The Hole In The Mahogany Panel
Sir Henry paused a moment, his finger between the pages of the
ancient diary.
"It is the inspirational quality in these cases" he said, "that
impresses me. It is very nearly absent in our modern methods of
criminal investigation. We depend now on a certain formal
routine. I rarely find a man in the whole of Scotland Yard with
a trace of intuitive impulse to lead him . . . . Observe how
th
incidents."
He paused.
"We call it the inspirational instinct, in criminal investigation
. . . genius, is the right word."
He looked up at the clock.
"We have an hour, yet, before the opera will be worth hearing;
listen to this final case."
The narrative of the diary follows:
The girl was walking in the road. Her frock was covered with
dust. Her arms hung limp. Her face with the great eyes and the
exquisite mouth was the chalk face of a ghost. She walked with
the terrible stiffened celerity of a human creature when it is
trapped and ruined.
Night was coming on. Behind the girl sat the great old house at
the end of a long lane of ancient poplars.
This was a strange scene my father came on. He pulled up his big
red-roan horse at the crossroads, where the long lane entered the
turnpike, and looked at the stiff, tragic figure. He rode home
from a sitting of the county justices, alone, at peace, on this
midsummer night, and God sent this tragic thing to meet him.
He got down and stood under the crossroads signboard beside his
horse.
The earth was dry; in dust. The dead grass and the dead leaves
made a sere, yellow world. It looked like a land of unending
summer, but a breath of chill came out of the hollows with the
sunset.
The girl would have gone on, oblivious. But my father went down
into the road and took her by the arm. She stopped when she saw
who it was, and spoke in the dead, uninflected voice of a person
in extremity.
"Is the thing a lie?" she said.
"What thing, child?" replied my father.
"The thing he told me!"
"Dillworth?" said my father. "Do you mean Hambleton Dillworth?"
The girl put out her free arm in a stiff, circling gesture. "In
all the world," she said, "is there any other man who would have
told me?"
My father's face hardened as if of metal. "What did he tell
you?"
The girl spoke plainly, frankly, in her dead voice, without
equivocation, with no choice of words to soften what she said:
"He said that my father was not dead; that I was the daughter of
a thief; that what I believed about my father was all made up to
save the family name; that the truth was my father robbed him,
stole his best horse and left the country when I was a baby. He
said I was a burden on him, a pensioner, a drone; and to go and
seek my father."
And suddenly she broke into a flood of tears. Her face pressed
against my father's shoulder. He took her up in his big arms and
got into his saddle.
"My child," he said, "let us take Hambleton Dillworth at his
word."
And he turned the horse into the lane toward the ancient house.
The girl in my father's arms made no resistance. There was this
dominating quality in the man that one trusted to him and
followed behind him. She lay in his arms, the tears wetting her
white face and the long lashes.
The moon came up, a great golden moon, shouldered over the rim of
the world by the backs of the crooked elves. The horse and the
two persons made a black, distorted shadow that jerked along as
though it were a thing evil and persistent. Far off in the
thickets of the hills an owl cried, eerie and weird like a
creature in some bitter sorrow. The lane was deep with dust. The
horse traveled with no sound, and the distorted black shadow
followed, now blotted out by the heavy tree tops, and now only
partly to be seen, but always there.
My father got down at the door and carried the girl up the steps
and between the plaster pillars into the house. There was a hall
paneled in white wood and with mahogany doors. He opened one of
these doors and went in. The room he entered had been splendid
in some ancient time. It was big; the pieces in it were
exquisite; great mirrors and old portraits were on the wall.
A man sitting behind a table got up when my father entered. Four
tallow candles, in ancient silver sticks, were on the table, and
some sheets with figured accounts.
The man who got up was like some strange old child. He wore a
number of little capes to hide his humped back, and his body, one
thought, under his clothes was strapped together. He got on his
feet nimbly like a spider, and they heard the click of a pistol
lock as he whipped the weapon out of an open drawer, as though it
were a habit thus always to keep a weapon at his hand to make him
equal in stature with other men. Then he saw who it was and the
double-barreled pistol slipped out of sight. He was startled and
apprehensive, but he was not in fear.
He stood motionless behind the table, his head up, his eyes hard,
his thin mouth closed like a trap and his long, dead black hair
hanging on each side of his lank face over the huge, malformed
ears. The man stood thus, unmoving, silent, with his twisted
ironical smile, while my father put the girl into a chair and
stood up behind it.
"Dillworth," said my father, "what do you mean by turning this
child out of the house?"
The man looked steadily at the two persons before him.
"Pendleton," he said, and he spoke precisely, "I do not recognize
the right of you, or any other man, to call my acts into account;
however" - and he made a curious gesture with his extended hands
"not at your command, but at my pleasure, I will tell you.
"This young woman had some estate from her mother at that lady's
death. As her guardian I invested it by permission of the
court's decree." He paused. "When the Maxwell lands were sold
before the courthouse I bid them in for my ward. The judge
confirmed this use of the guardian funds. It was done upon
advice of counsel and within the letter of the law. Now it
appears that Maxwell had only a life interest in these lands;
Maxwell is dead, and one who has purchased the interest of his
heirs sues in the courts for this estate.
"This new claimant will recover; since one who buys at a judicial
sale, I find, buys under the doctrine of caveat emptor - that is
to say, at his peril. He takes his chance upon the title. The
court does not insure it. If it is defective he loses both the
money and the lands. And so," he added, "my ward will have no
income to support her, and I decline to assume that burden."
My father looked the hunchback in the face. "Who is the man
bringing this suit at law?"
"A Mr. Henderson, I believe," replied Dillworth, "from Maryland."
"Do you know him?" said my father.
"I never heard of him," replied the hunchback.
The girl, huddled in the chair, interrupted. "I have seen
letters," she said, "come in here with this man's return address
at Baltimore written on the envelope."
The hunchback made an irrelevant gesture. "The man wrote - to
inquire if I would buy his title. I declined." Then he turned
to my father. "Pendleton," he said, "you know about this matter.
You know that every step I took was legal. And with pains and
care how I got an order out of chancery to make this purchase,
and how careful I was to have this guardianship investment
confirmed by the court. No affair was ever done so exactly
within the law."
"Why were you so extremely careful?" said my father.
"Because I wanted the safeguard of the law about me at every
step," replied the man.
"But why?"
"You ask me that, Pendleton?"' cried the man. "Is not the wisdom
of my precautions evident? I took them to prevent this very
thing; to protect myself when this thing should happen!"
"Then," said my father, "you knew it was going to happen."
The man's eyes slipped about a moment in his head. "I knew it
was going to happen that I would be charged with all sorts of
crimes and misdemeanors if there should be any hooks on which to
hang them. Because a man locks his door is it proof that he
knows a robber is on the way? Human foresight and the experience
of men move prudent persons to a reasonable precaution in the
conduct of affairs."
"And what is it," said my father, "that moves them to an
excessive caution?"
The hunchback snapped his fingers with an exasperated gesture.
"I will not be annoyed by your big, dominating manner!" he cried.
My father was not concerned by this defiance. "Dillworth," he
said, "you sent this child out to seek her father. Well, she
took the right road to find him."
The hunchback stepped back quickly, his face changed. He sat
down in his chair and looked up at my father. There was here
suddenly uncovered something that he had not looked for. And he
talked to gain time.
"I have cast up the accounts in proper form," he said while he
studied my father, his hand moving the figured sheets. "They are
correct and settled before two commissioners in chancery. Taking
out my commission as guardian, the amounts allowed me for the
maintenance and education of the ward, and no dollar of this
personal estate remains."
His long, thin hand with the nimble fingers turned the sheets
over on the table as though to conclude that phase of the affair.
"The real property," he continued, "will return nothing; the
purchase money was applied on Maxwell's debts and cannot be
followed. This new claimant, Henderson, who has bought up the
outstanding title, will take the land."
"For some trifling sum," said my father.
The hunchback nodded slowly, his eyes in a study of my father's
face.
"Doubtless," he said, "it was not known that Maxwell had only a
life estate in the lands, and the remainder to the heirs was
likely purchased for some slight amount. The language of the
deeds that Henderson exhibits in his suit shows a transfer of all
claim or title, as though he bought a thing which the grantees
thought lay with the uncertainties of a decree in chancery."
"I have seen the deeds," said my father.
"Then," said the hunchback, "you know they are valid, and
transfer the title." He paused. "I have no doubt that Mr.
Henderson assembled these outstanding interests at no great cost,
but his conveyances are in form and legal."
"Everything connected with this affair," said my father, "is
strangely legal!"
The hunchback considered my father through his narrow eyelids.
"It is a strange world," he said.
"It is," replied my father. "It is profoundly, inconceivably
strange."
There was a moment of silence. The two men regarded each other
across the half-length of the room. The girl sat in the chair.
She had got back her courage. The big, forceful presence of my
father, like the shadow of a great rock, was there behind her.
She had the fine courage of her blood, and, after the first cruel
shock of this affair, she faced the tragedies that might lie
within it calmly.
Shadows lay along the walls of the great room, along the gilt
frames of the portraits, the empty fireplace, the rosewood
furniture of ancient make and the oak floor. Only the hunchback
was in the light, behind the four candles on the table.
"It was strange," continued my father over the long pause, "that
your father's will discovered at his death left his lands to you,
and no acre to your brother David."
"Not strange," replied the hunchback, "when you consider what my
brother David proved to be. My father knew him. What was hidden
from us, what the world got no hint of, what the man was in the
deep and secret places of his heart, my father knew. Was it
strange, then, that he should leave the lands to me?"
"It was a will drawn by an old man in his senility, and under
your control."
"Under my care," cried the hunchback. "I will plead guilty, if
you like, to that. I honored my father. I was beside his bed
with loving-kindness, while my brother went about the pleasures
of his life."
"But the testament," said my father, "was in strange terms. It
bequeathed the lands to you, with no mention of the personal
property, as though these lands were all the estate your father
had."
"And so they were," replied the hunchback calmly. "The lands had
been stripped of horse and steer, and every personal item, and
every dollar in hand or debt owing to my father before his
death." The, man paused and put the tips of his fingers
together. "My father had given to my brother so much money from
these sources, from time to time, that he justly left me the
lands to make us even."
"Your father was senile and for five years in his bed. It was
you, Dillworth, who cleaned the estate of everything but land."
"I conducted my father's business," said the hunchback, "for him,
since he was ill. But I put the moneys from these sales into his
hand and he gave them to my brother."
"I have never heard that your brother David got a dollar of this
money."
The hunchback was undisturbed.
"It was a family matter and not likely to be known."
"I see it," said my father. "It was managed in your legal manner
and with cunning foresight. You took the lands only in the will,
leaving the impression to go out that your brother had already
received his share in the personal estate by advancement. It was
shrewdly done. But there remained one peril in it: If any
personal property should appear under the law you would be
required to share it equally with your brother David."
"Or rather," replied the hunchback calmly, "to state the thing
correctly, my brother David would be required to share any
discovered personal property with me." Then he added: "I gave my
brother David a hundred dollars for his share in the folderol
about the premises, and took possession of the house and lands."
"And after that," said my father, "what happened?"
The hunchback uttered a queerly inflected expletive, like a
bitter laugh.
"After that," he answered, "we saw the real man in my brother
David, as my father, old and dying, had so clearly seen it.
After that he turned thief and fugitive."
At the words the girl in the chair before my father rose. She
stood beside him, her lithe figure firm, her chin up, her hair
spun darkness. The courage, the fine, open, defiant courage of
the first women of the world, coming with the patriarchs out of
Asia, was in her lifted face. My father moved as though he would
stop the hunchback's cruel speech. But she put her fingers
firmly on his arm.
"He has gone so far," she said, "let him go on to the end. Let
him omit no word, let us hear every ugly thing the creature has
to say."
Dillworth sat back in his chair at ease, with a supercilious
smile. He passed the girl and addressed my father.
"You will recall the details of that robbery," he said in his
complacent, piping voice. "My brother David had married a wife,
like the guest invited in the Scriptures. A child was born. My
brother lived with his wife's people in their house. One night
he came to me to borrow money."
He paused and pointed his long index finger through the doorway
and across the hall.
"It was in my father's room that I received him. It did not
please me to put money into his hands. But I admonished him with
wise counsel. He did not receive my words with a proper
brotherly regard. He flared up in unmanageable anger. He damned
me with reproaches, said I had stolen his inheritance, poisoned
his father's mind against him and slipped into the house and
lands. `Pretentious and perfidious' is what he called me. I was
firm and gentle. But he grew violent and a thing happened."
The man put up his hand and moved it along in the air above the
table.
"There was a secretary beside the hearth in my father's room.
It was an old piece with drawers below and glass doors above.
These doors had not been opened for many years, for there was
nothing on the shelves behind them - one could see that - except
some rows of the little wooden boxes that indigo used to be sold
in at the country stores."
The hunchback paused as though to get the details of his story
precisely in relation.
"I sat at my father's table in the middle of the room. My
brother David was a great, tall man, like Saul. In his anger, as
he gesticulated by the hearth, his elbow crashed through the
glass door of this secretary; the indigo boxes fell, burst open
on the floor, and a hidden store of my father's money was
revealed. The wooden boxes were full of gold pieces!"
He stopped and passed his fingers over his projecting chin.
"I was in fear, for I was alone in the house. Every negro was at
a distant frolic. And I was justified in that fear. My brother
leaped on me, struck me a stunning blow on the chest over the
heart, gathered up the gold, took my horse and fled. At daybreak
the negroes found me on the floor, unconscious. Then you came,
Pendleton. The negroes had washed up the litter from the hearth
where the indigo about the coins in the boxes had been shaken
out."
My father interrupted:
"The negroes said the floor had been scrubbed when they found
you."
"They were drunk," continued the hunchback with no concern.
"And, does one hold a drunken negro to his fact? But you saw for
yourself the wooden boxes, round, three inches high, with tin
lids, and of a diameter to hold a stack of golden eagles, and you
saw the indigo still sticking about the sides of these boxes
where the coins had lain."
"I did," replied my father. "I observed it carefully, for I
thought the gold pieces might turn up sometime, and the blue
indigo stain might be on them when they first appeared."
Dillworth leaned far back in his chair, his legs tangled under
him, his eyes on my father, in reflection. Finally he spoke.
"You are far-sighted," he said.
"Or God is," replied my father, and, stepping over to the table,
he spun a gold piece on the polished surface of the mahogany
board.
The hunchback watched the yellow disk turn and flit and wabble on
its base and flutter down with its tingling reverberations.
"To-day, when I rode into the county seat to a sitting of the
justices," continued my father, "the sheriff showed me some gold
eagles that your man from Maryland, Mr. Henderson, had paid in on
court costs. Look, Dillworth, there is one of them, and with
your thumb nail on the milled edge you can scrape off the
indigo!"
The hunchback looked at the spinning coin, but he did not touch
it. His head, with its long, straight hair, swung a moment
uncertain between his shoulders. Then, swiftly and with a firm
grip, he took his resolution.
"The coins appear," he said. "My brother David must be in
Baltimore behind this suit."
"He is not in Baltimore," said my father.
"Perhaps you know where he is," cried the hunchback, "since you
speak with such authority."
"I do know where he is," said my father in his deep, level voice.
The hunchback got on his feet slowly beside his chair. And the
girl came into the protection of my father's arm, her features
white like plaster; but the fiber in her blood was good and she
stood up to face the thing that might be coming. After the one
long abandonment to tears in my father's saddle she had got
herself in hand. She had gone, like the princes of the blood,
through the fire, and the dross of weakness was burned out.
The hunchback got on his feet, in position like a duelist, his
hard, bitter face turned slantwise toward my father.
"Then," he said, "if you know where David is you will take his
daughter to him, if you please, and rid my house of the burden of
her."
"We shall go to him," said my father slowly, "but he shall not
return to us."
The hunchback's eyes blinked and bated in the candlelight.
"You quote the Scriptures," he said. "Is David in a grave?"
"He is not," replied my father.
The hunchback seemed to advance like a duelist who parries the
first thrust of his opponent. But my father met him with an even
voice.
"Dillworth," he said, "it was strange that no man ever saw your
brother or the horse after the night he visited you in this
house."
"It was dark," replied the man. "He rode from this door through
the gap in the mountains into Maryland."
"He rode from this door," said my father slowly, "but not through
the gap in the mountains into Maryland."
The hunchback began to twist his fingers.
"Where did he ride then? A man and a horse could not vanish."
"They did vanish," said my father.
"Now you utter fool talk!" cried Dillworth.
"I speak the living truth," replied my father. "Your brother
David and your horse disappeared out of sound and hearing -
disappeared out of the sight and knowledge of men - after he rode
away from your door on that fatal night."
"Well," said the hunchback, "since my brother David rode away
from my door - and you know that - I am free of obligation for
him."
"It is Cain's speech!" replied my father.
The hunchback put back his long hair with a swift brush of the
fingers across his forehead.
"Dillworth," cried my father, and his voice filled the empty
places of the room, "is the mark there?"
The hunchback began to curse. He walked around my father and the
girl, the hair about his lank jaws, his fingers working, his face
evil. In his front and menace he was like a weasel that would
attack some larger creature. And while he made the great turn of
his circle my father, with his arm about the girl, stepped before
the drawer of the table where the pistol lay.
"Dillworth," he said calmly, "I know where he is. And the mark
you felt for just now ought to be there."
"Fool!" cried the hunchback. "If I killed him how could he ride
away from the door?"
"It was a thing that puzzled me," replied my father, "when I
stood in this house on the morning of your pretended robbery. I
knew what had happened. But I thought it wiser to let the evil
thing remain a mystery, rather than unearth it to foul your
family name and connect this child in gossip for all her days
with a crime."
"With a thief," snarled the man.
"With a greater criminal than a thief," replied My father. "I
was not certain about this gold on that morning when you showed
me the empty boxes. They were too few to hold gold enough for
such a motive. I thought a quarrel and violent hot blood were
behind the thing; and for that reason I have been silent. But
now, when the coins turn up, I see that the thing was all
ruthless, cold-blooded love of money.
"I know what happened in that room. When your brother David
struck the old secretary with his elbow, and the dozen indigo
boxes fell and burst open on the hearth, you thought a great
hidden treasure was uncovered. You thought swiftly. You had got
the land by undue influence on your senile father, and you did
not have to share that with your brother David. But here was a
treasure you must share; you saw it in a flash. You sat at your
father's table in the room. Your brother stood by the wall
looking at the hearth. And you acted then, on the moment, with
the quickness of the Evil One. It was cunning in you to select
the body over the heart as the place to receive the imagined blow
- the head or face would require some evidential mark to affirm
your word. And it was cunning to think of the unconscious, for
in that part one could get up and scrub the hearth and lie down
again to play it."
He paused.
"But the other thing you did in that room was not so clever. A
picture was newly hung on the wall - I saw the white square on
the opposite wall from which it had been taken. It hung at the
height of a man's shoulders directly behind the spot where your
brother must have stood after he struck the secretary, and it
hung in this new spot to cover the crash of a bullet into the
mahogany panel!"
My father stopped and caught up the hunchback's double-barreled
pistol out of the empty drawer.
The room was now illumined; the moon had got above the tree tops
and its light slanted in through the long windows. The hunchback
saw the thing and he paused; his face worked in the fantastic
light.
"Yes," continued my father, in his deep, quiet voice, "this is
your mistake to-night - to let me get your weapon. Your mistake
that other night was to shoot before you counted the money. It
was only a few hundred dollars. The dozen wooden boxes would
hold no great sum. But the thing was done, and you must cover
it."
He paused.
"And you did cover it - with fiendish cunning. It would not do
for your brother to vanish from your house, alone and with no
motive. But if he disappeared, with the gold to take him and a
horse to ride, the explanation would have solid feet to go on. I
give you credit here for the ingenuity of Satan. You managed the
thing. You caused your brother David and the horse to vanish. I
saw, on that morning, the tracks of the horse where you led him
from the stable to the door, and his tracks where you led him,
holding the dead man in the saddle, from the door to the ancient
orchard where the grass grows over the fallen-down chimney of
your grandsire's house. And there, at your cunning, they wholly
vanished."
The mad courage in the hunchback got control, and he began to
advance on my father with no weapon and with no hope to win. His
fingers crooked, his body in a bow, his wizen, cruel face pallid
in the ghostly light.
"Dillworth," cried my father, in a great voice, like one who
would startle a creature out of mania, "you will write a deed in
your legal manner granting these lands to your brother's child.
And after that" - his words were like the blows of a hammer on an
anvil - "I will give you until daybreak to vanish out of our
sight and hearing - through the gap in the mountains into
Maryland on your horse, as you say your brother David went, or
into the abandoned cistern in the ancient orchard where he lies
under the horse that you shot and tumbled in on his murdered
body!"
The moon was now above the gable of the house. The candles were
burned down. They guttered around the sheet of foolscap wet with
the scrawls and splashes of Dillworth's quill. My father stood
at a window looking out, the girl in a flood of tears, relaxed
and helpless, in the protection of his arm.
And far down the long turnpike, white like an expanded ribbon,
the hunchback rode his great horse in a gallop, perched like a
monkey, his knees doubled, his head bobbing, his loose body
rolling in the saddle - while the black, distorted shadow that
had followed my father into this tragic house went on before him
like some infernal messenger convoying the rider to the Pit.
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The man laughed. It was a faint cynical murmur of a laugh. Its expression hardly disturbed the composition of his features. "I fear, Lady Muriel," he said, "that your profession is ruined. Our friend - `over the water' - is no longer concern... The Enigmas
Zadig, entranced, as it were, and like a man about whose head the thunder had burst, walked at random. He entered Babylon on the very day when those who had fought at the tournaments were assembled in the grand vestibule of the palace to explain t... The Envious Man
Zadig resolved to comfort himself by philosophy and friendship for the evils he had suffered from fortune. He had in the suburbs of Babylon a house elegantly furnished, in which he assembled all the arts and all the pleasures worthy the pursuit of... The Final Problem
It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished. In an incoherent and, as I deeply feel, an entirely inadequate f... The Fisherman
At a few leagues' distance from Arbogad's castle he came to the banks of a small river, still deploring his fate, and considering himself as the most wretched of mankind. He saw a fisherman lying on the brink of the river, scarcely holding, in his... The Five Orange Pips
When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, howe... The Fortune Of Seth Savage
At one time the bogus-lottery men drove a thrifty business, but the efforts, virtually co-operative, of the post-office department and of the legislatures of the older states, have latterly pretty effectually forced them into the wilderness. The ... The Fortune Teller
Sir Henry Marquis continued to read; he made no comment; his voice clear and even. It was a big sunny room. The long windows looked out on a formal garden, great beech trees and the bow of the river. Within it was a sort of library. There ... The Fowl In The Pot
An Episode Adapted from the Memoirs of Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully What I am going to relate may seem to some merely to be curious and on a party with the diverting story of M. Boisrose, which I have set down in an earlier part of my m... The Funeral Pile
Setoc, charmed with the happy issue of this affair, made his slave his intimate friend. He had now conceived as great esteem for him as ever the King of Babylon had done; and Zadig was glad that Setoc had no wife. He discovered in his master a goo... The Generous
The time now arrived for celebrating a grand festival, which returned every five years. It was a custom in Babylon solemnly to declare at the end of every five years which of the citizens had performed the most generous action. The grandees and th... The Gloria Scott
"I have some papers here," said my friend Sherlock Holmes, as we sat one winter's night on either side of the fire, "which I really think, Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance over. These are the documents in the extraordinary case ... The Gold-bug
What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad! He hath been bitten by the Tarantula. --All in the Wrong. Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot fami... The Golden Ingot
I had just retired to rest, with my eyes almost blind with the study of a new work on physiology by M. Brown-Sequard, when the night bell was pulled violently. It was winter, and I confess I grumbled as I rose and went downstairs to open the do... The Golden Slipper
"She's here! I thought she would be. She's one of the three young ladies you see in the right-hand box near the proscenium." The gentleman thus addressed--a man of middle age and a member of the most exclusive clubs--turned his opera glass toward ... The Gray Madam
WAS it a specter? For days I could not answer this question. I am no believer in spiritual manifestations, yet--But let me tell my story. I was lodging with my wife on the first floor of a house in Twenty-seventh street. I had taken the apa... The Great Valdez Sapphire
I know more about it than anyone else in the world, its present owner not excepted. I can give its whole history, from the Cingalese who found it, the Spanish adventurer who stole it, the cardinal who bought it, the Pope who graciously accepted it... The Great Valdez Sapphire
(ANONYMOUS) I know more about it than anyone else in the world, its present owner not excepted. I can give its whole history, from the Cingalese who found it, the Spanish adventurer who stole it, the cardinal who bought it, the Pope who graciou... The Greek Interpreter
During my long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Sherlock Holmes I had never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his own early life. This reticence upon his part had increased the somewhat inhuman effect which he produced upon me... The Grotto Spectre
Miss Strange was not often pensive--at least not at large functions or when under the public eye. But she certainly forgot herself at Mrs. Provost's musicale and that, too, without apparent reason. Had the music been of a high order one might have ... The Haunted And The Haunters Or The House And The Brain
A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me one day, as if between jest and earnest, "Fancy! since we last met I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London." "Really haunted,--and by what?--ghosts?" "We... The Hermit
While he was thus sauntering he met a hermit, whose white and venerable beard hung down to his girdle. He held a book in his hand, which he read with great attention. Zadig stopped, and made him a profound obeisance. The hermit returned the compli... The Hermit Of Street
CHAPTER I. I COMMIT AN INDISCRETION. I should have kept my eyes for the many brilliant and interesting sights constantly offered me. Another girl would have done so. I myself might have done so, had I been over eighteen, or, had I not come fro... The Hole In The Mahogany Panel
Sir Henry paused a moment, his finger between the pages of the ancient diary. "It is the inspirational quality in these cases" he said, "that impresses me. It is very nearly absent in our modern methods of criminal investigation. We depend no... The Horla Or Modern Ghosts
_May 8th._ What a lovely day! I have spent all the morning lying in the grass in front of my house, under the enormous plantain tree which covers it, and shades and shelters the whole of it. I like this part of the country and I am fond of living ... The Horror Of The Heights
The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the Joyce-Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humour, has now been abandoned by all who have ... The Hostler's Story Told By Himself
IV It is now ten years ago since I got my first warning of the great trouble of my life in the Vision of a Dream. I shall be better able to tell you about it if you will please suppose yourselves to be drinking tea along with us in our little... The House By The Loch
There was a snapping fire in the chimney. I was cold through and I was glad to stand close beside it on the stone hearth. My greatcoat had kept out the rain, but it had not kept out the chill of the West Highland night. I shivered before the fi... The House Of Clocks
Miss Strange was not in a responsive mood. This her employer had observed on first entering; yet he showed no hesitation in laying on the table behind which she had ensconced herself in the attitude of one besieged, an envelope thick with enclosed p... The House That Was Not
BART FLEMING took his bride out to his ranch on the plains when she was but seventeen years old, and the two set up housekeeping in three hundred and twenty acres of corn and rye. Off toward the west there was an unbroken sea of tossing corn at... The Incantation
I "I believe that for at least twelve hours there will be no change in her state. I believe also that if she recover from it, calm and refreshed, as from a sleep, the danger of death will have passed away." "And for twelve hours my presen... The Inmost Light
One evening in autumn, when the deformities of London were veiled in faint, blue mist and its vistas and far-reaching streets seemed splendid, Mr. Charles Salisbury was slowly pacing down Rupert Street, drawing nearer to his favourite restau... The Invisible Eye
About this time (said Christian), poor as a church mouse, I took refuge in the roof of an old house in Minnesaenger Street, Nuremberg, and made my nest in the corner of the garret. I was compelled to work over my straw bed to reach the window, b... The Japanned Box
It WAS a curious thing, said the private tutor; one of those grotesque and whimsical incidents which occur to one as one goes through life. I lost the best situation which I am ever likely to have through it. But I am glad that I went to Thorpe ... The Jew's Breastplate
My particular friend, Ward Mortimer, was one of the best men of his day at everything connected with Oriental archaeology. He had written largely upon the subject, he had lived two years in a tomb at Thebes, while he excavated in the Valley of th... The Knight's Cross Signal Problem
"Louis," exclaimed Mr. Carrados, with the air of genial gaiety that Carlyle had found so incongruous to his conception of a blind man, "you have a mystery somewhere about you! I know it by your step." Nearly a month had passed since the incident... The Last Adventure
The talk had run on treasure. I could not sleep and my friends had dropped in. I had the big South room on the second floor of the Hotel de Paris. It looks down on the Casino and the Mediterranean. Perhaps you know it. Queer friends, you'd... The Last Exploit Of Harry The Actor
The one insignificant fact upon which turned the following incident in the joint experiences of Mr. Carlyle and Max Carrados was merely this: that having called upon his friend just at the moment when the private detective was on the point of leav... The Leather Funnel
My friend, Lionel Dacre, lived in the Avenue de Wagram, Paris. His house was that small one, with the iron railings and grass plot in front of it, on the left-hand side as you pass down from the Arc de Triomphe. I fancy that it had been there long... The Lenton Croft Robberies
Those who retain any memory of the great law cases of fifteen or twenty years back will remember, at least, the title of that extraordinary will case, "Bartley v. Bartley and others," which occupied the Probate Court for some weeks on end, and cause... The Loss Of Sammy Crockett
It was, of course, always a part of Martin Hewitt's business to be thoroughly at home among any and every class of people, and to be able to interest himself intelligently, or to appear to do so, in their various pursuits. In one of the most importa... The Lost Duchess
I "Has the duchess returned?" "No, your grace." Knowles came farther into the room. He had a letter on a salver. When the duke had taken it, Knowles still lingered. The duke glanced at him. "Is an answer required?" "No, your grace." S... The Lost Lady
It was a remark of old Major Carrington that incited this adventure. "It is some distance through the wood - is she quite safe?" It was a mere reflection as he went out. It was very late. I do not know how the dinner, or rather the after-ho... The Lost Room
FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN It was oppressively warm. The sun had long disappeared, but seemed to have left its vital spirit of heat behind it. The air rested; the leaves of the acacia-trees that shrouded my windows hung plumb-like on their delicate sta... The Lost Special
The confession of Herbert de Lernac, now lying under sentence of death at Marseilles, has thrown a light upon one of the most inexplicable crimes of the century--an incident which is, I believe, absolutely unprecedented in the criminal annals of any... The Magician Who Became An Ambassador
[It is not generally known that Robert-Houdin once rendered his country an important service as special envoy to Algeria. Half a century ago this colony was an endless source of trouble to France. Although the rebel Arab chieftain Abd-del-Kader h... The Man And The Snake
I It is of veritabyll report, and attested of so many that there be nowe of wyse and learned none to gaynsaye it, that ye serpente hys eye hath a magnetick propertie that whosoe falleth into its svasion is drawn forwards in despyte of his wil... The Man In The Green Hat
"Alas, monsieur, in spite of our fine courtesies, the conception of justice by one race must always seem outlandish to another!" It was on the terrace of Sir Henry Marquis' villa at Cannes. The members of the little party were in conversation o... The Man In The Iron Mask
I THE LEGEND The Mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask is, despite a pleasant saying of Lord Beaconsfield's, one of the most fascinating in history. By a curious coincidence the wildest legend on the subject, and the correct explanation of ... The Man Who Went Too Far
The little village of St. Faith's nestles in a hollow of wooded hill up on the north bank of the river Fawn in the county of Hampshire huddling close round its gray Norman church as if for spiritual protection against the fays and fairies, the ... The Man With The Pale Eyes
Monsieur Pierre Agenor de Vargnes, the Examining Magistrate, was the exact opposite of a practical joker. He was dignity, staidness, correctness personified. As a sedate man, he was quite incapable of being guilty, even in his dreams, of anythi... The Man With The Twisted Lip
Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De Qui... The Man With The Watches
There are many who will still bear in mind the singular circumstances which, under the heading of the Rugby Mystery, filled many columns of the daily Press in the spring of the year 1892. Coming as it did at a period of exceptional dullness, it ... The Methods Of A Doctor Of The Occult
Not so very long ago I met a friend--a man of wealth, who was a firm believer in spiritualism, and who frequently conversed with his dead wife and daughter. I asked him if he could inform me whether or not there were any good mediums in the city,... The Minister
The king had lost his first minister and chose Zadig to supply his place. All the ladies in Babylon applauded the choice; for since the foundation of the empire there had never been such a young minister. But all the courtiers were filled with jea... The Minister's Black Veil
A PARABLE[1] [1] Another clergyman in New England, Mr. Joseph Moody, of York, Maine, made himself remarkable by the same eccentricity that is here related of the Reverend Mr. Hooper. In his case, however, the symbol had a different import. ... The Minor Canon
It was Monday, and in the afternoon, as I was walking along the High Street of Marchbury, I was met by a distinguished-looking person whom I had observed at the services in the cathedral on the previous day. Now it chanced on that Sunday that I wa... The Miracle Of Zobeide
Always wise and prudent, Zobeide cautiously put aside the myrtle branches and peeped through to see who were the persons talking by the fountain in the cool shadow of the pink sandstone wall. And when she saw that it was only the Rev. John Feather... The Mortals In The House
Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun ...