The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

'One moment,' I interposed, picking up a newspaper from the couch. 'There is a reference to the duchess in today's Telegraph, announcing the engagement of her daughter, Lady Mary Gladsdale, to Sir James Fortesque, the cabinet minister.'

'Quite so. There lies the beautifully tempered point in this sword of Damocles.' Holmes drew two sheets of paper, pinned together, from the pocket of his dressing-gown and tossed them across to me. 'What do you make of those, Watson?' he said.

'One is a copy of a marriage certificate between Henry Corwyn Gladsdale, bachelor, and Franзoise Pelletan, spinster, dated June 12th, 1848 and issued at Valence in France,' I observed, glancing through the documents. 'The other would appear to be the entry of the same marriage in the Valence church registry. Who was this Henry Gladsdale?'

'He became Duke of Carringford upon the death of his uncle in 1854,' said Holmes grimly, 'and five years later took to wife the Lady Constance Ellington, at present Duchess of Carringford.'

'Then he was a widower.'

To my surprise, Holmes drove his fist violently into the palm of his hand. 'There is the diabolical cruelty of it, Watson,' he cried. 'We do not know! Indeed, the duchess is now told for the first time of this secret mar­riage made in her husband's youth when he was staying on the Continent. She is informed that his first wife is alive and ready if necessary to come forward, that her own marriage is bigamous, her position spurious, and the status of her child illegitimate.'

'What, after thirty-eight years! This is monstrous, Holmes!'

'Add to that, Watson, that ignorance is not innocence in the eyes of society or the law. As to the lapse of time, it is claimed that the French wife, after her husband's sudden disappearance, did not associate Mr. Henry Gladsdale with the Duke of Carringford. Nevertheless, it is un­likely that I would engage in an affair of this nature were it not for the introduction of a more sinister element.'

'I noticed that in speaking of the first wife coming forward you used the term 'if necessary.' So it is black­mail and doubtless for a large sum of money.'

'We are moving in deeper waters, Watson. No money is demanded. The price of silence lies in the duchess' delivery of certain copies of state papers now lying in a sealed box in the strong-room of Lloyds Bank in Oxford Street.'

'Preposterous, Holmes!'

'Not so preposterous. Remember that the late duke was Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs and that it is not unknown for great servants of the Crown to preserve copies of papers and memoranda when the originals themselves are safely lodged in the custody of the State. There are many reasons why a man in the duke's position might keep copies of certain documents which, innocent enough at the time, may become under the changing circumstances of later years matters of utmost gravity if viewed by a foreign, and perhaps unfriendly, government. This unhappy lady is faced with the choice of an act of treason to her country as a price for this marriage certifi­cate or a public exposure followed by the ruination of one of the most revered names in England and the de­struction of two innocent women, one of them on the eve of her marriage. And the devil of it is, Watson, that I am powerless to help them.'

'Have you seen the originals of these Valence docu­ments?'

'The duchess has seen them and they appear to be perfectly genuine, nor can she doubt her husband's signature.'

'It might be a forgery.'

'True, but I have already ascertained from Valence that there was a woman of that name living there in 1848, that she married an Englishman and later moved to some other locality.'

'But surely, Holmes, a provincial Frenchwoman, if driven to blackmail by the desertion of her husband, would demand money,' I protested. 'What possible use could she have for copies of state papers?'

'Ah! There you put your finger on it, Watson, and hence my presence in the case. Have you ever heard of Edith von Lammerain?'

'I cannot recall the name.'

'She is a remarkable woman,' he continued musingly. 'Her father was some sort of petty officer in the Russian Black Sea Fleet and her mother kept a tavern in Odessa. By the time that she was twenty, she had fled her home and established herself in Budapest where, overnight, she gained notoriety as the cause of a sabre duel in which both combatants were slain. Later, she married an elderly Prussian Junker who, having borne away his bride to his country estate, upped and died most conveniently within three months from eating a surfeit of turtle-doves stuffed with chestnuts. They must have been interesting, those chestnuts!

'You will take my word for it,' he went on, 'that for the past year or so the most brilliant functions of the Season, be it London, Paris or Berlin, would be considered incomplete without her presence. If ever a woman was made by Nature for the profession of her choice, then that woman is Edith von Lammerain.'

'You mean that she is a spy?'

'Tut, she is as much above a spy as I above the ordinary police-detective. I would put it that I have long suspected her of moving in the highest circles of political intrigue. This, then, is the woman, as clever as she is ambitious and merciless, who, armed with the papers of this secret marriage, now threatens to ruin the Duchess of Carringford and her daughter unless she consents to an act of treason, the results of which may be incalculable in their damage to England.' Holmes paused to knock out his pipe into the nearest tea-cup. 'And I remain here useless, Watson, useless and helpless to shield an innocent woman who in her agony has turned to me for guidance and protection,' he ended savagely.

'It is indeed a most infamous business,' I said. 'But, if Billy's message refers to it, then there is a footman involved.'

'Well, I confess that I am deeply puzzled by that message,' Holmes replied, staring down thoughtfully at the stream of hansoms and carriages passing beneath out window. 'Incidentally, the gentleman known as Footman Boyce is not a lackey, my dear Watson, though he takes his nickname, I believe, from the circumstance that he commenced his career as a man-servant. He is in fact the leader of the second most dangerous gang of slashers and racing-touts in London. I doubt that he bears me much goodwill, for it was largely owing to my efforts that he received two years on that Rockmorton horse-doping affair. But blackmail is out of his line and I can­not see—' Holmes broke off sharply and craning his neck peered down into the street. 'By Jove, it is the man him­self!' he ejaculated. 'And coming here, unless I am much mistaken. Perhaps it would be as well, Watson, if you concealed yourself behind the bedroom door,' he added with a chuckle as, crossing to the fireplace, he threw him­self into his chair. 'Mr. Footman Boyce is not among those whose conversational eloquence is encouraged by the presence of a witness.'

There came a jangle from the bell below and as I slipped into the bedroom I caught the creak of heavy steps upon the stairs followed by a knock and Holmes's summons to enter.

Through the crack in the door I had a glimpse of a stout man with a red, good-natured face and bushy whiskers, clad in a check overcoat and sporting a brown bowler hat, gloves and a heavy malacca cane. I had expected a type far different from this vulgar, comfortable person whose appearance was more in keeping with a country yeoman until, as he stared at Holmes from the threshold of our sitting-room, I had a good view of his eyes. They were round as two glittering beads, very bright and hard, with that dreadful suggestion of stillness that belongs to the eyes of venomous reptiles.

'We must have a word, Mr. Holmes,' he said in a shrill voice curiously at variance with that portly body. 'Really, we must have a word. May I take a seat?'

'I would prefer that we both stand,' came my friend's stern reply.

'Well, well.' The man turned his great red face slowly round the room. 'You're very snug here, very comfortable and snug and lacking nothing, I'll be bound, in the way of home cooking by that respectable woman who opened the door to me. Why deprive her of a good lodger, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?'

'I am not contemplating a change of address.'

'Ah, but there are others who might contemplate it for you. 'Let be,' says I, 'Mr. Holmes is a nice-looking gent.' 'Maybe' says others, 'if his nose wasn't a little too long for the rest of his features, so that it is forever sticking itself into affairs that are no concern of his.' '

'You interest me profoundly. By the way, Boyce, you must have received pressing orders to have brought you up from Brighton at a moment's notice.'