“I’ll see to that, your Ladyship,” said the constable. “Your Ladyship actually saw the crime committed, did you not?”
“Yes, yes, I saw it with my own eyes. It was horrible. We heard the noise and we came down. My poor husband was in front. The man had one of the cases open, and was filling a black leather bag which he held in his hand. He rushed past us, and my husband seized him. There was a struggle, and he stabbed him twice. There you can see the blood upon his hands. If I am not mistaken, his knife is still in Lord Mannering’s body.”
“Look at the blood upon her hands!” I cried.
“She has been holding up his Lordship’s head, you lying rascal,” said the butler.
“And here’s the very sack her Ladyship spoke of,” said the constable, as a groom came in with the one which I had dropped in my flight. “And here are the medals inside it. That’s good enough for me. We will keep him safe here tonight, and tomorrow the inspector and I can take him into Salisbury.”
“Poor creature,” said the woman. “For my own part, I forgive him any injury which he has done me. Who knows what temptation may have driven him to crime? His conscience and the law will give him punishment enough without any reproach of mine rendering it more bitter.”
I could not answer—I tell you, sir, I could not answer, so taken aback was I by the assurance of the woman. And so, seeming by my silence to agree to all that she had said, I was dragged away by the butler and the constable into the cellar, in which they locked me for the night.
There, sir, I have told you the whole story of the events which led up to the murder of Lord Mannering by his wife upon the night of September the 14th, in the year 1894. Perhaps you will put my statement on one side as the constable did at Mannering Towers, or the judge afterwards at the county assizes. Or perhaps you will see that there is the ring of truth in what I say, and you will follow it up, and so make your name forever as a man who does not grudge personal trouble where justice is to be done. I have only you to look to, sir, and if you will clear my name of this false accusation, then I will worship you as one man never yet worshiped another. But if you fail me, then I give you my solemn promise that I will rope myself up, this day month, to the bar of my window, and from that time on I will come to plague you in your dreams if ever yet one man was able to come back and to haunt another. What I ask you to do is very simple. Make inquiries about this woman, watch her, learn her past history, find out what use she is making of the money which has come to her, and whether there is not a man Edward as I have stated. If from all this you learn anything which shows you her real character, or which seems to you to corroborate the story which I have told you, then I am sure that I can rely upon your goodness of heart to come to the rescue of an innocent man.
Other rediscovered classics
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
available from Chronicle Books:
The Lost World & The Poison Belt
The Professor Challenger Adventures: Volume I
Introduction by William Gibson
When the World Screamed & Other Stories
The Professor Challenger Adventures: Volume II
“The reader who takes up the book may make sure of having quite enough thrills to last him for some time.”
—The Spectator, October 17, 1908
“Again and again the sly and highly intellectual humor of the author is in evidence, even in his quite seriously conceived tales.”
—The New York Times, November 21, 1908
Originally published in 1908 and out of print for more than half a century, this collection of stories, complete with a Preface by the author, presents Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at his finest. These are seventeen tales of suspense and adventure, of the mysterious and the fantastic, meant to be read “round the fire” upon a winter’s night. Murder, madness, ghosts, unsolved crimes, diabolical traps, and inexplicable disappearances abound in these exciting accounts narrated by doctors, lawyers, gentlemen, teachers, burglars, dilettantes and convicted criminals. The titles are inviting – “The Pot of Caviare,” “The Clubfooted Grocer,” “The Brazilian Cat,” “The Sealed Room,” and “The Fiend of the Cooperage” – and the stories are riveting. This is a rediscovered classic by a master storyteller.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) is the creator of Sherlock Holmes, the world’s most famous detective. Born in Scotland, Conan Doyle was a practicing physician when he began writing tales of mystery and adventure. In addition to sixty Holmes stories, he wrote the Professor Challenger adventures and many short stories.
Round the Fire Stories is the third volume of rediscovered classics by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be published in paperback by Chronicle Books. Also available are The Lost World & The Poison Belt: Professor Challenger Adventures Volume I and When the World Screamed & Other Stories: Professor Challenger Adventures Volume II.
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