts of
+which I was ignorant. He, however, has told us nothing, and so I will
+take up the tale at the point where Lieutenant Sears laid it down and
+give you those details of which Lieutenant Sears is ignorant. It seems
+strange to you that I should be able to add the sequel to this story.
+But the coincidence is easily explained. I am the junior member of
+the law firm of Chudleigh & Chudleigh. We have been solicitors for
+the Chetneys for the last two hundred years. Nothing, no matter how
+unimportant, which concerns Lord Edam and his two sons is unknown to
+us, and naturally we are acquainted with every detail of the terrible
+catastrophe of last night.”
+
+The Baronet, bewildered but eager, sank back into his chair.
+
+“Will you be long, sir!” he demanded.
+
+“I shall endeavor to be brief,” said the young solicitor; “and,” he
+added, in a tone which gave his words almost the weight of a threat, “I
+promise to be interesting.”
+
+“There is no need to promise that,” said Sir Andrew, “I find it much too
+interesting as it is.” He glanced ruefully at the clock and turned his
+eyes quickly from it.
+
+“Tell the driver of that hansom,” he called to the servant, “that I take
+him by the hour.”
+
+“For the last three days,” began young Mr. Chudleigh, “as you have
+probably read in the daily papers, the Marquis of Edam has been at the
+point of death, and his physicians have never left his house. Every hour
+he seemed to grow weaker; but although his bodily strength is apparently
+leaving him forever, his mind has remained clear and active. Late
+yesterday evening word was received at our office that he wished my
+father to come at once to Chetney House and to bring with him certain
+papers. What these papers were is not essential; I mention them only
+to explain how it was that last night I happened to be at Lord Edam’s
+bed-side. I accompanied my father to Chetney House, but at the time we
+reached there Lord Edam was sleeping, and his physicians refused to have
+him awakened. My father urged that he should be allowed to receive Lord
+Edam’s instructions concerning the documents, but the physicians would
+not disturb him, and we all gathered in the library to wait until he
+should awake of his own accord. It was about one o’clock in the morning,
+while we were still there, that Inspector Lyle and the officers from
+Scotland Yard came to arrest Lord Arthur on the charge of murdering his
+brother. You can imagine our dismay and distress. Like every one else,
+I had learned from the afternoon papers that Lord Chetney was not dead,
+but that he had returned to England, and on arriving at Chetney House
+I had been told that Lord Arthur had gone to the Bath Hotel to look
+for his brother and to inform him that if he wished to see their father
+alive he must come to him at once. Although it was now past one o’clock,
+Arthur had not returned. None of us knew where Madame Zichy lived, so we
+could not go to recover Lord Chetney’s body. We spent a most miserable
+night, hastening to the window whenever a cab came into the square, in
+the hope that it was Arthur returning, and endeavoring to explain
+away the facts that pointed to him as the murderer. I am a friend of
+Arthur’s, I was with him at Harrow and at Oxford, and I refused to
+believe for an instant that he was capable of such a crime; but as a
+lawyer I could not help but see that the circumstantial evidence was
+strongly against him.
+
+“Toward early morning Lord Edam awoke, and in so much better a state of
+health that he refused to make the changes in the papers which he had
+intended, declaring that he was no nearer death than ourselves. Under
+other circumstances, this happy change in him would have relieved us
+greatly, but none of us could think of anything save the death of his
+elder son and of the charge which hung over Arthur.
+
+“As long as Inspector Lyle remained in the house my father decided that
+I, as one of the legal advisers of the family, should also remain there.
+But there was little for either of us to do. Arthur did not return, and
+nothing occurred until late this morning, when Lyle received word that
+the Russian servant had been arrested. He at once drove to Scotland Yard
+to question him. He came back to us in an hour, and informed me that
+the servant had refused to tell anything of what had happened the night
+before, or of himself, or of the Princess Zichy. He would not even give
+them the address of her house.
+
+“‘He is in abject terror,’ Lyle said. ‘I assured him that he was not
+suspected of the crime, but he would tell me nothing.’
+
+“There were no other developments until two o’clock this afternoon, when
+word was brought to us that Arthur had been found, and that he was lying
+in the accident ward of St. George’s Hospital. Lyle and I drove there
+together, and found him propped up in bed with his head bound in a
+bandage. He had been brought to the hospital the night before by the
+driver of a hansom that had run over him in the fog. The cab-horse had
+kicked him on the head, and he had been carried in unconscious. There
+was nothing on him to tell who he was, and it was not until he came to
+his senses this afternoon that the hospital authorities had been able
+to send word to his people. Lyle at once informed him that he was under
+arrest, and with what he was charged, and though the inspector warned
+him to say nothing which might be used against him, I, as his solicitor,
+instructed him to speak freely and to tell us all he knew of the
+occurrences of last night. It was evident to any one that the fact of
+his brother’s death was of much greater concern to him, than that he was
+accused of his murder.
+
+[Illustration 13  We found him propped up in bed]
+
+“‘That,’ Arthur said contemptuously, ‘that is damned nonsense. It is
+monstrous and cruel. We parted better friends than we have been in
+years. I will tell you all that happened--not to clear myself, but to
+help you to find out the truth.’ His story is as follows: Yesterday
+afternoon, owing to his constant attendance on his father, he did not
+look at the evening papers, and it was not until after dinner, when the
+butler brought him one and told him of its contents, that he learned
+that his brother was alive and at the Bath Hotel. He drove there at
+once, but was told that about eight o’clock his brother had gone out,
+but without giving any clew to his destination. As Chetney had not at
+once come to see his father, Arthur decided that he was still angry
+with him, and his mind, turning naturally to the cause of their quarrel,
+determined him to look for Chetney at the home of the Princess Zichy.
+
+“Her house had been pointed out to him, and though he had never
+visited it, he had passed it many times and knew its exact location. He
+accordingly drove in that direction, as far as the fog would permit the
+hansom to go, and walked the rest of the way, reaching the house about
+nine o’clock. He rang, and was admitted by the Russian servant. The man
+took his card into the drawing-room, and at once his brother ran out and
+welcomed him. He was followed by the Princess Zichy, who also received
+Arthur most cordially.
+
+“‘You brothers will have much to talk about,’ she said. ‘I am going to
+the dining-room. When you have finished, let me know.’
+
+“As soon as she had left them, Arthur told his brother that their father
+was not expected to outlive the night, and that he must come to him at
+once.
+
+“‘This is not the moment to remember your quarrel,’ Arthur said to him;
+‘you have come back from the dead only in time to make your peace with
+him before he dies.’
+
+“Arthur says that at this Chetney was greatly moved.
+
+“‘You entirely misunderstand me, Arthur,’ he returned. ‘I did not know
+the governor was ill, or I would have gone to him the instant I arrived.
+My only reason for not doing so was because I thought he was still angry
+with me. I shall return with you immediately, as soon as I have said
+good-by to the Princess. It is a final good-by. After tonight, I shall
+never see her again.’
+
+“‘Do you mean that?’ Arthur cried.
+
+“‘Yes,’ Chetney answered. ‘When I returned to London I had no intention
+of seeking her again, and I am here only through a mistake.’ He then
+told Arthur that he had separated from the Princess even before he went
+to Central Africa, and that, moreover, while at Cairo on his way south,
+he had learned certain facts concerning her life there during the
+previous season, which made it impossible for him to ever wish to see
+her again. Their separation was final and complete.
+
+“‘She deceived me cruelly,’ he said; ‘I cannot tell you how cruelly.
+During the two years when I was trying to obtain my father’s consent to
+our marriage she was in love with a Russian diplomat. During all that
+time he was secretly visiting her here in London, and her trip to Cairo
+was only an excuse to meet him there.’
+
+“‘Yet you are here with her tonight,’ Arthur protested, ‘only a few
+hours after your return.’
+
+“‘That is easily explained,’ Chetney answered. ‘As I finished dinner
+tonight at the hotel, I received a note from her from this address. In
+it she said she had but just learned of my arrival, and begged me
+to come to her at once. She wrote that she was in great and present
+trouble, dying of an incurable illness, and without friends or money.
+She begged me, for the sake of old times, to come to her assistance.
+During the last two years in the jungle all my former feeling for Ziehy
+has utterly passed away, but no one could have dismissed the appeal she
+made in that letter. So I came here, and found her, as you have seen
+her, quite as beautiful as she ever was, in very good health, and, from
+the look of the house, in no need of money.
+
+“‘I asked her what she meant by writing me that she was dying in a
+garret, and she laughed, and said she had done so because she was
+afraid, unless I thought she needed help, I would not try to see her.
+That was where we were when you arrived. And now,’ Chetney added, ‘I
+will say good-by to her, and you had better return home. No, you can
+trust me, I shall follow you at once. She has no influence over me now,
+but I believe, in spite of the way she has used me, that she is, after
+her queer fashion, still fond of me, and when she learns that this
+good-by is final there may be a scene, and it is not fair to her that
+you should be here. So, go home at once, and tell the governor that I
+am following you in ten minutes.’ “‘That,’ said Arthur, ‘is the way we
+parted. I never left him on more friendly terms. I was happy to see him
+alive again, I was happy to think he had returned in time to make up his
+quarrel with my father, and I was happy that at last he was shut of that
+woman. I was never better pleased with him in my life.’ He turned to
+Inspector Lyle, who was sitting at the foot of the bed taking notes of
+all he told us.
+
+“‘Why in the name of common sense,’ he cried, ‘should I have chosen that
+moment of all others to send my brother back to the grave!’ For a moment
+the Inspector did not answer him. I do not know if any of you gentlemen
+are acquainted with Inspector Lyle, but if you are not, I can assure you
+that he is a very remarkable man. Our firm often applies to him for aid,
+and he has never failed us; my father has the greatest possible respect
+for him. Where he has the advantage over the ordinary police official is
+in the fact that he possesses imagination. He imagines himself to be the
+criminal, imagines how he would act under the same circumstances, and
+he imagines to such purpose that he generally finds the man he wants. I
+have often told Lyle that if he had not been a detective he would have
+made a great success as a poet, or a playwright.
+
+“When Arthur turned on him Lyle hesitated for a moment, and then told
+him exactly what was the case against him.
+
+“‘Ever since your brother was reported as having died in Africa,’ he
+said, ‘your Lordship has been collecting money on post obits. Lord
+Chetney’s arrival last night turned them into waste paper. You were
+suddenly in debt for thousands of pounds--for much more than you could
+ever possibly pay. No one knew that you and your brother had met at
+Madame Zichy’s. But you knew that your father was not expected to
+outlive the night, and that if your brother were dead also, you would
+be saved from complete ruin, and that you would become the Marquis of
+Edam.’
+
+“‘Oh, that is how you have worked it out, is it?’ Arthur cried. ‘And for
+me to become Lord Edam was it necessary that the woman should die, too!’
+
+“‘They will say,’ Lyle answered, ‘that she was a witness to the
+murder--that she would have told.’
+
+“‘Then why did I not kill the servant as well!’ Arthur said.
+
+“‘He was asleep, and saw nothing.’
+
+“‘And you believe _that?_’ Arthur demanded.
+
+“‘It is not a question of what I believe,’ Lyle said gravely. ‘It is a
+question for your peers.’
+
+“‘The man is insolent!’ Arthur cried. ‘The thing is monstrous!
+Horrible!’
+
+“Before we could stop him he sprang out of his cot and began pulling
+on his clothes. When the nurses tried to hold him down, he fought with
+them.
+
+“‘Do you think you can keep me here,’ he shouted, ‘when they are
+plotting to hang me? I am going with you to that house!’ he cried at
+Lyle. ‘When you find those bodies I shall be beside you. It is my right.
+He is my brother. He has been murdered, and I can tell you who murdered
+him. That woman murdered him. She first ruined his life, and now she
+has killed him. For the last five years she has been plotting to make
+herself his wife, and last night, when he told her he had discovered
+the truth about the Russian, and that she would never see him again, she
+flew into a passion and stabbed him, and then, in terror of the gallows,
+killed herself. She murdered him, I tell you, and I promise you that we
+will find the knife she used near her--perhaps still in her hand. What
+will you say to that?’
+
+“Lyle turned his head away and stared down at the floor. ‘I might say,’
+he answered, ‘that you placed it there.’
+
+“Arthur gave a cry of anger and sprang at him, and then pitched forward
+into his arms. The blood was running from the cut under the bandage, and
+he had fainted. Lyle carried him back to the bed again, and we left him
+with the police and the doctors, and drove at once to the address he had
+given us. We found the house not three minutes’ walk from St. George’s
+Hospital. It stands in Trevor Terrace, that little row of houses set
+back from Knightsbridge, with one end in Hill Street.
+
+“As we left the hospital Lyle had said to me, ‘You must not blame me for
+treating him as I did. All is fair in this work, and if by angering that
+boy I could have made him commit himself I was right in trying to do so;
+though, I assure you, no one would be better pleased than myself if I
+could prove his theory to be correct. But we cannot tell. Everything
+depends upon what we see for ourselves within the next few minutes.’
+
+“When we reached the house, Lyle broke open the fastenings of one of the
+windows on the ground floor, and, hidden by the trees in the garden, we
+scrambled in. We found ourselves in the reception-room, which was the
+first room on the right of the hall. The gas was still burning behind
+the colored glass and red silk shades, and when the daylight streamed in
+after us it gave the hall a hideously dissipated look, like the foyer of
+a theatre at a matinee, or the entrance to an all-day gambling hell. The
+house was oppressively silent, and because we knew why it was so silent
+we spoke in whispers. When Lyle turned the handle of the drawing-room
+door, I felt as though some one had put his hand upon my throat. But
+I followed close at his shoulder, and saw, in the subdued light of
+many-tinted lamps, the body of Chetney at the foot of the divan, just as
+Lieutenant Sears had described it. In the drawing-room we found the body
+of the Princess Zichy, her arms thrown out, and the blood from her
+heart frozen in a tiny line across her bare shoulder. But neither of us,
+although we searched the floor on our hands and knees, could find the
+weapon which had killed her.
+
+[Illustration: We found the body of the Princess Zichy]
+
+“‘For Arthur’s sake,’ I said, ‘I would have given a thousand pounds if
+we had found the knife in her hand, as he said we would.’
+
+“‘That we have not found it there,’ Lyle answered, ‘is to my mind the
+strongest proof that he is telling the truth, that he left the house
+before the murder took place. He is not a fool, and had he stabbed his
+brother and this woman, he would have seen that by placing the knife
+near her he could help to make it appear as if she had killed Chetney
+and then committed suicide. Besides, Lord Arthur insisted that the
+evidence in his behalf would be our finding the knife here. He would not
+have urged that if he knew we would _not_ find it, if he knew he himself
+had carried it away. This is no suicide. A suicide does not rise and
+hide the weapon with which he kills himself, and then lie down again.
+No, this has been a double murder, and we must look outside of the house
+for the murderer.’
+
+“While he was speaking Lyle and I had been searching every corner,
+studying the details of each room. I was so afraid that, without telling
+me, he would make some deductions prejudicial to Arthur, that I never
+left his side. I was determined to see everything that he saw, and, if
+possible, to prevent his interpreting it in the wrong way. He finally
+finished his examination, and we sat down together in the drawing-room,
+and he took out his notebook and read aloud all that Mr. Sears had told
+him of the murder and what we had just learned from Arthur. We compared
+the two accounts word for word, and weighed statement with statement,
+but I could not determine from anything Lyle said which of the two
+versions he had decided to believe.
+
+“‘We are trying to build a house of blocks,’ he exclaimed, ‘with half of
+the blocks missing. We have been considering two theories,’ he went on:
+‘one that Lord Arthur is responsible for both murders, and the other
+that the dead woman in there is responsible for one of them, and has
+committed suicide; but, until the Russian servant is ready to talk, I
+shall refuse to believe in the guilt of either.’
+
+“‘What can you prove by him!’ I asked. ‘He was drunk and asleep. He saw
+nothing.’
+
+“Lyle hesitated, and then, as though he had made up his mind to be quite
+frank with me, spoke freely.
+
+“‘I do not know that he was either drunk or asleep,’ he answered.
+‘Lieutenant Sears describes him as a stupid boor. I am not satisfied
+that he is not a clever actor. What was his position in this house! What
+was his real duty here? Suppose it was not to guard this woman, but to
+watch her. Let us imagine that it was not the woman he served, but a
+master, and see where that leads us. For this house has a master, a
+mysterious, absentee landlord, who lives in St. Petersburg, the unknown
+Russian who came between Chetney and Zichy, and because of whom Chetney
+left her. He is the man who bought this house for Madame Zichy, who sent
+these rugs and curtains from St. Petersburg to furnish it for her after
+his own tastes, and, I believe, it was he also who placed the Russian
+servant here, ostensibly to serve the Princess, but in reality to spy
+upon her. At Scotland Yard we do not know who this gentleman is; the
+Russian police confess to equal ignorance concerning him. When Lord
+Chetney went to Africa, Madame Zichy lived in St. Petersburg; but there
+her receptions and dinners were so crowded with members of the nobility
+and of the army and diplomats, that among so many visitors the police
+could not learn which was the one for whom she most greatly cared.’
+
+“Lyle pointed at the modern French paintings and the heavy silk rugs
+which hung upon the walls.
+
+“‘The unknown is a man of taste and of some fortune,’ he said, ‘not the
+sort of man to send a stupid peasant to guard the woman he loves. So I
+am not content to believe, with Mr. Sears, that the servant is a boor. I
+believe him instead to be a very clever ruffian. I believe him to be
+the protector of his master’s honor, or, let us say, of his master’s
+property, whether that property be silver plate or the woman his master
+loves. Last night, after Lord Arthur had gone away, the servant was left
+alone in this house with Lord Chetney and Madame Zichy. From where he
+sat in the hall he could hear Lord Chetney bidding her farewell; for, if
+my idea of him is correct, he understands English quite as well as you
+or I. Let us imagine that he heard her entreating Chetney not to leave
+her, reminding him of his former wish to marry her, and let us suppose
+that he hears Chetney denounce her, and tell her that at Cairo he has
+learned of this Russian admirer--the servant’s master. He hears the
+woman declare that she has had no admirer but himself, that this unknown
+Russian was, and is, nothing to her, that there is no man she loves but
+him, and that she cannot live, knowing that he is alive, without his
+love. Suppose Chetney believed her, suppose his former infatuation for
+her returned, and that in a moment of weakness he forgave her and took
+her in his arms. That is the moment the Russian master has feared. It is
+to guard against it that he has placed his watchdog over the Princess,
+and how do we know but that, when the moment came, the watchdog served
+his master, as he saw his duty, and killed them both? What do you
+think?’ Lyle demanded. ‘Would not that explain both murders?’
+
+[Illustration: 15 Entreating Chetney not to leave her]
+
+“I was only too willing to hear any theory which pointed to any one
+else as the criminal than Arthur, but Lyle’s explanation was too utterly
+fantastic. I told him that he certainly showed imagination, but that he
+could not hang a man for what he imagined he had done.
+
+“‘No,’ Lyle answered, ‘but I can frighten him by telling him what I
+think he has done, and now when I again question the Russian servant
+I will make it quite clear to him that I believe he is the murderer.
+I think that will open his mouth. A man will at least talk to defend
+himself. Come,’ he said, ‘we must return at once to Scotland Yard and
+see him. There is nothing more to do here.’
+
+“He arose, and I followed him into the hall, and in another minute we
+would have been on our way to Scotland Yard. But just as he opened
+the street door a postman halted at the gate of the garden, and began
+fumbling with the latch.
+
+“Lyle stopped, with an exclamation of chagrin.
+
+“‘How stupid of me!’ he exclaimed. He turned quickly and pointed to a
+narrow slit cut in the brass plate of the front door. ‘The house has a
+private letter-box,’ he said, ‘and I had not thought to look in it! If
+we had gone out as we came in, by the window, I would never have seen
+it. The moment I entered the house I should have thought of securing
+the letters which came this morning. I have been grossly careless.’ He
+stepped back into the hall and pulled at the lid of the letterbox, which
+hung on the inside of the door, but it was tightly locked. At the same
+moment the postman came up the steps holding a letter. Without a word
+Lyle took it from his hand and began to examine it. It was addressed to
+the Princess Zichy, and on the back of the envelope was the name of a
+West End dressmaker.
+
+“‘That is of no use to me,’ Lyle said. He took out his card and showed
+it to the postman. ‘I am Inspector Lyle from Scotland Yard,’ he said.
+‘The people in this house are under arrest. Everything it contains is
+now in my keeping. Did you deliver any other letters here this morning!’
+
+“The man looked frightened, but answered promptly that he was now upon
+his third round. He had made one postal delivery at seven that morning
+and another at eleven.
+
+“‘How many letters did you leave here!’ Lyle asked.
+
+“‘About six altogether,’ the man answered.
+
+“‘Did you put them through the door into the letter-box!’
+
+“The postman said, ‘Yes, I always slip them into the box, and ring and
+go away. The servants collect them from the inside.’
+
+“‘Have you noticed if any of the letters you leave here bear a Russian
+postage stamp!’ Lyle asked.
+
+“The man answered, ‘Oh, yes, sir, a great many.’
+
+“‘From the same person, would you say!’
+
+“‘The writing seems to be the same,’ the man answered. ‘They come
+regularly about once a week--one of those I delivered this morning had a
+Russian postmark.’
+
+“‘That will do,’ said Lyle eagerly. ‘Thank you, thank you very much.’
+
+“He ran back into the hall, and, pulling out his penknife, began to pick
+at the lock of the letter-box.
+
+“‘I have been supremely careless,’ he said in great excitement. ‘Twice
+before when people I wanted had flown from a house I have been able to
+follow them by putting a guard over their mail-box. These letters, which
+arrive regularly every week from Russia in the same handwriting, they
+can come but from one person. At least, we shall now know the name of
+the master of this house. Undoubtedly it is one of his letters that the
+man placed here this morning. We may make a most important discovery.’
+
+“As he was talking he was picking at the lock with his knife, but he
+was so impatient to reach the letters that he pressed too heavily on the
+blade and it broke in his hand. I took a step backward and drove my
+heel into the lock, and burst it open. The lid flew back, and we pressed
+forward, and each ran his hand down into the letterbox. For a moment we
+were both too startled to move. The box was empty.
+
+“I do not know how long we stood staring stupidly at each other, but
+it was Lyle who was the first to recover. He seized me by the arm and
+pointed excitedly into the empty box.
+
+“‘Do you appreciate what that means?’ he cried. ‘It means that some one
+has been here ahead of us. Some one has entered this house not three
+hours before we came, since eleven o’clock this morning.’
+
+“‘It was the Russian servant!’ I exclaimed.
+
+“‘The Russian servant has been under arrest at Scotland Yard,’ Lyle
+cried. ‘He could not have taken the letters. Lord Arthur has been in his
+cot at the hospital. That is his alibi. There is some one else, some one
+we do not suspect, and that some one is the murderer. He came back here
+either to obtain those letters because he knew they would convict him,
+or to remove something he had left here at the time of the murder,
+something incriminating,--the weapon, perhaps, or some personal article;
+a cigarette-case, a handkerchief with his name upon it, or a pair of
+gloves. Whatever it was it must have been damning evidence against him
+to have made him take so desperate a chance.’
+
+“‘How do we know,’ I whispered, ‘that he is not hidden here now?’
+
+“‘No, I’ll swear he is not,’ Lyle answered. ‘I may have bungled in some
+things, but I have searched this house thoroughly. Nevertheless,’ he
+added, ‘we must go over it again, from the cellar to the roof. We have
+the real clew now, and we must forget the others and work only it.’ As
+he spoke he began again to search the drawing-room, turning over even
+the books on the tables and the music on the piano. “‘Whoever the man
+is,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘we know that he has a key to the front
+door and a key to the letter-box. That shows us he is either an inmate
+of the house or that he comes here when he wishes. The Russian says
+that he was the only servant in the house. Certainly we have found no
+evidence to show that any other servant slept here. There could be
+but one other person who would possess a key to the house and the
+letter-box--and he lives in St. Petersburg. At the time of the murder he
+was two thousand miles away.’ Lyle interrupted himself suddenly with a
+sharp cry and turned upon me with his eyes flashing. ‘But was he?’ he
+cried. ‘Was he? How do we know that last night he was not in London, in
+this very house when Zichy and Chetney met?’
+
+“He stood staring at me without seeing me, muttering, and arguing with
+himself.
+
+“‘Don’t speak to me,’ he cried, as I ventured to interrupt him. ‘I can
+see it now. It is all plain. It was not the servant, but his master, the
+Russian himself, and it was he who came back for the letters! He came
+back for them because he knew they would convict him. We must find
+them. We must have those letters. If we find the one with the Russian
+postmark, we shall have found the murderer.’ He spoke like a madman, and
+as he spoke he ran around the room with one hand held out in front of
+him as you have seen a mind-reader at a theatre seeking for something
+hidden in the stalls. He pulled the old letters from the writing-desk,
+and ran them over as swiftly as a gambler deals out cards; he dropped on
+his knees before the fireplace and dragged out the dead coals with his
+bare fingers, and then with a low, worried cry, like a hound on a scent,
+he ran back to the waste-paper basket and, lifting the papers from it,
+shook them out upon the floor. Instantly he gave a shout of triumph,
+and, separating a number of torn pieces from the others, held them up
+before me.
+
+“‘Look!’ he cried. ‘Do you see? Here are five letters, torn across in
+two places. The Russian did not stop to read them, for, as you see, he
+has left them still sealed. I have been wrong. He did not return for the
+letters. He could not have known their value. He must have returned
+for some other reason, and, as he was leaving, saw the letter-box, and
+taking out the letters, held them together--so--and tore them twice
+across, and then, as the fire had gone out, tossed them into this
+basket. Look!’ he cried, ‘here in the upper corner of this piece is a
+Russian stamp. This is his own letter--unopened!’
+
+“We examined the Russian stamp and found it had been cancelled in St.
+Petersburg four days ago. The back of the envelope bore the postmark of
+the branch station in upper Sloane Street, and was dated this morning.
+The envelope was of official blue paper and we had no difficulty in
+finding the two other parts of it. We drew the torn pieces of the letter
+from them and joined them together side by side. There were but two
+lines of writing, and this was the message: ‘I leave Petersburg on the
+night train, and I shall see you at Trevor Terrace after dinner Monday
+evening.’
+
+“‘That was last night!’ Lyle cried. ‘He arrived twelve hours ahead of
+his letter--but it came in time--it came in time to hang him!’”
+
+The Baronet struck the table with his hand.
+
+“The name!” he demanded. “How was it signed? What was the man’s name!”
+
+The young Solicitor rose to his feet and, leaning forward, stretched out
+his arm. “There was no name,” he cried. “The letter was signed with
+only two initials. But engraved at the top of the sheet was the man’s
+address. That address was ‘THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, ST. PETERSBURG, BUREAU
+or THE NAVAL ATTACHE,’ and the initials,” he shouted, his voice rising
+into an exultant and bitter cry, “were those of the gentleman who sits
+opposite who told us that he was the first to find the murdered bodies,
+the Naval Attache to Russia, Lieutenant Sears!”
+
+A strained and awful hush followed the Solicitor’s words, which seemed
+to vibrate like a twanging bowstring that had just hurled its bolt. Sir
+Andrew, pale and staring, drew away with an exclamation of repulsion.
+His eyes were fastened upon the Naval Attache with fascinated horror.
+But the American emitted a sigh of great content, and sank comfortably
+into the arms of his chair. He clapped his hands softly together.
+
+“Capital!” he murmured. “I give you my word I never guessed what you
+were driving at. You fooled _me,_ I’ll be hanged if you didn’t--you
+certainly fooled me.”
+
+The man with the pearl stud leaned forward with a nervous gesture.
+“Hush! be careful!” he whispered. But at that instant, for the third
+time, a servant, hastening through the room, handed him a piece of paper
+which he scanned eagerly. The message on the paper read, “The light over
+the Commons is out. The House has risen.”
+
+The man with the black pearl gave a mighty shout, and tossed the paper
+from him upon the table.
+
+“Hurrah!” he cried. “The House is up! We’ve won!” He caught up his
+glass, and slapped the Naval Attache violently upon the shoulder. He
+nodded joyously at him, at the Solicitor, and at the Queen’s Messenger.
+“Gentlemen, to you!” he cried; “my thanks and my congratulations!”
+ He drank deep from the glass, and breathed forth a long sigh of
+satisfaction and relief.
+
+“But I say,” protested the Queen’s Messenger, shaking his finger
+violently at the Solicitor, “that story won’t do. You didn’t play
+fair--and--and you talked so fast I couldn’t make out what it was all
+about. I’ll bet you that evidence wouldn’t hold in a court of law--you
+couldn’t hang a cat on such evidence. Your story is condemned tommy-rot.
+Now my story might have happened, my story bore the mark--”
+
+In the joy of creation the story-tellers had forgotten their audience,
+until a sudden exclamation from Sir Andrew caused them to turn guiltily
+toward him. His face was knit with lines of anger, doubt, and amazement.
+
+“What does this mean!” he cried. “Is this a jest, or are you mad? If you
+know this man is a murderer, why is he at large? Is this a game you have
+been playing? Explain yourselves at once. What does it mean?”
+
+The American, with first a glance at the others, rose and bowed
+courteously.
+
+“I am not a murderer, Sir Andrew, believe me,” he said; “you need not
+be alarmed. As a matter of fact, at this moment I am much more afraid of
+you than you could possibly be of me. I beg you please to be indulgent.
+I assure you, we meant no disrespect. We have been matching stories,
+that is all, pretending that we are people we are not, endeavoring to
+entertain you with better detective tales than, for instance, the last
+one you read, ‘The Great Rand Robbery.’”
+
+The Baronet brushed his hand nervously across his forehead.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me,” he exclaimed, “that none of this has happened?
+That Lord Chetney is not dead, that his Solicitor did not find a letter
+of yours written from your post in Petersburg, and that just now, when
+he charged you with murder, he was in jest?”
+
+“I am really very sorry,” said the American, “but you see, sir, he could
+not have found a letter written by me in St. Petersburg because I have
+never been in Petersburg. Until this week, I have never been outside
+of my own country. I am not a naval officer. I am a writer of short
+stories. And tonight, when this gentleman told me that you were fond of
+detective stories, I thought it would be amusing to tell you one of my
+own--one I had just mapped out this afternoon.”
+
+“But Lord Chetney _is_ a real person,” interrupted the Baronet, “and he
+did go to Africa two years ago, and he was supposed to have died there,
+and his brother, Lord Arthur, has been the heir. And yesterday Chetney
+did return. I read it in the papers.” “So did I,” assented the American
+soothingly; “and it struck me as being a very good plot for a story.
+I mean his unexpected return from the dead, and the probable
+disappointment of the younger brother. So I decided that the younger
+brother had better murder the older one. The Princess Zichy I invented
+out of a clear sky. The fog I did not have to invent. Since last night I
+know all that there is to know about a London fog. I was lost in one for
+three hours.”
+
+The Baronet turned grimly upon the Queen’s Messenger.
+
+“But this gentleman,” he protested, “he is not a writer of short
+stories; he is a member of the Foreign Office. I have often seen him
+in Whitehall, and, according to him, the Princess Zichy is not an
+invention. He says she is very well known, that she tried to rob him.”
+
+The servant of the Foreign Office looked unhappily at the Cabinet
+Minister, and puffed nervously on his cigar.
+
+“It’s true, Sir Andrew, that I am a Queen’s Messenger,” he said
+appealingly, “and a Russian woman once did try to rob a Queen’s
+Messenger in a railway carriage--only it did not happen to me, but to
+a pal of mine. The only Russian princess I ever knew called herself
+Zabrisky. You may have seen her. She used to do a dive from the roof of
+the Aquarium.”
+
+Sir Andrew, with a snort of indignation, fronted the young Solicitor.
+
+“And I suppose yours was a cock-and-bull story, too,” he said. “Of
+course, it must have been, since Lord Chetney is not dead. But don’t
+tell me,” he protested, “that you are not Chudleigh’s son either.”
+
+“I’m sorry,” said the youngest member, smiling in some embarrassment,
+“but my name is not Chudleigh. I assure you, though, that I know the
+family very well, and that I am on very good terms with them.”
+
+“You should be!” exclaimed the Baronet; “and, judging from the liberties
+you take with the Chetneys, you had better be on very good terms with
+them, too.”
+
+The young man leaned back and glanced toward the servants at the far end
+of the room.
+
+“It has been so long since I have been in the Club,” he said, “that I
+doubt if even the waiters remember me. Perhaps Joseph may,” he added.
+“Joseph!” he called, and at the word a servant stepped briskly forward.
+
+The young man pointed to the stuffed head of a great lion which was
+suspended above the fireplace.
+
+“Joseph,” he said, “I want you to tell these gentlemen who shot that
+lion. Who presented it to the Grill?”
+
+Joseph, unused to acting as master of ceremonies to members of the Club,
+shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
+
+“Why, you--you did,” he stammered.
+
+“Of course I did!” exclaimed the young man. “I mean, what is the name of
+the man who shot it! Tell the gentlemen who I am. They wouldn’t believe
+me.”
+
+“Who you are, my lord?” said Joseph. “You are Lord Edam’s son, the Earl
+of Chetney.”
+
+“You must admit,” said Lord Chetney, when the noise had died away, “that
+I couldn’t remain dead while my little brother was accused of murder.
+I had to do something. Family pride demanded it. Now, Arthur, as the
+younger brother, can’t afford to be squeamish, but personally I should
+hate to have a brother of mine hanged for murder.”
+
+“You certainly showed no scruples against hanging me,” said the
+American, “but in the face of your evidence I admit my guilt, and I
+sentence myself to pay the full penalty of the law as we are made to pay
+it in my own country. The order of this court is,” he announced, “that
+Joseph shall bring me a wine-card, and that I sign it for five bottles
+of the Club’s best champagne.” “Oh, no!” protested the man with the
+pearl stud, “it is not for _you_ to sign it. In my opinion it is Sir
+Andrew who should pay the costs. It is time you knew,” he said, turning
+to that gentleman, “that unconsciously you have been the victim of what
+I may call a patriotic conspiracy. These stories have had a more serious
+purpose than merely to amuse. They have been told with the worthy object
+of detaining you from the House of Commons. I must explain to you,
+that all through this evening I have had a servant waiting in Trafalgar
+Square with instructions to bring me word as soon as the light over
+the House of Commons had ceased to burn. The light is now out, and the
+object for which we plotted is attained.”
+
+The Baronet glanced keenly at the man with the black pearl, and then
+quickly at his watch. The smile disappeared from his lips, and his face
+was set in stern and forbidding lines.
+
+“And may I know,” he asked icily, “what was the object of your plot!”
+
+“A most worthy one,” the other retorted. “Our object was to keep you
+from advocating the expenditure of many millions of the people’s money
+upon more battleships. In a word, we have been working together to
+prevent you from passing the Navy Increase Bill.”
+
+Sir Andrew’s face bloomed with brilliant color. His body shook with
+suppressed emotion.
+
+[Illustration: 16 What was the object of your plot?]
+
+“My dear sir!” he cried, “you should spend more time at the House and
+less at your Club. The Navy Bill was brought up on its third reading
+at eight o’clock this evening. I spoke for three hours in its favor. My
+only reason for wishing to return again to the House to-night was to sup
+on the terrace with my old friend, Admiral Simons; for my work at the
+House was completed five hours ago, when the Navy Increase Bill was
+passed by an overwhelming majority.”
+
+The Baronet rose and bowed. “I have to thank you, sir,” he said, “for a
+most interesting evening.”
+
+The American shoved the wine-card which Joseph had given him toward the
+gentleman with the black pearl.
+
+“You sign it,” he said.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Fog, by Richard Harding Davis
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