"Well, Mr. Holmes, that was the state of affairs when I first saw you two days ago. I had no more idea of the truth than you. You will ask me what was James's motive in doing such a deed. I answer that there was a great deal which was unreasoning and fanatical in the hatred which he bore my heir. In his view he should himself have been heir of all my estates, and he deeply resented those social laws which made it impossible. At the same time he had a definite motive also. He was eager that I should break the entail, and he was of opinion that it lay in my power to do so. He intended to make a bargain with me--to restore Arthur if I would break the entail, and so make it possible for the estate to be left to him by will. He knew well that I should never willingly invoke the aid of the police against him. I say that he would have proposed such a bargain to me, but he did not actually do so, for events moved too quickly for him, and he had not time to put his plans into practice.
"What brought all his wicked scheme to wreck was your discovery of this man Heidegger's dead body. James was seized with horror at the news. It came to us yesterday as we sat together in this study. Dr. Huxtable had sent a telegram. James was so overwhelmed with grief and agitation that my suspicions, which had never been entirely absent, rose instantly to a certainty, and I taxed him with the deed. He made a complete voluntary confession. Then he implored me to keep his secret for three days longer, so as to give his wretched accomplice a chance of saving his guilty life. I yielded--as I have always yielded--to his prayers, and instantly James hurried off to the Fighting Cock to warn Hayes and give him the means of flight. I could not go there by daylight without provoking comment, but as soon as night fell I hurried off to see my dear Arthur. I found him safe and well, but horrified beyond expression by the dreadful deed he had witnessed. In deference to my promise, and much against my will, I consented to leave him there for three days under the charge of Mrs. Hayes, since it was evident that it was impossible to inform the police where he was without telling them also who was the murderer, and I could not see how that murderer could be punished without ruin to my unfortunate James. You asked for frankness, Mr. Holmes, and I have taken you at your word, for I have now told you everything without an attempt at circumlocution or concealment. Do you in your turn be as frank with me."
"I will," said Holmes. "In the first place, your Grace, I am bound to tell you that you have placed yourself in a most serious position in the eyes of the law. You have condoned a felony and you have aided the escape of a murderer; for I cannot doubt that any money which was taken by James Wilder to aid his accomplice in his flight came from your Grace's purse."
The Duke bowed his assent.
"This is indeed a most serious matter. Even more culpable in my opinion, your Grace, is your attitude towards your younger son. You leave him in this den for three days."
"Under solemn promises----"
"What are promises to such people as these? You have no guarantee that he will not be spirited away again. To humour your guilty elder son you have exposed your innocent younger son to imminent and unnecessary danger. It was a most unjustifiable action."
The proud lord of Holdernesse was not accustomed to be so rated in his own ducal hall. The blood flushed into his high forehead, but his conscience held him dumb.
"I will help you, but on one condition only. It is that you ring for the footman and let me give such orders as I like."
Without a word the Duke pressed the electric bell. A servant entered.
"You will be glad to hear," said Holmes, "that your young master is found. It is the Duke's desire that the carriage shall go at once to the Fighting Cock Inn to bring Lord Saltire home.
"Now," said Holmes, when the rejoicing lackey had disappeared, "having secured the future, we can afford to be more lenient with the past. I am not in an official position, and there is no reason, so long as the ends of justice are served, why I should disclose all that I know. As to Hayes I say nothing. The gallows awaits him, and I would do nothing to save him from it. What he will divulge I cannot tell, but I have no doubt that your Grace could make him understand that it is to his interest to be silent. From the police point of view he will have kidnapped the boy for the purpose of ransom. If they do not themselves find it out I see no reason why I should prompt them to take a broader point of view. I would warn your Grace, however, that the continued presence of Mr. James Wilder in your household can only lead to misfortune."
"I understand that, Mr. Holmes, and it is already settled that he shall leave me for ever and go to seek his fortune in Australia."
"In that case, your Grace, since you have yourself stated that any unhappiness in your married life was caused by his presence, I would suggest that you make such amends as you can to the Duchess, and that you try to resume those relations which have been so unhappily interrupted."
"That also I have arranged, Mr. Holmes. I wrote to the Duchess this morning."
"In that case," said Holmes, rising, "I think that my friend and I can congratulate ourselves upon several most happy results from our little visit to the North. There is one other small point upon which I desire some light. This fellow Hayes had shod his horses with shoes which counterfeited the tracks of cows. Was it from Mr. Wilder that he learned so extraordinary a device?"
The Duke stood in thought for a moment, with a look of intense surprise on his face. Then he opened a door and showed us into a large room furnished as a museum. He led the way to a glass case in a corner, and pointed to the inscription.
"These shoes," it ran, "were dug up in the moat of Holdernesse Hall. They are for the use of horses; but they are shaped below with a cloven foot of iron, so as to throw pursuers off the track. They are supposed to have belonged to some of the marauding Barons of Holdernesse in the Middle Ages."
Holmes opened the case, and moistening his finger he passed it along the shoe. A thin film of recent mud was left upon his skin.
"Thank you," said he, as he replaced the glass. "It is the second most interesting object that I have seen in the North."
"And the first?"
Holmes folded up his cheque and placed it carefully in his note-book. "I am a poor man," said he, as he patted it affectionately and thrust it into the depths of his inner pocket.
Copyright, 1904, by A. Conan Doyle, in the United States of America.
[Illustration: Voices in Parliament.]
BY ALEX. GRANT.
The more particular object of this article is to describe some of the various styles of Parliamentary speakers, and to give a pictorial presentment of short passages from the speeches of members who participate frequently in the debates, showing the approximate pitch and modulation of the voices. For the latter purpose nearly two hundred different speeches were "sampled."
Anyone familiar with the theories and principles of speech sounds knows that it is an impossibility to render accurately the multitude of sounds occurring in even a short typical passage. Different plans for writing speech sounds have been tried with varying success. Any system aiming at scientific accuracy implies a degree of minute analysis which is impracticable in an endeavour to procure an estimate of the pitch and average inflection of numerous voices heard at some distance, and under conditions not favourable to close scrutiny. In speech a single syllable may traverse half an octave, a semitone, or a fraction of a semitone, and it may be jerked out in separate tones, or undulate in portamento. There is usually, however, a prime sound, which may be more prominent and longer sustained than the other sounds that go to round off the syllable. With a succession of those prime sounds, which, for convenience, may be called notes, it is possible to give a rough notion (which is all that is claimed here) of how a speaker's voice rises and falls in the hearing of an ordinary listener.
Each of the samples represents an average bit of speaking. The notes given must not be taken literally. If the speaking tone, for instance, was somewhere about D, and descended to somewhere about A, those notes D and A would be near enough for the purpose of these observations. True musical intervals are out of the question, but the accompanying diagrams have been written on the bass clef in the natural key, this being the most simple and direct way of showing roughly the variation as between different speakers, and the prevailing pitch, as nearly as it has been possible to discover them.
The natural speaking notes of a man's voice vary considerably in different places and in different circumstances. A certain accomplished cathedral singer who has studied this question puts the average pitch of preachers' voices at about F sharp in the bass clef. He has heard preachers ascend to top tenor G and A, descending to C (above the bass clef), improbable though it sounds. Others he has observed speaking effectively from B to F (bass clef), with F as the top tone. He himself, with an exceptionally deep voice, has in speaking an average pitch of low G, with inflections upwards to F and downwards to C below the clef. One acknowledged authority gives the ordinary range of the speaking voice of a man as the notes comprised in the bass clef, _i.e._, G to A, B flat to F sharp above the clef being occasionally used. Another authority points out that a good tone is desired for singing within two octaves, whereas, in speaking, an audible tone is desired at pitches generally within one-fifth, and only occasionally extending to an octave. Still another authority says that the part of a bass voice most often brought into requisition will consist of the notes D, E, F, G, and in the case of a tenor voice of G, A, B, C, the dominant note for the bass being E or F, and for the tenor A or B. At the same time it is admitted by one of those authorities that great actors have used with best effect their lowest notes, _i.e._, extending upward from C below the bass clef. Of course, the declamation of the actor as well as that of the clergyman is more favourable to a sustained and singing quality of tone than ordinary speech. The same is true to a certain extent in the case of Parliamentary speaking.