he
best of educations, and since he came to manhood I have kept him near
my person. He surprised my secret, and has presumed ever since upon the
claim which he has upon me and upon his power of provoking a scandal,
which would be abhorrent to me. His presence had something to do
with the unhappy issue of my marriage. Above all, he hated my young
legitimate heir from the first with a persistent hatred. You may well
ask me why, under these circumstances, I still kept James under my roof.
I answer that it was because I could see his mother's face in his, and
that for her dear sake there was no end to my long-suffering. All her
pretty ways, too--there was not one of them which he could not suggest
and bring back to my memory. I COULD not send him away. But I feared so
much lest he should do Arthur--that is, Lord Saltire--a mischief that I
dispatched him for safety to Dr. Huxtable's school.

"James came into contact with this fellow Hayes because the man was a
tenant of mine, and James acted as agent. The fellow was a rascal from
the beginning; but in some extraordinary way James became intimate with
him. He had always a taste for low company. When James determined
to kidnap Lord Saltire it was of this man's service that he availed
himself. You remember that I wrote to Arthur upon that last day. Well,
James opened the letter and inserted a note asking Arthur to meet him
in a little wood called the Ragged Shaw, which is near to the school.
He used the Duchess's name, and in that way got the boy to come. That
evening James bicycled over--I am telling you what he has himself
confessed to me--and he told Arthur, whom he met in the wood, that his
mother longed to see him, that she was awaiting him on the moor, and
that if he would come back into the wood at midnight he would find a man
with a horse, who would take him to her. Poor Arthur fell into the trap.
He came to the appointment and found this fellow Hayes with a led pony.
Arthur mounted, and they set off together. It appears--though this James
only heard yesterday--that they were pursued, that Hayes struck the
pursuer with his stick, and that the man died of his injuries. Hayes
brought Arthur to his public-house, the Fighting Cock, where he was
confined in an upper room, under the care of Mrs. Hayes, who is a kindly
woman, but entirely under the control of her brutal husband.

"Well, Mr. Holmes, that was the state of affairs when I first saw you
two days ago. I had no more