The Sleuth of St. James Street [28]
beyond the possibility of any error - that Mr. Arthur Meadows, the pretended American from St. Paul, was in fact the celebrated criminologist, Karl Holweg Leibnich, of Bonn, giving us the favor of his learned presence while he signaled the German submarines off the east coast roads with his high-powered motor lights.'" Now there was utter silence in the drawing-room but for the low of the Highland cattle and the singing of the birds outside For the first time there came a little tremor in the girl's voice. "When Sir Henry doubted this American and asked me to go down and make sure before he set a trap for him, I thought - I thought, if Tony could risk his life for England, I could do that much." At this moment a maid appeared in the doorway, the trim, immaculate, typical English maid. "Tea is served, my lady," she said. The tall, fine old man crossed the room and offered his arm to the girl with the exquisite, gracious manner with which once upon a time he had offered it to a girlish queen at Windsor. The ancient woman rose as if she would go out before them. Then suddenly, at the door, she stepped aside for the girl to pass, making the long, stooping, backward curtsy of the passed Victorian era. "After you, my dear," she said, "always!"
V. The Man in the Green Hat
"Alas, monsieur, in spite of our fine courtesies, the conception of justice by one race must always seem outlandish to another!" It was on the terrace of Sir Henry Marquis' villa at Cannes. The members of the little party were in conversation over their tobacco - the Englishman, with his brier-root pipe; the American Justice, with a Havana cigar; and the aged Italian, with his cigarette. The last was speaking. He was a very old man, but he gave one the impression of incredible, preposterous age. He was bald; he had neither eyebrows nor eyelashes. A wiry mustache, yellow with nicotine, alone remained. Great wrinkles lay below the eyes and along the jaw, under a skin stretched like parchment over the bony protuberances of the face. These things established the aspect of old age; but it was the man's expression and manner that gave one the sense of incalculable antiquity. The eyes seemed to look out from a window, where the man behind them had sat watching the human race from the beginning. And his manners had the completion of one whose experience of life is comprehensive and finished. "It seems strange to you, monsieur" - he was addressing, in French, the American Justice - "that we should put our prisoners into an iron cage, as beasts are exhibited in a circus. You are shocked at that. It strikes you as the crudity of a race not quite civilized. "You inquire about it with perfect courtesy; but, monsieur, you inquire as one inquires about a custom that his sense of justice rejects." He paused. "Your pardon, monsieur; but there are some conceptions of justice in the law of your admirable country that seem equally strange to me." The men about the Count on the exquisite terrace, looking down over Cannes into the arc of the sea, felt that the great age of this man gave him a right of frankness, a privilege of direct expression, they could not resent. Somehow, at the extremity of life, he seemed beyond pretenses; and he had the right to omit the digressions by which younger men are accustomed to approach the truth. "What is this strange thing in our law, Count?" said the American. The old man made a vague gesture, as one who puts away art inquiry until the answer appears. "Many years ago," he continued, "I read a story about the red Indians by your author, Cooper. It was named `The Oak Openings,' and was included, I think, in a volume entitled Stories of the Prairie. I believe I have the names quite right, since the author impressed me as an inferior comer with an abundance of gold about him. In the story Corporal Flint was captured by the Indians under the leadership of Bough of Oak, a cruel and bloodthirsty savage. "This hideous beast determined to put his prisoner to the torture of the saplings, a barbarity rivaling the crucifixion of the
V. The Man in the Green Hat
"Alas, monsieur, in spite of our fine courtesies, the conception of justice by one race must always seem outlandish to another!" It was on the terrace of Sir Henry Marquis' villa at Cannes. The members of the little party were in conversation over their tobacco - the Englishman, with his brier-root pipe; the American Justice, with a Havana cigar; and the aged Italian, with his cigarette. The last was speaking. He was a very old man, but he gave one the impression of incredible, preposterous age. He was bald; he had neither eyebrows nor eyelashes. A wiry mustache, yellow with nicotine, alone remained. Great wrinkles lay below the eyes and along the jaw, under a skin stretched like parchment over the bony protuberances of the face. These things established the aspect of old age; but it was the man's expression and manner that gave one the sense of incalculable antiquity. The eyes seemed to look out from a window, where the man behind them had sat watching the human race from the beginning. And his manners had the completion of one whose experience of life is comprehensive and finished. "It seems strange to you, monsieur" - he was addressing, in French, the American Justice - "that we should put our prisoners into an iron cage, as beasts are exhibited in a circus. You are shocked at that. It strikes you as the crudity of a race not quite civilized. "You inquire about it with perfect courtesy; but, monsieur, you inquire as one inquires about a custom that his sense of justice rejects." He paused. "Your pardon, monsieur; but there are some conceptions of justice in the law of your admirable country that seem equally strange to me." The men about the Count on the exquisite terrace, looking down over Cannes into the arc of the sea, felt that the great age of this man gave him a right of frankness, a privilege of direct expression, they could not resent. Somehow, at the extremity of life, he seemed beyond pretenses; and he had the right to omit the digressions by which younger men are accustomed to approach the truth. "What is this strange thing in our law, Count?" said the American. The old man made a vague gesture, as one who puts away art inquiry until the answer appears. "Many years ago," he continued, "I read a story about the red Indians by your author, Cooper. It was named `The Oak Openings,' and was included, I think, in a volume entitled Stories of the Prairie. I believe I have the names quite right, since the author impressed me as an inferior comer with an abundance of gold about him. In the story Corporal Flint was captured by the Indians under the leadership of Bough of Oak, a cruel and bloodthirsty savage. "This hideous beast determined to put his prisoner to the torture of the saplings, a barbarity rivaling the crucifixion of the