The case of Miss ElliottOrczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
General
The case of Miss Elliott
Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
Detective and mystery stories, English; English fiction -- 20th century
“Point No. 2,” he shrieked, “young Bloggs having told a lie, had some
object in telling it. That was my starting point; from there I worked
steadily until I had reconstructed the events of that Thursday
night—nay, more, until I knew something more about young Bloggs’
immediate future, in order that I might then imagine his past.
“And this is what I found.
“After the tragic death of Mrs. Yule, young Bloggs went abroad at the
expense of some kind friends, and came home with a wife, whom he is
supposed to have met and married in Switzerland. From that point
everything became clear to me. Young Bloggs had told a lie when he
swore that it was Mrs. William Yule; therefore it was somebody who
either represented herself as such, or who believed herself to be Mrs.
William Yule.
“The first supposition,” continued the funny creature, “I soon
dismissed as impossible; young Bloggs knew Mrs. William Yule by
sight—and since he had lied, he had done so deliberately. Therefore to
my mind the lady who called herself Mrs. William Yule did so because
she believed that she had a right to that name; that she had married a
man, who, for purposes of his own, had chosen to call himself by that
name. From this point to that of guessing who that man was was simple
enough.”
“Do you mean young Bloggs himself?” I asked in amazement.
“And whom else?” he replied. “Isn’t that sort of thing done every day?
Bloggs was a hideous name, and Yule was eventually to be his own. With
William Yule’s example before him, he must have known that it would be
dangerous to broach the marriage question at all before the old lady,
and probably only meant to wait for a favourable opportunity of doing
so. But after a while the young wife would naturally become troubled
and anxious, and like most women under the same circumstances, would
become jealous and inquisitive as well.
“She soon found out where he lived, and no doubt called there,
thinking that old Mrs. Yule was her husband’s own fond mother.
“You can picture the rest. Mrs. Yule, furious at having been deceived,
herself destroys the deed of gift which she meant to present to her
adopted son, and from that hour young Bloggs sees himself penniless.
“The false Mrs. Yule left the house, and young Bloggs waited for his
opportunity on the dark landing of a small London house. One push and
the deed was done. With her weak heart, Mrs. Yule was sure to die of
the shock, if not of the fall.
“Before that, already the desk had been broken open and every
appearance of a theft given to it. After the tragedy, then, young
Bloggs retired quietly to his room. The whole thing looked so like an
accident that, even had the servants heard the fall at once, there
would still have been time enough for the young villain to sneak into
his room, and then to reappear at his door as if he, too, had been
just awakened by the noise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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