R. HOLMES & CO.

Being the Remarkable Adventures of Raffles Holmes, Esq., Detective and
Amateur Cracksman by Birth

by John Kendrick Bangs


Contents
I.    INTRODUCING MR. RAFFLES HOLMES
II.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL
III.  THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. BURLINGAME'S DIAMOND STOMACHER
IV.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING PENDANTS
V.    THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRASS CHECK
VI.   THE ADVENTURE OF THE HIRED BURGLAR
VII.  THE REDEMPTION OF YOUNG BILLINGTON RAND
VIII. "THE NOSTALGIA OF NERVY JIM THE SNATCHER"
IX.   THE ADVENTURE OF ROOM 407
X.    THE MAJOR-GENERAL'S PEPPERPOTS



R. HOLMES & CO.



I
INTRODUCING MR. RAFFLES HOLMES

It was a blistering night in August. All day long the mercury in the
thermometer had been flirting with the figures at the top of the tube, and
the promised shower at night which a mendacious Weather Bureau had been
prophesying as a slight mitigation of our sufferings was conspicuous wholly
by its absence. I had but one comfort in the sweltering hours of the day,
afternoon and evening, and that was that my family were away in the
mountains, and there was no law against my sitting around all day clad only
in my pajamas, and otherwise concealed from possibly intruding eyes by the
wreaths of smoke that I extracted from the nineteen or twenty cigars which,
when there is no protesting eye to suggest otherwise, form my daily
allowance. I had tried every method known to the resourceful flat-dweller
of modern times to get cool and to stay so, but alas, it was impossible.
Even the radiators, which all winter long had never once given forth a
spark of heat, now hissed to the touch of my moistened finger. Enough
cooling drinks to float an ocean greyhound had passed into my inner man,
with no other result than to make me perspire more profusely than ever,
and in so far as sensations went, to make me feel hotter than before.
Finally, as a last resource, along about midnight, its gridiron floor
having had a chance to lose some of its stored-up warmth, I climbed out
upon the fire-escape at the rear of the Richmere, hitched my hammock from
one of the railings thereof to the leader running from the roof to the
area, and swung myself therein some eighty feet above the concealed
pavement of our backyard--so called, perhaps, because of its dimensions
which were just about that square. It was a little improvement, though
nothing to brag of. What fitful zephyrs there might be, caused no doubt by
the rapid passage to and fro on the roof above and fence-tops below of
vagrant felines on Cupid's contentious battles bent, to the disturbance of
the still air, soughed softly through the meshes of my hammock and gave
some measure of relief, grateful enough for which I ceased the perfervid
language I had been using practically since sunrise, and dozed off. And
then there entered upon the scene that marvelous man, Raffles Holmes, of
whose exploits it is the purpose of these papers to tell.

I had dozed perhaps for a full hour when the first strange sounds grated
upon my ear. Somebody had opened a window in the kitchen of the first-floor
apartment below, and with a dark lantern was inspecting the iron platform
of the fire-escape without. A moment later this somebody crawled out of the
window, and with movements that in themselves were a sufficient indication
of the questionable character of his proceedings, made for the ladder
leading to the floor above, upon which many a time and oft had I too
climbed to home and safety when an inconsiderate janitor had locked me out.
Every step that he took was stealthy--that much I could see by the dim
starlight. His lantern he had turned dark again, evidently lest he should
attract attention in the apartments below as he passed their windows in his
upward flight.

"Ha! ha!" thought I to myself. "It's never too hot for Mr. Sneak to get in
his fine work. I wonder whose stuff he is after?"

Turning over flat on my stomach so that I might the more readily observe
the man's movements, and breathing pianissimo lest he in turn should
observe mine, I watched him as he climbed. Up he came as silently as the
midnight mouse upon a soft carpet--up past the Jorkins apartments on the
second floor; up stealthily by the Tinkletons' abode on the third; up past
the fire-escape Italian garden of little Mrs. Persimmon on the fourth; up
past the windows of the disagreeable Garraways' kitchen below mine, and
then, with the easy grace of a feline, zip! he silently landed within reach
of my hand on my own little iron veranda, and craning his neck to one
side, peered in through the open window and listened intently for two full
minutes.

"Humph!" whispered my inner consciousness to itself. "He is the coolest
thing I've seen since last Christmas left town. I wonder what he is up to?
There's nothing in my apartment worth stealing, now that my wife and
children are away, unless it be my Jap valet, Nogi, who might make a very
excellent cab driver if I could only find words to convey to his mind the
idea that he is discharged."

And then the visitor, apparently having correctly assured himself that
there was no one within, stepped across the window sill and vanished into
the darkness of my kitchen. A moment later I too entered the window in
pursuit, not so close a one, however, as to acquaint him with my proximity.
I wanted to see what the chap was up to; and also being totally unarmed and
ignorant as to whether or not he carried dangerous weapons, I determined to
go slow for a little while. Moreover, the situation was not wholly devoid
of novelty, and it seemed to me that here at last was abundant opportunity
for a new sensation. As he had entered, so did he walk cautiously along the
narrow bowling alley that serves for a hallway connecting my drawing-room
and library with the dining-room, until he came to the library, into which
he disappeared. This was not reassuring to me, because, to tell the truth,
I value my books more than I do my plate, and if I were to be robbed I
should much have preferred his taking my plated plate from the dining-room
than any one of my editions-deluxe sets of the works of Marie Corelli, Hall
Caine, and other standard authors from the library shelves. Once in the
library, he quietly drew the shades at the windows thereof to bar possible
intruding eyes from without, turned on the electric lights, and proceeded
to go through my papers as calmly and coolly as though they were his own.
In a short time, apparently, he found what he wanted in the shape of a
royalty statement recently received by me from my publishers, and, lighting
one of my cigars from a bundle of brevas in front of him, took off his coat
and sat down to peruse the statement of my returns. Simple though it was,
this act aroused the first feeling of resentment in my breast, for the
relations between the author and his publishers are among the most sacred
confidences of life, and the peeping Tom who peers through a keyhole at the
courtship of a young man engaged in wooing his fiancée is no worse an
intruder than he who would tear aside the veil of secrecy which screens the
official returns of a "best seller" from the public eye. Feeling,
therefore, that I had permitted matters to proceed as far as they might
with propriety, I instantly entered the room and confronted my uninvited
guest, bracing myself, of course, for the defensive onslaught which I
naturally expected to sustain. But nothing of the sort occurred, for the
intruder, with a composure that was nothing short of marvelous under the
circumstances, instead of rising hurriedly like one caught in some
disreputable act, merely leaned farther back in the chair, took the cigar
from his mouth, and greeted me with:

"Howdy do, sir. What can I do for you this beastly hot night?"

The cold rim of a revolver-barrel placed at my temple could not more
effectually have put me out of business than this nonchalant reception.
Consequently I gasped out something about its being the sultriest 47th of
August in eighteen years, and plumped back into a chair opposite him. "I
wouldn't mind a Remsen cooler myself," he went on, "but the fact is your
butler is off for to-night, and I'm hanged if I can find a lemon in the
house. Maybe you'll join me in a smoke?" he added, shoving my own bundle of
brevas across the table. "Help yourself."

"I guess I know where the lemons are," said I. "But how did you know my
butler was out?"

"I telephoned him to go to Philadelphia this afternoon to see his brother
Yoku, who is ill there," said my visitor. "You see, I didn't want him
around to-night when I called. I knew I could manage you alone in case you
turned up, as you see you have, but two of you, and one a Jap, I was afraid
might involve us all in ugly complications. Between you and me, Jenkins,
these Orientals are pretty lively fighters, and your man Nogi particularly
has got jiu-jitsu down to a pretty fine point, so I had to do something to
get rid of him. Our arrangement is a matter for two, not three, anyhow."

"So," said I, coldly. "You and I have an arrangement, have we? I wasn't
aware of it."

"Not yet," he answered. "But there's a chance that we may have. If I can
only satisfy myself that you are the man I'm looking for, there is no
earthly reason that I can see why we should not come to terms. Go on out
and get the lemons and the gin and soda, and let's talk this thing over man
to man like a couple of good fellows at the club. I mean you no harm, and
you certainly don't wish to do any kind of injury to a chap who, even
though appearances are against him, really means to do you a good turn."

"Appearances certainly are against you, sir," said I, a trifle warmly, for
the man's composure was irritating. "A disappearance would be more likely
to do you credit at this moment."

"Tush, Jenkins!" he answered. "Why waste breath saying self-evident things?
Here you are on the verge of a big transaction, and you delay proceedings
by making statements of fact, mixed in with a cheap wit which, I must
confess, I find surprising, and so obvious as to be visible even to the
blind. You don't talk like an author whose stuff is worth ten cents a
word--more like a penny-a-liner, in fact, with whom words are of such small
value that no one's the loser if he throws away a whole dictionary. Go out
and mix a couple of your best Remsen coolers, and by the time you get back
I'll have got to the gist of this royalty statement of yours, which is all
I've come for. Your silver and books and love letters and manuscripts are
safe from me. I wouldn't have 'em as a gift."

"What concern have you with my royalties?" I demanded.

"A vital one," said he. "Mix the coolers, and when you get back I'll tell
you. Go on. There's a good chap. It'll be daylight before long, and I want
to close up this job if I can before sunrise."

What there was in the man's manner to persuade me to compliance with his
wishes, I am sure I cannot say definitely. There was a cold, steely glitter
in his eye, for one thing. With it, however, was a strengthfulness of
purpose, a certain pleasant masterfulness, that made me feel that I could
trust him, and it was to this aspect of his nature that I yielded. There
was something frankly appealing in his long, thin, ascetic looking face,
and I found it irresistible.

"All right," said I with a smile and a frown to express the conflicting
quality of my emotions. "So be it. I'll get the coolers, but you must
remember, my friend, that there are coolers and coolers, just as there are
jugs and jugs. The kind of jug that remains for you will depend upon the
story you have to tell when I get back, so you'd better see that it's a
good one."

"I am not afraid, Jenkins, old chap," he said with a hearty laugh as I
rose. "If this royalty statement can prove to me that you are the literary
partner I need in my business, I can prove to you that I'm a good man to
tie up to--so go along with you."


With this he lighted a fresh cigar and turned to a perusal of my statement,
which, I am glad to say, was a good one, owing to the great success of my
book, _Wild Animals I Have Never Met_--the seventh-best seller at
Rochester, Watertown, and Miami in June and July, 1905--while I went out
into the dining-room and mixed the coolers. As you may imagine, I was not
long at it, for my curiosity over my visitor lent wings to my corkscrew,
and in five minutes I was back with the tempting beverages in the tall
glasses, the lemon curl giving it the vertebrate appearance that all stiff
drinks should have, and the ice tinkling refreshingly upon the sultry air.

"There," said I, placing his glass before him. "Drink hearty, and then to
business. Who are you?"

"There is my card," he replied, swallowing a goodly half of the cooler and
smacking his lips appreciatively, and tossing a visiting card across to me
on the other side of the table. I picked up the card and read as follows:
"Mr. Raffles Holmes, London and New York."

"Raffles Holmes?" I cried in amazement.

"The same, Mr. Jenkins," said he. "I am the son of Sherlock Holmes, the
famous detective, and grandson of A. J. Raffles, the distinguished--er--ah--
cricketer, sir."

I gazed at him, dumb with astonishment.

"You've heard of my father, Sherlock Holmes?" asked my visitor.

I confessed that the name of the gentleman was not unfamiliar to me.

"And Mr. Raffles, my grandfather?" he persisted.

"If there ever was a story of that fascinating man that I have not read, Mr.
Holmes," said I, "I beg you will let me have it."

"Well, then," said he with that quick, nervous manner which proved him a
true son of Sherlock Holmes, "did it never occur to you as an extraordinary
happening, as you read of my father's wonderful powers as a detective, and
of Raffles' equally wonderful prowess as a--er--well, let us not mince
words--as a thief, Mr. Jenkins, the two men operating in England at the same
time, that no story ever appeared in which Sherlock Holmes's genius was
pitted against the subtly planned misdeeds of Mr. Raffles? Is it not
surprising that with two such men as they were, working out their destinies
in almost identical grooves of daily action, they should never have crossed
each other's paths as far as the public is the wiser, and in the very nature
of the conflicting interests of their respective lines of action as foemen,
the one pursuing, the other pursued, they should to the public's knowledge
never have clashed?"

"Now that you speak of it," said I, "it was rather extraordinary that
nothing of the sort happened. One would think that the sufferers from the
depredations of Raffles would immediately have gone to Holmes for assistance
in bringing the other to justice. Truly, as you intimate, it was strange
that they never did."

"Pardon me, Jenkins," put in my visitor. "I never intimated anything of the
sort. What I intimated was that no story of any such conflict ever came to
light. As a matter of fact, Sherlock Holmes was put upon a Raffles case in
1883, and while success attended upon every step of it, and my grandfather
was run to earth by him as easily as was ever any other criminal in Holmes's
grip, a little naked god called Cupid stepped in, saved Raffles from jail,
and wrote the word failure across Holmes's docket of the case. _I, sir, am
the only tangible result of Lord Dorrington's retainers to Sherlock
Holmes._"

"You speak enigmatically, after the occasional fashion of your illustrious
father," said I. "The Dorrington case is unfamiliar to me."

"Naturally so," said my vis-à-vis. "Because, save to my father, my
grandfather, and myself, the details are unknown to anybody. Not even my
mother knew of the incident, and as for Dr. Watson and Bunny, the scribes
through whose industry the adventures of those two great men were
respectively narrated to an absorbed world, they didn't even know there had
ever been a Dorrington case, because Sherlock Holmes never told Watson and
Raffles never told Bunny. But they both told me, and now that I am satisfied
that there is a demand for your books, I am willing to tell it to you with
the understanding that we share and share alike in the profits if perchance
you think well enough of it to write it up."

"Go on!" I said. "I'll whack up with you square and honest."

"Which is more than either Watson or Bunny ever did with my father or my
grandfather, else I should not be in the business which now occupies my time
and attention," said Raffles Holmes with a cold snap to his eyes which I
took as an admonition to hew strictly to the line of honor, or to subject
myself to terrible consequences. "With that understanding, Jenkins, I'll
tell you the story of the Dorrington Ruby Seal, in which some crime, a good
deal of romance, and my ancestry are involved."



II
THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL

"Lord Dorrington, as you may have heard," said Raffles Holmes, leaning back
in my easy-chair and gazing reflectively up at the ceiling, "was chiefly
famous in England as a sporting peer. His vast estates, in five counties,
were always open to any sportsman of renown, or otherwise, as long as he was
a true sportsman. So open, indeed, was the house that he kept that, whether
he was there or not, little week-end parties of members of the sporting
fraternity used to be got up at a moment's notice to run down to Dorrington
Castle, Devonshire; to Dorrington Lodge on the Isle of Wight; to Dorrington
Hall, near Dublin, or to any other country place for over Sunday.

"Sometimes there'd be a lot of turf people: sometimes a dozen or more
devotes of the prize-ring; not infrequently a gathering of the best-known
cricketers of the time, among whom, of course, my grandfather, A. J.
Raffles, was conspicuous. For the most part, the cricketers never partook of
Dorrington's hospitality save when his lordship was present, for your
cricket-player is a bit more punctilious in such matters than your turfmen
or ring-side habitués. It so happened one year, however, that his lordship
was absent from England for the better part of eight months, and, when the
time came for the annual cricket gathering at his Devonshire place, he
cabled his London representative to see to it that everything was carried on
just as if he were present, and that every one should be invited for the
usual week's play and pleasure at Dorrington Castle. His instructions were
carried out to the letter, and, save for the fact that the genial host was
absent, the house-part went through to perfection. My grandfather, as usual,
was the life of the occasion, and all went merry as a marriage-bell. Seven
months later, Lord Dorrington returned, and a week after that, the loss of
the Dorrington jewels from the Devonshire strong-boxes was a matter of
common knowledge. When, or by whom, they had been taken was an absolute
mystery. As far as anybody could find out, they might have been taken the
night before his return, or the night after his departure. The only fact in
sight was that they were gone--Lady Dorrington's diamonds, a half-dozen
valuable jewelled rings belonging to his lordship, and, most irremediable of
losses, the famous ruby seal which George IV had given to Dorrington's
grandfather, Sir Arthur Deering, as a token of his personal esteem during
the period of the Regency. This was a flawless ruby, valued at some six or
seven thousand pounds sterling, in which had been cut the Deering arms
surrounded by a garter upon which were engraved the words, 'Deering Ton,'
which the family, upon Sir Arthur's elevation to the peerage in 1836, took
as its title, or Dorrington. His lordship was almost prostrated by the loss.
The diamonds and the rings, although valued at thirty thousand pounds, he
could easily replace, but the personal associations of the seal were such
that nothing, no amount of money, could duplicate the lost ruby."

"So that his first act," I broke in, breathlessly, "was to send for--"

"Sherlock Holmes, my father," said Raffles Holmes. "Yes, Mr. Jenkins, the
first thing Lord Dorrington did was to telegraph to London for Sherlock
Holmes, requesting him to come immediately to Dorrington Castle and assume
charge of the case. Needless to say, Mr. Holmes dropped everything else and
came. He inspected the gardens, measured the road from the railway station
to the castle, questioned all the servants; was particularly insistent upon
knowing where the parlor-maid was on the 13th of January; secured accurate
information as to the personal habits of his lordship's dachshund Nicholas;
subjected the chef to a cross-examination that covered every point of his
life, from his remote ancestry to his receipt for baking apples; gathered up
three suit-cases of sweeping from his lordship's private apartment, and two
boxes containing three each of every variety of cigars that Lord Dorrington
had laid down in his cellar. As you are aware, Sherlock Holmes, in his
prime, was a great master of detail. He then departed for London, taking
with him an impression in wax of the missing seal, which Lord Dorrington
happened to have preserved in his escritoire.

"On his return to London, Holmes inspected the seal carefully under a
magnifying-glass, and was instantly impressed with the fact that it was not
unfamiliar to him. He had seen it somewhere before, but where? That was now
the question upper-most in his mind. Prior to this, he had never had any
communication with Lord Dorrington, so that, if it was in his correspondence
that the seal had formerly come to him, most assuredly the person who had
used it had come by it dishonestly. Fortunately, at that time, it was a
habit of my father's never to destroy papers of any sort. Every letter that
he ever received was classified and filed, envelope and all. The thing to
do, then, was manifestly to run over the files and find the letter, if
indeed it was in or on a letter that the seal had first come to his
attention. It was a herculean job, but that never feazed Sherlock Holmes,
and he went at it tooth and nail. Finally his effort was rewarded. Under
'Applications for Autograph' he found a daintily-scented little missive from
a young girl living at Goring-Streatley on the Thames, the daughter, she
said, of a retired missionary--the Reverend James Tattersby--asking him if
he would not kindly write his autograph upon the enclosed slip for her
collection. It was the regular stock application that truly distinguished
men receive in every mail. The only thing to distinguish it from other
applications was the beauty of the seal on the fly of the envelope, which
attracted his passing notice and was then filed away with the other letters
of similar import.

"'Ho! ho!' quoth Holmes, as he compared the two impressions and discovered
that they were identical. 'An innocent little maiden who collects
autographs, and a retired missionary in possession of the Dorrington seal,
eh? Well, that _is_ interesting. I think I shall run down to Goring-
Streatley over Sunday and meets Miss Marjorie Tattersby and her reverend
father. I'd like to see to what style of people I have intrusted my
autograph.'

"To decide was to act with Sherlock Holmes, and the following Saturday,
hiring a canoe at Windsor, he made his way up the river until he came to the
pretty little hamlet, snuggling in the Thames Valley, if such it may be
called, where the young lady and her good father were dwelling. Fortune
favored him in that his prey was still there--both much respected by the
whole community; the father a fine looking, really splendid specimen of a
man whose presence alone carried a conviction of integrity and a lofty man;
the daughter--well, to see her was to love her, and the moment the eyes of
Sherlock fell upon her face that great heart of his, that had ever been
adamant to beauty, a very Gibraltar against the wiles of the other sex, went
down in the chaos of a first and overwhelming passion. So hard hit was he by
Miss Tattersby's beauty that his chief thought now was to avert rather than
to direct suspicion towards her. After all, she might have come into
possession of the jewel honestly, though how the daughter of a retired
missionary, considering its intrinsic value, could manage such a thing, was
pretty hard to understand, and he fled back to London to think it over.
Arrived there, he found an invitation to visit Dorrington Castle again
incog. Lord Dorrington was to have a mixed week-end party over the following
Sunday, and this, he thought, would give Holmes an opportunity to observe
the characteristics of Dorrington's visitors and possibly gain therefore
some clew as to the light-fingered person from whose depredations his
lordship had suffered. The idea commended itself to Holmes, and in the
disguise of a young American clergyman, whom Dorrington had met in the
States, the following Friday found him at Dorrington Castle.

"Well, to make a long story short," said Raffles Holmes, "the young
clergyman was introduced to many of the leading sportsmen of the hour, and,
for the most part, they passed muster, but one of them did not, and that was
the well-known cricketer A. J. Raffles, for the moment Raffles entered the
room, jovially greeting everybody about him, and was presented to Lord
Dorrington's new guest, Sherlock Holmes recognized in him no less a person
that the Reverend James Tattersby, retired missionary of Goring-Streatley-
on-Thames, and the father of the woman who had filled his soul with love and
yearning of the truest sort. The problem was solved. Raffles was, to all
intents and purposes, caught with the goods on. Holmes could have exposed
him then and there had he chosen to do so, but every time it came to the
point the lovely face of Marjorie Tattersby came between him and his
purpose. How could he inflict the pain and shame which the exposure of her
father's misconduct would certainly entail upon that fair woman, whose
beauty and fresh innocence had taken so strong a hold upon his heart? No--
that was out of the question. The thing to do, clearly was to visit Miss
Tattersby during her father's absence, and, if possible, ascertain from just
how she had come into possession of the seal, before taking further steps in
the matter. This he did. Making sure, to begin with, that Raffles was to
remain at Dorrington Hall for the coming ten days, Holmes had himself
telegraphed for and returned to London. There he wrote himself a letter of
introduction to the Reverend James Tattersby, on the paper of the Anglo-
American Missionary Society, a sheet of which he secured in the public
writing-room of that institution, armed with which he returned to the
beautiful little spot on the Thames where the Tattersbys abode. He spent the
night at the inn, and, in conversation with the landlord and boatmen,
learned much that was interesting concerning the Reverend James. Among other
things, he discovered that this gentleman and his daughter had been
respected residents of the place for three years; that Tattersby was rarely
seen in the daytime about the place; that he was unusually fond of canoeing
at night, which, he said, gave him the quiet and solitude necessary for that
reflection which is so essential to the spiritual being of a minister of
grace; that he frequently indulged in long absences, during which time it
was supposed that he was engaged in the work of his calling. He appeared to
be a man of some, but not lavish, means. The most notable and suggestive
thing, however, that Holmes ascertained in his conversation with the boatmen
was that, at the time of the famous Cliveden robbery, when several thousand
pounds' worth of plate had been taken from the great hall, that later fell
into the possession of a well-known American hotel-keeper, Tattersby, who
happened to be on the river late that night, was, according to his own
statement, the unconscious witness of the escape of the thieves on board a
mysterious steam-launch, which the police were never able afterwards to
locate. They had nearly upset his canoe with the wash of their rapidly
moving craft as they sped past him after having stowed their loot safely on
board. Tattersby had supposed them to be employés of the estate, and never
gave the matter another thought until three days later, when the news of the
robbery was published to the world. He had immediately communicated the news
of what he had seen to the police, and had done all that lay in his power to
aid them in locating the robbers, but all to no purpose. From that day to
this the mystery of the Cliveden plot had never been solved.

"The following day Holmes called at the Tattersby cottage, and was fortunate
enough to find Miss Tattersby at home. His previous impression as to her
marvellous beauty was more than confirmed, and each moment that he talked to
her she revealed new graces of manner that completed the capture of his
hitherto unsusceptible heart. Miss Tattersby regretted her father's absence.
He had gone, she said, to attend a secret missionary conference at
Pentwllycod in Wales, and was not expected back for a week, all of which
quite suited Sherlock Holmes. Convinced that, after years of waiting, his
affinity had at last crossed his path, he was in no hurry for the return of
that parent, who would put an instant quietus upon this affair of the heart.
Manifestly the thing for him to do was to win the daughter's hand, and then
intercept the father, acquaint him with his aspirations, and compel
acquiescence by the force of his knowledge of Raffles's misdeed. Hence,
instead of taking his departure immediately, he remained at the Goring-
Streatley Inn, taking care each day to encounter Miss Tattersby on one
pretext or another, hoping that their acquaintance would ripen into
friendship, and then into something warmer. Nor was the hope a vain one, for
when the far Marjorie learned that it was the visitor's intention to remain
in the neighborhood until her father's return, she herself bade him to make
use of the old gentleman's library, to regard himself always as a welcome
daytime guest. She even suggested pleasant walks through the neighboring
country, little canoe trips up and down the Thames, which they might take
together, of all of which Holmes promptly availed himself, with the result
that, at the end of six days, both realized that they were designed for each
other, and a passionate declaration followed which opened new vistas of
