of Lord Arthur Savile and therefore cannot inherit. However, I have seen to it that he need not want for money. He left Oxford without a degree but, curiously, he had the makings of a budding pianist. Were he not otherwise provided for—and had he the persistence-1 daresay he might have made a career in that way.”
“I take some interest in concert music,” said Holmes casually, “and have heard of Lord Arthur’s remarkable talent. I am sorry he has not cultivated it. His private impromptu performance at Priorsfield of Chopin’s C sharp minor study, several years ago, was described to me by the great Vladimir de Pachmann himself as a tour de force. It might not have done for him to play in public but he was a most accomplished performer.”
The Earl inclined his head in acknowledgement.
“It is a matter of character, Mr Holmes. Unfortunately it is not his accomplishments which are the subject of my present visit. To speak frankly he is better known in certain outlandish and Bohemian areas of London society than I should care to be. As for his music, he plays less and less, except occasionally in the company of his family. Let me be plain. I am attached to Lord Arthur and I have helped him, from time to time, as I have been able. But his conduct is become a matter of concern.”
Holmes raised one eyebrow.
“I cannot presume, my lord, to take your cousin’s conduct in hand.”
The Earl of Blagdon reassured him with a lift of the hand.
“I do not suggest that he is vicious or wild. There is nothing of drink, or gambling, or womanising. Rather, he is not merely eccentric but he seems to collect eccentricities for their own sake, if you follow me.”
“I believe I do, my lord.”
“I certainly could not say that he is insane. A man may believe that character can be determined through phrenology by reading the bumps of the skull, as he has done in extremes, and yet he is not insane. He may enlist in the ranks of those Rosicrucians known as The Magicians of the Golden Dawn; yet no alienist would lock him up in Bedlam. He may swear to the appearance of apparitions of the dead at the command of a spiritualist medium, yet that is his freedom of belief. It is when he becomes—shall I say a collector of such oddities?—that I am concerned for him.”
“Unless there be fraud or coercion of some kind,” said Holmes gently, “I doubt whether I am the right person to approach. Dr Watson, on the other hand ...”
“What if it should touch upon crime?”
“That, of course, is a quite different matter.”
“What if he should burgle, by night, the houses of his own family? What if he should do it to no purpose? It is not only his eccentricities, though they are bad enough, but a growing oddity and perhaps criminality of conduct which brings me here.”
Holmes straightened in his chair.
“I think, my lord, that you had better explain that a little.”
Lord E3lagdon seemed to bow increasingly under the weight of his concern.
“Last Friday, Mr Holmes, a week ago precisely and in the middle of the night, Lord Arthur came secretly to the grounds of Priorsfield. He opened a sash-window of the library on the ground floor, pushing back the catch with a blade of some kind. He must than have climbed over the sill, which is easy enough, and walked through the lower level of the house to the north drawing-room. The chief feature of this room is a full-size Louis Phillippe display-case, containing the finest items of porcelain in the Priorsfield collection. One of the housekeepers had heard the window being opened and had gone to investigate. She was in time to see Lord Arthur entering the drawing-room. He did not see her. Because he is sometimes a visitor to Priorsfield, she did not challenge him at once but alerted my valet, who in turn woke me.”
“I take it that your brother was a regular guest at Priorsfield but not on this occasion? If he wished to visit the house, he had only to ask?”
“Of course. He could treat it as his home for, in a sense, it was. That is why such incidents have made his conduct so disturbing for some time. I came downstairs quietly in order to observe him without attracting his notice. I watched him open the cabinet. It took him a moment or two and I cannot tell you whether