LORD ARTHUR SAVILE’S CRIME AND OTHER STORIES

Contents

Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime

The Canterville Ghost
The Sphinx Without a Secret
The Model Millionaire
The Portrait of Mr. W. H.

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE’S CRIME

CHAPTER I

It was Lady Windermere’s last reception before Easter, and Bentinck House was even more crowded than
usual. Six Cabinet Ministers had come on from the Speaker’s Levée in their stars and ribands, all the pretty
women wore their smartest dresses, and at the end of the picture-gallery stood the Princess Sophia of
Carlsrühe, a heavy Tartar-looking lady, with tiny black eyes and wonderful emeralds, talking bad French at
the top of her voice, and laughing immoderately at everything that was said to her. It was certainly a
wonderful medley of people. Gorgeous peeresses chatted affably to violent Radicals, popular preachers
brushed coat-tails with eminent sceptics, a perfect bevy of bishops kept following a stout prima-donna from
room to room, on the staircase stood several Royal Academicians, disguised as artists, and it was said that at
one time the supper-room was absolutely crammed with geniuses. In fact, it was one of Lady Windermere’s
best nights, and the Princess stayed till nearly half-past eleven.

As soon as she had gone, Lady Windermere returned to the picture-gallery, where a celebrated political
economist was solemnly explaining the scientific theory of music to an indignant virtuoso from Hungary, and
began to talk to the Duchess of Paisley. She looked wonderfully beautiful with her grand ivory throat, her
large blue forget-me-not eyes, and her heavy coils of golden hair. Or pur they were - not that pale straw
colour that nowadays usurps the gracious name of gold, but such gold as is woven into sunbeams or hidden in
strange amber; and they gave to her face something of the frame of a saint, with not a little of the fascination
of a sinner. She was a curious psychological study. Early in life she had discovered the important truth that
nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of them quite
harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a personality. She had more than once changed her husband;
indeed, Debrett credits her with three marriages; but as she had never changed her lover, the world had long

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE’S CRIME AND OTHER STORIES 1

 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

ago ceased to talk scandal about her. She was now forty years of age, childless, and with that inordinate
passion for pleasure which is the secret of remaining young.

Suddenly she looked eagerly round the room, and said, in her clear contralto voice, ‘Where is my
cheiromantist?’

‘Your what, Gladys?’ exclaimed the Duchess, giving an involuntary start.

‘My cheiromantist, Duchess; I can’t live without him at present.’

‘Dear Gladys! you are always so original,’ murmured the Duchess, trying to remember what a cheiromantist
really was, and hoping it was not the same as a cheiropodist.

‘He comes to see my hand twice a week regularly,’ continued Lady Windermere, ‘and is most interesting
about it.’

‘Good heavens!’ said the Duchess to herself, ‘he is a sort of cheiropodist after all. How very dreadful. I hope
he is a foreigner at any rate. It wouldn’t be quite so bad then.’

‘I must certainly introduce him to you.’

‘Introduce him!’ cried the Duchess; ‘you don’t mean to say he is here?’ and she began looking about for a
small tortoise-shell fan and a very tattered lace shawl, so as to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

‘Of course he is here; I would not dream of giving a party without him. He tells me I have a pure
psychic hand, and that if my thumb had been the least little bit shorter, I should have been a confirmed
pessimist, and gone into a convent.’

‘Oh, I see!’ said the Duchess, feeling very much relieved; ‘he tells fortunes, I
suppose?’

‘And misfortunes, too,’ answered Lady Windermere, ‘any amount of them. Next year,
for instance, I am in great danger, both by land and sea, so I am going to live in a balloon, and draw up my
dinner in a basket every evening. It is all written down on my little finger, or on the palm of my hand, I forget
which.’

‘But surely that is tempting Providence, Gladys.’

‘My dear Duchess, surely Providence can resist temptation by this time. I think every one should have
their hands told once a month, so as to know what not to do. Of course, one does it all the same, but it is so
pleasant to be warned. Now if some one doesn’t go and fetch Mr. Podgers at once, I shall have to go
myself.’

‘Let me go, Lady Windermere,’ said a tall handsome young man, who was standing by,
listening to the conversation with an amused smile.

‘Thanks so much, Lord Arthur; but I am afraid you wouldn’t recognise him.’

‘If he is as wonderful as you say, Lady Windermere, I couldn’t well miss him. Tell me what he
is like, and I’ll bring him to you at once.’

CHAPTER I 2
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
‘Well, he is not a bit like a cheiromantist. I mean he is not mysterious, or esoteric, or
romantic-looking. He is a little, stout man, with a funny, bald head, and great gold-rimmed spectacles;
something between a family doctor and a country attorney. I’m really very sorry, but it is not my
fault. People are so annoying. All my pianists look exactly like poets, and all my poets look exactly like
pianists; and I remember last season asking a most dreadful conspirator to dinner, a man who had blown up
ever so many people, and always wore a coat of mail, and carried a dagger up his shirt-sleeve; and do you
know that when he came he looked just like a nice old clergyman, and cracked jokes all the evening? Of
course, he was very amusing, and all that, but I was awfully disappointed; and when I asked him about the
coat of mail, he only laughed, and said it was far too cold to wear in England. Ah, here is Mr. Podgers! Now,
Mr. Podgers, I want you to tell the Duchess of Paisley’s hand. Duchess, you must take your glove off.
No, not the left hand, the other.’

‘Dear Gladys, I really don’t think it is quite right,’ said the Duchess, feebly unbuttoning
a rather soiled kid glove.

‘Nothing interesting ever is,’ said Lady Windermere: ‘on a fait le monde ainsi. But I
must introduce you. Duchess, this is Mr. Podgers, my pet cheiromantist. Mr. Podgers, this is the Duchess of
Paisley, and if you say that she has a larger mountain of the moon than I have, I will never believe in you
again.’

‘I am sure, Gladys, there is nothing of the kind in my hand,’ said the Duchess gravely.

‘Your Grace is quite right,’ said Mr. Podgers, glancing at the little fat hand with its short square
fingers, ‘the mountain of the moon is not developed. The line of life, however, is excellent. Kindly
bend the wrist. Thank you. Three distinct lines on the rascette! You will live to a great age, Duchess, and be
extremely happy. Ambition - very moderate, line of intellect not exaggerated, line of heart - ’

‘Now, do be indiscreet, Mr. Podgers,’ cried Lady Windermere.

‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure,’ said Mr. Podgers, bowing, ‘if the Duchess
ever had been, but I am sorry to say that I see great permanence of affection, combined with a strong sense of
duty.’

‘Pray go on, Mr. Podgers,’ said the Duchess, looking quite pleased.

‘Economy is not the least of your Grace’s virtues,’ continued Mr. Podgers, and Lady
Windermere went off into fits of laughter.

‘Economy is a very good thing,’ remarked the Duchess complacently; ‘when I married
Paisley he had eleven castles, and not a single house fit to live in.’

‘And now he has twelve houses, and not a single castle,’ cried Lady Windermere.

‘Well, my dear,’ said the Duchess, ‘I like - ’

‘Comfort,’ said Mr. Podgers, ‘and modern improvements, and hot water laid on in every
bedroom. Your Grace is quite right. Comfort is the only thing our civilisation can give us.

‘You have told the Duchess’s character admirably, Mr. Podgers, and now you must tell Lady
Flora’s’; and in answer to a nod from the smiling hostess, a tall girl, with sandy Scotch hair,
and high shoulder-blades, stepped awkwardly from behind the sofa, and held out a long, bony hand with

CHAPTER I 3
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

spatulate fingers.

‘Ah, a pianist! I see,’ said Mr. Podgers, ‘an excellent pianist, but perhaps hardly a
musician. Very reserved, very honest, and with a great love of animals.’

‘Quite true!’ exclaimed the Duchess, turning to Lady Windermere, ‘absolutely true!
Flora keeps two dozen collie dogs at Macloskie, and would turn our town house into a menagerie if her father
would let her.’

‘Well, that is just what I do with my house every Thursday evening,’ cried Lady Windermere,
laughing, ‘only I like lions better than collie dogs.’

‘Your one mistake, Lady Windermere,’ said Mr. Podgers, with a pompous bow.

‘If a woman can’t make her mistakes charming, she is only a female,’ was the answer.
‘But you must read some more hands for us. Come, Sir Thomas, show Mr. Podgers yours’; and
a genial-looking old gentleman, in a white waistcoat, came forward, and held out a thick rugged hand, with a
very long third finger.

‘An adventurous nature; four long voyages in the past, and one to come. Been ship-wrecked three
times. No, only twice, but in danger of a shipwreck your next journey. A strong Conservative, very punctual,
and with a passion for collecting curiosities. Had a severe illness between the ages sixteen and eighteen. Was
left a fortune when about thirty. Great aversion to cats and Radicals.’

‘Extraordinary!’ exclaimed Sir Thomas; ‘you must really tell my wife’s hand,
too.’

‘Your second wife’s,’ said Mr. Podgers quietly, still keeping Sir Thomas’s hand
in his. ‘Your second wife’s. I shall be charmed’; but Lady Marvel, a
melancholy-looking woman, with brown hair and sentimental eyelashes, entirely declined to have her past or
her future exposed; and nothing that Lady Windermere could do would induce Monsieur de Koloff, the
Russian Ambassador, even to take his gloves off. In fact, many people seemed afraid to face the odd little
man with his stereotyped smile, his gold spectacles, and his bright, beady eyes; and when he told poor Lady
Fermor, right out before every one, that she did not care a bit for music, but was extremely fond of musicians,
it was generally felt that cheiromancy was a most dangerous science, and one that ought not to be encouraged,
except in a tête-à-tête.

Lord Arthur Savile, however, who did not know anything about Lady Fermor’s unfortunate story, and
who had been watching Mr. Podgers with a great deal of interest, was filled with an immense curiosity to have
his own hand read, and feeling somewhat shy about putting himself forward, crossed over the room to where
Lady Windermere was sitting, and, with a charming blush, asked her if she thought Mr. Podgers would mind.

‘Of course, he won’t mind,’ said Lady Windermere, ‘that is what he is here for.
All my lions, Lord Arthur, are performing lions, and jump through hoops whenever I ask them. But I must
warn you beforehand that I shall tell Sybil everything. She is coming to lunch with me to-morrow, to talk
about bonnets, and if Mr. Podgers finds out that you have a bad temper, or a tendency to gout, or a wife living
in Bayswater, I shall certainly let her know all about it.’

Lord Arthur smiled, and shook his head. ‘I am not afraid,’ he answered. ‘Sybil knows
me as well as I know her.’

CHAPTER I 4
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘Ah! I am a little sorry to hear you say that. The proper basis for marriage is a mutual
misunderstanding. No, I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much
the same thing. Mr. Podgers, Lord Arthur Savile is dying to have his hand read. Don’t tell him that he
is engaged to one of the most beautiful girls in London, because that appeared in the Morning Post a month
ago.

‘Dear Lady Windermere,’ cried the Marchioness of Jedburgh, ‘do let Mr. Podgers stay
here a little longer. He has just told me I should go on the stage, and I am so interested.’

‘If he has told you that, Lady Jedburgh, I shall certainly take him away. Come over at once, Mr.
Podgers, and read Lord Arthur’s hand.’

‘Well,’ said Lady Jedburgh, making a little moue as she rose from the sofa, ‘if I am not
to be allowed to go on the stage, I must be allowed to be part of the audience at any rate.’

‘Of course; we are all going to be part of the audience,’ said Lady Windermere; ‘and
now, Mr. Podgers, be sure and tell us something nice. Lord Arthur is one of my special favourites.’

But when Mr. Podgers saw Lord Arthur’s hand he grew curiously pale, and said nothing. A shudder
seemed to pass through him, and his great bushy eyebrows twitched convulsively, in an odd, irritating way
they had when he was puzzled. Then some huge beads of perspiration broke out on his yellow forehead, like
a poisonous dew, and his fat fingers grew cold and clammy.

Lord Arthur did not fail to notice these strange signs of agitation, and, for the first time in his life, he himself
felt fear. His impulse was to rush from the room, but he restrained himself. It was better to know the worst,
whatever it was, than to be left in this hideous uncertainty.

‘I am waiting, Mr. Podgers,’ he said.

‘We are all waiting,’ cried Lady Windermere, in her quick, impatient manner, but the
cheiromantist made no reply.

‘I believe Arthur is going on the stage,’ said Lady Jedburgh, ‘and that, after your
scolding, Mr. Podgers is afraid to tell him so.’

Suddenly Mr. Podgers dropped Lord Arthur’s right hand, and seized hold of his left, bending down so
low to examine it that the gold rims of his spectacles seemed almost to touch the palm. For a moment his face
became a white mask of horror, but he soon recovered his sang-froid, and looking up at Lady Windermere,
said with a forced smile, ‘It is the hand of a charming young man.

‘Of course it is!’ answered Lady Windermere, ‘but will he be a charming husband?
That is what I want to know.’

‘All charming young men are,’ said Mr. Podgers.

‘I don’t think a husband should be too fascinating,’ murmured Lady Jedburgh pensively,
‘it is so dangerous.’

‘My dear child, they never are too fascinating,’ cried Lady Windermere. ‘But what I
want are details. Details are the only things that interest. What is going to happen to Lord Arthur?’

CHAPTER I 5
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘Well, within the next few months Lord Arthur will go a voyage - ’

‘Oh yes, his honeymoon, of course!’

‘And lose a relative.’

‘Not his sister, I hope?’ said Lady Jedburgh, in a piteous tone of voice.

‘Certainly not his sister,’ answered Mr. Podgers, with a deprecating wave of the hand, ‘a
distant relative merely.’

‘Well, I am dreadfully disappointed,’ said Lady Windermere. ‘I have absolutely nothing
to tell Sybil to-morrow. No one cares about distant relatives nowadays. They went out of fashion years ago.
However, I suppose she had better have a black silk by her; it always does for church, you know. And now let
us go to supper. They are sure to have eaten everything up, but we may find some hot soup. François used to
make excellent soup once, but he is so agitated about politics at present, that I never feel quite certain about
him. I do wish General Boulanger would keep quiet. Duchess, I am sure you are tired?’

‘Not at all, dear Gladys,’ answered the Duchess, waddling towards the door. ‘I have
enjoyed myself immensely, and the cheiropodist, I mean the cheiromantist, is most interesting. Flora, where
can my tortoise-shell fan be? Oh, thank you, Sir Thomas, so much. And my lace shawl, Flora? Oh, thank
you, Sir Thomas, very kind, I’m sure’; and the worthy creature finally managed to get
downstairs without dropping her scent-bottle more than twice.

All this time Lord Arthur Savile had remained standing by the fireplace, with the same feeling of dread over
him, the same sickening sense of coming evil. He smiled sadly at his sister, as she swept past him on Lord
Plymdale’s arm, looking lovely in her pink brocade and pearls, and he hardly heard Lady Windermere
when she called to him to follow her. He thought of Sybil Merton, and the idea that anything could come
between them made his eyes dim with tears.

Looking at him, one would have said that Nemesis had stolen the shield of Pallas, and shown him the
Gorgon’s head. He seemed turned to stone, and his face was like marble in its melancholy. He had
lived the delicate and luxurious life of a young man of birth and fortune, a life exquisite in its freedom from
sordid care, its beautiful boyish insouciance; and now for the first time he became conscious of the terrible
mystery of Destiny, of the awful meaning of Doom.

How mad and monstrous it all seemed! Could it be that written on his hand, in characters that he could not
read himself, but that another could decipher, was some fearful secret of sin, some blood-red sign of crime?
Was there no escape possible? Were we no better than chessmen, moved by an unseen power, vessels the
potter fashions at his fancy, for honour or for shame? His reason revolted against it, and yet he felt that some
tragedy was hanging over him, and that he had been suddenly called upon to bear an intolerable burden.
Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will
suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to
perform parts for which they have no qualifications. Our Guildensterns play Hamlet for us, and our Hamlets
have to jest like Prince Hal. The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

Suddenly Mr. Podgers entered the room. When he saw Lord Arthur he started, and his coarse, fat face
became a sort of greenish-yellow colour. The two men’s eyes met, and for a moment there was
silence.

CHAPTER I 6
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘The Duchess has left one of her gloves here, Lord Arthur, and has asked me to bring it to her,’
said Mr. Podgers finally. ‘Ah, I see it on the sofa! Good evening.’

‘Mr. Podgers, I must insist on your giving me a straightforward answer to a question I am going to put
to you.’

‘Another time, Lord Arthur, but the Duchess is anxious. I am afraid I must go.’

‘You shall not go. The Duchess is in no hurry.’

‘Ladies should not be kept waiting, Lord Arthur,’ said Mr. Podgers, with his sickly smile.
‘The fair sex is apt to be impatient.’

Lord Arthur’s finely-chiselled lips curled in petulant disdain. The poor Duchess seemed to him of
very little importance at that moment. He walked across the room to where Mr. Podgers was standing, and
held his hand out.

‘Tell me what you saw there,’ he said. ‘Tell me the truth. I must know it. I am not a
child.’

Mr. Podgers’s eyes blinked behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and he moved uneasily from one foot
to the other, while his fingers played nervously with a flash watch-chain.

‘What makes you think that I saw anything in your hand, Lord Arthur, more than I told you?’

‘I know you did, and I insist on your telling me what it was. I will pay you. I will give you a cheque
for a hundred pounds.’

The green eyes flashed for a moment, and then became dull again.

‘Guineas?’ said Mr. Podgers at last, in a low voice.

‘Certainly. I will send you a cheque to-morrow. What is your club?’

‘I have no club. That is to say, not just at present. My address is -, but allow me to give you my
card’; and producing a bit of gilt-edge pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket, Mr. Podgers handed it,
with a low bow, to Lord Arthur, who read on it,

Mr. SEPTIMUS R. PODGERS

Professional Cheiromantist
103a West Moon Street

‘My hours are from ten to four,’ murmured Mr. Podgers mechanically, ‘and I make a
reduction for families.’

‘Be quick,’ cried Lord Arthur, looking very pale, and holding his hand out.

Mr. Podgers glanced nervously round, and drew the heavy portière across the door.

CHAPTER I 7
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘It will take a little time, Lord Arthur, you had better sit down.’

‘Be quick, sir,’ cried Lord Arthur again, stamping his foot angrily on the polished floor.

Mr. Podgers smiled, drew from his breast-pocket a small magnifying glass, and wiped it carefully with his
handkerchief

‘I am quite ready,’ he said.

CHAPTER II

Ten minutes later, with face blanched by terror, and eyes wild with grief, Lord Arthur Savile rushed from
Bentinck House, crushing his way through the crowd of fur-coated footmen that stood round the large striped
awning, and seeming not to see or hear anything. The night was bitter cold, and the gas-lamps round the
square flared and flickered in the keen wind; but his hands were hot with fever, and his forehead burned like
fire. On and on he went, almost with the gait of a drunken man. A policeman looked curiously at him as he
passed, and a beggar, who slouched from an archway to ask for alms, grew frightened, seeing misery greater
than his own. Once he stopped under a lamp, and looked at his hands. He thought he could detect the stain of
blood already upon them, and a faint cry broke from his trembling lips.

Murder! that is what the cheiromantist had seen there. Murder! The very night seemed to know it, and the
desolate wind to howl it in his ear. The dark corners of the streets were full of it. It grinned at him from the
roofs of the houses.

First he came to the Park, whose sombre woodland seemed to fascinate him. He leaned wearily up against the
railings, cooling his brow against the wet metal, and listening to the tremulous silence of the trees.
‘Murder! murder!’ he kept repeating, as though iteration could dim the horror of the word. The
sound of his own voice made him shudder, yet he almost hoped that Echo might hear him, and wake the
slumbering city from its dreams. He felt a mad desire to stop the casual passer-by, and tell him everything.

Then he wandered across Oxford Street into narrow, shameful alleys. Two women with painted faces mocked
at him as he went by. From a dark courtyard came a sound of oaths and blows, followed by shrill screams,
and, huddled upon a damp door-step, he saw the crook-backed forms of poverty and eld. A strange pity came
over him. Were these children of sin and misery predestined to their end, as he to his? Were they, like him,
merely the puppets of a monstrous show?

And yet it was not the mystery, but the comedy of suffering that struck him; its absolute uselessness, its
grotesque want of meaning. How incoherent everything seemed! How lacking in all harmony! He was
amazed at the discord between the shallow optimism of the day, and the real facts of existence. He was still
very young.

After a time he found himself in front of Marylebone Church. The silent roadway looked like a long riband of
polished silver, flecked here and there by the dark arabesques of waving shadows. Far into the distance
curved the line of flickering gas-lamps, and outside a little walled-in house stood a solitary hansom, the driver
asleep inside. He walked hastily in the direction of Portland Place, now and then looking round, as though he
feared that he was being followed. At the corner of Rich Street stood two men, reading a small bill upon a

CHAPTER II 8
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
hoarding. An odd feeling of curiosity stirred him, and he crossed over. As he came near, the word
‘Murder,’ printed in black letters, met his eye. He started, and a deep flush came into his
cheek. It was an advertisement offering a reward for any information leading to the arrest of a man of
medium height, between thirty and forty years of age, wearing a billy-cock hat, a black coat, and check
trousers, and with a scar upon his right cheek. He read it over and over again, and wondered if the wretched
man would be caught, and how he had been scarred. Perhaps, some day, his own name might be placarded on
the walls of London. Some day, perhaps, a price would be set on his head also.

The thought made him sick with horror. He turned on his heel, and hurried on into the night.

Where he went he hardly knew. He had a dim memory of wandering through a labyrinth of sordid houses, of
being lost in a giant web of sombre streets, and it was bright dawn when he found himself at last in Piccadilly
Circus. As he strolled home towards Belgrave Square, he met the great waggons on their way to Covent
Garden. The white-smocked carters, with their pleasant sunburnt faces and coarse curly hair, strode sturdily
on, cracking their whips, and calling out now and then to each other; on the back of a huge grey horse, the
leader of a jangling team, sat a chubby boy, with a bunch of primroses in his battered hat, keeping tight hold
of the mane with his little hands, and laughing; and the great piles of vegetables looked like masses of jade
against the morning sky, like masses of green jade against the pink petals of some marvellous rose. Lord
Arthur felt curiously affected, he could not tell why. There was something in the dawn’s delicate
loveliness that seemed to him inexpressibly pathetic, and he thought of all the days that break in beauty, and
that set in storm. These rustics, too, with their rough, good-humoured voices, and their nonchalant ways, what
a strange London they saw! A London free from the sin of night and the smoke of day, a pallid, ghost-like
city, a desolate town of tombs! He wondered what they thought of it, and whether they knew anything of its
splendour and its shame, of its fierce, fiery-coloured joys, and its horrible hunger, of all it makes and mars
from morn to eve. Probably it was to them merely a mart where they brought their fruits to sell, and where
they tarried for a few hours at most, leaving the streets still silent, the houses still asleep. It gave him pleasure
to watch them as they went by. Rude as they were, with their heavy, hob-nailed shoes, and their awkward
gait, they brought a little of a ready with them. He felt that they had lived with Nature, and that she had taught
them peace. He envied them all that they did not know.

By the time he had reached Belgrave Square the sky was a faint blue, and the birds were beginning to twitter
in the gardens.

CHAPTER III

When Lord Arthur woke it was twelve o’clock, and the midday sun was streaming through the
ivory-silk curtains of his room. He got up and looked out of the window. A dim haze of heat was hanging
over the great city, and the roofs of the houses were like dull silver. In the flickering green of the square
below some children were flitting about like white butterflies, and the pavement was crowded with people on
their way to the Park. Never had life seemed lovelier to him, never had the things of evil seemed more
remote.

Then his valet brought him a cup of chocolate on a tray. After he had drunk it, he drew aside a heavy portière
of peach-coloured plush, and passed into the bathroom. The light stole softly from above, through thin slabs
of transparent onyx, and the water in the marble tank glimmered like a moonstone. He plunged hastily in, till
the cool ripples touched throat and hair, and then dipped his head right under, as though he would have wiped

CHAPTER III 9
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
away the stain of some shameful memory. When he stepped out he felt almost at peace. The exquisite
physical conditions of the moment had dominated him, as indeed often happens in the case of very
finely-wrought natures, for the senses, like fire, can purify as well as destroy.

After breakfast, he flung himself down on a divan, and lit a cigarette. On the mantel-shelf, framed in dainty
old brocade, stood a large photograph of Sybil Merton, as he had seen her first at Lady Noel’s ball.
The small, exquisitely-shaped head drooped slightly to one side, as though the thin, reed-like throat could
hardly bear the burden of so much beauty; the lips were slightly parted, and seemed made for sweet music;
and all the tender purity of girlhood looked out in wonder from the dreaming eyes. With her soft, clinging
dress of crêpe-de-chine, and her large leaf-shaped fan, she looked like one of those delicate little figures men
find in the olive-woods near Tanagra; and there was a touch of Greek grace in her pose and attitude. Yet she
was not petite. She was simply perfectly proportioned - a rare thing in an age when so many women are either
over life-size or insignificant.

Now as Lord Arthur looked at her, he was filled with the terrible pity that is born of love. He felt that to
marry her, with the doom of murder hanging over his head, would be a betrayal like that of Judas, a sin worse
than any the Borgia had ever dreamed of. What happiness could there be for them, when at any moment he
might be called upon to carry out the awful prophecy written in his hand? What manner of life would be
theirs while Fate still held this fearful fortune in the scales? The marriage must be postponed, at all costs. Of
this he was quite resolved. Ardently though he loved the girl, and the mere touch of her fingers, when they sat
together, made each nerve of his body thrill with exquisite joy, he recognised none the less clearly where his
duty lay, and was fully conscious of the fact that he had no right to marry until he had committed the murder.
This done, he could stand before the altar with Sybil Merton, and give his life into her hands without terror of
wrongdoing. This done, he could take her to his arms, knowing that she would never have to blush for him,
never have to hang her head in shame. But done it must be first; and the sooner the better for both.

Many men in his position would have preferred the primrose path of dalliance to the steep heights of duty; but
Lord Arthur was too conscientious to set pleasure above principle. There was more than mere passion in his
love; and Sybil was to him a symbol of all that is good and noble. For a moment he had a natural repugnance
against what he was asked to do, but it soon passed away. His heart told him that it was not a sin, but a
sacrifice; his reason reminded him that there was no other course open. He had to choose between living for
himself and living for others, and terrible though the task laid upon him undoubtedly was, yet he knew that he
must not suffer selfishness to triumph over love. Sooner or later we are all called upon to decide on the same
issue - of us all, the same question is asked. To Lord Arthur it came early in life - before his nature had been
spoiled by the calculating cynicism of middle-age, or his heart corroded by the shallow, fashionable egotism
of our day, and he felt no hesitation about doing his duty. Fortunately also, for him, he was no mere dreamer,
or idle dilettante. Had he been so, he would have hesitated, like Hamlet, and let irresolution mar his purpose.
But he was essentially practical. Life to him meant action, rather than thought. He had that rarest of all
things, common sense.

The wild, turbid feelings of the previous night had by this time completely passed away, and it was almost
with a sense of shame that he looked back upon his mad wanderings from street to street, his fierce emotional
agony. The very sincerity of his sufferings made them seem unreal to him now. He wondered how he could
have been so foolish as to rant and rave about the inevitable. The only question that seemed to trouble him
was, whom to make away with; for he was not blind to the fact that murder, like the religions of the Pagan
world, requires a victim as well as a priest. Not being a genius, he had no enemies, and indeed he felt that this
was not the time for the gratification of any personal pique or dislike, the mission in which he was engaged
being one of great and grave solemnity. He accordingly made out a list of his friends and relatives on a sheet
of notepaper, and after careful consideration, decided in favour of Lady Clementina Beauchamp, a dear old
lady who lived in Curzon Street, and was his own second cousin by his mother’s side. He had always
been very fond of Lady Clem, as every one called her, and as he was very wealthy himself, having come into

CHAPTER III 10
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

all Lord Rugby’s property when he came of age, there was no possibility of his deriving any vulgar
monetary advantage by her death. In fact, the more he thought over the matter, the more she seemed to him to
be just the right person, and, feeling that any delay would be unfair to Sybil, he determined to make his
arrangements at once.

The first thing to be done was, of course, to settle with the cheiromantist; so he sat down at a small Sheraton
writing-table that stood near the window, drew a cheque for £105, payable to the order of Mr. Septimus
Podgers, and, enclosing it in an envelope, told his valet to take it to West Moon Street. He then telephoned to
the stables for his hansom, and dressed to go out. As he was leaving the room he looked back at Sybil
Merton’s photograph, and swore that, come what may, he would never let her know what he was doing
for her sake, but would keep the secret of his self-sacrifice hidden always in his heart.

On his way to the Buckingham, he stopped at a florist’s, and sent Sybil a beautiful basket of narcissus,
with lovely white petals and staring pheasants’ eyes, and on arriving at the club, went straight to the
library, rang the bell, and ordered the waiter to bring him a lemon-and-soda, and a book on Toxicology. He
had fully decided that poison was the best means to adopt in this troublesome business. Anything like
personal violence was extremely distasteful to him, and besides, he was very anxious not to murder Lady
Clementina in any way that might attract public attention, as he hated the idea of being lionised at Lady
Windermere’s, or seeing his name figuring in the paragraphs of vulgar society - newspapers. He had
also to think of Sybil’s father and mother, who were rather old-fashioned people, and might possibly
object to the marriage if there was anything like a scandal, though he felt certain that if he told them the whole
facts of the case they would be the very first to appreciate the motives that had actuated him. He had every
reason, then, to decide in favour of poison. It was safe, sure, and quiet, and did away with any necessity for
painful scenes, to which, like most Englishmen, he had a rooted objection.

Of the science of poisons, however, he knew absolutely nothing, and as the waiter seemed quite unable to find
anything in the library but Ruff’s Guide and Bailey’s Magazine, he examined the book-shelves
himself, and finally came across a handsomely-bound edition of the Pharmacopoeia, and a copy of
Erskine’s Toxicology, edited by Sir Mathew Reid, the President of the Royal College of Physicians,
and one of the oldest members of the Buckingham, having been elected in mistake for somebody else; a
contretemps that so enraged the Committee, that when the real man came up they black-balled him
unanimously. Lord Arthur was a good deal puzzled at the technical terms used in both books, and had begun
to regret that he had not paid more attention to his classics at Oxford, when in the second volume of Erskine,
he found a very interesting and complete account of the properties of aconitine, written in fairly clear English.
It seemed to him to be exactly the poison he wanted. It was swift - indeed, almost immediate, in its effect -
perfectly painless, and when taken in the form of a gelatine capsule, the mode recommended by Sir Mathew,
not by any means unpalatable. He accordingly made a note, upon his shirt-cuff, of the amount necessary for a
fatal dose, put the books back in their places, and strolled up St. James’s Street, to Pestle and
Humbey’s, the great chemists. Mr. Pestle, who always attended personally on the aristocracy, was a
good deal surprised at the order, and in a very deferential manner murmured something about a medical
certificate being necessary. However, as soon as Lord Arthur explained to him that it was for a large
Norwegian mastiff that he was obliged to get rid of, as it showed signs of incipient rabies, and had already
bitten the coachman twice in the calf of the leg, he expressed himself as being perfectly satisfied,
complimented Lord Arthur on his wonderful knowledge of Toxicology, and had the prescription made up
immediately.

Lord Arthur put the capsule into a pretty little silver bonbonnière that he saw in a shop window in Bond
Street, threw away Pestle and Hambey’s ugly pill-box, and drove off at once to Lady
Clementina’s.

CHAPTER III 11
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘Well, monsieur le mauvais sujet,’ cried the old lady, as he entered the room, ‘why
haven’t you been to see me all this time?’

‘My dear Lady Clem, I never have a moment to myself,’ said Lord Arthur, smiling.

‘I suppose you mean that you go about all day long with Miss Sybil Merton, buying chiffons and
talking nonsense? I cannot understand why people make such a fuss about being married. In my day we
never dreamed of billing and cooing in public, or in private for that matter.’

‘I assure you I have not seen Sybil for twenty-four hours, Lady Clem. As far as I can make out, she
belongs entirely to her milliners.’

‘Of course; that is the only reason you come to see an ugly old woman like myself. I wonder you men
don’t take warning. On a fait des folies pour moi, and here I am, a poor rheumatic creature, with a
false front and a bad temper. Why, if it were not for dear Lady Jansen, who sends me all the worst French
novels she can find, I don’t think I could get through the day. Doctors are no use at all, except to get
fees out of one. They can’t even cure my heartburn.’

‘I have brought you a cure for that, Lady Clem,’ said Lord Arthur gravely. ‘It is a
wonderful thing, invented by an American.’

‘I don’t think I like American inventions, Arthur. I am quite sure I don’t. I read some
American novels lately, and they were quite nonsensical.’

‘Oh, but there is no nonsense at all about this, Lady Clem! I assure you it is a perfect cure. You must
promise to try it’; and Lord Arthur brought the little box out of his pocket, and handed it to her.

‘Well, the box is charming, Arthur. Is it really a present? That is very sweet of you. And is this the
wonderful medicine? It looks like a bonbon. I’ll take it at once.’

‘Good heavens! Lady Clem,’ cried Lord Arthur, catching hold of her hand, ‘you
mustn’t do anything of the kind. It is a homoeopathic medicine, and if you take it without having
heartburn, it might do you no end of harm. Wait till you have an attack, and take it then. You will be
astonished at the result.’

‘I should like to take it now,’ said Lady Clementina, holding up to the light the little transparent
capsule, with its floating bubble of liquid aconitine. I am sure it is delicious. The fact is that, though I hate
doctors, I love medicines. However, I’ll keep it till my next attack.’

‘And when will that be?’ asked Lord Arthur eagerly. ‘Will it be soon?’

‘I hope not for a week. I had a very bad time yesterday morning with it. But one never knows.’

‘You are sure to have one before the end of the month then, Lady Clem?’

‘I am afraid so. But how sympathetic you are to-day, Arthur! Really, Sybil has done you a great deal
of good. And now you must run away, for I am dining with some very dull people, who won’t talk
scandal, and I know that if I don’t get my sleep now I shall never be able to keep awake during dinner.
Good-bye, Arthur, give my love to Sybil, and thank you so much for the American medicine.’

CHAPTER III 12
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘You won’t forget to take it, Lady Clem, will you?’ said Lord Arthur, rising from his
seat.

‘Of course I won’t, you silly boy. I think it is most kind of you to think of me, and I shall write
and tell you if I want any more.’

Lord Arthur left the house in high spirits, and with a feeling of immense relief.

That night he had an interview with Sybil Merton. He told her how he had been suddenly placed in a position
of terrible difficulty, from which neither honour nor duty would allow him to recede. He told her that the
marriage must be put off for the present, as until he had got rid of his fearful entanglements, he was not a free
man. He implored her to trust him, and not to have any doubts about the future. Everything would come
right, but patience was necessary.

The scene took place in the conservatory of Mr. Merton’s house, in Park Lane, where Lord Arthur had
dined as usual. Sybil had never seemed more happy, and for a moment Lord Arthur had been tempted to play
the coward’s part, to write to Lady Clementina for the pill, and to let the marriage go on as if there was
no such person as Mr. Podgers in the world. His better nature, however, soon asserted itself, and even when
Sybil flung herself weeping into his arms, he did not falter. The beauty that stirred his senses had touched his
conscience also. He felt that to wreck so fair a life for the sake of a few months’ pleasure would be a
wrong thing to do.

He stayed with Sybil till nearly midnight, comforting her and being comforted in turn, and early the next
morning he left for Venice, after writing a manly, firm letter to Mr. Merton about the necessary postponement
of the marriage.

CHAPTER IV

In Venice he met his brother, Lord Surbiton, who happened to have come over from Corfu in his yacht. The
two young men spent a delightful fortnight together. In the morning they rode on the Lido, or glided up and
down the green canals in their long black gondola; in the afternoon they usually entertained visitors on the
yacht; and in the evening they dined at Florian’s, and smoked innumerable cigarettes on the Piazza.
Yet somehow Lord Arthur was not happy. Every day he studied the obituary column in the Times, expecting
to see a notice of Lady Clementina’s death, but every day he was disappointed. He began to be afraid
that some accident had happened to her, and often regretted that he had prevented her taking the aconitine
when she had been so anxious to try its effect. Sybil’s letters, too, though full of love, and trust, and
tenderness, were often very sad in their tone, and sometimes he used to think that he was parted from her for
ever.

After a fortnight Lord Surbiton got bored with Venice, and determined to run down the coast to Ravenna, as
he heard that there was some capital cock-shooting in the Pinetum. Lord Arthur at first refused absolutely to
come, but Surbiton, of whom he was extremely fond, finally persuaded him that if he stayed at
Danieli’s by himself he would be moped to death, and on the morning of the 15th they started, with a
strong nor’-east wind blowing, and a rather choppy sea. The sport was excellent, and the free, open-air
life brought the colour back to Lord Arthur’s cheek, but about the 22nd he became anxious about Lady
Clementina, and, in spite of Surbiton’s remonstrances, came back to Venice by train.

CHAPTER IV 13
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
As he stepped out of his gondola on to the hotel steps, the proprietor came forward to meet him with a sheaf
of telegrams. Lord Arthur snatched them out of his hand, and tore them open. Everything had been
successful. Lady Clementina had died quite suddenly on the night of the 17th!

His first thought was for Sybil, and he sent her off a telegram announcing his immediate return to London. He
then ordered his valet to pack his things for the night mail, sent his gondoliers about five times their proper
fare, and ran up to his sitting-room with a light step and a buoyant heart. There he found three letters waiting
for him. One was from Sybil herself, full of sympathy and condolence. The others were from his mother, and
from Lady Clementina’s solicitor. It seemed that the old lady had dined with the Duchess that very
night, had delighted every one by her wit and esprit, but had gone home somewhat early, complaining of
heartburn. In the morning she was found dead in her bed, having apparently suffered no pain. Sir Mathew
Reid had been sent for at once, but, of course, there was nothing to be done, and she was to be buried on the
22nd at Beauchamp Chalcote. A few days before she died she had made her will, and left Lord Arthur her
little house in Curzon Street, and all her furniture, personal effects, and pictures, with the exception of her
collection of miniatures, which was to go to her sister, Lady Margaret Rufford, and her amethyst necklace,
which Sybil Merton was to have. The property was not of much value; but Mr. Mansfield, the solicitor, was
extremely anxious for Lord Arthur to return at once, if possible, as there were a great many bills to be paid,
and Lady Clementina had never kept any regular accounts.

Lord Arthur was very much touched by Lady Clementina’s kind remembrance of him, and felt that Mr.
Podgers had a great deal to answer for. His love of Sybil, however, dominated every other emotion, and the
consciousness that he had done his duty gave him peace and comfort. When he arrived at Charing Cross, he
felt perfectly happy.

The Mertons received him very kindly. Sybil made him promise that he would never again allow anything to
come between them, and the marriage was fixed for the 7th June. Life seemed to him once more bright and
beautiful, and all his old gladness came back to him again.

One day, however, as he was going over the house in Curzon Street, in company with Lady
Clementina’s solicitor and Sybil herself, burning packages of faded letters, and turning out drawers of
odd rubbish, the young girl suddenly gave a little cry of delight.

‘What have you found, Sybil?’ said Lord Arthur, looking up from his work, and smiling.

‘This lovely little silver bonbonnière, Arthur. Isn’t it quaint and Dutch? Do give it to me! I
know amethysts won’t become me till I am over eighty.’

It was the box that had held the aconitine.

Lord Arthur started, and a faint blush came into his cheek. He had almost entirely forgotten what he had
done, and it seemed to him a curious coincidence that Sybil, for whose sake he had gone through all that
terrible anxiety, should have been the first to remind him of it.

‘Of course you can have it, Sybil. I gave it to poor Lady Clem myself.’

‘Oh! thank you, Arthur; and may I have the bonbon too? I had no notion that Lady Clementina liked
sweets. I thought she was far too intellectual.’

Lord Arthur grew deadly pale, and a horrible idea crossed his mind.

‘Bonbon, Sybil? What do you mean?’ he said in a slow, hoarse voice.

CHAPTER IV 14
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘There is one in it, that is all. It looks quite old and dusty, and I have not the slightest intention of
eating it. What is the matter, Arthur? How white you look!’

Lord Arthur rushed across the room, and seized the box. Inside it was the amber-coloured capsule, with its
poison-bubble. Lady Clementina had died a natural death after all!

The shock of the discovery was almost too much for him. He flung the capsule into the fire, and sank on the
sofa with a cry of despair.

CHAPTER V

Mr. Merton was a good deal distressed at the second postponement of the marriage, and Lady Julia, who had
already ordered her dress for the wedding, did all in her power to make Sybil break off the match. Dearly,
however, as Sybil loved her mother, she had given her whole life into Lord Arthur’s hands, and
nothing that Lady Julia could say could make her waver in her faith. As for Lord Arthur himself, it took him
days to get over his terrible disappointment, and for a time his nerves were completely unstrung. His
excellent common sense, however, soon asserted itself, and his sound, practical mind did not leave him long
in doubt about what to do. Poison having proved a complete failure, dynamite, or some other form of
explosive, was obviously the proper thing to try.

He accordingly looked again over the list of his friends and relatives, and, after careful consideration,
determined to blow up his uncle, the Dean of Chichester. The Dean, who was a man of great culture and
learning, was extremely fond of clocks, and had a wonderful collection of timepieces, ranging from the
fifteenth century to the present day, and it seemed to Lord Arthur that this hobby of the good Dean’s
offered him an excellent opportunity for carrying out his scheme. Where to procure an explosive machine
was, of course, quite another matter. The London Directory gave him no information on the point, and he felt
that there was very little use in going to Scotland Yard about it, as they never seemed to know anything about
the movements of the dynamite faction till after an explosion had taken place, and not much even then.

Suddenly he thought of his friend Rouvaloff, a young Russian of very revolutionary tendencies, whom he had
met at Lady Windermere’s in the winter. Count Rouvaloff was supposed to be writing a life of Peter
the Great, and to have come over to England for the purpose of studying the documents relating to that
Tsar’s residence in this country as a ship carpenter; but it was generally suspected that he was a
Nihilist agent, and there was no doubt that the Russian Embassy did not look with any favour upon his
presence in London. Lord Arthur felt that he was just the man for his purpose, and drove down one morning
to his lodgings in Bloomsbury, to ask his advice and assistance.

‘So you are taking up politics seriously?’ said Count Rouvaloff, when Lord Arthur had told him
the object of his mission; but Lord Arthur, who hated swagger of any kind, felt bound to admit to him that he
had not the slightest interest in social questions, and simply wanted the explosive machine for a purely family
matter, in which no one was concerned but himself.

Count Rouvaloff looked at him for some moments in amazement, and then seeing that he was quite serious,
wrote an address on a piece of paper, initialled it, and handed it to him across the table.

‘Scotland Yard would give a good deal to know this address, my dear fellow.’

CHAPTER V 15
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
‘They shan’t have it,’ cried Lord Arthur, laughing; and after shaking the young Russian
warmly by the hand he ran downstairs, examined the paper, and told the coachman to drive to Soho Square.

There he dismissed him, and strolled down Greek Street, till he came to a place called Bayle’s Court.
He passed under the archway, and found himself in a curious cul-de-sac, that was apparently occupied by a
French Laundry, as a perfect network of clothes-lines was stretched across from house to house, and there was
a flutter of white linen in the morning air. He walked right to the end, and knocked at a little green house.
After some delay, during which every window in the court became a blurred mass of peering faces, the door
was opened by a rather rough-looking foreigner, who asked him in very bad English what his business was.
Lord Arthur handed him the paper Count Rouvaloff had given him. When the man saw it he bowed, and
invited Lord Arthur into a very shabby front parlour on the ground floor, and in a few moments Herr
Winckelkopf, as he was called in England, bustled into the room, with a very wine-stained napkin round his
neck, and a fork in his left hand.

‘Count Rouvaloff has given me an introduction to you,’ said Lord Arthur, bowing, ‘and
I am anxious to have a short interview with you on a matter of business. My name is Smith, Mr. Robert
Smith, and I want you to supply me with an explosive clock.’

‘Charmed to meet you, Lord Arthur,’ said the genial little German, laughing.
‘Don’t look so alarmed, it is my duty to know everybody, and I remember seeing you one
evening at Lady Windermere’s. I hope her ladyship is quite well. Do you mind sitting with me while
I finish my breakfast? There is an excellent pâté, and my friends are kind enough to say that my Rhine wine
is better than any they get at the German Embassy,’ and before Lord Arthur had got over his surprise at
being recognised, he found himself seated in the back-room, sipping the most delicious Marcobrünner out of a
pale yellow hock-glass marked with the Imperial monogram, and chatting in the friendliest manner possible to
the famous conspirator.

‘Explosive clocks,’ said Herr Winckelkopf, ‘are not very good things for foreign
exportation, as, even if they succeed in passing the Custom House, the train service is so irregular, that they
usually go off before they have reached their proper destination. If, however, you want one for home use, I
can supply you with an excellent article, and guarantee that you will he satisfied with the result. May I ask for
whom it is intended? If it is for the police, or for any one connected with Scotland Yard, I am afraid I cannot
do anything for you. The English detectives are really our best friends, and I have always found that by
relying on their stupidity, we can do exactly what we like. I could not spare one of them.’

‘I assure you,’ said Lord Arthur, ‘that it has nothing to do with the police at all. In fact,
the clock is intended for the Dean of Chichester.’

‘Dear me! I had no idea that you felt so strongly about religion, Lord Arthur. Few young men do
nowadays.’

‘I am afraid you overrate me, Herr Winckelkopf,’ said Lord Arthur, blushing. ‘The fact
is, I really know nothing about theology.’

‘It is a purely private matter then?’

‘Purely private.’

Herr Winckelkopf shrugged his shoulders, and left the room, returning in a few minutes with a round cake of
dynamite about the size of a penny, and a pretty little French clock, surmounted by an ormolu figure of
Liberty trampling on the hydra of Despotism.

CHAPTER V 16
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

Lord Arthur’s face brightened up when he saw it. ‘That is just what I want,’ he cried,
‘and now tell me how it goes off.’

‘Ah! there is my secret,’ answered Herr Winckelkopf, contemplating his invention with a
justifiable look of pride; ‘let me know when you wish it to explode, and I will set the machine to the
moment.’

‘Well, to-day is Tuesday, and if you could send it off at once - ’

‘That is impossible; I have a great deal of important work on hand for some friends of mine in
Moscow. Still, I might send it off to-morrow.’

‘Oh, it will be quite time enough!’ said Lord Arthur politely, ‘if it is delivered
to-morrow night or Thursday morning. For the moment of the explosion, say Friday at noon exactly. The
Dean is always at home at that hour.’

‘Friday, at noon,’ repeated Herr Winckelkopf, and he made a note to that effect in a large ledger
that was lying on a bureau near the fireplace.

‘And now,’ said Lord Arthur, rising from his seat, ‘pray let me know how much I am in
your debt.’

‘It is such a small matter, Lord Arthur, that I do not care to make any charge. The dynamite comes to
seven and sixpence, the clock will be three pounds ten, and the carriage about five shillings. I am only too
pleased to oblige any friend of Count Rouvaloff’s.’

‘But your trouble, Herr Winckelkopf?’

‘Oh, that is nothing! It is a pleasure to me. I do not work for money; I live entirely for my art.’

Lord Arthur laid down £4, 2s. 6d. on the table, thanked the little German for his kindness, and, having
succeeded in declining an invitation to meet some Anarchists at a meat-tea on the following Saturday, left the
house and went off to the Park.

For the next two days he was in a state of the greatest excitement, and on Friday at twelve o’clock he
drove down to the Buckingham to wait for news. All the afternoon the stolid hall-porter kept posting up
telegrams from various parts of the country giving the results of horse-races, the verdicts in divorce suits, the
state of the weather, and the like, while the tape ticked out wearisome details about an all-night sitting in the
House of Commons, and a small panic on the Stock Exchange. At four o’clock the evening papers
came in, and Lord Arthur disappeared into the library with the Pall Mall, the St. James’s, the Globe,
and the Echo, to the immense indignation of Colonel Goodchild, who wanted to read the reports of a speech
he had delivered that morning at the Mansion House, on the subject of South African Missions, and the
advisability of having black Bishops in every province, and for some reason or other had a strong prejudice
against the Evening News. None of the papers, however, contained even the slightest allusion to Chichester,
and Lord Arthur felt that the attempt must have failed. It was a terrible blow to him, and for a time he was
quite unnerved. Herr Winckelkopf, whom he went to see the next day was full of elaborate apologies, and
offered to supply him with another clock free of charge, or with a case of nitro-glycerine bombs at cost price.
But he had lost all faith in explosives, and Herr Winckelkopf himself acknowledged that everything is so
adulterated nowadays, that even dynamite can hardly be got in a pure condition. The little German, however,
while admitting that something must have gone wrong with the machinery, was not without hope that the
clock might still go off, and instanced the case of a barometer that he had once sent to the military Governor at

CHAPTER V 17
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
Odessa, which, though timed to explode in ten days, had not done so for something like three months. It was
quite true that when it did go off, it merely succeeded in blowing a housemaid to atoms, the Governor having
gone out of town six weeks before, but at least it showed that dynamite, as a destructive force, was, when
under the control of machinery, a powerful, though a somewhat unpunctual agent. Lord Arthur was a little
consoled by this reflection, but even here he was destined to disappointment, for two days afterwards, as he
was going upstairs, the Duchess called him into her boudoir, and showed him a letter she had just received
from the Deanery.

‘Jane writes charming letters,’ said the Duchess; ‘you must really read her last. It is
quite as good as the novels Mudie sends us.’

Lord Arthur seized the letter from her hand. It ran as follows:-

THE DEANERY, CHICHESTER,

27th May.

My Dearest Aunt,

Thank you so much for the flannel for the Dorcas Society, and also for the gingham. I quite agree with you
that it is nonsense their wanting to wear pretty things, but everybody is so Radical and irreligious nowadays,
that it is difficult to make them see that they should not try and dress like the upper classes. I am sure I
don’t know what we are coming to. As papa has often said in his sermons, we live in an age of
unbelief.

We have had great fun over a clock that an unknown admirer sent papa last Thursday. It arrived in a wooden
box from London, carriage paid, and papa feels it must have been sent by some one who had read his
remarkable sermon, ‘Is Licence Liberty?’ for on the top of the clock was a figure of a woman,
with what papa said was the cap of Liberty on her head. I didn’t think it very becoming myself, but
papa said it was historical, so I suppose it is all right. Parker unpacked it, and papa put it on the mantelpiece
in the library, and we were all sitting there on Friday morning, when just as the clock struck twelve, we heard
a whirring noise, a little puff of smoke came from the pedestal of the figure, and the goddess of Liberty fell
off, and broke her nose on the fender! Maria was quite alarmed, but it looked so ridiculous, that James and I
went off into fits of laughter, and even papa was amused. When we examined it, we found it was a sort of
alarum clock, and that, if you set it to a particular hour, and put some gunpowder and a cap under a little
hammer, it went off whenever you wanted. Papa said it must not remain in the library, as it made a noise, so
Reggie carried it away to the schoolroom, and does nothing but have small explosions all day long. Do you
think Arthur would like one for a wedding present? I suppose they are quite fashionable in London. Papa
says they should do a great deal of good, as they show that Liberty can’t last, but must fall down. Papa
says Liberty was invented at the time of the French Revolution. How awful it seems!

I have now to go to the Dorcas, where I will read them your most instructive letter. How true, dear aunt, your
idea is, that in their rank of life they should wear what is unbecoming. I must say it is absurd, their anxiety
about dress, when there are so many more important things in this world, and in the next. I am so glad your
flowered poplin turned out so well, and that your lace was not torn. I am wearing my yellow satin, that you so
kindly gave me, at the Bishop’s on Wednesday, and think it will look all right. Would you have bows
or not? Jennings says that every one wears bows now, and that the underskirt should be frilled. Reggie has
just had another explosion, and papa has ordered the clock to be sent to the stables. I don’t think papa
likes it so much as he did at first, though he is very flattered at being sent such a pretty and ingenious toy. It
shows that people read his sermons, and profit by them.

CHAPTER V 18
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

Papa sends his love, in which James, and Reggie, and Maria all unite, and, hoping that Uncle Cecil’s
gout is better, believe me, dear aunt, ever your affectionate niece,

JANE PERCY.

PS. - Do tell me about the bows. Jennings insists they are the fashion.

Lord Arthur looked so serious and unhappy over the letter, that the Duchess went into fits of laughter.

‘My dear Arthur,’ she cried, ‘I shall never show you a young lady’s letter again!
But what shall I say about the clock? I think it is a capital invention, and I should like to have one
myself.’

‘I don’t think much of them,’ said Lord Arthur, with a sad smile, and, after kissing his
mother, he left the room.

When he got upstairs, he flung himself on a sofa, and his eyes filled with tears. He had done his best to
commit this murder, but on both occasions he had failed, and through no fault of his own. He had tried to do
his duty, but it seemed as if Destiny herself had turned traitor. He was oppressed with the sense of the
barrenness of good intentions, of the futility of trying to be fine. Perhaps, it would be better to break off the
marriage altogether. Sybil would suffer, it is true, but suffering could not really mar a nature so noble as
hers. As for himself, what did it matter? There is always some war in which a man can die, some cause to
which a man can give his life, and as life had no pleasure for him, so death had no terror. Let Destiny work
out his doom. He would not stir to help her.

At half-past seven he dressed, and went down to the club. Surbiton was there with a party of young men, and
he was obliged to dine with them. Their trivial conversation and idle jests did not interest him, and as soon as
coffee was brought he left them, inventing some engagement in order to get away. As he was going out of the
club, the hall-porter handed him a letter. It was from Herr Winckelkopf, asking him to call down the next
evening, and look at an explosive umbrella, that went off as soon as it was opened. It was the very latest
invention, and had just arrived from Geneva. He tore the letter up into fragments. He had made up his mind
not to try any more experiments. Then he wandered down to the Thames Embankment, and sat for hours by
the river. The moon peered through a mane of tawny clouds, as if it were a lion’s eye, and
innumerable stars spangled the hollow vault, like gold dust powdered on a purple dome. Now and then a
barge swung out into the turbid stream, and floated away with the tide, and the railway signals changed from
green to scarlet as the trains ran shrieking across the bridge. After some time, twelve o’clock boomed
from the tall tower at Westminster, and at each stroke of the sonorous bell the night seemed to tremble. Then
the railway lights went out, one solitary lamp left gleaming like a large ruby on a giant mast, and the roar of
the city became fainter.

At two o’clock he got up, and strolled towards Blackfriars. How unreal everything looked! How like
a strange dream! The houses on the other side of the river seemed built out of darkness. One would have said
that silver and shadow had fashioned the world anew. The huge dome of St. Paul’s loomed like a
bubble through the dusky air.

As he approached Cleopatra’s Needle he saw a man leaning over the parapet, and as he came nearer
the man looked up, the gas-light falling full upon his face.

It was Mr. Podgers, the cheiromantist! No one could mistake the fat, flabby face, the gold-rimmed spectacles,
the sickly feeble smile, the sensual mouth.

CHAPTER V 19
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

Lord Arthur stopped. A brilliant idea flashed across him, and he stole softly up behind. In a moment he had
seized Mr. Podgers by the legs, and flung him into the Thames. There was a coarse oath, a heavy splash, and
all was still. Lord Arthur looked anxiously over, but could see nothing of the cheiromantist but a tall hat,
pirouetting in an eddy of moonlit water. After a time it also sank, and no trace of Mr. Podgers was visible.
Once he thought that he caught sight of the bulky misshapen figure striking out for the staircase by the bridge,
and a horrible feeling of failure came over him, but it turned out to be merely a reflection, and when the moon
shone out from behind a cloud it passed away. At last he seemed to have realised the decree of destiny. He
heaved a deep sigh of relief, and Sybil’s name came to his lips.

‘Have you dropped anything, sir?’ said a voice behind him suddenly.

He turned round, and saw a policeman with a bull’s-eye lantern.

‘Nothing of importance, sergeant,’ he answered, smiling, and hailing a passing hansom, he

jumped in, and told the man to drive to Belgrave Square.

For the next few days he alternated between hope and fear. There were moments when he almost expected
Mr. Podgers to walk into the room, and yet at other times he felt that Fate could not be so unjust to him.
Twice he went to the cheiromantist’s address in West Moon Street, but he could not bring himself to
ring the bell. He longed for certainty, and was afraid of it.

Finally it came. He was sitting in the smoking-room of the club having tea, and listening rather wearily to
Surbiton’s account of the last comic song at the Gaiety, when the waiter came in with the evening
papers. He took up the St. James’s, and was listlessly turning over its pages, when this strange
heading caught his eye:

SUICIDE OF A CHEIROMANTIST.

He turned pale with excitement, and began to read. The paragraph ran as follows:

Yesterday morning, at seven o’clock, the body of Mr. Septimus R. Podgers, the eminent cheiromantist,
was washed on shore at Greenwich, just in front of the Ship Hotel. The unfortunate gentleman had been
missing for some days, and considerable anxiety for his safety had been felt in cheiromantic circles. It is
supposed that he committed suicide under the influence of a temporary mental derangement, caused by
overwork, and a verdict to that effect was returned this afternoon by the coroner’s jury. Mr. Podgers
had just completed an elaborate treatise on the subject of the Human Hand, that will shortly be published,
when it will no doubt attract much attention. The deceased was sixty-five years of age, and does not seem to
have left any relations.

Lord Arthur rushed out of the club with the paper still in his hand, to the immense amazement of the
hall-porter, who tried in vain to stop him, and drove at once to Park Lane. Sybil saw him from the window,
and something told her that he was the bearer of good news. She ran down to meet him, and, when she saw
his face, she knew that all was well.

‘My dear Sybil,’ cried Lord Arthur, ‘let us be married to-morrow!’

‘You foolish boy! Why, the cake is not even ordered!’ said Sybil, laughing through her tears.

CHAPTER V 20
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

CHAPTER VI

When the wedding took place, some three weeks later, St. Peter’s was crowded with a perfect mob of
smart people. The service was read in the most impressive manner by the Dean of Chichester, and everybody
agreed that they had never seen a handsomer couple than the bride and bridegroom. They were more than
handsome, however - they were happy. Never for a single moment did Lord Arthur regret all that he had
suffered for Sybil’s sake, while she, on her side, gave him the best things a woman can give to any
man - worship, tenderness, and love. For them romance was not killed by reality. They always felt young.

Some years afterwards, when two beautiful children had been born to them, Lady Windermere came down on
a visit to Alton Priory, a lovely old place, that had been the Duke’s wedding present to his son; and
one afternoon as she was sitting with Lady Arthur under a lime-tree in the garden, watching the little boy and
girl as they played up and down the rose-walk, like fitful sunbeams, she suddenly took her hostess’s
hand in hers, and said, ‘Are you happy, Sybil?’

‘Dear Lady Windermere, of course I am happy. Aren’t you?’

‘I have no time to be happy, Sybil. I always like the last person who is introduced to me; but, as a rule,
as soon as I know people I get tired of them.’

‘Don’t your lions satisfy you, Lady Windermere?’

‘Oh dear, no! lions are only good for one season. As soon as their manes are cut, they are the dullest
creatures going. Besides, they behave very badly, if you are really nice to them. Do you remember that
horrid Mr. Podgers? He was a dreadful impostor. Of course, I didn’t mind that at all, and even when
he wanted to borrow money I forgave him, but I could not stand his making love to me. He has really made
me hate cheiromancy. I go in for telepathy now. It is much more amusing.’

‘You mustn’t say anything against cheiromancy here, Lady Windermere; it is the only subject
that Arthur does not like people to chaff about. I assure you he is quite serious over it.’

‘You don’t mean to say that he believes in it, Sybil?’

‘Ask him, Lady Windermere, here he is’; and Lord Arthur came up the garden with a large
bunch of yellow roses in his hand, and his two children dancing round him.

‘Lord Arthur?’

‘Yes, Lady Windermere.’

‘You don’t mean to say that you believe in cheiromancy?’

‘Of course I do,’ said the young man, smiling.

‘But why?’

CHAPTER VI 21
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘Because I owe to it all the happiness of my life,’ he murmured, throwing himself into a wicker
chair.

‘My dear Lord Arthur, what do you owe to it?’

‘Sybil,’ he answered, handing his wife the roses, and looking into her violet eyes.

‘What nonsense!’ cried Lady Windermere. ‘I never heard such nonsense in all my
life.’

THE CANTERVILLE GHOST

CHAPTER I

When Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing
a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted. Indeed, Lord Canterville himself,
who was a man of the most punctilious honour, had felt it his duty to mention the fact to Mr. Otis when they
came to discuss terms.

‘We have not cared to live in the place ourselves,’ said Lord Canterville, ‘since my
grandaunt, the Dowager Duchess of Bolton, was frightened into a fit, from which she never really recovered,
by two skeleton hands being placed on her shoulders as she was dressing for dinner, and I feel bound to tell
you, Mr. Otis, that the ghost has been seen by several living members of my family, as well as by the rector of
the parish, the Rev. Augustus Dampier, who is a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. After the
unfortunate accident to the Duchess, none of our younger servants would stay with us, and Lady Canterville
often got very little sleep at night, in consequence of the mysterious noises that came from the corridor and the
library.’

‘My Lord,’ answered the Minister, ‘I will take the furniture and the ghost at a valuation.
I come from a modern country, where we have everything that money can buy; and with all our spry young
fellows painting the Old World red, and carrying off your best actresses and prima-donnas, I reckon that if
there were such a thing as a ghost in Europe, we’d have it at home in a very short time in one of our
public museums, or on the road as a show.’

‘I fear that the ghost exists,’ said Lord Canterville, smiling, ‘though it may have resisted
the overtures of your enterprising impresarios. It has been well known for three centuries, since 1584 in fact,
and always makes its appearance before the death of any member of our family.’

‘Well, so does the family doctor for that matter, Lord Canterville. But there is no such thing, sir, as a
ghost, and I guess the laws of Nature are not going to be suspended for the British aristocracy.’

THE CANTERVILLE GHOST 22

 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
‘You are certainly very natural in America,’ answered Lord Canterville, who did not quite
understand Mr. Otis’s last observation, ‘and if you don’t mind a ghost in the house, it is
all right. Only you must remember I warned you.’

A few weeks after this, the purchase was completed, and at the close of the season the Minister and his family
went down to Canterville Chase. Mrs. Otis, who, as Miss Lucretia R. Tappan, of West 53rd Street, had been a
celebrated New York belle, was now a very handsome, middle-aged woman, with fine eyes, and a superb
profile. Many American ladies on leaving their native land adopt an appearance of chronic ill-health, under
the impression that it is a form of European refinement, but Mrs. Otis had never fallen into this error. She had
a magnificent constitution, and a really wonderful amount of animal spirits. Indeed, in many respects, she
was quite English, and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with
America nowadays, except, of course, language. Her eldest son, christened Washington by his parents in a
moment of patriotism, which he never ceased to regret, was a fair-haired, rather good-looking young man,
who had qualified himself for American diplomacy by leading the German at the Newport Casino for three
successive seasons, and even in London was well known as an excellent dancer. Gardenias and the peerage
were his only weaknesses. Otherwise he was extremely sensible. Miss Virginia E. Otis was a little girl of
fifteen, lithe and lovely as a fawn, and with a fine freedom in her large blue eyes. She was a wonderful
amazon, and had once raced old Lord Bilton on her pony twice round the park, winning by a length and a half,
just in front of the Achilles statue, to the huge delight of the young Duke of Cheshire, who proposed for her
on the spot, and was sent back to Eton that very night by his guardians, in floods of tears. After Virginia came
the twins, who were usually called ‘The Stars and Stripes,’ as they were always getting
swished. They were delightful boys, and with the exception of the worthy Minister the only true republicans
of the family.

As Canterville Chase is seven miles from Ascot, the nearest railway station, Mr. Otis had telegraphed for a
waggonette to meet them, and they started on their drive in high spirits. It was a lovely July evening, and the
air was delicate with the scent of the pine-woods. Now and then they heard a wood pigeon brooding over its
own sweet voice, or saw, deep in the rustling fern, the burnished breast of the pheasant. Little squirrels peered
at them from the beech-trees as they went by, and the rabbits scudded away through the brushwood and over
the mossy knolls, with their white tails in the air. As they entered the avenue of Canterville Chase, however,
the sky became suddenly overcast with clouds, a curious stillness seemed to hold the atmosphere, a great
flight of rooks passed silently over their heads, and, before they reached the house, some big drops of rain had
fallen.

Standing on the steps to receive them was an old woman, neatly dressed in black silk, with a white cap and
apron. This was Mrs. Umney, the housekeeper, whom Mrs. Otis, at Lady Canterville’s earnest request,
had consented to keep on in her former position. She made them each a low curtsey as they alighted, and said
in a quaint, old-fashioned manner, ‘I bid you welcome to Canterville Chase.’ Following her,
they passed through the fine Tudor hall into the library, a long, low room, panelled in black oak, at the end of
which was a large stained-glass window. Here they found tea laid out for them, and, after taking off their
wraps, they sat down and began to look round, while Mrs. Umney waited on them.

Suddenly Mrs. Otis caught sight of a dull red stain on the floor just by the fireplace and, quite unconscious of
what it really signified, said to Mrs. Umney, ‘I am afraid something has been spilt there.’

‘Yes, madam,’ replied the old housekeeper in a low voice, ‘blood has been spilt on that
spot.’

‘How horrid,’ cried Mrs. Otis; ‘I don’t at all care for blood-stains in a
sitting-room. It must be removed at once.’

CHAPTER I 23
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
The old woman smiled, and answered in the same low, mysterious voice, ‘It is the blood of Lady
Eleanore de Canterville, who was murdered on that very spot by her own husband, Sir Simon de Canterville,
in 1575. Sir Simon survived her nine years, and disappeared suddenly under very mysterious circumstances.
His body has never been discovered, but his guilty spirit still haunts the Chase. The blood-stain has been
much admired by tourists and others, and cannot be removed.’

‘That is all nonsense,’ cried Washington Otis; ‘Pinkerton’s Champion Stain

Remover and Paragon Detergent will clean it up in no time,’ and before the terrified housekeeper
could interfere he had fallen upon his knees, and was rapidly scouring the floor with a small stick of what
looked like a black cosmetic. In a few moments no trace of the blood-stain could be seen.

‘I knew Pinkerton would do it,’ he exclaimed triumphantly, as he looked round at his admiring
family; but no sooner had he said these words than a terrible flash of lightning lit up the sombre room, a
fearful peal of thunder made them all start to their feet, and Mrs. Umney fainted.

‘What a monstrous climate!’ said the American Minister calmly, as he lit a long cheroot.
‘I guess the old country is so overpopulated that they have not enough decent weather for everybody. I
have always been of opinion that emigration is the only thing for England.’

‘My dear Hiram,’ cried Mrs. Otis, ‘what can we do with a woman who faints?’

‘Charge it to her like breakages,’ answered the Minister; ‘she won’t faint after
that’; and in a few moments Mrs. Umney certainly came to. There was no doubt, however, that she
was extremely upset, and she sternly warned Mr. Otis to beware of some trouble coming to the house.

‘I have seen things with my own eyes, sir,’ she said, ‘that would make any
Christian’s hair stand on end, and many and many a night I have not closed my eyes in sleep for the
awful things that are done here.’ Mr. Otis, however, and his wife warmly assured the honest soul that
they were not afraid of ghosts, and, after invoking the blessings of Providence on her new master and
mistress, and making arrangements for an increase of salary, the old housekeeper tottered off to her own
room.

CHAPTER II

The storm raged fiercely all that night, but nothing of particular note occurred. The next morning, however,
when they came down to breakfast, they found the terrible stain of blood once again on the floor. ‘I
don’t think it can be the fault of the Paragon Detergent,’ said Washington, ‘for I have
tried it with everything. It must be the ghost.’ He accordingly rubbed out the stain a second time, but
the second morning it appeared again. The third morning also it was there, though the library had been locked
up at night by Mr. Otis himself, and the key carried upstairs. The whole family were now quite interested;
Mr. Otis began to suspect that he had been too dogmatic in his denial of the existence of ghosts, Mrs. Otis
expressed her intention of joining the Psychical Society, and Washington prepared a long letter to Messrs.
Myers and Podmore on the subject of the Permanence of Sanguineous Stains when connected with Crime.
That night all doubts about the objective existence of phantasmata were removed for ever.

The day had been warm and sunny; and, in the cool of the evening, the whole family went out for a drive.

CHAPTER II 24
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
They did not return home till nine o’clock, when they had a light supper. The conversation in no way
turned upon ghosts, so there were not even those primary conditions of receptive expectation which so often
precede the presentation of psychical phenomena. The subjects discussed, as I have since learned from Mr.
Otis, were merely such as form the ordinary conversation of cultured Americans of the better class, such as
the immense superiority of Miss Fanny Davenport over Sarah Bernhardt as an actress; the difficulty of
obtaining green corn, buckwheat cakes, and hominy, even in the best English houses; the importance of
Boston in the development of the world-soul; the advantages of the baggage check system in railway
travelling; and the sweetness of the New York accent as compared to the London drawl. No mention at all
was made of the supernatural, nor was Sir Simon de Canterville alluded to in any way. At eleven
o’clock the family retired, and by half-past all the lights were out. Some time after, Mr. Otis was
awakened by a curious noise in the corridor, outside his room. It sounded like the clank of metal, and seemed
to be coming nearer every moment. He got up at once, struck a match, and looked at the time. It was exactly
one o’clock. He was quite calm, and felt his pulse, which was not at all feverish. The strange noise
still continued, and with it he heard distinctly the sound of footsteps. He put on his slippers, took a small
oblong phial out of his dressing-case, and opened the door. Right in front of him he saw, in the wan
moonlight, an old man of terrible aspect. His eyes were as red burning coals; long grey hair fell over his
shoulders in matted coils; his garments, which were of antique cut, were soiled and ragged, and from his
wrists and ankles hung heavy manacles and rusty gyves.

‘My dear sir,’ said Mr. Otis, ‘I really must insist on your oiling those chains, and have
brought you for that purpose a small bottle of the Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator. It is said to be completely
efficacious upon one application, and there are several testimonials to that effect on the wrapper from some of
our most eminent native divines. I shall leave it here for you by the bedroom candles, and will be happy to
supply you with more should you require it.’ With these words the United States Minister laid the
bottle down on a marble table, and, closing his door, retired to rest.

For a moment the Canterville ghost stood quite motionless in natural indignation; then, dashing the bottle
violently upon the polished floor, he fled down the corridor, uttering hollow groans, and emitting a ghastly
green light. Just, however, as he reached the top of the great oak staircase, a door was flung open, two little
white-robed figures appeared, and a large pillow whizzed past his head! There was evidently no time to be
lost, so, hastily adopting the Fourth Dimension of Space as a means of escape, he vanished through the
wainscoting, and the house became quite quiet.

On reaching a small secret chamber in the left wing, he leaned up against a moonbeam to recover his breath,
and began to try and realise his position. Never, in a brilliant and uninterrupted career of three hundred years,
had he been so grossly insulted. He thought of the Dowager Duchess, whom he had frightened into a fit as
she stood before the glass in her lace and diamonds; of the four housemaids, who had gone off into hysterics
when he merely grinned at them through the curtains of one of the spare bedrooms; of the rector of the parish,
whose candle he had blown out as he was coming late one night from the library, and who had been under the
care of Sir William Gull ever since, a perfect martyr to nervous disorders; and of old Madame de Tremouillac,
who, having wakened up one morning early and seen a skeleton seated in an arm-chair by the fire reading her
diary, had been confined to her bed for six weeks with an attack of brain fever, and, on her recovery, had
become reconciled to the Church, and broken off her connection with that notorious sceptic Monsieur de
Voltaire. He remembered the terrible night when the wicked Lord Canterville was found choking in his
dressing-room, with the knave of diamonds half-way down his throat, and confessed, just before he died, that
he had cheated Charles James Fox out of £50,000 at Crockford’s by means of that very card, and
swore that the ghost had made him swallow it. All his great achievements came back to him again, from the
butler who had shot himself in the pantry because he had seen a green hand tapping at the window pane, to the
beautiful Lady Stutfield, who was always obliged to wear a black velvet band round her throat to hide the
mark of five fingers burnt upon her white skin, and who drowned herself at last in the carp-pond at the end of
the King’s Walk. With the enthusiastic egotism of the true artist he went over his most celebrated

CHAPTER II 25
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

performances, and smiled bitterly to himself as he recalled to mind his last appearance as ‘Red Ruben,
or the Strangled Babe,’ his début as ‘Gaunt Gibeon, the Blood-sucker of Bexley Moor,’
and the furore he had excited one lovely June evening by merely playing ninepins with his own bones upon
the lawn-tennis ground. And after all this, some wretched modern Americans were to come and offer him the
Rising Sun Lubricator, and throw pillows at his head! It was quite unbearable. Besides, no ghosts in history
had ever been treated in this manner. Accordingly, he determined to have vengeance, and remained till
daylight in an attitude of deep thought.

CHAPTER III

The next morning when the Otis family met at breakfast, they discussed the ghost at some length. The United
States Minister was naturally a little annoyed to find that his present had not been accepted. ‘I have no
wish,’ he said, ‘to do the ghost any personal injury, and I must say that, considering the length
of time he has been in the house, I don’t think it is at all polite to throw pillows at him’ - a very
just remark, at which, I am sorry to say, the twins burst into shouts of laughter. ‘Upon the other
hand,’ he continued, ‘if he really declines to use the Rising Sun Lubricator, we shall have to
take his chains from him. It would be quite impossible to sleep, with such a noise going on outside the
bedrooms.’

For the rest of the week, however, they were undisturbed, the only thing that excited any attention being the
continual renewal of the blood-stain on the library floor. This certainly was very strange, as the door was
always locked at night by Mr. Otis, and the windows kept closely barred. The chameleon-like colour, also, of
the stain excited a good deal of comment. Some mornings it was a dull (almost Indian) red, then it would be
vermilion, then a rich purple, and once when they came down for family prayers, according to the simple rites
of the Free American Reformed Episcopalian Church, they found it a bright emerald-green. These
kaleidoscopic changes naturally amused the party very much, and bets on the subject were freely made every
evening. The only person who did not enter into the joke was little Virginia, who, for some unexplained
reason, was always a good deal distressed at the sight of the blood-stain, and very nearly cried the morning it
was emerald-green.

The second appearance of the ghost was on Sunday night. Shortly after they had gone to bed they were
suddenly alarmed by a fearful crash in the hall. Rushing downstairs, they found that a large suit of old armour
had become detached from its stand, and had fallen on the stone floor, while, seated in a high-backed chair,
was the Canterville ghost, rubbing his knees with an expression of acute agony on his face. The twins, having
brought their pea-shooters with them, at once discharged two pellets on him, with that accuracy of aim which
can only be attained by long and careful practice on a writing-master, while the United States Minister
covered him with his revolver, and called upon him, in accordance with Californian etiquette, to hold up his
hands! The ghost started up with a wild shriek of rage, and swept through them like a mist, extinguishing
Washington Otis’s candle as he passed, and so leaving them all in total darkness. On reaching the top
of the staircase he recovered himself, and determined to give his celebrated peal of demoniac laughter. This
he had on more than one occasion found extremely useful. It was said to have turned Lord Raker’s
wig grey in a single night, and had certainly made three of Lady Canterville’s French governesses give
warning before their month was up. He accordingly laughed his most horrible laugh, till the old vaulted roof
rang and rang again, but hardly had the fearful echo died away when a door opened, and Mrs. Otis came out in
a light blue dressing-gown. ‘I am afraid you are far from well,’ she said, ‘and have
brought you a bottle of Dr. Dobell’s tincture. If it is indigestion, you will find it a most excellent

CHAPTER III 26
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
remedy.’ The ghost glared at her in fury, and began at once to make preparations for turning himself
into a large black dog, an accomplishment for which he was justly renowned, and to which the family doctor
always attributed the permanent idiocy of Lord Canterville’s uncle, the Hon. Thomas Horton. The
sound of approaching footsteps, however, made him hesitate in his fell purpose, so he contented himself with
becoming faintly phosphorescent, and vanished with a deep churchyard groan, just as the twins had come up
to him.

On reaching his room he entirely broke down, and became a prey to the most violent agitation. The vulgarity
of the twins, and the gross materialism of Mrs. Otis, were naturally extremely annoying, but what really
distressed him most was, that he had been unable to wear the suit of mail. He had hoped that even modern
Americans would be thrilled by the sight of a Spectre In Armour, if for no more sensible reason, at least out of
respect for their national poet Longfellow, over whose graceful and attractive poetry he himself had whiled
away many a weary hour when the Cantervilles were up in town. Besides, it was his own suit. He had worn it
with great success at the Kenilworth tournament, and had been highly complimented on it by no less a person
than the Virgin Queen herself. Yet when he had put it on, he had been completely overpowered by the weight
of the huge breastplate and steel casque, and had fallen heavily on the stone pavement, barking both his knees
severely, and bruising the knuckles of his right hand.

For some days after this he was extremely ill, and hardly stirred out of his room at all, except to keep the
blood-stain in proper repair. However, by taking great care of himself, he recovered, and resolved to make a
third attempt to frighten the United States Minister and his family. He selected Friday, the 17th of August, for
his appearance, and spent most of that day in looking over his wardrobe, ultimately deciding in favour of a
large slouched hat with a red feather, a winding-sheet frilled at the wrists and neck, and a rusty dagger.
Towards evening a violent storm of rain came on, and the wind was so high that all the windows and doors in
the old house shook and rattled. In fact, it was just such weather as he loved. His plan of action was this. He
was to make his way quietly to Washington Otis’s room, gibber at him from the foot of the bed, and
stab himself three times in the throat to the sound of slow music. He bore Washington a special grudge, being
quite aware that it was he who was in the habit of removing the famous Canterville blood-stain, by means of
Pinkerton’s Paragon Detergent. Having reduced the reckless and foolhardy youth to a condition of
abject terror, he was then to proceed to the room occupied by the United States Minister and his wife, and
there to place a clammy hand on Mrs. Otis’s forehead, while he hissed into her trembling
husband’s ear the awful secrets of the charnel-house. With regard to little Virginia, he had not quite
made up his mind. She had never insulted him in any way, and was pretty and gentle. A few hollow groans
from the wardrobe, he thought, would be more than sufficient, or, if that failed to wake her, he might grabble
at the counterpane with palsy-twitching fingers. As for the twins, he was quite determined to teach them a
lesson. The first thing to be done was, of course, to sit upon their chests, so as to produce the stifling
sensation of nightmare. Then, as their beds were quite close to each other, to stand between them in the form
of a green, icy-cold corpse, till they became paralysed with fear, and finally, to throw off the winding-sheet,
and crawl round the room, with white bleached bones and one rolling eye-ball, in the character of
‘Dumb Daniel, or the Suicide’s Skeleton,’ a rôle in which he had on more than one
occasion produced a great effect, and which he considered quite equal to his famous part of ‘Martin the
Maniac, or the Masked Mystery.’

At half-past ten he heard the family going to bed. For some time he was disturbed by wild shrieks of laughter
from the twins, who, with the light-hearted gaiety of schoolboys, were evidently amusing themselves before
they retired to rest, but at a quarter past eleven all was still, and, as midnight sounded, he sallied forth. The
owl beat against the window panes, the raven croaked from the old yew-tree, and the wind wandered moaning
round the house like a lost soul; but the Otis family slept unconscious of their doom, and high above the rain
and storm he could hear the steady snoring of the Minister for the United States. He stepped stealthily out of
the wainscoting, with an evil smile on his cruel, wrinkled mouth, and the moon hid her face in a cloud as he
stole past the great oriel window, where his own arms and those of his murdered wife were blazoned in azure

CHAPTER III 27
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
and gold. On and on he glided, like an evil shadow, the very darkness seeming to loathe him as he passed.
Once he thought he heard something call, and stopped; but it was only the baying of a dog from the Red Farm,
and he went on, muttering strange sixteenth-century curses, and ever and anon brandishing the rusty dagger in
the midnight air. Finally he reached the corner of the passage that led to luckless Washington’s room.
For a moment he paused there, the wind blowing his long grey locks about his head, and twisting into
grotesque and fantastic folds the nameless horror of the dead man’s shroud. Then the clock struck the
quarter, and he felt the time was come. He chuckled to himself, and turned the corner; but no sooner had he
done so, than, with a piteous wail of terror, he fell back, and hid his blanched face in his long, bony hands.
Right in front of him was standing a horrible spectre, motionless as a carven image, and monstrous as a
madman’s dream! Its head was bald and burnished; its face round, and fat, and white; and hideous
laughter seemed to have writhed its features into an eternal grin. From the eyes streamed rays of scarlet light,
the mouth was a wide well of fire, and a hideous garment, like to his own, swathed with its silent snows the
Titan form. On its breast was a placard with strange writing in antique characters, some scroll of shame it
seemed, some record of wild sins, some awful calendar of crime, and, with its right hand, it bore aloft a
falchion of gleaming steel.

Never having seen a ghost before, he naturally was terribly frightened, and, after a second hasty glance at the
awful phantom, he fled back to his room, tripping up in his long winding-sheet as he sped down the corridor,
and finally dropping the rusty dagger into the Minister’s jack-boots, where it was found in the morning
by the butler. Once in the privacy of his own apartment, he flung himself down on a small pallet-bed, and hid
his face under the clothes. After a time, however, the brave old Canterville spirit asserted itself, and he
determined to go and speak to the other ghost as soon as it was daylight. Accordingly, just as the dawn was
touching the hills with silver, he returned towards the spot where he had first laid eyes on the grisly phantom,
feeling that, after all, two ghosts were better than one, and that, by the aid of his new friend, he might safely
grapple with the twins. On reaching the spot, however, a terrible sight met his gaze. Something had evidently
happened to the spectre, for the light had entirely faded from its hollow eyes, the gleaming falchion had fallen
from its hand, and it was leaning up against the wall in a strained and uncomfortable attitude. He rushed
forward and seized it in his arms, when, to his horror, the head slipped off and rolled on the floor, the body
assumed a recumbent posture, and he found himself clasping a white dimity bed-curtain, with a
sweeping-brush, a kitchen cleaver, and a hollow turnip lying at his feet! Unable to understand this curious
transformation, he clutched the placard with feverish haste, and there, in the grey morning light, he read these
fearful words:-

YE OLDE GHOSTE

Ye Onlie True and Originale Spook.

Beware of Ye Imitationes.
All others are Counterfeite.

The whole thing flashed across him. He had been tricked, foiled, and outwitted! The old Canterville look
came into his eyes; he ground his toothless gums together; and, raising his withered hands high above his
head, swore, according to the picturesque phraseology of the antique school, that when Chanticleer had
sounded twice his merry horn, deeds of blood would be wrought, and Murder walk abroad with silent feet.

Hardly had he finished this awful oath when, from the red-tiled roof of a distant homestead, a cock crew. He
laughed a long, low, bitter laugh, and waited. Hour after hour he waited, but the cock, for some strange
reason, did not crow again. Finally, at half-past seven, the arrival of the housemaids made him give up his
fearful vigil, and he stalked back to his room, thinking of his vain hope and baffled purpose. There he
consulted several books of ancient chivalry, of which he was exceedingly fond, and found that, on every

CHAPTER III 28
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

occasion on which his oath had been used, Chanticleer had always crowed a second time. ‘Perdition
seize the naughty fowl,’ he muttered, ‘I have seen the day when, with my stout spear, I would
have run him through the gorge, and made him crow for me an ’twere in death!’ He then
retired to a comfortable lead coffin, and stayed there till evening.

CHAPTER IV

The next day the ghost was very weak and tired. The terrible excitement of the last four weeks was beginning
to have its effect. His nerves were completely shattered, and he started at the slightest noise. For five days he
kept his room, and at last made up his mind to give up the point of the blood-stain on the library floor. If the
Otis family did not want it, they clearly did not deserve it. They were evidently people on a low, material
plane of existence, and quite incapable of appreciating the symbolic value of sensuous phenomena. The
question of phantasmic apparitions, and the development of astral bodies, was of course quite a different
matter, and really not under his control. It was his solemn duty to appear in the corridor once a week, and to
gibber from the large oriel window on the first and third Wednesday in every month, and he did not see how
he could honourably escape from his obligations. It is quite true that his life had been very evil, but, upon the
other hand, he was most conscientious in all things connected with the supernatural. For the next three
Saturdays, accordingly, he traversed the corridor as usual between midnight and three o’clock, taking
every possible precaution against being either heard or seen. He removed his boots, trod as lightly as possible
on the old worm-eaten boards, wore a large black velvet cloak, and was careful to use the Rising Sun
Lubricator for oiling his chains. I am bound to acknowledge that it was with a good deal of difficulty that he
brought himself to adopt this last mode of protection. However, one night, while the family were at dinner, he
slipped into Mr. Otis’s bedroom and carried off the bottle. He felt a little humiliated at first, but
afterwards was sensible enough to see that there was a great deal to be said for the invention, and, to a certain
degree, it served his purpose. Still, in spite of everything, he was not left unmolested. Strings were
continually being stretched across the corridor, over which he tripped in the dark, and on one occasion, while
dressed for the part of ‘Black Isaac, or the Huntsman of Hogley Woods,’ he met with a severe
fall, through treading on a butter-slide, which the twins had constructed from the entrance of the Tapestry
Chamber to the top of the oak staircase. This last insult so enraged him, that he resolved to make one final
effort to assert his dignity and social position, and determined to visit the insolent young Etonians the next
night in his celebrated character of ‘Reckless Rupert, or the Headless Earl.’

He had not appeared in this disguise for more than seventy years; in fact, not since he had so frightened pretty
Lady Barbara Modish by means of it, that she suddenly broke off her engagement with the present Lord
Canterville’s grandfather, and ran away to Gretna Green with handsome Jack Castleton, declaring that
nothing in the world would induce her to marry into a family that allowed such a horrible phantom to walk up
and down the terrace at twilight. Poor Jack was afterwards shot in a duel by Lord Canterville on Wandsworth
Common, and Lady Barbara died of a broken heart at Tunbridge Wells before the year was out, so, in every
way, it had been a great success. It was, however, an extremely difficult ‘make-up,’ if I may
use such a theatrical expression in connection with one of the greatest mysteries of the supernatural, or, to
employ a more scientific term, the higher-natural world, and it took him fully three hours to make his
preparations. At last everything was ready, and he was very pleased with his appearance. The big leather
riding-boots that went with the dress were just a little too large for him, and he could only find one of the two
horse-pistols, but, on the whole, he was quite satisfied, and at a quarter past one he glided out of the
wainscoting and crept down the corridor. On reaching the room occupied by the twins, which I should
mention was called the Blue Bed Chamber, on account of the colour of its hangings, he found the door just

CHAPTER IV 29
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
ajar. Wishing to make an effective entrance, he flung it wide open, when a heavy jug of water fell right down
on him, wetting him to the skin, and just missing his left shoulder by a couple of inches. At the same moment
he heard stifled shrieks of laughter proceeding from the four-post bed. The shock to his nervous system was
so great that he fled back to his room as hard as he could go, and the next day he was laid up with a severe
cold. The only thing that at all consoled him in the whole affair was the fact that he had not brought his head
with him, for, had he done so, the consequences might have been very serious.

He now gave up all hope of ever frightening this rude American family, and contented himself, as a rule, with
creeping about the passages in list slippers, with a thick red muffler round his throat for fear of draughts, and a
small arquebuse, in case he should be attacked by the twins. The final blow he received occurred on the 19th
of September. He had gone downstairs to the great entrance-hall, feeling sure that there, at any rate, he would
be quite unmolested, and was amusing himself by making satirical remarks on the large Saroni photographs of
the United States Minister and his wife, which had now taken the place of the Canterville family pictures. He
was simply but neatly clad in a long shroud, spotted with churchyard mould, had tied up his jaw with a strip of
yellow linen, and carried a small lantern and a sexton’s spade. In fact, he was dressed for the character
of ‘Jonas the Graveless, or the Corpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn,’ one of his most remarkable
impersonations, and one which the Cantervilles had every reason to remember, as it was the real origin of
their quarrel with their neighbour, Lord Rufford. It was about a quarter past two o’clock in the
morning, and, as far as he could ascertain, no one was stirring. As he was strolling towards the library,
however, to see if there were any traces left of the blood-stain, suddenly there leaped out on him from a dark
corner two figures, who waved their arms wildly above their heads, and shrieked out ‘BOO!’ in
his ear.

Seized with a panic, which, under the circumstances, was only natural, he rushed for the staircase, but found
Washington Otis waiting for him there with the big garden-syringe; and being thus hemmed in by his enemies
on every side, and driven almost to bay, he vanished into the great iron stove, which, fortunately for him, was
not lit, and had to make his way home through the flues and chimneys, arriving at his own room in a terrible
state of dirt, disorder, and despair.

After this he was not seen again on any nocturnal expedition. The twins lay in wait for him on several
occasions, and strewed the passages with nutshells every night to the great annoyance of their parents and the
servants, but it was of no avail. It was quite evident that his feelings were so wounded that he would not
appear. Mr. Otis consequently resumed his great work on the history of the Democratic Party, on which he
had been engaged for some years; Mrs. Otis organised a wonderful clam-bake, which amazed the whole
county; the boys took to lacrosse, euchre, poker, and other American national games; and Virginia rode about
the lanes on her pony, accompanied by the young Duke of Cheshire, who had come to spend the last week of
his holidays at Canterville Chase. It was generally assumed that the ghost had gone away, and, in fact, Mr.
Otis wrote a letter to that effect to Lord Canterville, who, in reply, expressed his great pleasure at the news,
and sent his best congratulations to the Minister’s worthy wife.

The Otises, however, were deceived, for the ghost was still in the house, and though now almost an invalid,
was by no means ready to let matters rest, particularly as he heard that among the guests was the young Duke
of Cheshire, whose grand-uncle, Lord Francis Stilton, had once bet a hundred guineas with Colonel Carbury
that he would play dice with the Canterville ghost, and was found the next morning lying on the floor of the
card-room in such a helpless paralytic state, that though he lived on to a great age, he was never able to say
anything again but ‘Double Sixes.’ The story was well known at the time, though, of course,
out of respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attempt was made to hush it up; and a full
account of all the circumstances connected with it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle’s
Recollections of the Prince Regent and his Friends. The ghost, then, was naturally very anxious to show that
he had not lost his influence over the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, his own first
cousin having been married en secondes noces to the Sieur de Bulkeley, from whom, as every one knows, the

CHAPTER IV 30
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
Dukes of Cheshire are lineally descended. Accordingly, he made arrangements for appearing to
Virginia’s little lover in his celebrated impersonation of ‘The Vampire Monk, or, the Bloodless
Benedictine,’ a performance so horrible that when old Lady Startup saw it, which she did on one fatal
New Year’s Eve, in the year 1764, she went off into the most piercing shrieks, which culminated in
violent apoplexy, and died in three days, after disinheriting the Cantervilles, who were her nearest relations,
and leaving all her money to her London apothecary. At the last moment, however, his terror of the twins
prevented his leaving his room, and the little Duke slept in peace under the great feathered canopy in the
Royal Bedchamber, and dreamed of Virginia.

CHAPTER V

A few days after this, Virginia and her curly-haired cavalier went out riding on Brockley meadows, where she
tore her habit so badly in getting through a hedge, that, on her return home, she made up her mind to go up by
the back staircase so as not to be seen. As she was running past the Tapestry Chamber, the door of which
happened to be open, she fancied she saw some one inside, and thinking it was her mother’s maid, who
sometimes used to bring her work there, looked in to ask her to mend her habit. To her immense surprise,
however, it was the Canterville Ghost himself! He was sitting by the window, watching the ruined gold of the
yellowing trees fly through the air, and the red leaves dancing madly down the long avenue. His head was
leaning on his hand, and his whole attitude was one of extreme depression. Indeed, so forlorn, and so much
out of repair did he look, that little Virginia, whose first idea had been to run away and lock herself in her
room, was filled with pity, and determined to try and comfort him. So light was her footfall, and so deep his
melancholy, that he was not aware of her presence till she spoke to him.

‘I am so sorry for you,’ she said, ‘but my brothers are going back to Eton to-morrow,
and then, if you behave yourself, no one will annoy you.’

‘It is absurd asking me to behave myself,’ he answered, looking round in astonishment at the
pretty little girl who had ventured to address him, ‘quite absurd. I must rattle my chains, and groan
through keyholes, and walk about at night, if that is what you mean. It is my only reason for existing.’

‘It is no reason at all for existing, and you know you have been very wicked. Mrs. Umney told us, the
first day we arrived here, that you had killed your wife.’

‘Well, I quite admit it,’ said the Ghost petulantly, ‘but it was a purely family matter, and
concerned no one else.’

‘It is very wrong to kill any one,’ said Virginia, who at times had a sweet Puritan gravity,
caught from some old New England ancestor.

‘Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics! My wife was very plain, never had my ruffs properly
starched, and knew nothing about cookery. Why, there was a buck I had shot in Hogley Woods, a
magnificent pricket, and do you know how she had it sent up to table? However, it is no matter now, for it is
all over, and I don’t think it was very nice of her brothers to starve me to death, though I did kill
her.’

‘Starve you to death? Oh, Mr. Ghost, I mean Sir Simon, are you hungry? I have a sandwich in my

CHAPTER V 31
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

case. Would you like it?’

‘No, thank you, I never eat anything now; but it is very kind of you, all the same, and you are much
nicer than the rest of your horrid, rude, vulgar, dishonest family.’

‘Stop!’ cried Virginia, stamping her foot, ‘it is you who are rude, and horrid, and vulgar,
and as for dishonesty, you know you stole the paints out of my box to try and furbish up that ridiculous
blood-stain in the library. First you took all my reds, including the vermilion, and I couldn’t do any
more sunsets, then you took the emerald-green and the chrome-yellow, and finally I had nothing left but
indigo and Chinese white, and could only do moonlight scenes, which are always depressing to look at, and
not at all easy to paint. I never told on you, though I was very much annoyed, and it was most ridiculous, the
whole thing; for who ever heard of emerald-green blood?’

‘Well, really,’ said the Ghost, rather meekly, ‘what was I to do? It is a very difficult
thing to get real blood nowadays, and, as your brother began it all with his Paragon Detergent, I certainly saw
no reason why I should not have your paints. As for colour, that is always a matter of taste: the Cantervilles
have blue blood, for instance, the very bluest in England; but I know you Americans don’t care for
things of this kind.’

‘You know nothing about it, and the best thing you can do is to emigrate and improve your mind. My
father will be only too happy to give you a free passage, and though there is a heavy duty on spirits of every
kind, there will be no difficulty about the Custom House, as the officers are all Democrats. Once in New
York, you are sure to be a great success. I know lots of people there who would give a hundred thousand
dollars to have a grandfather, and much more than that to have a family Ghost.’

‘I don’t think I should like America.’

‘I suppose because we have no ruins and no curiosities,’ said Virginia satirically.

‘No ruins! no curiosities!’ answered the Ghost; ‘you have your navy and your
manners.’

‘Good evening; I will go and ask papa to get the twins an extra week’s holiday.’

‘Please don’t go, Miss Virginia,’ he cried; ‘I am so lonely and so unhappy, and I
really don’t know what to do. I want to go to sleep and I cannot.’

‘That’s quite absurd! You have merely to go to bed and blow out the candle. It is very difficult
sometimes to keep awake, especially at church, but there is no difficulty at all about sleeping. Why, even
babies know how to do that, and they are not very clever.’

‘I have not slept for three hundred years,’ he said sadly, and Virginia’s beautiful blue
eyes opened in wonder; ‘for three hundred years I have not slept, and I am so tired.’

Virginia grew quite grave, and her little lips trembled like rose-leaves. She came towards him, and kneeling
down at his side, looked up into his old withered face.

‘Poor, poor Ghost,’ she murmured; ‘have you no place where you can sleep?’

‘Far away beyond the pine-woods,’ he answered, in a low dreamy voice, ‘there is a little
garden. There the grass grows long and deep, there are the great white stars of the hemlock flower, there the

CHAPTER V 32
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

nightingale sings all night long. All night long he sings, and the cold, crystal moon looks down, and the
yew-tree spreads out its giant arms over the sleepers.’

Virginia’s eyes grew dim with tears, and she hid her face in her hands.

‘You mean the Garden of Death,’ she whispered.

‘Yes, Death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above
one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forgive
life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of Death’s house, for Love is
always with you, and Love is stronger than Death is.’

Virginia trembled, a cold shudder ran through her, and for a few moments there was silence. She felt as if she
was in a terrible dream.

Then the Ghost spoke again, and his voice sounded like the sighing of the wind.

‘Have you ever read the old prophecy on the library window?’

‘Oh, often,’ cried the little girl, looking up; ‘I know it quite well. It is painted in curious
black letters, and it is difficult to read. There are only six lines:

When a golden girl can win

Prayer from out the lips of sin,
When the barren almond bears,
And a little child gives away its tears,
Then shall all the house be still
And peace come to Canterville.

But I don’t know what they mean.’

‘They mean,’ he said sadly, ‘that you must weep for me for my sins, because I have no
tears, and pray with me for my soul, because I have no faith, and then, if you have always been sweet, and
good, and gentle, the Angel of Death will have mercy on me. You will see fearful shapes in darkness, and
wicked voices will whisper in your ear, but they will not harm you, for against the purity of a little child the
powers of Hell cannot prevail.’

Virginia made no answer, and the Ghost wrung his hands in wild despair as he looked down at her bowed
golden head. Suddenly she stood up, very pale, and with a strange light in her eyes. ‘I am not
afraid,’ she said firmly, ‘and I will ask the Angel to have mercy on you.’

He rose from his seat with a faint cry of joy, and taking her hand bent over it with old-fashioned grace and
kissed it. His fingers were as cold as ice, and his lips burned like fire, but Virginia did not falter, as he led her
across the dusky room. On the faded green tapestry were broidered little huntsmen. They blew their tasselled
horns and with their tiny hands waved to her to go back. ‘Go back! little Virginia,’ they cried,
‘go back!’ but the Ghost clutched her hand more tightly, and she shut her eyes against them.
Horrible animals with lizard tails, and goggle eyes, blinked at her from the carven chimney-piece, and
murmured ‘Beware! little Virginia, beware! we may never see you again,’ but the Ghost glided
on more swiftly, and Virginia did not listen. When they reached the end of the room he stopped, and muttered

CHAPTER V 33
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

some words she could not understand. She opened her eyes, and saw the wall slowly fading away like a mist,
and a great black cavern in front of her. A bitter cold wind swept round them, and she felt something pulling
at her dress. ‘Quick, quick,’ cried the Ghost, ‘or it will be too late,’ and, in a
moment, the wainscoting had closed behind them, and the Tapestry Chamber was empty.

CHAPTER VI

About ten minutes later, the bell rang for tea, and, as Virginia did not come down, Mrs. Otis sent up one of the
footmen to tell her. After a little time he returned and said that he could not find Miss Virginia anywhere. As
she was in the habit of going out to the garden every evening to get flowers for the dinner-table, Mrs. Otis was
not at all alarmed at first, but when six o’clock struck, and Virginia did not appear, she became really
agitated, and sent the boys out to look for her, while she herself and Mr. Otis searched every room in the
house. At half-past six the boys came back and said that they could find no trace of their sister anywhere.
They were all now in the greatest state of excitement, and did not know what to do, when Mr. Otis suddenly
remembered that, some few days before, he had given a band of gypsies permission to camp in the park. He
accordingly at once set off for Blackfell Hollow, where he knew they were, accompanied by his eldest son and
two of the farm-servants. The little Duke of Cheshire, who was perfectly frantic with anxiety, begged hard to
be allowed to go too, but Mr. Otis would not allow him, as he was afraid there might be a scuffle. On arriving
at the spot, however, he found that the gypsies had gone, and it was evident that their departure had been
rather sudden, as the fire was still burning, and some plates were lying on the grass. Having sent off
Washington and the two men to scour the district, he ran home, and despatched telegrams to all the police
inspectors in the county, telling them to look out for a little girl who had been kidnapped by tramps or
gypsies. He then ordered his horse to be brought round, and, after insisting on his wife and the three boys
sitting down to dinner, rode off down the Ascot Road with a groom. He had hardly, however, gone a couple
of miles when he heard somebody galloping after him, and, looking round, saw the little Duke coming up on
his pony, with his face very flushed and no hat. ‘I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Otis,’ gasped
out the boy, ‘but I can’t eat any dinner as long as Virginia is lost. Please, don’t be angry
with me; if you had let us be engaged last year, there would never have been all this trouble. You
won’t send me back, will you? I can’t go! I won’t go!’

The Minister could not help smiling at the handsome young scapegrace, and was a good deal touched at his
devotion to Virginia, so leaning down from his horse, he patted him kindly on the shoulders, and said,
‘Well, Cecil, if you won’t go back I suppose you must come with me, but I must get you a hat
at Ascot.’

‘Oh, bother my hat! I want Virginia!’ cried the little Duke, laughing, and they galloped on to
the railway station. There Mr. Otis inquired of the station-master if any one answering the description of
Virginia had been seen on the platform, but could get no news of her. The station-master, however, wired up
and down the line, and assured him that a strict watch would be kept for her, and, after having bought a hat for
the little Duke from a linen-draper, who was just putting up his shutters, Mr. Otis rode off to Bexley, a village
about four miles away, which he was told was a well-known haunt of the gypsies, as there was a large
common next to it. Here they roused up the rural policeman, but could get no information from him, and,
after riding all over the common, they turned their horses’ heads homewards, and reached the Chase
about eleven o’clock, dead-tired and almost heart-broken. They found Washington and the twins
waiting for them at the gate-house with lanterns, as the avenue was very dark. Not the slightest trace of
Virginia had been discovered. The gypsies had been caught on Brockley meadows, but she was not with

CHAPTER VI 34
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
them, and they had explained their sudden departure by saying that they had mistaken the date of Chorton
Fair, and had gone off in a hurry for fear they might be late. Indeed, they had been quite distressed at hearing
of Virginia’s disappearance, as they were very grateful to Mr. Otis for having allowed them to camp in
his park, and four of their number had stayed behind to help in the search. The carp-pond had been dragged,
and the whole Chase thoroughly gone over, but without any result. It was evident that, for that night at any
rate, Virginia was lost to them; and it was in a state of the deepest depression that Mr Otis and the boys
walked up to the house, the groom following behind with the two horses and the pony. In the hall they found
a group of frightened servants, and lying on a sofa in the library was poor Mrs. Otis, almost out of her mind
with terror and anxiety, and having her forehead bathed with eau-de-cologne by the old housekeeper. Mr.
Otis at once insisted on her having something to eat, and ordered up supper for the whole party. It was a
melancholy meal, as hardly any one spoke, and even the twins were awestruck and subdued, as they were very
fond of their sister. When they had finished, Mr. Otis, in spite of the entreaties of the little Duke, ordered
them all to bed, saying that nothing more could be done that night, and that he would telegraph in the morning
to Scotland Yard for some detectives to be sent down immediately. Just as they were passing out of the
dining-room, midnight began to boom from the clock tower, and when the last stroke sounded they heard a
crash and a sudden shrill cry; a dreadful peal of thunder shook the house, a strain of unearthly music floated
through the air, a panel at the top of the staircase flew back with a loud noise, and out on the landing, looking
very pale and white, with a little casket in her hand, stepped Virginia. In a moment they had all rushed up to
her. Mrs. Otis clasped her passionately in her arms, the Duke smothered her with violent kisses, and the twins
executed a wild war-dance round the group.

‘Good heavens! child, where have you been?’ said Mr. Otis, rather angrily, thinking that she
had been playing some foolish trick on them. ‘Cecil and I have been riding all over the country
looking for you, and your mother has been frightened to death. You must never play these practical jokes any
more.’

‘Except on the Ghost! except on the Ghost!’ shrieked the twins, as they capered about.

‘My own darling, thank God you are found; you must never leave my side again,’ murmured
Mrs. Otis, as she kissed the trembling child, and smoothed the tangled gold of her hair.

‘Papa,’ said Virginia quietly, ‘I have been with the Ghost. He is dead, and you must
come and see him. He had been very wicked, but he was really sorry for all that he had done, and he gave me
this box of beautiful jewels before he died.’

The whole family gazed at her in mute amazement, but she was quite grave and serious; and, turning round,
she led them through the opening in the wainscoting down a narrow secret corridor, Washington following
with a lighted candle, which he had caught up from the table. Finally, they came to a great oak door, studded
with rusty nails. When Virginia touched it, it swung back on its heavy hinges, and they found themselves in a
little low room, with a vaulted ceiling, and one tiny grated window. Imbedded in the wall was a huge iron
ring, and chained to it was a gaunt skeleton, that was stretched out at full length on the stone floor, and
seemed to be trying to grasp with its long fleshless fingers an old-fashioned trencher and ewer, that were
placed just out of its reach. The jug had evidently been once filled with water, as it was covered inside with
green mould. There was nothing on the trencher but a pile of dust. Virginia knelt down beside the skeleton,
and, folding her little hands together, began to pray silently, while the rest of the party looked on in wonder at
the terrible tragedy whose secret was now disclosed to them.

‘Hallo!’ suddenly exclaimed one of the twins, who had been looking out of the window to try
and discover in what wing of the house the room was situated. ‘Hallo! the old withered almond-tree
has blossomed. I can see the flowers quite plainly in the moonlight.’

CHAPTER VI 35
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘God has forgiven him,’ said Virginia gravely, as she rose to her feet, and a beautiful light
seemed to illumine her face.

‘What an angel you are!’ cried the young Duke, and he put his arm round her neck and kissed
her.

CHAPTER VII

Four days after these curious incidents a funeral started from Canterville Chase at about eleven o’clock
at night. The hearse was drawn by eight black horses, each of which carried on its head a great tuft of
nodding ostrich-plumes, and the leaden coffin was covered by a rich purple pall, on which was embroidered in
gold the Canterville coat-of-arms. By the side of the hearse and the coaches walked the servants with lighted
torches, and the whole procession was wonderfully impressive. Lord Canterville was the chief mourner,
having come up specially from Wales to attend the funeral, and sat in the first carriage along with little
Virginia. Then came the United States Minister and his wife, then Washington and the three boys, and in the
last carriage was Mrs. Umney. It was generally felt that, as she had been frightened by the ghost for more
than fifty years of her life, she had a right to see the last of him. A deep grave had been dug in the corner of
the churchyard, just under the old yew-tree, and the service was read in the most impressive manner by the
Rev. Augustus Dampier. When the ceremony was over, the servants, according to an old custom observed in
the Canterville family, extinguished their torches, and, as the coffin was being lowered into the grave,
Virginia stepped forward and laid on it a large cross made of white and pink almond-blossoms. As she did so,
the moon came out from behind a cloud, and flooded with its silent silver the little churchyard, and from a
distant copse a nightingale began to sing. She thought of the ghost’s description of the Garden of
Death, her eyes became dim with tears, and she hardly spoke a word during the drive home.

The next morning, before Lord Canterville went up to town, Mr. Otis had an interview with him on the
subject of the jewels the ghost had given to Virginia. They were perfectly magnificent, especially a certain
ruby necklace with old Venetian setting, which was really a superb specimen of sixteenth-century work, and
their value was so great that Mr. Otis felt considerable scruples about allowing his daughter to accept them.

‘My lord,’ he said, ‘I know that in this country mortmain is held to apply to trinkets as
well as to land, and it is quite clear to me that these jewels are, or should be, heirlooms in your family. I must
beg you, accordingly, to take them to London with you, and to regard them simply as a portion of your
property which has been restored to you under certain strange conditions. As for my daughter, she is merely a
child, and has as yet, I am glad to say, but little interest in such appurtenances of idle luxury. I am also
informed by Mrs. Otis, who, I may say, is no mean authority upon Art - having had the privilege of spending
several winters in Boston when she was a girl - that these gems are of great monetary worth, and if offered for
sale would fetch a tall price. Under these circumstances, Lord Canterville, I feel sure that you will recognise
how impossible it would be for me to allow them to remain in the possession of any member of my family;
and, indeed, all such vain gauds and toys, however suitable or necessary to the dignity of the British
aristocracy, would be completely out of place among those who have been brought up on the severe, and I
believe immortal, principles of republican simplicity. Perhaps I should mention that Virginia is very anxious
that you should allow her to retain the box as a memento of your unfortunate but misguided ancestor. As it is
extremely old, and consequently a good deal out of repair, you may perhaps think fit to comply with her
request. For my own part, I confess I am a good deal surprised to find a child of mine expressing sympathy
with mediaevalism in any form, and can only account for it by the fact that Virginia was born in one of your

CHAPTER VII 36
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
London suburbs shortly after Mrs. Otis had returned from a trip to Athens.’

Lord Canterville listened very gravely to the worthy Minister’s speech, pulling his grey moustache
now and then to hide an involuntary smile, and when Mr. Otis had ended, he shook him cordially by the hand,
and said, ‘My dear sir, your charming little daughter rendered my unlucky ancestor, Sir Simon, a very
important service, and I and my family are much indebted to her for her marvellous courage and pluck. The
jewels are clearly hers, and, egad, I believe that if I were heartless enough to take them from her, the wicked
old fellow would be out of his grave in a fortnight, leading me the devil of a life. As for their being
heirlooms, nothing is an heirloom that is not so mentioned in a will or legal document, and the existence of
these jewels has been quite unknown. I assure you I have no more claim on them than your butler, and when
Miss Virginia grows up I daresay she will be pleased to have pretty things to wear. Besides, you forget, Mr.
Otis, that you took the furniture and the ghost at a valuation, and anything that belonged to the ghost passed at
once into your possession, as, whatever activity Sir Simon may have shown in the corridor at night, in point of
law he was really dead, and you acquired his property by purchase.’

Mr. Otis was a good deal distressed at Lord Canterville’s refusal, and begged him to reconsider his
decision, but the good-natured peer was quite firm, and finally induced the Minister to allow his daughter to
retain the present the ghost had given her, and when, in the spring of 1890, the young Duchess of Cheshire
was presented at the Queen’s first drawing-room on the occasion of her marriage, her jewels were the
universal theme of admiration. For Virginia received the coronet, which is the reward of all good little
American girls, and was married to her boy-lover as soon as he came of age. They were both so charming,
and they loved each other so much, that every one was delighted at the match, except the old Marchioness of
Dumbleton, who had tried to catch the Duke for one of her seven unmarried daughters, and had given no less
than three expensive dinner-parties for that purpose, and, strange to say, Mr. Otis himself. Mr. Otis was
extremely fond of the young Duke personally, but, theoretically, he objected to titles, and, to use his own
words, ‘was not without apprehension lest, amid the enervating influences of a pleasure-loving
aristocracy, the true principles of republican simplicity should be forgotten.’ His objections, however,
were completely overruled, and I believe that when he walked up the aisle of St. George’s, Hanover
Square, with his daughter leaning on his arm, there was not a prouder man in the whole length and breadth of
England.

The Duke and Duchess, after the honeymoon was over, went down to Canterville Chase, and on the day after
their arrival they walked over in the afternoon to the lonely churchyard by the pine-woods. There had been a
great deal of difficulty at first about the inscription on Sir Simon’s tombstone, but finally it had been
decided to engrave on it simply the initials of the old gentleman’s name, and the verse from the library
window. The Duchess had brought with her some lovely roses, which she strewed upon the grave, and after
they had stood by it for some time they strolled into the ruined chancel of the old abbey. There the Duchess
sat down on a fallen pillar, while her husband lay at her feet smoking a cigarette and looking up at her
beautiful eyes. Suddenly he threw his cigarette away, took hold of her hand, and said to her, ‘Virginia,
a wife should have no secrets from her husband.’

‘Dear Cecil! I have no secrets from you.’

‘Yes, you have,’ he answered, smiling, ‘you have never told me what happened to you
when you were locked up with the ghost.’

‘I have never told any one, Cecil,’ said Virginia gravely.

‘I know that, but you might tell me.’

CHAPTER VII 37
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘Please don’t ask me, Cecil, I cannot tell you. Poor Sir Simon! I owe him a great deal. Yes,
don’t laugh, Cecil, I really do. He made me see what Life is, and what Death signifies, and why Love
is stronger than both.’

The Duke rose and kissed his wife lovingly.

‘You can have your secret as long as I have your heart,’ he murmured.

‘You have always had that, Cecil.’

‘And you will tell our children some day, won’t you?’

Virginia blushed.

THE SPHINX WITHOUT A SECRET

One afternoon I was sitting outside the Café de la Paix, watching the splendour and shabbiness of Parisian
life, and wondering over my vermouth at the strange panorama of pride and poverty that was passing before
me, when I heard some one call my name. I turned round, and saw Lord Murchison. We had not met since
we had been at college together, nearly ten years before, so I was delighted to come across him again, and we
shook hands warmly. At Oxford we had been great friends. I had liked him immensely, he was so handsome,
so high-spirited, and so honourable. We used to say of him that he would be the best of fellows, if he did not
always speak the truth, but I think we really admired him all the more for his frankness. I found him a good
deal changed. He looked anxious and puzzled, and seemed to be in doubt about something. I felt it could not
be modern scepticism, for Murchison was the stoutest of Tories, and believed in the Pentateuch as firmly as he
believed in the House of Peers; so I concluded that it was a woman, and asked him if he was married yet.

‘I don’t understand women well enough,’ he answered.

‘My dear Gerald,’ I said, ‘women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.’

‘I cannot love where I cannot trust,’ he replied.

‘I believe you have a mystery in your life, Gerald,’ I exclaimed; ‘tell me about
it.’

‘Let us go for a drive,’ he answered, ‘it is too crowded here. No, not a yellow carriage,
any other colour - there, that dark green one will do’; and in a few moments we were trotting down the
boulevard in the direction of the Madeleine.

‘Where shall we go to?’ I said.

‘Oh, anywhere you like!’ he answered - ‘to the restaurant in the Bois; we will dine there,
and you shall tell me all about yourself.’

THE SPHINX WITHOUT A SECRET 38

 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘I want to hear about you first,’ I said. ‘Tell me your mystery.’

He took from his pocket a little silver-clasped morocco case, and handed it to me. I opened it. Inside there
was the photograph of a woman. She was tall and slight, and strangely picturesque with her large vague eyes
and loosened hair. She looked like a clairvoyante, and was wrapped in rich furs.

‘What do you think of that face?’ he said; ‘is it truthful?’

I examined it carefully. It seemed to me the face of some one who had a secret, but whether that secret was
good or evil I could not say. Its beauty was a beauty moulded out of many mysteries - the beauty, in fact,
which is psychological, not plastic - and the faint smile that just played across the lips was far too subtle to be
really sweet.

‘Well,’ he cried impatiently, ‘what do you say?’

‘She is the Gioconda in sables,’ I answered. ‘Let me know all about her.’

‘Not now,’ he said; ‘after dinner,’ and began to talk of other things.

When the waiter brought us our coffee and cigarettes I reminded Gerald of his promise. He rose from his seat,
walked two or three times up and down the room, and, sinking into an armchair, told me the following story:-

‘One evening,’ he said, ‘I was walking down Bond Street about five o’clock.
There was a terrific crush of carriages, and the traffic was almost stopped. Close to the pavement was
standing a little yellow brougham, which, for some reason or other, attracted my attention. As I passed by
there looked out from it the face I showed you this afternoon. It fascinated me immediately. All that night I
kept thinking of it, and all the next day. I wandered up and down that wretched Row, peering into every
carriage, and waiting for the yellow brougham; but I could not find ma belle inconnue, and at last I began to
think she was merely a dream. About a week afterwards I was dining with Madame de Rastail. Dinner was
for eight o’clock; but at half-past eight we were still waiting in the drawing-room. Finally the servant
threw open the door, and announced Lady Alroy. It was the woman I had been looking for. She came in very
slowly, looking like a moonbeam in grey lace, and, to my intense delight, I was asked to take her in to dinner.
After we had sat down, I remarked quite innocently, “I think I caught sight of you in Bond Street some
time ago, Lady Alroy.” She grew very pale, and said to me in a low voice, “Pray do not talk so
loud; you may be overheard.” I felt miserable at having made such a bad beginning, and plunged
recklessly into the subject of the French plays. She spoke very little, always in the same low musical voice,
and seemed as if she was afraid of some one listening. I fell passionately, stupidly in love, and the indefinable
atmosphere of mystery that surrounded her excited my most ardent curiosity. When she was going away,
which she did very soon after dinner, I asked her if I might call and see her. She hesitated for a moment,
glanced round to see if any one was near us, and then said, “Yes; to-morrow at a quarter to
five.” I begged Madame de Rastail to tell me about her; but all that I could learn was that she was a
widow with a beautiful house in Park Lane, and as some scientific bore began a dissertation on widows, as
exemplifying the survival of the matrimonially fittest, I left and went home.

‘The next day I arrived at Park Lane punctual to the moment, but was told by the butler that Lady
Alroy had just gone out. I went down to the club quite unhappy and very much puzzled, and after long
consideration wrote her a letter, asking if I might be allowed to try my chance some other afternoon. I had no
answer for several days, but at last I got a little note saying she would be at home on Sunday at four and with
this extraordinary postscript: “Please do not write to me here again; I will explain when I see
you.” On Sunday she received me, and was perfectly charming; but when I was going away she
begged of me, if I ever had occasion to write to her again, to address my letter to “Mrs. Knox, care of

THE SPHINX WITHOUT A SECRET 39

 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

Whittaker’s Library, Green Street.” “There are reasons,” she said, “why I
cannot receive letters in my own house.”

‘All through the season I saw a great deal of her, and the atmosphere of mystery never left her.
Sometimes I thought that she was in the power of some man, but she looked so unapproachable, that I could
not believe it. It was really very difficult for me to come to any conclusion, for she was like one of those
strange crystals that one sees in museums, which are at one moment clear, and at another clouded. At last I
determined to ask her to be my wife: I was sick and tired of the incessant secrecy that she imposed on all my
visits, and on the few letters I sent her. I wrote to her at the library to ask her if she could see me the
following Monday at six. She answered yes, and I was in the seventh heaven of delight. I was infatuated with
her: in spite of the mystery, I thought then - in consequence of it, I see now. No; it was the woman herself I
loved. The mystery troubled me, maddened me. Why did chance put me in its track?’

‘You discovered it, then?’ I cried.

‘I fear so,’ he answered. ‘You can judge for yourself.’

‘When Monday came round I went to lunch with my uncle, and about four o’clock found
myself in the Marylebone Road. My uncle, you know, lives in Regent’s Park. I wanted to get to
Piccadilly, and took a short cut through a lot of shabby little streets. Suddenly I saw in front of me Lady
Alroy, deeply veiled and walking very fast. On coming to the last house in the street, she went up the steps,
took out a latch-key, and let herself in. “Here is the mystery,” I said to myself; and I hurried on
and examined the house. It seemed a sort of place for letting lodgings. On the doorstep lay her handkerchief,
which she had dropped. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. Then I began to consider what I should do. I
came to the conclusion that I had no right to spy on her, and I drove down to the club. At six I called to see
her. She was lying on a sofa, in a tea-gown of silver tissue looped up by some strange moonstones that she
always wore. She was looking quite lovely. “I am so glad to see you,” she said; “I have
not been out all day.” I stared at her in amazement, and pulling the handkerchief out of my pocket,
handed it to her. “You dropped this in Cumnor Street this afternoon, Lady Alroy,” I said very
calmly. She looked at me in terror but made no attempt to take the handkerchief. “What were you
doing there?” I asked. “What right have you to question me?” she answered.
“The right of a man who loves you,” I replied; “I came here to ask you to be my
wife.” She hid her face in her hands, and burst into floods of tears. “You must tell me,”
I continued. She stood up, and, looking me straight in the face, said, “Lord Murchison, there is
nothing to tell you.” - “You went to meet some one,” I cried; “this is your
mystery.” She grew dreadfully white, and said, “I went to meet no one.” -
“Can’t you tell the truth?” I exclaimed. “I have told it,” she replied. I
was mad, frantic; I don’t know what I said, but I said terrible things to her. Finally I rushed out of the
house. She wrote me a letter the next day; I sent it back unopened, and started for Norway with Alan
Colville. After a month I came back, and the first thing I saw in the Morning Post was the death of Lady
Alroy. She had caught a chill at the Opera, and had died in five days of congestion of the lungs. I shut myself
up and saw no one. I had loved her so much, I had loved her so madly. Good God! how I had loved that
woman!’

‘You went to the street, to the house in it?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he answered.

‘One day I went to Cumnor Street. I could not help it; I was tortured with doubt. I knocked at the
door, and a respectable-looking woman opened it to me. I asked her if she had any rooms to let.
“Well, sir,” she replied, “the drawing-rooms are supposed to be let; but I have not seen

THE SPHINX WITHOUT A SECRET 40

 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
the lady for three months, and as rent is owing on them, you can have them.” - “Is this the
lady?” I said, showing the photograph. “That’s her, sure enough,” she
exclaimed; “and when is she coming back, sir?” - “The lady is dead,” I replied.
“Oh sir, I hope not!” said the woman; “she was my best lodger. She paid me three
guineas a week merely to sit in my drawing-rooms now and then.” “She met some one
here?” I said; but the woman assured me that it was not so, that she always came alone, and saw no
one. “What on earth did she do here?” I cried. “She simply sat in the drawing-room,
sir, reading books, and sometimes had tea,” the woman answered. I did not know what to say, so I
gave her a sovereign and went away. Now, what do you think it all meant? You don’t believe the
woman was telling the truth?’

‘I do.’

‘Then why did Lady Alroy go there?’

‘My dear Gerald,’ I answered, ‘Lady Alroy was simply a woman with a mania for
mystery. She took these rooms for the pleasure of going there with her veil down, and imagining she was a
heroine. She had a passion for secrecy, but she herself was merely a Sphinx without a secret.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘I am sure of it,’ I replied.

He took out the morocco case, opened it, and looked at the photograph. ‘I wonder?’ he said at
last.

THE MODEL MILLIONAIRE

Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the
profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent
income than to be fascinating. These are the great truths of modern life which Hughie Erskine never realised.
Poor Hughie! Intellectually, we must admit, he was not of much importance. He never said a brilliant or even
an ill-natured thing in his life. But then he was wonderfully good-looking, with his crisp brown hair, his
clear-cut profile, and his grey eyes. He was as popular with men as he was with women and he had every
accomplishment except that of making money. His father had bequeathed him his cavalry sword and a
History of the Peninsular War in fifteen volumes. Hughie hung the first over his looking-glass, put the
second on a shelf between Ruff’s Guide and Bailey’s Magazine, and lived on two hundred a
year that an old aunt allowed him. He had tried everything. He had gone on the Stock Exchange for six
months; but what was a butterfly to do among bulls and bears? He had been a tea-merchant for a little longer,
but had soon tired of pekoe and souchong. Then he had tried selling dry sherry. That did not answer; the
sherry was a little too dry. Ultimately he became nothing, a delightful, ineffectual young man with a perfect
profile and no profession.

THE MODEL MILLIONAIRE 41

 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
To make matters worse, he was in love. The girl he loved was Laura Merton, the daughter of a retired
Colonel who had lost his temper and his digestion in India, and had never found either of them again. Laura
adored him, and he was ready to kiss her shoe-strings. They were the handsomest couple in London, and had
not a penny-piece between them. The Colonel was very fond of Hughie, but would not hear of any
engagement.

‘Come to me, my boy, when you have got ten thousand pounds of your own, and we will see about
it,’ he used to say; and Hughie looked very glum in those days, and had to go to Laura for consolation.

One morning, as he was on his way to Holland Park, where the Mertons lived, he dropped in to see a great
friend of his, Alan Trevor. Trevor was a painter. Indeed, few people escape that nowadays. But he was also
an artist, and artists are rather rare. Personally he was a strange rough fellow, with a freckled face and a red
ragged beard. However, when he took up the brush he was a real master, and his pictures were eagerly sought
after. He had been very much attracted by Hughie at first, it must be acknowledged, entirely on account of his
personal charm. ‘The only people a painter should know,’ he used to say, ‘are people
who are bête and beautiful, people who are an artistic pleasure to look at and an intellectual repose to talk to.
Men who are dandies and women who are darlings rule the world, at least they should do so.’
However, after he got to know Hughie better, he liked him quite as much for his bright, buoyant spirits and his
generous, reckless nature, and had given him the permanent entrée to his studio.

When Hughie came in he found Trevor putting the finishing touches to a wonderful life-size picture of a
beggar-man. The beggar himself was standing on a raised platform in a corner of the studio. He was a
wizened old man, with a face like wrinkled parchment, and a most piteous expression. Over his shoulders
was flung a coarse brown cloak, all tears and tatters; his thick boots were patched and cobbled, and with one
hand he leant on a rough stick, while with the other he held out his battered hat for alms.

‘What an amazing model!’ whispered Hughie, as he shook hands with his friend.

‘An amazing model?’ shouted Trevor at the top of his voice; ‘I should think so! Such
beggars as he are not to be met with every day. A trouvaille, mon cher; a living Velasquez! My stars! what
an etching Rembrandt would have made of him!’

‘Poor old chap!’ said Hughie, ‘how miserable he looks! But I suppose, to you painters,
his face is his fortune?’

‘Certainly,’ replied Trevor, ‘you don’t want a beggar to look happy, do

you?’

‘How much does a model get for sitting?’ asked Hughie, as he found himself a comfortable seat
on a divan.

‘A shilling an hour.’

‘And how much do you get for your picture, Alan?’

‘Oh, for this I get two thousand!’

‘Pounds?’

‘Guineas. Painters, poets, and physicians always get guineas.’

THE MODEL MILLIONAIRE 42

 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘Well, I think the model should have a percentage,’ cried Hughie, laughing; ‘they work
quite as hard as you do.’

‘Nonsense, nonsense! Why, look at the trouble of laying on the paint alone, and standing all day long
at one’s easel! It’s all very well, Hughie, for you to talk, but I assure you that there are
moments when Art almost attains to the dignity of manual labour. But you mustn’t chatter; I’m
very busy. Smoke a cigarette, and keep quiet.’

After some time the servant came in, and told Trevor that the framemaker wanted to speak to him.

‘Don’t run away, Hughie,’ he said, as he went out, ‘I will be back in a
moment.’

The old beggar-man took advantage of Trevor’s absence to rest for a moment on a wooden bench that
was behind him. He looked so forlorn and wretched that Hughie could not help pitying him, and felt in his
pockets to see what money he had. All he could find was a sovereign and some coppers. ‘Poor old
fellow,’ he thought to himself, ‘he wants it more than I do, but it means no hansoms for a
fortnight’; and he walked across the studio and slipped the sovereign into the beggar’s hand.

The old man started, and a faint smile flitted across his withered lips. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said,
‘thank you.’

Then Trevor arrived, and Hughie took his leave, blushing a little at what he had done. He spent the day with
Laura, got a charming scolding for his extravagance, and had to walk home.

That night he strolled into the Palette Club about eleven o’clock, and found Trevor sitting by himself
in the smoking-room drinking hock and seltzer.

‘Well, Alan, did you get the picture finished all right?’ he said, as he lit his cigarette.

‘Finished and framed, my boy!’ answered Trevor; ‘and, by the bye, you have made a
conquest. That old model you saw is quite devoted to you. I had to tell him all about you - who you are,
where you live, what your income is, what prospects you have - ’

‘My dear Alan,’ cried Hughie, ‘I shall probably find him waiting for me when I go
home. But of course you are only joking. Poor old wretch! I wish I could do something for him. I think it is
dreadful that any one should be so miserable. I have got heaps of old clothes at home - do you think he would
care for any of them? Why, his rags were falling to bits.’

‘But he looks splendid in them,’ said Trevor. ‘I wouldn’t paint him in a frock
coat for anything. What you call rags I call romance. What seems poverty to you is picturesqueness to me.
However, I’ll tell him of your offer.’

‘Alan,’ said Hughie seriously, ‘you painters are a heartless lot.’

‘An artist’s heart is his head,’ replied Trevor; ‘and besides, our business is to
realise the world as we see it, not to reform it as we know it. À chacun son métier. And now tell me how
Laura is. The old model was quite interested in her.’

‘You don’t mean to say you talked to him about her?’ said Hughie.

THE MODEL MILLIONAIRE 43

 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘Certainly I did. He knows all about the relentless colonel, the lovely Laura, and the £10,000.’

‘You told that old beggar all my private affairs?’ cried Hughie, looking very red and angry.

‘My dear boy,’ said Trevor, smiling, ‘that old beggar, as you call him, is one of the
richest men in Europe. He could buy all London to-morrow without overdrawing his account. He has a house
in every capital, dines off gold plate, and can prevent Russia going to war when he chooses.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’ exclaimed Hughie.

‘What I say,’ said Trevor. ‘The old man you saw to-day in the studio was Baron
Hausberg. He is a great friend of mine, buys all my pictures and that sort of thing, and gave me a commission
a month ago to paint him as a beggar. Que voulez-vous? La fantaisie d’un millionnaire! And I must
say he made a magnificent figure in his rags, or perhaps I should say in my rags; they are an old suit I got in
Spain.’

‘Baron Hausberg!’ cried Hughie. ‘Good heavens! I gave him a sovereign!’ and
he sank into an armchair the picture of dismay.

‘Gave him a sovereign!’ shouted Trevor, and he burst into a roar of laughter. ‘My dear
boy, you’ll never see it again. Son affaire c’est l’argent des autres.’

‘I think you might have told me, Alan,’ said Hughie sulkily, ‘and not have let me make
such a fool of myself.’

‘Well, to begin with, Hughie,’ said Trevor, ‘it never entered my mind that you went
about distributing alms in that reckless way. I can understand your kissing a pretty model, but your giving a
sovereign to an ugly one - by Jove, no! Besides, the fact is that I really was not at home to-day to any one;
and when you came in I didn’t know whether Hausberg would like his name mentioned. You know he
wasn’t in full dress.’

‘What a duffer he must think me!’ said Hughie.

‘Not at all. He was in the highest spirits after you left; kept chuckling to himself and rubbing his old
wrinkled hands together. I couldn’t make out why he was so interested to know all about you; but I
see it all now. He’ll invest your sovereign for you, Hughie, pay you the interest every six months, and
have a capital story to tell after dinner.’

‘I am an unlucky devil,’ growled Hughie. ‘The best thing I can do is to go to bed; and,
my dear Alan, you mustn’t tell any one. I shouldn’t dare show my face in the Row.’

‘Nonsense! It reflects the highest credit on your philanthropic spirit, Hughie. And don’t run
away. Have another cigarette, and you can talk about Laura as much as you like.’

However, Hughie wouldn’t stop, but walked home, feeling very unhappy, and leaving Alan Trevor in
fits of laughter.

The next morning, as he was at breakfast, the servant brought him up a card on which was written,
‘Monsieur Gustave Naudin, de la part de M. le Baron Hausberg.’ ‘I suppose he has
come for an apology,’ said Hughie to himself; and he told the servant to show the visitor up.

THE MODEL MILLIONAIRE 44

 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

An old gentleman with gold spectacles and grey hair came into the room, and said, in a slight French accent,
‘Have I the honour of addressing Monsieur Erskine?’

Hughie bowed.

‘I have come from Baron Hausberg,’ he continued. ‘The Baron - ’

‘I beg, sir, that you will offer him my sincerest apologies,’ stammered Hughie.

‘The Baron,’ said the old gentleman with a smile, ‘has commissioned me to bring you
this letter’; and he extended a sealed envelope.

On the outside was written, ‘A wedding present to Hugh Erskine and Laura Merton, from an old
beggar,’ and inside was a cheque for £10,000.

When they were married Alan Trevor was the best man, and the Baron made a speech at the wedding
breakfast.

‘Millionaire models,’ remarked Alan, ‘are rare enough; but, by Jove, model millionaires
are rarer still!’

THE PORTRAIT OF MR. W. H.

CHAPTER I

I had been dining with Erskine in his pretty little house in Birdcage Walk, and we were sitting in the library
over our coffee and cigarettes, when the question of literary forgeries happened to turn up in conversation. I
cannot at present remember how it was that we struck upon this somewhat curious topic, as it was at that time,
but I know that we had a long discussion about Macpherson, Ireland, and Chatterton, and that with regard to
the last I insisted that his so-called forgeries were merely the result of an artistic desire for perfect
representation; that we had no right to quarrel with an artist for the conditions under which he chooses to
present his work; and that all Art being to a certain degree a mode of acting, an attempt to realise one’s
own personality on some imaginative plane out of reach of the trammelling accidents and limitations of real
life, to censure an artist for a forgery was to confuse an ethical with an aesthetical problem.

Erskine, who was a good deal older than I was, and had been listening to me with the amused deference of a
man of forty, suddenly put his hand upon my shoulder and said to me, ‘What would you say about a
young man who had a strange theory about a certain work of art, believed in his theory, and committed a
forgery in order to prove it?’

‘Ah! that is quite a different matter,’ I answered.

THE PORTRAIT OF MR. W. H. 45

 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

Erskine remained silent for a few moments, looking at the thin grey threads of smoke that were rising from his
cigarette. ‘Yes,’ he said, after a pause, ‘quite different.’

There was something in the tone of his voice, a slight touch of bitterness perhaps, that excited my curiosity.
‘Did you ever know anybody who did that?’ I cried.

‘Yes,’ he answered, throwing his cigarette into the fire, - ‘a great friend of mine, Cyril
Graham. He was very fascinating, and very foolish, and very heartless. However, he left me the only legacy I
ever received in my life.’

‘What was that?’ I exclaimed. Erskine rose from his seat, and going over to a tall inlaid cabinet
that stood between the two windows, unlocked it, and came back to where I was sitting, holding in his hand a
small panel picture set in an old and somewhat tarnished Elizabethan frame.

It was a full-length portrait of a young man in late sixteenth-century costume, standing by a table, with his
right hand resting on an open book. He seemed about seventeen years of age, and was of quite extraordinary
personal beauty, though evidently somewhat effeminate. Indeed, had it not been for the dress and the closely
cropped hair, one would have said that the face with its dreamy wistful eyes, and its delicate scarlet lips, was
the face of a girl. In manner, and especially in the treatment of the hands, the picture reminded one of
François Clouet’s later work. The black velvet doublet with its fantastically gilded points, and the
peacock-blue background against which it showed up so pleasantly, and from which it gained such luminous
value of colour, were quite in Clouet’s style; and the two masks of Tragedy and Comedy that hung
somewhat formally from the marble pedestal had that hard severity of touch - so different from the facile
grace of the Italians - which even at the Court of France the great Flemish master never completely lost, and
which in itself has always been a characteristic of the northern temper.

‘It is a charming thing,’ I cried, ‘but who is this wonderful young man, whose beauty
Art has so happily preserved for us?’

‘This is the portrait of Mr. W. H.,’ said Erskine, with a sad smile. It might have been a chance
effect of light, but it seemed to me that his eyes were quite bright with tears.

‘Mr. W. H.!’ I exclaimed; ‘who was Mr. W. H.?’

‘Don’t you remember?’ he answered; ‘look at the book on which his hand is
resting.’

‘I see there is some writing there, but I cannot make it out,’ I replied.

‘Take this magnifying-glass and try,’ said Erskine, with the same sad smile still playing about
his mouth.

I took the glass, and moving the lamp a little nearer, I began to spell out the crabbed sixteenth-century
handwriting. ‘To the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets.’ . . . ‘Good
heavens!’ I cried, ‘is this Shakespeare’s Mr. W. H.?’

‘Cyril Graham used to say so,’ muttered Erskine.

‘But it is not a bit like Lord Pembroke,’ I answered. ‘I know the Penshurst portraits
very well. I was staying near there a few weeks ago.’

CHAPTER I 46
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

‘Do you really believe then that the sonnets are addressed to Lord Pembroke?’ he asked.

‘I am sure of it,’ I answered. ‘Pembroke, Shakespeare, and Mrs. Mary Fitton are the
three personages of the Sonnets; there is no doubt at all about it.’

‘Well, I agree with you,’ said Erskine, ‘but I did not always think so. I used to believe -
well, I suppose I used to believe in Cyril Graham and his theory.’

‘And what was that?’ I asked, looking at the wonderful portrait, which had already begun to
have a strange fascination for me.

‘It is a long story,’ said Erskine, taking the picture away from me - rather abruptly I thought at
the time - ‘a very long story; but if you care to hear it, I will tell it to you.’

‘I love theories about the Sonnets,’ I cried; ‘but I don’t think I am likely to be
converted to any new idea. The matter has ceased to be a mystery to any one. Indeed, I wonder that it ever
was a mystery.’

‘As I don’t believe in the theory, I am not likely to convert you to it,’ said Erskine,
laughing; ‘but it may interest you.’

‘Tell it to me, of course,’ I answered. ‘If it is half as delightful as the picture, I shall be
more than satisfied.’

‘Well,’ said Erskine, lighting a cigarette, ‘I must begin by telling you about Cyril
Graham himself. He and I were at the same house at Eton. I was a year or two older than he was, but we
were immense friends, and did all our work and all our play together. There was, of course, a good deal more
play than work, but I cannot say that I am sorry for that. It is always an advantage not to have received a
sound commercial education, and what I learned in the playing fields at Eton has been quite as useful to me as
anything I was taught at Cambridge. I should tell you that Cyril’s father and mother were both dead.
They had been drowned in a horrible yachting accident off the Isle of Wight. His father had been in the
diplomatic service, and had married a daughter, the only daughter, in fact, of old Lord Crediton, who became
Cyril’s guardian after the death of his parents. I don’t think that Lord Crediton cared very
much for Cyril. He had never really forgiven his daughter for marrying a man who had not a title. He was an
extraordinary old aristocrat, who swore like a costermonger, and had the manners of a farmer. I remember
seeing him once on Speech-day. He growled at me, gave me a sovereign, and told me not to grow up
“a damned Radical” like my father. Cyril had very little affection for him, and was only too
glad to spend most of his holidays with us in Scotland. They never really got on together at all. Cyril thought
him a bear, and he thought Cyril effeminate. He was effeminate, I suppose, in some things, though he was a
very good rider and a capital fencer. In fact he got the foils before he left Eton. But he was very languid in
his manner, and not a little vain of his good looks, and had a strong objection to football. The two things that
really gave him pleasure were poetry and acting. At Eton he was always dressing up and reciting
Shakespeare, and when we went up to Trinity he became a member of the A.D.C. his first term. I remember I
was always very jealous of his acting. I was absurdly devoted to him; I suppose because we were so different
in some things. I was a rather awkward, weakly lad, with huge feet, and horribly freckled. Freckles run in
Scotch families just as gout does in English families. Cyril used to say that of the two he preferred the gout;
but he always set an absurdly high value on personal appearance, and once read a paper before our debating
society to prove that it was better to be good-looking than to be good. He certainly was wonderfully
handsome. People who did not like him, Philistines and college tutors, and young men reading for the
Church, used to say that he was merely pretty; but there was a great deal more in his face than mere
prettiness. I think he was the most splendid creature I ever saw, and nothing could exceed the grace of his

CHAPTER I 47
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
movements, the charm of his manner. He fascinated everybody who was worth fascinating, and a great many
people who were not. He was often wilful and petulant, and I used to think him dreadfully insincere. It was
due, I think, chiefly to his inordinate desire to please. Poor Cyril! I told him once that he was contented with
very cheap triumphs, but he only laughed. He was horribly spoiled. All charming people, I fancy, are
spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction.

‘However, I must tell you about Cyril’s acting. You know that no actresses are allowed to play
at the A.D.C. At least they were not in my time. I don’t know how it is now. Well, of course, Cyril
was always cast for the girls’ parts, and when As You Like It was produced he played Rosalind. It was
a marvellous performance. In fact, Cyril Graham was the only perfect Rosalind I have ever seen. It would be
impossible to describe to you the beauty, the delicacy, the refinement of the whole thing. It made an immense
sensation, and the horrid little theatre, as it was then, was crowded every night. Even when I read the play
now I can’t help thinking of Cyril. It might have been written for him. The next term he took his
degree, and came to London to read for the diplomatic. But he never did any work. He spent his days in
reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and his evenings at the theatre. He was, of course, wild to go on the
stage. It was all that I and Lord Crediton could do to prevent him. Perhaps if he had gone on the stage he
would be alive now. It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal. I
hope you will never fall into that error. If you do, you will be sorry for it.

‘Well, to come to the real point of the story, one day I got a letter from Cyril asking me to come round
to his rooms that evening. He had charming chambers in Piccadilly overlooking the Green Park, and as I used
to go to see him every day, I was rather surprised at his taking the trouble to write. Of course I went, and
when I arrived I found him in a state of great excitement. He told me that he had at last discovered the true
secret of Shakespeare’s Sonnets; that all the scholars and critics had been entirely on the wrong tack;
and that he was the first who, working purely by internal evidence, had found out who Mr. W. H. really was.
He was perfectly wild with delight, and for a long time would not tell me his theory. Finally, he produced a
bundle of notes, took his copy of the Sonnets off the mantelpiece, and sat down and gave me a long lecture on
the whole subject.

‘He began by pointing out that the young man to whom Shakespeare addressed these strangely
passionate poems must have been somebody who was a really vital factor in the development of his dramatic
art, and that this could not be said either of Lord Pembroke or Lord Southampton. Indeed, whoever he was,
he could not have been anybody of high birth, as was shown very clearly by the 25th Sonnet, in which
Shakespeare contrasting himself with those who are “great princes’ favourites,” says
quite frankly -

Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.

And ends the sonnet by congratulating himself on the mean state of him he so adored.

Then happy I, that love and am beloved

Where I may not remove nor be removed.

CHAPTER I 48
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
This sonnet Cyril declared would be quite unintelligible if we fancied that it was addressed to either the Earl
of Pembroke or the Earl of Southampton, both of whom were men of the highest position in England and fully
entitled to be called “great princes”; and he in corroboration of his view read me Sonnets
CXXIV. and CXXV., in which Shakespeare tells us that his love is not “the child of state,” that
it “suffers not in smiling pomp,” but is “builded far from accident.” I listened
with a good deal of interest, for I don’t think the point had ever been made before; but what followed
was still more curious, and seemed to me at the time to dispose entirely of Pembroke’s claim. We
know from Meres that the Sonnets had been written before 1598, and Sonnet CIV. informs us that
Shakespeare’s friendship for Mr. W. H. had been already in existence for three years. Now Lord
Pembroke, who was born in 1580, did not come to London till he was eighteen years of age, that is to say till
1598, and Shakespeare’s acquaintance with Mr. W. H. must have begun in 1594, or at the latest in
1595. Shakespeare, accordingly, could not have known Lord Pembroke till after the Sonnets had been
written.

‘Cyril pointed out also that Pembroke’s father did not die till 1601; whereas it was evident from
the line,

You had a father; let your son say so,

that the father of Mr. W. H. was dead in 1598. Besides, it was absurd to imagine that any publisher of the
time, and the preface is from the publisher’s hand, would have ventured to address William Herbert,
Earl of Pembroke, as Mr. W. H.; the case of Lord Buckhurst being spoken of as Mr. Sackville being not really
a parallel instance, as Lord Buckhurst was not a peer, but merely the younger son of a peer, with a courtesy
title, and the passage in England’s Parnassus, where he is so spoken of, is not a formal and stately
dedication, but simply a casual allusion. So far for Lord Pembroke, whose supposed claims Cyril easily
demolished while I sat by in wonder. With Lord Southampton Cyril had even less difficulty. Southampton
became at a very early age the lover of Elizabeth Vernon, so he needed no entreaties to marry; he was not
beautiful; he did not resemble his mother, as Mr. W. H. did -

Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime;

and, above all, his Christian name was Henry, whereas the punning sonnets (CXXXV. and CXLIII.) show that
the Christian name of Shakespeare’s friend was the same as his own - Will.

‘As for the other suggestions of unfortunate commentators, that Mr. W. H. is a misprint for Mr. W. S.,
meaning Mr. William Shakespeare; that “Mr. W. H. all” should be read “Mr. W.
Hall”; that Mr. W. H. is Mr. William Hathaway; and that a full stop should be placed after
“wisheth,” making Mr. W. H. the writer and not the subject of the dedication, - Cyril got rid of
them in a very short time; and it is not worth while to mention his reasons, though I remember he sent me off
into a fit of laughter by reading to me, I am glad to say not in the original, some extracts from a German
commentator called Barnstorff, who insisted that Mr. W. H. was no less a person than “Mr. William
Himself.” Nor would he allow for a moment that the Sonnets are mere satires on the work of Drayton
and John Davies of Hereford. To him, as indeed to me, they were poems of serious and tragic import, wrung
out of the bitterness of Shakespeare’s heart, and made sweet by the honey of his lips. Still less would
he admit that they were merely a philosophical allegory, and that in them Shakespeare is addressing his Ideal
Self, or Ideal Manhood, or the Spirit of Beauty, or the Reason, or the Divine Logos, or the Catholic Church.

CHAPTER I 49
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
He felt, as indeed I think we all must feel, that the Sonnets are addressed to an individual, - to a particular
young man whose personality for some reason seems to have filled the soul of Shakespeare with terrible joy
and no less terrible despair.

‘Having in this manner cleared the way as it were, Cyril asked me to dismiss from my mind any
preconceived ideas I might have formed on the subject, and to give a fair and unbiassed hearing to his own
theory. The problem he pointed out was this: Who was that young man of Shakespeare’s day who,
without being of noble birth or even of noble nature, was addressed by him in terms of such passionate
adoration that we can but wonder at the strange worship, and are almost afraid to turn the key that unlocks the
mystery of the poet’s heart? Who was he whose physical beauty was such that it became the very
corner-stone of Shakespeare’s art; the very source of Shakespeare’s inspiration; the very
incarnation of Shakespeare’s dreams? To look upon him as simply the object of certain love-poems is
to miss the whole meaning of the poems: for the art of which Shakespeare talks in the Sonnets is not the art of
the Sonnets themselves, which indeed were to him but slight and secret things - it is the art of the dramatist to
which he is always alluding; and he to whom Shakespeare said -

Thou art all my art, and dost advance

As high as learning my rude ignorance,

he to whom he promised immortality,

Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men, -

was surely none other than the boy-actor for whom he created Viola and Imogen, Juliet and Rosalind, Portia
and Desdemona, and Cleopatra herself. This was Cyril Graham’s theory, evolved as you see purely
from the Sonnets themselves, and depending for its acceptance not so much on demonstrable proof or formal
evidence, but on a kind of spiritual and artistic sense, by which alone he claimed could the true meaning of the
poems be discerned. I remember his reading to me that fine sonnet -

How can my Muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thyself dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date -

and pointing out how completely it corroborated his theory; and indeed he went through all the Sonnets
carefully, and showed, or fancied that he showed, that, according to his new explanation of their meaning,
things that had seemed obscure, or evil, or exaggerated, became clear and rational, and of high artistic import,

CHAPTER I 50
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
illustrating Shakespeare’s conception of the true relations between the art of the actor and the art of the
dramatist.

‘It is of course evident that there must have been in Shakespeare’s company some wonderful
boy-actor of great beauty, to whom he intrusted the presentation of his noble heroines; for Shakespeare was a
practical theatrical manager as well as an imaginative poet, and Cyril Graham had actually discovered the
boy-actor’s name. He was Will, or, as he preferred to call him, Willie Hughes. The Christian name he
found of course in the punning sonnets, CXXXV. and CXLIII.; the surname was, according to him, hidden in
the seventh line of the 20th Sonnet, where Mr. W. H. is described as -

A man in hew, all Hews in his controwling.

‘In the original edition of the Sonnets “Hews” is printed with a capital letter and in
italics, and this, he claimed, showed clearly that a play on words was intended, his view receiving a good deal
of corroboration from those sonnets in which curious puns are made on the words “use” and
“usury.” Of course I was converted at once, and Willie Hughes became to me as real a person
as Shakespeare. The only objection I made to the theory was that the name of Willie Hughes does not occur
in the list of the actors of Shakespeare’s company as it is printed in the first folio. Cyril, however,
pointed out that the absence of Willie Hughes’s name from this list really corroborated the theory, as it
was evident from Sonnet LXXXVI. that Willie Hughes had abandoned Shakespeare’s company to play
at a rival theatre, probably in some of Chapman’s plays. It is in reference to this that in the great
sonnet on Chapman, Shakespeare said to Willie Hughes -

But when your countenance fill’d up his line,

Then lack’d I matter; that enfeebled mine -

the expression “when your countenance filled up his line” referring obviously to the beauty of
the young actor giving life and reality and added charm to Chapman’s verse, the same idea being also
put forward in the 79th Sonnet -

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,

My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
But now my gracious numbers are decay’d,
And my sick Muse doth give another place;

and in the immediately preceding sonnet, where Shakespeare says -

Every alien pen has got my use

And under thee their poesy disperse,

the play upon words (use=Hughes) being of course obvious, and the phrase “under thee their poesy
disperse,” meaning “by your assistance as an actor bring their plays before the people.”

CHAPTER I 51
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
‘It was a wonderful evening, and we sat up almost till dawn reading and re-reading the Sonnets. After
some time, however, I began to see that before the theory could be placed before the world in a really
perfected form, it was necessary to get some independent evidence about the existence of this young actor,
Willie Hughes. If this could be once established, there could be no possible doubt about his identity with Mr.
W. H.; but otherwise the theory would fall to the ground. I put this forward very strongly to Cyril, who was a
good deal annoyed at what he called my Philistine tone of mind, and indeed was rather bitter upon the
subject. However, I made him promise that in his own interest he would not publish his discovery till he had
put the whole matter beyond the reach of doubt; and for weeks and weeks we searched the registers of City
churches, the Alleyn MSS. at Dulwich, the Record Office, the papers of the Lord Chamberlain - everything, in
fact, that we thought might contain some allusion to Willie Hughes. We discovered nothing, of course, and
every day the existence of Willie Hughes seemed to me to become more problematical. Cyril was in a
dreadful state, and used to go over the whole question day after day, entreating me to believe; but I saw the
one flaw in the theory, and I refused to be convinced till the actual existence of Willie Hughes, a boy-actor of
Elizabethan days, had been placed beyond the reach of doubt or cavil.

‘One day Cyril left town to stay with his grandfather, I thought at the time, but I afterwards heard from
Lord Crediton that this was not the case; and about a fortnight afterwards I received a telegram from him,
handed in at Warwick, asking me to be sure to come and dine with him that evening at eight o’clock.
When I arrived, he said to me, “The only apostle who did not deserve proof was St. Thomas, and St.
Thomas was the only apostle who got it.” I asked him what he meant. He answered that he had not
merely been able to establish the existence in the sixteenth century of a boy-actor of the name of Willie
Hughes, but to prove by the most conclusive evidence that he was the Mr. W. H. of the Sonnets. He would
not tell me anything more at the time; but after dinner he solemnly produced the picture I showed you, and
told me that he had discovered it by the merest chance nailed to the side of an old chest that he had bought at a
farmhouse in Warwickshire. The chest itself, which was a very fine example of Elizabethan work, he had, of
course, brought with him, and in the centre of the front panel the initials W. H. were undoubtedly carved. It
was this monogram that had attracted his attention, and he told me that it was not till he had had the chest in
his possession for several days that he had thought of making any careful examination of the inside. One
morning, however, he saw that one of the sides of the chest was much thicker than the other, and looking
more closely, he discovered that a framed panel picture was clamped against it. On taking it out, he found it
was the picture that is now lying on the sofa. It was very dirty, and covered with mould; but he managed to
clean it, and, to his great joy, saw that he had fallen by mere chance on the one thing for which he had been
looking. Here was an authentic portrait of Mr. W. H., with his hand resting on the dedicatory page of the
Sonnets, and on the frame itself could be faintly seen the name of the young man written in black uncial
letters on a faded gold ground, “Master Will. Hews.”

‘Well, what was I to say? It never occurred to me for a moment that Cyril Graham was playing a trick
on me, or that he was trying to prove his theory by means of a forgery.’

‘But is it a forgery?’ I asked.

‘Of course it is,’ said Erskine. ‘It is a very good forgery; but it is a forgery none the
less. I thought at the time that Cyril was rather calm about the whole matter; but I remember he more than
once told me that he himself required no proof of the kind, and that he thought the theory complete without it.
I laughed at him, and told him that without it the theory would fall to the ground, and I warmly congratulated
him on the marvellous discovery. We then arranged that the picture should be etched or facsimiled, and
placed as the frontispiece to Cyril’s edition of the Sonnets; and for three months we did nothing but go
over each poem line by line, till we had settled every difficulty of text or meaning. One unlucky day I was in
a print-shop in Holborn, when I saw upon the counter some extremely beautiful drawings in silver-point. I
was so attracted by them that I bought them; and the proprietor of the place, a man called Rawlings, told me
that they were done by a young painter of the name of Edward Merton, who was very clever, but as poor as a

CHAPTER I 52
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
church mouse. I went to see Merton some days afterwards, having got his address from the printseller, and
found a pale, interesting young man, with a rather common-looking wife - his model, as I subsequently
learned. I told him how much I admired his drawings, at which he seemed very pleased, and I asked him if he
would show me some of his other work. As we were looking over a portfolio, full of really very lovely things,
- for Merton had a most delicate and delightful touch, - I suddenly caught sight of a drawing of the picture of
Mr. W. H. There was no doubt whatever about it. It was almost a facsimile - the only difference being that
the two masks of Tragedy and Comedy were not suspended from the marble table as they are in the picture,
but were lying on the floor at the young man’s feet. “Where on earth did you get that?”
I said. He grew rather confused, and said - “Oh, that is nothing. I did not know it was in this
portfolio. It is not a thing of any value.” “It is what you did for Mr. Cyril Graham,”
exclaimed his wife; “and if this gentleman wishes to buy it, let him have it.” “For Mr.
Cyril Graham?” I repeated. “Did you paint the picture of Mr. W. H.?” “I
don’t understand what you mean,” he answered, growing very red. Well, the whole thing was
quite dreadful. The wife let it all out. I gave her five pounds when I was going away. I can’t bear to
think of it now; but of course I was furious. I went off at once to Cyril’s chambers, waited there for
three hours before he came in, with that horrid lie staring me in the face, and told him I had discovered his
forgery. He grew very pale and said - “I did it purely for your sake. You would not be convinced in
any other way. It does not affect the truth of the theory.” “The truth of the theory!” I
exclaimed; “the less we talk about that the better. You never even believed in it yourself. If you had,
you would not have committed a forgery to prove it.” High words passed between us; we had a fearful
quarrel. I dare say I was unjust. The next morning he was dead.’

‘Dead!’ I cried,

‘Yes; he shot himself with a revolver. Some of the blood splashed upon the frame of the picture, just
where the name had been painted. By the time I arrived - his servant had sent for me at once - the police were
already there. He had left a letter for me, evidently written in the greatest agitation and distress of
mind.’

‘What was in it?’ I asked.

‘Oh, that he believed absolutely in Willie Hughes; that the forgery of the picture had been done simply
as a concession to me, and did not in the slightest degree invalidate the truth of the theory; and, that in order to
show me how firm and flawless his faith in the whole thing was, he was going to offer his life as a sacrifice to
the secret of the Sonnets. It was a foolish, mad letter. I remember he ended by saying that he intrusted to me
the Willie Hughes theory, and that it was for me to present it to the world, and to unlock the secret of
Shakespeare’s heart.’

‘It is a most tragic story,’ I cried; ‘but why have you not carried out his wishes?’

Erskine shrugged his shoulders. ‘Because it is a perfectly unsound theory from beginning to
end,’ he answered.

‘My dear Erskine,’ I said, getting up from my seat, ‘you are entirely wrong about the
whole matter. It is the only perfect key to Shakespeare’s Sonnets that has ever been made. It is
complete in every detail. I believe in Willie Hughes.’

‘Don’t say that,’ said Erskine gravely; ‘I believe there is something fatal about
the idea, and intellectually there is nothing to be said for it. I have gone into the whole matter, and I assure
you the theory is entirely fallacious. It is plausible up to a certain point. Then it stops. For heaven’s
sake, my dear boy, don’t take up the subject of Willie Hughes. You will break your heart over

CHAPTER I 53
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
it.’

‘Erskine,’ I answered, ‘it is your duty to give this theory to the world. If you will not do
it, I will. By keeping it back you wrong the memory of Cyril Graham, the youngest and the most splendid of
all the martyrs of literature. I entreat you to do him justice. He died for this thing, - don’t let his death
be in vain.’

Erskine looked at me in amazement. ‘You are carried away by the sentiment of the whole
story,’ he said. ‘You forget that a thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. I was
devoted to Cyril Graham. His death was a horrible blow to me. I did not recover it for years. I don’t
think I have ever recovered it. But Willie Hughes? There is nothing in the idea of Willie Hughes. No such
person ever existed. As for bringing the whole thing before the world - the world thinks that Cyril Graham
shot himself by accident. The only proof of his suicide was contained in the letter to me, and of this letter the
public never heard anything. To the present day Lord Crediton thinks that the whole thing was
accidental.’

‘Cyril Graham sacrificed his life to a great Idea,’ I answered; ‘and if you will not tell of
his martyrdom, tell at least of his faith.’

‘His faith,’ said Erskine, ‘was fixed in a thing that was false, in a thing that was
unsound, in a thing that no Shakespearean scholar would accept for a moment. The theory would be laughed
at. Don’t make a fool of yourself, and don’t follow a trail that leads nowhere. You start by
assuming the existence of the very person whose existence is the thing to be proved. Besides, everybody
knows that the Sonnets were addressed to Lord Pembroke. The matter is settled once for all.’

‘The matter is not settled!’ I exclaimed. ‘I will take up the theory where Cyril Graham
left it, and I will prove to the world that he was right.’

‘Silly boy!’ said Erskine. ‘Go home: it is after two, and don’t think about Willie
Hughes any more. I am sorry I told you anything about it, and very sorry indeed that I should have converted
you to a thing in which I don’t believe.’

‘You have given me the key to the greatest mystery of modern literature,’ I answered;
‘and I shall not rest till I have made you recognise, till I have made everybody recognise, that Cyril
Graham was the most subtle Shakespearean critic of our day.’

As I walked home through St. James’s Park the dawn was just breaking over London. The white
swans were lying asleep on the polished lake, and the gaunt Palace looked purple against the pale-green sky. I
thought of Cyril Graham, and my eyes filled with tears.

CHAPTER II

It was past twelve o’clock when I awoke, and the sun was streaming in through the curtains of my
room in long slanting beams of dusty gold. I told my servant that I would be at home to no one; and after I
had had a cup of chocolate and a petit-pain, I took down from the book-shelf my copy of
Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and began to go carefully through them. Every poem seemed to me to

CHAPTER II 54
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
corroborate Cyril Graham’s theory. I felt as if I had my hand upon Shakespeare’s heart, and
was counting each separate throb and pulse of passion. I thought of the wonderful boy-actor, and saw his face
in every line.

Two sonnets, I remember, struck me particularly: they were the 53rd and the 67th. In the first of these,
Shakespeare, complimenting Willie Hughes on the versatility of his acting, on his wide range of parts, a range
extending from Rosalind to Juliet, and from Beatrice to Ophelia, says to him -

What is your substance, whereof are you made,

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend -

lines that would be unintelligible if they were not addressed to an actor, for the word ‘shadow’
had in Shakespeare’s day a technical meaning connected with the stage. ‘The best in this kind
are but shadows,’ says Theseus of the actors in the Midsummer Night’s Dream, and there are
many similar allusions in the literature of the day. These sonnets evidently belonged to the series in which
Shakespeare discusses the nature of the actor’s art, and of the strange and rare temperament that is
essential to the perfect stage-player. ‘How is it,’ says Shakespeare to Willie Hughes,
‘that you have so many personalities?’ and then he goes on to point out that his beauty is such
that it seems to realise every form and phase of fancy, to embody each dream of the creative imagination - an
idea that is still further expanded in the sonnet that immediately follows, where, beginning with the fine
thought,

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!

Shakespeare invites us to notice how the truth of acting, the truth of visible presentation on the stage, adds to
the wonder of poetry, giving life to its loveliness, and actual reality to its ideal form. And yet, in the 67th
Sonnet, Shakespeare calls upon Willie Hughes to abandon the stage with its artificiality, its false mimic life of
painted face and unreal costume, its immoral influences and suggestions, its remoteness from the true world of
noble action and sincere utterance.

Ah, wherefore with infection should he live

And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve
And lace itself with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?

It may seem strange that so great a dramatist as Shakespeare, who realised his own perfection as an artist and
his humanity as a man on the ideal plane of stage-writing and stage-playing, should have written in these
terms about the theatre; but we must remember that in Sonnets CX. and CXI. Shakespeare shows us that he

CHAPTER II 55
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
too was wearied of the world of puppets, and full of shame at having made himself ‘a motley to the
view.’ The 111th Sonnet is especially bitter:-

O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:
Pity me then and wish I were renew’d -

and there are many signs elsewhere of the same feeling, signs familiar to all real students of Shakespeare.

One point puzzled me immensely as I read the Sonnets, and it was days before I struck on the true
interpretation, which indeed Cyril Graham himself seems to have missed. I could not understand how it was
that Shakespeare set so high a value on his young friend marrying. He himself had married young, and the
result had been unhappiness, and it was not likely that he would have asked Willie Hughes to commit the
same error. The boy-player of Rosalind had nothing to gain from marriage, or from the passions of real life.
The early sonnets, with their strange entreaties to have children, seemed to me a jarring note. The explanation
of the mystery came on me quite suddenly, and I found it in the curious dedication. It will be remembered
that the dedication runs as follows:-

TO THE ONLIE BEGETTER OF

THESE INSUING SONNETS

MR. W. H. ALL HAPPINESSE

AND THAT ETERNITIE

PROMISED

BY

OUR EVER-LIVING POET

WISHETH

THE WELL-WISHING

ADVENTURER IN

SETTING

FORTH.

T. T.

CHAPTER II 56
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

Some scholars have supposed that the word ‘begetter’ in this dedication means simply the
procurer of the Sonnets for Thomas Thorpe the publisher; but this view is now generally abandoned, and the
highest authorities are quite agreed that it is to be taken in the sense of inspirer, the metaphor being drawn
from the analogy of physical life. Now I saw that the same metaphor was used by Shakespeare himself all
through the poems, and this set me on the right track. Finally I made my great discovery. The marriage that
Shakespeare proposes for Willie Hughes is the marriage with his Muse, an expression which is definitely put
forward in the 82nd Sonnet, where, in the bitterness of his heart at the defection of the boy-actor for whom he
had written his greatest parts, and whose beauty had indeed suggested them, he opens his complaint by saying
-

I grant thou wert not married to my Muse.

The children he begs him to beget are no children of flesh and blood, but more immortal children of undying
fame. The whole cycle of the early sonnets is simply Shakespeare’s invitation to Willie Hughes to go
upon the stage and become a player. How barren and profitless a thing, he says, is this beauty of yours if it be
not used:-

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

You must create something in art: my verse ‘is thine, and born of thee’; only listen to me, and I
will ‘bring forth eternal numbers to outlive long date,’ and you shall people with forms of your
own image the imaginary world of the stage. These children that you beget, he continues, will not wither
away, as mortal children do, but you shall live in them and in my plays: do but -

Make thee another self, for love of me,

That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

I collected all the passages that seemed to me to corroborate this view, and they produced a strong impression
on me, and showed me how complete Cyril Graham’s theory really was. I also saw that it was quite
easy to separate those lines in which he speaks of the Sonnets themselves from those in which he speaks of his
great dramatic work. This was a point that had been entirely overlooked by all critics up to Cyril
Graham’s day. And yet it was one of the most important points in the whole series of poems. To the
Sonnets Shakespeare was more or less indifferent. He did not wish to rest his fame on them. They were to
him his ‘slight Muse,’ as he calls them, and intended, as Meres tells us, for private circulation
only among a few, a very few, friends. Upon the other hand he was extremely conscious of the high artistic
value of his plays, and shows a noble self-reliance upon his dramatic genius. When he says to Willie Hughes:

CHAPTER II 57
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee; -

the expression ‘eternal lines’ clearly alludes to one of his plays that he was sending him at the
time, just as the concluding couplet points to his confidence in the probability of his plays being always
acted. In his address to the Dramatic Muse (Sonnets C. and CI.), we find the same feeling.

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long

To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

he cries, and he then proceeds to reproach the Mistress of Tragedy and Comedy for her ‘neglect of
Truth in Beauty dyed,’ and says -

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?

Excuse not silence so, for ‘t lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

It is, however, perhaps in the 55th Sonnet that Shakespeare gives to this idea its fullest expression. To
imagine that the ‘powerful rhyme’ of the second line refers to the sonnet itself, is to mistake
Shakespeare’s meaning entirely. It seemed to me that it was extremely likely, from the general
character of the sonnet, that a particular play was meant, and that the play was none other but Romeo and
Juliet.

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmear’d with sluttish time.
When wasteful wars shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.

CHAPTER II 58
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
So, till the judgement that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

It was also extremely suggestive to note how here as elsewhere Shakespeare promised Willie Hughes
immortality in a form that appealed to men’s eyes - that is to say, in a spectacular form, in a play that
is to be looked at.

For two weeks I worked hard at the Sonnets, hardly ever going out, and refusing all invitations. Every day I
seemed to be discovering something new, and Willie Hughes became to me a kind of spiritual presence, an
ever-dominant personality. I could almost fancy that I saw him standing in the shadow of my room, so well
had Shakespeare drawn him, with his golden hair, his tender flower-like grace, his dreamy deep-sunken eyes,
his delicate mobile limbs, and his white lily hands. His very name fascinated me. Willie Hughes! Willie
Hughes! How musically it sounded! Yes; who else but he could have been the master-mistress of
Shakespeare’s passion, {1} the lord of his love to whom he was bound in vassalage, {2} the delicate
minion of pleasure, {3} the rose of the whole world, {4} the herald of the spring {5} decked in the proud
livery of youth, {6} the lovely boy whom it was sweet music to hear, {7} and whose beauty was the very
raiment of Shakespeare’s heart, {8} as it was the keystone of his dramatic power? How bitter now
seemed the whole tragedy of his desertion and his shame! - shame that he made sweet and lovely {9} by the
mere magic of his personality, but that was none the less shame. Yet as Shakespeare forgave him, should not
we forgive him also? I did not care to pry into the mystery of his sin.

His abandonment of Shakespeare’s theatre was a different matter, and I investigated it at great length.
Finally I came to the conclusion that Cyril Graham had been wrong in regarding the rival dramatist of the 80th
Sonnet as Chapman. It was obviously Marlowe who was alluded to. At the time the Sonnets were written,
such an expression as ‘the proud full sail of his great verse’ could not have been used of
Chapman’s work, however applicable it might have been to the style of his later Jacobean plays. No:
Marlowe was clearly the rival dramatist of whom Shakespeare spoke in such laudatory terms; and that

Affable familiar ghost

Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,

was the Mephistopheles of his Doctor Faustus. No doubt, Marlowe was fascinated by the beauty and grace of
the boy-actor, and lured him away from the Blackfriars Theatre, that he might play the Gaveston of his
Edward II. That Shakespeare had the legal right to retain Willie Hughes in his own company is evident from
Sonnet LXXXVII., where he says:-

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gayest, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

CHAPTER II 59
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

But him whom he could not hold by love, he would not hold by force. Willie Hughes became a member of
Lord Pembroke’s company, and, perhaps in the open yard of the Red Bull Tavern, played the part of
King Edward’s delicate minion. On Marlowe’s death, he seems to have returned to
Shakespeare, who, whatever his fellow-partners may have thought of the matter, was not slow to forgive the
wilfulness and treachery of the young actor.

How well, too, had Shakespeare drawn the temperament of the stage-player! Willie Hughes was one of those

That do not do the thing they most do show,

Who, moving others, are themselves as stone.

He could act love, but could not feel it, could mimic passion without realising it.

In many’s looks the false heart’s history

Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,

but with Willie Hughes it was not so. ‘Heaven,’ says Shakespeare, in a sonnet of mad idolatry -

Heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;
Whate’er thy thoughts or thy heart’s workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell.

In his ‘inconstant mind’ and his ‘false heart,’ it was easy to recognise the
insincerity and treachery that somehow seem inseparable from the artistic nature, as in his love of praise that
desire for immediate recognition that characterises all actors. And yet, more fortunate in this than other
actors, Willie Hughes was to know something of immortality. Inseparably connected with
Shakespeare’s plays, he was to live in them.

Your name from hence immortal life shall have,

Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men’s eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o’er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead.

CHAPTER II 60
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
There were endless allusions, also, to Willie Hughes’s power over his audience - the
‘gazers,’ as Shakespeare calls them; but perhaps the most perfect description of his wonderful
mastery over dramatic art was in A Lover’s Complaint, where Shakespeare says of him:-

In him a plenitude of subtle matter,

Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either’s aptness, as it best deceives,
To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,
Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows.

********

So on the tip of his subduing tongue,

All kind of arguments and questions deep,
All replication prompt and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep,
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep.
He had the dialect and the different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will.

Once I thought that I had really found Willie Hughes in Elizabethan literature. In a wonderfully graphic
account of the last days of the great Earl of Essex, his chaplain, Thomas Knell, tells us that the night before
the Earl died, ‘he called William Hewes, which was his musician, to play upon the virginals and to
sing. “Play,” said he, “my song, Will Hewes, and I will sing it to myself.” So he
did it most joyfully, not as the howling swan, which, still looking down, waileth her end, but as a sweet lark,
lifting up his hands and casting up his eyes to his God, with this mounted the crystal skies, and reached with
his unwearied tongue the top of highest heavens.’ Surely the boy who played on the virginals to the
dying father of Sidney’s Stella was none other but the Will Hews to whom Shakespeare dedicated the
Sonnets, and who he tells us was himself sweet ‘music to hear.’ Yet Lord Essex died in 1576,
when Shakespeare himself was but twelve years of age. It was impossible that his musician could have been
the Mr. W. H. of the Sonnets. Perhaps Shakespeare’s young friend was the son of the player upon the
virginals? It was at least something to have discovered that Will Hews was an Elizabethan name. Indeed the
name Hews seemed to have been closely connected with music and the stage. The first English actress was
the lovely Margaret Hews, whom Prince Rupert so madly loved. What more probable than that between her
and Lord Essex’s musician had come the boy-actor of Shakespeare’s plays? But the proofs, the
links - where were they? Alas! I could not find them. It seemed to me that I was always on the brink of
absolute verification, but that I could never really attain to it.

From Willie Hughes’s life I soon passed to thoughts of his death. I used to wonder what had been his
end.

Perhaps he had been one of those English actors who in 1604 went across sea to Germany and played before
the great Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick, himself a dramatist of no mean order, and at the Court of that
strange Elector of Brandenburg, who was so enamoured of beauty that he was said to have bought for his
weight in amber the young son of a travelling Greek merchant, and to have given pageants in honour of his
slave all through that dreadful famine year of 1606-7, when the people died of hunger in the very streets of the
town, and for the space of seven months there was no rain. We know at any rate that Romeo and Juliet was

CHAPTER II 61
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
brought out at Dresden in 1613, along with Hamlet and King Lear, and it was surely to none other than Willie
Hughes that in 1615 the death-mask of Shakespeare was brought by the hand of one of the suite of the English
ambassador, pale token of the passing away of the great poet who had so dearly loved him. Indeed there
would have been something peculiarly fitting in the idea that the boy-actor, whose beauty had been so vital an
element in the realism and romance of Shakespeare’s art, should have been the first to have brought to
Germany the seed of the new culture, and was in his way the precursor of that Aufklärung or Illumination of
the eighteenth century, that splendid movement which, though begun by Lessing and Herder, and brought to
its full and perfect issue by Goethe, was in no small part helped on by another actor - Friedrich Schroeder -
who awoke the popular consciousness, and by means of the feigned passions and mimetic methods of the
stage showed the intimate, the vital, connection between life and literature. If this was so - and there was
certainly no evidence against it - it was not improbable that Willie Hughes was one of those English
comedians (mimae quidam ex Britannia, as the old chronicle calls them), who were slain at Nuremberg in a
sudden uprising of the people, and were secretly buried in a little vineyard outside the city by some young
men ‘who had found pleasure in their performances, and of whom some had sought to be instructed in
the mysteries of the new art.’ Certainly no more fitting place could there be for him to whom
Shakespeare said, ‘thou art all my art,’ than this little vineyard outside the city walls. For was it
not from the sorrows of Dionysos that Tragedy sprang? Was not the light laughter of Comedy, with its
careless merriment and quick replies, first heard on the lips of the Sicilian vine-dressers? Nay, did not the
purple and red stain of the wine-froth on face and limbs give the first suggestion of the charm and fascination
of disguise - the desire for self-concealment, the sense of the value of objectivity thus showing itself in the
rude beginnings of the art? At any rate, wherever he lay - whether in the little vineyard at the gate of the
Gothic town, or in some dim London churchyard amidst the roar and bustle of our great city - no gorgeous
monument marked his resting-place. His true tomb, as Shakespeare saw, was the poet’s verse, his true
monument the permanence of the drama. So had it been with others whose beauty had given a new creative
impulse to their age. The ivory body of the Bithynian slave rots in the green ooze of the Nile, and on the
yellow hills of the Cerameicus is strewn the dust of the young Athenian; but Antinous lives in sculpture, and
Charmides in philosophy.

CHAPTER III

After three weeks had elapsed, I determined to make a strong appeal to Erskine to do justice to the memory of
Cyril Graham, and to give to the world his marvellous interpretation of the Sonnets - the only interpretation
that thoroughly explained the problem. I have not any copy of my letter, I regret to say, nor have I been able
to lay my hand upon the original; but I remember that I went over the whole ground, and covered sheets of
paper with passionate reiteration of the arguments and proofs that my study had suggested to me. It seemed to
me that I was not merely restoring Cyril Graham to his proper place in literary history, but rescuing the
honour of Shakespeare himself from the tedious memory of a commonplace intrigue. I put into the letter all
my enthusiasm. I put into the letter all my faith.

No sooner, in fact, had I sent it off than a curious reaction came over me. It seemed to me that I had given
away my capacity for belief in the Willie Hughes theory of the Sonnets, that something had gone out of me, as
it were, and that I was perfectly indifferent to the whole subject. What was it that had happened? It is
difficult to say. Perhaps, by finding perfect expression for a passion, I had exhausted the passion itself.
Emotional forces, like the forces of physical life, have their positive limitations. Perhaps the mere effort to
convert any one to a theory involves some form of renunciation of the power of credence. Perhaps I was
simply tired of the whole thing, and, my enthusiasm having burnt out, my reason was left to its own

CHAPTER III 62
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

unimpassioned judgment. However it came about, and I cannot pretend to explain it, there was no doubt that
Willie Hughes suddenly became to me a mere myth, an idle dream, the boyish fancy of a young man who, like
most ardent spirits, was more anxious to convince others than to be himself convinced.

As I had said some very unjust and bitter things to Erskine in my letter, I determined to go and see him at
once, and to make my apologies to him for my behaviour. Accordingly, the next morning I drove down to
Birdcage Walk, and found Erskine sitting in his library, with the forged picture of Willie Hughes in front of
him.

‘My dear Erskine!’ I cried, ‘I have come to apologise to you.’

‘To apologise to me?’ he said. ‘What for?’

‘For my letter,’ I answered.

‘You have nothing to regret in your letter,’ he said. ‘On the contrary, you have done me
the greatest service in your power. You have shown me that Cyril Graham’s theory is perfectly
sound.’

‘You don’t mean to say that you believe in Willie Hughes?’ I exclaimed.

‘Why not?’ he rejoined. ‘You have proved the thing to me. Do you think I cannot
estimate the value of evidence?’

‘But there is no evidence at all,’ I groaned, sinking into a chair. ‘When I wrote to you I
was under the influence of a perfectly silly enthusiasm. I had been touched by the story of Cyril
Graham’s death, fascinated by his romantic theory, enthralled by the wonder and novelty of the whole
idea. I see now that the theory is based on a delusion. The only evidence for the existence of Willie Hughes
is that picture in front of you, and the picture is a forgery. Don’t be carried away by mere sentiment in
this matter. Whatever romance may have to say about the Willie Hughes theory, reason is dead against
it.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ said Erskine, looking at me in amazement. ‘Why, you
yourself have convinced me by your letter that Willie Hughes is an absolute reality. Why have you changed
your mind? Or is all that you have been saying to me merely a joke?’

‘I cannot explain it to you,’ I rejoined, ‘but I see now that there is really nothing to be
said in favour of Cyril Graham’s interpretation. The Sonnets are addressed to Lord Pembroke. For
heaven’s sake don’t waste your time in a foolish attempt to discover a young Elizabethan actor
who never existed, and to make a phantom puppet the centre of the great cycle of Shakespeare’s
Sonnets.’

‘I see that you don’t understand the theory,’ he replied.

‘My dear Erskine,’ I cried, ‘not understand it! Why, I feel as if I had invented it. Surely
my letter shows you that I not merely went into the whole matter, but that I contributed proofs of every kind.
The one flaw in the theory is that it presupposes the existence of the person whose existence is the subject of
dispute. If we grant that there was in Shakespeare’s company a young actor of the name of Willie
Hughes, it is not difficult to make him the object of the Sonnets. But as we know that there was no actor of
this name in the company of the Globe Theatre, it is idle to pursue the investigation further.’

CHAPTER III 63
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
‘But that is exactly what we don’t know,’ said Erskine. ‘It is quite true that his
name does not occur in the list given in the first folio; but, as Cyril pointed out, that is rather a proof in favour
of the existence of Willie Hughes than against it, if we remember his treacherous desertion of Shakespeare for
a rival dramatist.’

We argued the matter over for hours, but nothing that I could say could make Erskine surrender his faith in
Cyril Graham’s interpretation. He told me that he intended to devote his life to proving the theory, and
that he was determined to do justice to Cyril Graham’s memory. I entreated him, laughed at him,
begged of him, but it was of no use. Finally we parted, not exactly in anger, but certainly with a shadow
between us. He thought me shallow, I thought him foolish. When I called on him again his servant told me
that he had gone to Germany.

Two years afterwards, as I was going into my club, the hall-porter handed me a letter with a foreign
postmark. It was from Erskine, and written at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, Cannes. When I had read it I
was filled with horror, though I did not quite believe that he would be so mad as to carry his resolve into
execution. The gist of the letter was that he had tried in every way to verify the Willie Hughes theory, and
had failed, and that as Cyril Graham had given his life for this theory, he himself had determined to give his
own life also to the same cause. The concluding words of the letter were these: ‘I still believe in Willie
Hughes; and by the time you receive this, I shall have died by my own hand for Willie Hughes’s sake:
for his sake, and for the sake of Cyril Graham, whom I drove to his death by my shallow scepticism and
ignorant lack of faith. The truth was once revealed to you, and you rejected it. It comes to you now stained
with the blood of two lives, - do not turn away from it.’

It was a horrible moment. I felt sick with misery, and yet I could not believe it. To die for one’s
theological beliefs is the worst use a man can make of his life, but to die for a literary theory! It seemed
impossible.

I looked at the date. The letter was a week old. Some unfortunate chance had prevented my going to the club
for several days, or I might have got it in time to save him. Perhaps it was not too late. I drove off to my
rooms, packed up my things, and started by the night-mail from Charing Cross. The journey was intolerable.
I thought I would never arrive. As soon as I did I drove to the Hôtel l’Angleterre. They told me that
Erskine had been buried two days before in the English cemetery. There was something horribly grotesque
about the whole tragedy. I said all kinds of wild things, and the people in the hall looked curiously at me.

Suddenly Lady Erskine, in deep mourning, passed across the vestibule. When she saw me she came up to me,
murmured something about her poor son, and burst into tears. I led her into her sitting-room. An elderly
gentleman was there waiting for her. It was the English doctor.

We talked a great deal about Erskine, but I said nothing about his motive for committing suicide. It was
evident that he had not told his mother anything about the reason that had driven him to so fatal, so mad an
act. Finally Lady Erskine rose and said, George left you something as a memento. It was a thing he prized
very much. I will get it for you.

As soon as she had left the room I turned to the doctor and said, ‘What a dreadful shock it must have
been to Lady Erskine! I wonder that she bears it as well as she does.’

‘Oh, she knew for months past that it was coming,’ he answered.

‘Knew it for months past!’ I cried. ‘But why didn’t she stop him? Why
didn’t she have him watched? He must have been mad.’

CHAPTER III 64
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
The doctor stared at me. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said.

‘Well,’ I cried, ‘if a mother knows that her son is going to commit suicide - ’

‘Suicide!’ he answered. ‘Poor Erskine did not commit suicide. He died of

consumption. He came here to die. The moment I saw him I knew that there was no hope. One lung was
almost gone, and the other was very much affected. Three days before he died he asked me was there any
hope. I told him frankly that there was none, and that he had only a few days to live. He wrote some letters,
and was quite resigned, retaining his senses to the last.’

At that moment Lady Erskine entered the room with the fatal picture of Willie Hughes in her hand.
‘When George was dying he begged me to give you this,’ she said. As I took it from her, her
tears fell on my hand.

The picture hangs now in my library, where it is very much admired by my artistic friends. They have
decided that it is not a Clouet, but an Oudry. I have never cared to tell them its true history. But sometimes,
when I look at it, I think that there is really a great deal to be said for the Willie Hughes theory of
Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

Footnotes:

{1} Sonnet xx. 2.

{2} Sonnet xxvi. 1.

{3} Sonnet cxxvi. 9.

{4} Sonnet cix. 14.

{5} Sonnet i. 10.

{6} Sonnet ii. 3.

{7} Sonnet viii. 1.

{8} Sonnet xxii. 6.

{9} Sonnet xcv. 1.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME ETC ***

******This file should be named ldasc10h.htm or ldasc10h.zip******

Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, ldasc11h.htm
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ldasc10ah.htm

CHAPTER III 65
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at:

http://gutenberg.net or
http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project

Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).

Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement

can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04

Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.

Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our
projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+

CHAPTER III 66
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!

This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

1 1971 July
10 1991 January
100 1994 January
1000 1997 August
1500 1998 October
2000 1999 December
2500 2000 December
3000 2001 November
4000 2001 October/November
6000 2002 December*
9000 2003 November*
10000 2004 January*

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created

to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people

and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
that have responded.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

In answer to various questions we have received on this:

We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally

CHAPTER III 67
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and
you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
just ask.

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are

not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
donate.

International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about

how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
ways.

Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109

Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment

method other than by check or money order.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by

the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are
tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising
requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information online at:

http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html

***

If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,

you can always email directly to:

Michael S. Hart [email protected]

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.

**The Legal Small Print**

CHAPTER III 68
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***

Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK

By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS

This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market

any commercial products without permission.

To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable

efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES

But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including

CHAPTER III 69
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of

receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER

WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or

the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"

You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this
requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however,
if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word
processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
*EITHER*:

CHAPTER III 70
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

[*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and

does *not* contain characters other than those
intended by the author of the work, although tilde
(~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
be used to convey punctuation intended by the
author, and additional characters may be used to
indicate hypertext links; OR

[*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at

no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
the case, for instance, with most word processors);
OR

[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at

no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this

"Small Print!" statement.

[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the

gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you
don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are
payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to
let us know your plans and to work out the details.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,

public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or

software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
[email protected]

[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only

when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be

CHAPTER III 71
 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

they hardware or software or any other related product without

express permission.]

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*

CHAPTER III 72