R. Holmes Co. | Page 5

sporting fraternity used to be got up at a
moment's notice to run down to Dorrington Castle, Devonshire; to
Dorrington Lodge on the Isle of Wight; to Dorrington Hall, near Dublin,
or to any other country place for over Sunday.
"Sometimes there'd be a lot of turf people: sometimes a dozen or more
devotes of the prize-ring; not infrequently a gathering of the
best-known cricketers of the time, among whom, of course, my
grandfather, A. J. Raffles, was conspicuous. For the most part, the
cricketers never partook of Dorrington's hospitality save when his
lordship was present, for your cricket-player is a bit more punctilious in
such matters than your turfmen or ring-side habitués. It so happened
one year, however, that his lordship was absent from England for the
better part of eight months, and, when the time came for the annual
cricket gathering at his Devonshire place, he cabled his London
representative to see to it that everything was carried on just as if he
were present, and that every one should be invited for the usual week's
play and pleasure at Dorrington Castle. His instructions were carried
out to the letter, and, save for the fact that the genial host was absent,
the house-part went through to perfection. My grandfather, as usual,
was the life of the occasion, and all went merry as a marriage-bell.
Seven months later, Lord Dorrington returned, and a week after that,
the loss of the Dorrington jewels from the Devonshire strong-boxes
was a matter of common knowledge. When, or by whom, they had been
taken was an absolute mystery. As far as anybody could find out, they
might have been taken the night before his return, or the night after his
departure. The only fact in sight was that they were gone--Lady
Dorrington's diamonds, a half-dozen valuable jewelled rings belonging
to his lordship, and, most irremediable of losses, the famous ruby seal
which George IV had given to Dorrington's grandfather, Sir Arthur
Deering, as a token of his personal esteem during the period of the

Regency. This was a flawless ruby, valued at some six or seven
thousand pounds sterling, in which had been cut the Deering arms
surrounded by a garter upon which were engraved the words, 'Deering
Ton,' which the family, upon Sir Arthur's elevation to the peerage in
1836, took as its title, or Dorrington. His lordship was almost prostrated
by the loss. The diamonds and the rings, although valued at thirty
thousand pounds, he could easily replace, but the personal associations
of the seal were such that nothing, no amount of money, could
duplicate the lost ruby."
"So that his first act," I broke in, breathlessly, "was to send for--"
"Sherlock Holmes, my father," said Raffles Holmes. "Yes, Mr. Jenkins,
the first thing Lord Dorrington did was to telegraph to London for
Sherlock Holmes, requesting him to come immediately to Dorrington
Castle and assume charge of the case. Needless to say, Mr. Holmes
dropped everything else and came. He inspected the gardens, measured
the road from the railway station to the castle, questioned all the
servants; was particularly insistent upon knowing where the
parlor-maid was on the 13th of January; secured accurate information
as to the personal habits of his lordship's dachshund Nicholas;
subjected the chef to a cross-examination that covered every point of
his life, from his remote ancestry to his receipt for baking apples;
gathered up three suit-cases of sweeping from his lordship's private
apartment, and two boxes containing three each of every variety of
cigars that Lord Dorrington had laid down in his cellar. As you are
aware, Sherlock Holmes, in his prime, was a great master of detail. He
then departed for London, taking with him an impression in wax of the
missing seal, which Lord Dorrington happened to have preserved in his
escritoire.
"On his return to London, Holmes inspected the seal carefully under a
magnifying-glass, and was instantly impressed with the fact that it was
not unfamiliar to him. He had seen it somewhere before, but where?
That was now the question upper-most in his mind. Prior to this, he had
never had any communication with Lord Dorrington, so that, if it was
in his correspondence that the seal had formerly come to him, most

assuredly the person who had used it had come by it dishonestly.
Fortunately, at that time, it was a habit of my father's never to destroy
papers of any sort. Every letter that he ever received was classified and
filed, envelope and all. The thing to do, then, was manifestly to run
over the files and find the letter, if indeed it was in or on a letter that the
seal had first come to his attention. It was a herculean job, but that
never feazed Sherlock Holmes, and he went