It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was
interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of
the Honourable Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable
circumstances. The public has already learned those particulars
of the crime which came out in the police investigation, but a
good deal was suppressed upon that occasion, since the case for
the prosecution was so overwhelmingly strong that it was not
necessary to bring forward all the facts. Only now, at the end of
nearly ten years, am I allowed to supply those missing links
which make up the whole of that remarkable chain. The crime was
of interest in itself, but that interest was as nothing to me
compared to the inconceivable sequel, which afforded me the
greatest shock and surprise of any event in my adventurous life.
Even now, after this long interval, I find myself thrilling as I
think of it, and feeling once more that sudden flood of joy,
amazement, and incredulity which utterly submerged my mind. Let
me say to that public, which has shown some interest in those
glimpses which I have occasionally given them of the thoughts and
actions of a very remarkable man, that they are not to blame me
if I have not shared my knowledge with them, for I should have
considered it my first duty to do so, had I not been barred by a
positive prohibition from his own lips, which was only withdrawn
upon the third of last month.
It can be imagined that my close intimacy with Sherlock Holmes
had interested me deeply in crime, and that after his
disappearance I never failed to read with care the various
problems which came before the public. And I even attempted, more
than once, for my own private satisfaction, to employ his methods
in their solution, though with indifferent success. There was
none, however, which appealed to me like this tragedy of Ronald
Adair. As I read the evidence at the inquest, which led up to a
verdict of willful murder against some person or persons unknown,
I realized more clearly than I had ever done the loss which the
community had sustained by the death of Sherlock Holmes. There
were points about this strange business which would, I was sure,
have specially appealed to him, and the efforts of the police
would have been supplemented, or more probably anticipated, by
the trained observation and the alert mind of the first criminal
agent in Europe. All day, as I drove upon my round, I turned over
the case in my mind and found no explanation which appeared to me
to be adequate. At the risk of telling a twice-told tale, I will
recapitulate the facts as they were known to the public at the
conclusion of the inquest.
The Honourable Ronald Adair was the second son of the Earl of
Maynooth, at that time governor of one of the Australian
colonies. Adair’s mother had returned from Australia to undergo
the operation for cataract, and she, her son Ronald, and her
daughter Hilda were living together at 427, Park Lane. The youth
moved in the best society—had, so far as was known, no enemies
and no particular vices. He had been engaged to Miss Edith
Woodley, of Carstairs, but the engagement had been broken off by
mutual consent some months before, and there was no sign that it
had left any very profound feeling behind it. For the rest, the
man’s life moved in a narrow and conventional circle, for his
habits were quiet and his nature unemotional. Yet it was upon
this easy-going young aristocrat that death came, in most strange
and unexpected form, between the hours of ten and eleven-twenty
on the night of March 30, 1894.
Ronald Adair was fond of cards—playing continually, but never for
such stakes as would hurt him. He was a member of the Baldwin,
the Cavendish, and the Bagatelle card clubs. It was shown that,
after dinner on the day of his death, he had played a rubber of
whist at the latter club. He had also played there in the
afternoon. The evidence of those who had played with him—Mr.
Murray, Sir John Hardy, and Colonel Moran—showed that the game
was whist, and that there was a fairly equal fall of the cards.
Adair might have lost five pounds, but not more. His fortune was
a considerable one, and such a loss could not in any way affect
him. He had played nearly every day at one club or other, but he
was a cautious player, and usually rose a winner. It came out in
evidence that, in partnership with Colonel Moran, he had actually
won as much as four hundred and twenty pounds in a sitting, some
weeks before, from Godfrey Milner and Lord Balmoral. So much for
his recent history as it came out at the inquest.
On the evening of the crime, he returned from the club exactly at
ten. His mother and sister were out spending the evening with a
relation. The servant deposed that she heard him enter the front
room on the second floor, generally used as his sitting-room. She
had lit a fire there, and as it smoked she had opened the window.
No sound was heard from the room until eleven-twenty, the hour of
the return of Lady Maynooth and her daughter. Desiring to say
good-night, she attempted to enter her son’s room. The door was
locked on the inside, and no answer could be got to their cries
and knocking. Help was obtained, and the door forced. The
unfortunate young man was found lying near the table. His head
had been horribly mutilated by an expanding revolver bullet, but
no weapon of any sort was to be found in the room. On the table
lay two banknotes for ten pounds each and seventeen pounds ten in
silver and gold, the money arranged in little piles of varying
amount. There were some figures also upon a sheet of paper, with
the names of some club friends opposite to them, from which it
was conjectured that before his death he was endeavouring to make
out his losses or winnings at cards.
A minute examination of the circumstances served only to make the
case more complex. In the first place, no reason could be given
why the young man should have fastened the door upon the inside.
There was the possibility that the murderer had done this, and
had afterwards escaped by the window. The drop was at least
twenty feet, however, and a bed of crocuses in full bloom lay
beneath. Neither the flowers nor the earth showed any sign of
having been disturbed, nor were there any marks upon the narrow
strip of grass which separated the house from the road.
Apparently, therefore, it was the young man himself who had
fastened the door. But how did he come by his death? No one could
have climbed up to the window without leaving traces. Suppose a
man had fired through the window, he would indeed be a remarkable
shot who could with a revolver inflict so deadly a wound. Again,
Park Lane is a frequented thoroughfare; there is a cab stand
within a hundred yards of the house. No one had heard a shot. And
yet there was the dead man and there the revolver bullet, which
had mushroomed out, as soft-nosed bullets will, and so inflicted
a wound which must have caused instantaneous death. Such were the
circumstances of the Park Lane Mystery, which were further
complicated by entire absence of motive, since, as I have said,
young Adair was not known to have any enemy, and no attempt had
been made to remove the money or valuables in the room.
All day I turned these facts over in my mind, endeavouring to hit
upon some theory which could reconcile them all, and to find that
line of least resistance which my poor friend had declared to be
the starting-point of every investigation. I confess that I made
little progress. In the evening I strolled across the Park, and
found myself about six o’clock at the Oxford Street end of Park
Lane. A group of loafers upon the pavements, all staring up at a
particular window, directed me to the house which I had come to
see. A tall, thin man with coloured glasses, whom I strongly
suspected of being a plain-clothes detective, was pointing out
some theory of his own, while the others crowded round to listen
to what he said. I got as near him as I could, but his
observations seemed to me to be absurd, so I withdrew again in
some disgust. As I did so I struck against an elderly, deformed
man, who had been behind me, and I knocked down several books
which he was carrying. I remember that as I picked them up, I
observed the title of one of them, _The Origin of Tree Worship_,
and it struck me that the fellow must be some poor bibliophile,
who, either as a trade or as a hobby, was a collector of obscure
volumes. I endeavoured to apologize for the accident, but it was
evident that these books which I had so unfortunately maltreated
were very precious objects in the eyes of their owner. With a
snarl of contempt he turned upon his heel, and I saw his curved
back and white side-whiskers disappear among the throng.
My observations of No. 427, Park Lane did little to clear up the
problem in which I was interested. The house was separated from
the street by a low wall and railing, the whole not more than
five feet high. It was perfectly easy, therefore, for anyone to
get into the garden, but the window was entirely inaccessible,
since there was no waterpipe or anything which could help the
most active man to climb it. More puzzled than ever, I retraced
my steps to Kensington. I had not been in my study five minutes
when the maid entered to say that a person desired to see me. To
my astonishment it was none other than my strange old book
collector, his sharp, wizened face peering out from a frame of
white hair, and his precious volumes, a dozen of them at least,
wedged under his right arm.
“You’re surprised to see me, sir,” said he, in a strange,
croaking voice.