The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

night in order to fasten upon the perpetrator of this out­rage speaks highly for your public spirit, sir! Most highly!'

Holmes bowed. 'The Abbas Ruby is a famous stone, Sir John.'

'Ah, the ruby. Yes, yes, of course,' replied Sir John Doverton. 'Most lamentable. Fortunately, there are buds. Your knowledge of flowers will tell you—' He broke off as his wife laid her fingers on his arm.

'As the matter is already in the hands of the police,' she said haughtily, 'I do not understand why we should be honoured by this visit from Mr. Sherlock Holmes.'

'I shall take up very little of your time, Lady Doverton,' replied my friend. 'A few minutes in your conservatory should suffice.'

'With what object, sir? What possible connection can there be between my husband's conservatory and the missing jewel?'

'It is that I wish to determine.'

Lady Doverton smiled coldly. 'In the meantime, the police will have arrested the thief.'

'I think not.'

'Absurd! The man who fled was a convicted jewel-robber. It is obvious.'

'Perhaps too obvious, madam! Does it not strike you as somewhat singular that an ex-convict, though aware that his record was known already to your brother, should steal a famous stone from his own employer and then conveniently condemn himself by secreting the jewel-box under his mattress, where even Scotland Yard could be relied upon to search?'

Lady Doverton put a hand to her bosom. 'I had not considered the matter in that light,' she said.

'Naturally. But, dear me, what a beautiful blossom! I take it that this is the red camellia which you plucked this afternoon?'

'This evening, sir, just before dinner.'

'Spes ultima gentis!' observed Sir John gloomily. 'At least, until the next crop.'

'Just so. It would interest me to see your conservatory.'

We followed our guide along a short passage which, opening from the library, terminated in the glass door of a hothouse. While the famous horticulturist and I waited at the entrance, Holmes commenced a slow tour through the warm, stifling darkness, the lighted candle which he bore in his hand appearing and disappearing like some great glow-worm amid the weird shapes of cacti and curious tropical shrubs. Holding the light close to the camellia bush, he spent some time peering through his lens.

'The victims of a vandal's knife,' groaned Sir John.

'No, they were snipped with a small pair of curved nail-scissors,' Holmes remarked. 'You will observe that there is no shredding on the stalks such as a knife would cause, and furthermore, the small cut on this leaf shows that the scissor-points overreached the stem of the flower. Well, I think that there is nothing more to be learned here.'

We were retracing our steps when Holmes paused at a small window in the passage and, opening the catch, struck a match and craned over the sill.

'It overlooks a path used by the tradesmen,' volun­teered Sir John.

I leaned over my friend's shoulder. Below, the snow lay in a long, smooth drift from the house wall to the edge of a narrow pathway. Holmes said nothing but, as he turned away, I noticed that there was something of surprise, almost of chagrin, in his expression.

Lady Doverton was awaiting us in the library.

'I fear that your reputation is overrated, Mr. Holmes,' she said, with a gleam of amusement in her fine blue eyes. 'I expected you to return with all the missing flowers and perhaps even the Abbas Ruby itself!'

'At least, I have every hope of returning you the latter, madam,' said Holmes coldly.

'A dangerous boast, Mr. Holmes.'

'Others will tell you that boasting is not among my habits. And now, as Dr. Watson and I are already some­ what overdue at the Nonpareil Club—dear me, Lady Doverton, I fear that you have broken your fan—it only remains for me to express our regret for this intrusion and to wish you a very good night.'

We had driven as far as Oxford Street when Holmes, who had sat in complete silence with his chin upon his breast, suddenly sprang to his feet, pushed up the trap and shouted an order to our driver.

'What a fool!' he cried, clapping a hand to his fore­head, as our hansom turned in its tracks. 'What mental abberation!'

'What then?'

'Watson, if I ever show signs of self-satisfaction, kindly whisper the word 'camellias' in my ear.'

A few minutes later, we had alighted again before the portico of Sir John Doverton's mansion. 'There is no need to disturb the household,' muttered Holmes. 'I imagine that this is the gate into the tradesmen's entrance.'

My friend led the way swiftly along the path skirting the wall of the house until we found ourselves under a window which I recognized as the one opening from the passage. Then, throwing himself on his knees he commenced carefully to scoop away the snow with his bare hands. After a few moments, he straightened himself and I saw that he had cleared a large dark patch.

'Let us risk a match, Watson,' he chuckled.

I lit one and there, on the black earth exposed by Holmes's burrowings in the snow-drift, lay a little reddish- brown heap of frozen flowers.

'The camellias!' I exclaimed. 'My dear fellow, what does this mean?'

My friend's face was very stern as he rose to his feet.

'Villainy, Watson!' said he. 'Clever, calculated vil­lainy.'

He picked up one of the dead flowers and stood for a while silently contemplating the dark, withered petals in the palm of his hand.

'It is as well for Andrew Joliffe that he reached Baker Street before Gregson reached him,' he observed thoughtfully.

'Shall I raise the house?' I asked.

'Ever the man of action, Watson,' he replied, with a dry chuckle. 'No, my dear fellow, I think that we would be better employed in making our way quietly back to our hansom and then on to the purlieus of St. James's.'

In the events of the evening, I had lost all sense of time, and it came as something of a shock when, as we wheeled from Piccadilly into St. James's Street and stopped before the door of an elegant, well-lighted house, I saw from the clock above Palace Yard that it was not far short of midnight.

'When its neighbours of clubland go to bed the Non­pareil Club comes into its own,' remarked Holmes, ring­ ing the bell. He scribbled a note on his calling-card and, handing it to the manservant at the door, he led the way into the hall.

As we followed the servant up a marble staircase to the floor above, I caught a glimpse of lofty and luxurious rooms in which small groups of men, clad in evening dress, were sitting about and reading papers or gathered round rosewood card-tables.

Our guide knocked at a door and a moment later we found ourselves in a small, comfortably furnished room hung with sporting prints and smelling strongly of cigar smoke. A tall, soldierly-looking man with a close-cropped moustache and thick auburn hair, who was lounging in a chair before the fireplace, made no attempt to rise at our entrance but, whirling Holmes's card between his fingers, surveyed us coldly through a pair of blue eyes that reminded me forcibly of Lady Doverton.

'You choose strange times to call, gentlemen,' he said, with a trace of hostility in his voice. 'It's cursed late.'

'And getting later,' my friend observed. 'No, Captain Masterman, a chair is unnecessary. I prefer to stand.'

'Stand, then. What do you want?'

'The Abbas Ruby,' said Sherlock Holmes quietly.

I started and gripped my stick. There was a moment of silence while Masterman stared up at Holmes from the depth of his chair. Then throwing back his head, he laughed heartily.

'My dear sir, you must really excuse me!' he cried at length, his handsome face all a-grin. 'But your demand is a little excessive. The Nonpareil Club does not number absconding servants among its members. You must seek