The Complete Short Stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated Edition). Arthur Conan DoyleЧитать онлайн книгу.

      "THE GENTLEMAN IN THE PEW HANDED IT UP TO HER"

      “Indeed! You say that there was a gentleman in the pew. Some of the general public were present, then?”

      “Oh yes. It is impossible to exclude them when the church is open.”

      “This gentleman was not one of your wife’s friends?”

      “No, no; I call him a gentleman by courtesy, but he was quite a common-looking person. I hardly noticed his appearance. But really I think that we are wandering rather far from the point.”

      “Lady St. Simon, then, returned from the wedding in a less cheerful frame of mind than she had gone to it. What did she do on re-entering her father’s house?”

      “I saw her in conversation with her maid.”

      “And who is her maid?”

      “Alice is her name. She is an American, and came from California with her.”

      “A confidential servant?”

      “A little too much so. It seemed to me that her mistress allowed her to take great liberties. Still, of course, in America they look upon these things in a different way.”

      “How long did she speak to this Alice?”

      “Oh, a few minutes. I had something else to think of.”

      “You did not overhear what they said?”

      “Lady St. Simon said something about ‘jumping a claim.’ She was accustomed to use slang of the kind. I have no idea what she meant.”

      “American slang is very expressive sometimes. And what did your wife do when she finished speaking to her maid?”

      “She walked into the breakfast-room.”

      “On your arm?”

      “No, alone. She was very independent in little matters like that. Then, after we had sat down for ten minutes or so, she rose hurriedly, muttered some words of apology, and left the room. She never came back.”

      “But this maid, Alice, as I understand, deposes that she went to her room, covered her bride’s dress with a long ulster, put on a bonnet, and went out.”

      “Quite so. And she was afterwards seen walking into Hyde Park in company with Flora Millar, a woman who is now in custody, and who had already made a disturbance at Mr. Doran’s house that morning.”

      “Ah, yes. I should like a few particulars as to this young lady, and your relations to her.”

      Lord St. Simon shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. “We have been on a friendly footing for some years—I may say on a very friendly footing. She used to be at the ‘Allegro.’ I have not treated her ungenerously, and she has no just cause of complaint against me; but you know what women are, Mr. Holmes. Flora was a dear little thing, but exceedingly hot-headed, and devotedly attached to me. She wrote me dreadful letters when she heard that I was about to be married; and, to tell the truth, the reason why I had the marriage celebrated so quietly was that I feared lest there might be a scandal in the church. She came to Mr. Doran’s door just after we returned, and she endeavored to push her way in, uttering very abusive expressions towards my wife, and even threatening her, but I had foreseen the possibility of something of the sort, and I had two police fellows there in private clothes, who soon pushed her out again. She was quiet when she saw that there was no good in making a row.”

      “Did your wife hear all this?”

      “No, thank goodness, she did not.”

      “And she was seen walking with this very woman afterwards?”

      “Yes. That is what Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, looks upon as so serious. It is thought that Flora decoyed my wife out, and laid some terrible trap for her.”

      “Well, it is a possible supposition.”

      “You think so, too?”

      “I did not say a probable one. But you do not yourself look upon this as likely?”

      “I do not think Flora would hurt a fly.”

      “Still, jealousy is a strange transformer of characters. Pray what is your own theory as to what took place?”

      “Well, really, I came to seek a theory, not to propound one. I have given you all the facts. Since you ask me, however, I may say that it has occurred to me as possible that the excitement of this affair, the consciousness that she had made so immense a social stride, had the effect of causing some little nervous disturbance in my wife.”

      “In short, that she had become suddenly deranged?”

      “Well, really, when I consider that she has turned her back—I will not say upon me, but upon so much that many have aspired to without success—I can hardly explain it in any other fashion.”

      “Well, certainly that is also a conceivable hypothesis,” said Holmes, smiling. “And now, Lord St. Simon, I think that I have nearly all my data. May I ask whether you were seated at the breakfast-table so that you could see out of the window?”

      “We could see the other side of the road and the Park.”

      “Quite so. Then I do not think that I need to detain you longer. I shall communicate with you.”

      “Should you be fortunate enough to solve this problem,” said our client, rising.

      “I have solved it.”

      “Eh? What was that?”

      “I say that I have solved it.”

      “Where, then, is my wife?”

      “That is a detail which I shall speedily supply.”

      Lord St. Simon shook his head. “I am afraid that it will take wiser heads than yours or mine,” he remarked, and bowing in a stately, old-fashioned manner, he departed.

      “It is very good of Lord St. Simon to honor my head by putting it on a level with his own,” said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. “I think that I shall have a whiskey-and-soda and a cigar after all this cross-questioning. I had formed my conclusions as to the case before our client came into the room.”

      “My dear Holmes!”

      “I have notes of several similar cases, though none, as I remarked before, which were quite as prompt. My whole examination served to turn my conjecture into a certainty. Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau’s example.”

      “But I have heard all that you have heard.”

      “Without, however, the knowledge of pre-existing cases which serves me so well. There was a parallel instance in Aberdeen some years back, and something on very much the same lines at Munich the year after the Franco-Prussian war. It is one of these cases—but, hello, here is Lestrade! Good-afternoon, Lestrade! You will find an extra tumbler upon the sideboard, and there are cigars in the box.”

      The official detective was attired in a pea-jacket and cravat, which gave him a decidedly nautical appearance, and he carried a black canvas bag in his hand. With a short greeting he seated himself and lit the cigar which had been offered to him.

      “What’s up, then?” asked Holmes, with a twinkle in his eye. “You look dissatisfied.”

      “And I feel dissatisfied. It is this infernal St. Simon marriage case. I can make neither head nor tail of the business.”

      “Really! You surprise me.”

      “Who ever heard of such a mixed affair? Every clew seems to slip through my fingers. I have been at work upon it all day.”

      “And very wet it seems to have made you,” said Holmes,