Chapter 2

"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 fair 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
happiness for both. Hence it was that, when the Reverend James Tattersby
arrived at Goring-Streatley the following Monday night, unexpectedly, he was
astounded to find sitting together in the moonlight, in the charming little
English garden at the rear of his dwelling, two persons, one of whom was his
daughter Marjorie and the other a young American curate to whom he had
already been introduced as A. J. Raffles.

"'We have met before, I think,' said Raffles, coldly, as his eye fell upon
Holmes.

"'I--er--do not recall the fact,' replied Holmes, meeting the steely stare
of the home-comer with one of his own flinty glances.

"'H'm!' ejaculated Raffles, non-plussed at the other's failure to recognize
him. Then he shivered slightly. 'Suppose we go in-doors, it is a trifle
chilly out here in the night air.'

"The whole thing, the greeting, the meeting, Holmes's demeanor and all, was
so admirably handled that Marjorie Tattersby never guessed the truth, never
even suspected the intense dramatic quality of the scene she had just gazed
upon.

"'Yes, let us go in-doors,' she acquiesced. 'Mr. Dutton has something to say
to you, papa.'

"'So I presumed,' said Raffles, dryly. 'And something that were better said
to me alone, I fancy, eh?' he added.

"'Quite so,' said Holmes, calmly. And in-doors they went. Marjorie
immediately retired to the drawing-room, and Holmes and Raffles went at once
to Tattersby's study.

"'Well?' said Raffles, impatiently, when they were seated. 'I suppose you
have come to get the Dorrington seal, Mr. Holmes.'

"'Ah--you know me, then, Mr. Raffles?' said Holmes, with a pleasant smile.

"'Perfectly,' said Raffles. 'I knew you at Dorrington Hall the moment I set
eyes on you, and, if I hadn't, I should have known later, for the night
after your departure Lord Dorrington took me into his confidence and
revealed your identity to me.'

"'I am glad,' said Holmes. 'It saves me a great deal of unnecessary
explanation. If you admit that you have the seal--"

"'But I don't,' said Raffles. 'I mentioned it a moment ago, because
Dorrington told me that was what you were after. I haven't got it, Mr.
Holmes.'

"'I know that,' observed Holmes, quietly. 'It is in the possession of Miss
Tattersby, your daughter, Mr. Raffles.'

"'She showed it to you, eh?' demanded Raffles, paling.

"'No. She sealed a note to me with it, however,' Holmes replied.

"'A note to you?' cried Raffles.

"'Yes. One asking for my autograph. I have it in my possession,' said
Holmes.

"'And how do you know that she is the person from whom that note really
came?' Raffles asked.

"'Because I have seen the autograph which was sent in response to that
request in your daughter's collection, Mr. Raffles,' said Holmes.

"'So that you conclude--?' Raffles put in, hoarsely.

"'I do not conclude; I begin by surmising, sir, that the missing seal of
Lord Dorrington was stolen by one of two persons--yourself or Miss Marjorie
Tattersby,' said Holmes, calmly.

"'Sir!' roared Raffles, springing to his feet menacingly.

"'Sit down, please,' said Holmes. 'You did not let me finish. I was going to
add, Dr. Tattersby, that a week's acquaintance with that lovely woman, a
full knowledge of her peculiarly exalted character and guileless nature,
makes the alternative of guilt that affects her integrity clearly
preposterous, which, by a very simple process of elimination, fastens the
guilt, beyond all peradventure, on your shoulders. At any rate, the presence
of the seal in this house will involve you in difficult explanations. Why is
it here? How did it come here? Why are you known as the Reverend James
Tattersby, the missionary, at Goring-Streatley, and as Mr. A. J. Raffles,
the cricketer and man of the world, at Dorrington Hall, to say nothing of
the Cliveden plate--'

"'Damnation!' roared the Reverend James Tattersby again, springing to his
feet and glancing instinctively at the long low book-shelves behind him.

"'To say nothing,' continued Holmes, calmly lighting a cigarette, 'of the
Cliveden plate now lying concealed behind those dusty theological tomes of
yours which you never allow to be touched by any other hand than your own.'

"'How did you know?' cried Raffles, hoarsely.

"'I didn't,' laughed Holmes. 'You have only this moment informed me of the
fact!'

"There was a long pause, during which Raffles paced the floor like a caged
tiger.

"'I'm a dangerous man to trifle with, Mr. Holmes,' he said, finally. 'I can
shoot you down in cold blood in a second.'

"'Very likely,' said Holmes. 'But you won't. It would add to the
difficulties in which the Reverend James Tattersby is already deeply
immersed. Your troubles are sufficient, as matters stand, without your
having to explain to the world why you have killed a defenceless guest in
your own study in cold blood.

"'Well--what do you propose to do?' demanded Raffles, after another pause.

"'Marry your daughter, Mr. Raffles, or Tattersby, whatever your permanent
name is--I guess it's Tattersby in this case,' said Holmes. 'I love her and
she loves me. Perhaps I should apologize for having wooed and won her
without due notice to you, but you doubtless will forgive that. It's a
little formality you sometimes overlook yourself when you happen to want
something that belongs to somebody else.'

"What Raffles would have answered no one knows. He had no chance to reply,
for at that moment Marjorie herself put her radiantly lovely little head in
at the door with a 'May I come in?' and a moment later she was gathered in
Holmes's arms, and the happy lovers received the Reverend James Tattersby's
blessing. They were married a week later, and, as far as the world is
concerned, the mystery of the Dorrington seal and that of the Cliveden plate
was never solved.

"'It is compounding a felony, Raffles,' said Holmes, after the wedding, 'but
for a wife like that, hanged if I wouldn't compound the ten commandments!'

"I hope," I ventured to put in at that point, "that the marriage ceremony
was not performed by the Reverend James Tattersby."

"Not on your life!" retorted Raffles Holmes. "My father was too fond of my
mother to permit of any flaw in his title. A year later I was born, and--
well, here I am--son of one, grandson of the other, with hereditary traits
from both strongly developed and ready for business. I want a literary
partner--a man who will write me up as Bunny did Raffles, and Watson did
Holmes, so that I may get a percentage on that part of the swag. I offer you
the job, Jenkins. Those royalty statements show me that you are the man, and
your books prove to me that you need a few fresh ideas. Come, what do you
say? Will you do it?"

"My boy," said I, enthusiastically, "don't say another word. Will I? Well,
just try me!"

And so it was that Raffles Holmes and I struck a bargain and became
partners.