Dangerous Dilemmas: Startling but True

by James Anderson Peddie

"There is some hidden mystery. You are right in saying the case is peculiar."

Here was a complication after my own heart. Awake and asleep the subject haunted me. I worked out all manner of solutions, but none of them brought me any nearer the secret; and when you learn the marvellous particulars you will not blame me for my stupidity. Of all the extraordinary revelations made known to the public, this one, it will be readily admitted, takes a prominent place.

Who was this Lord Seamord? For obvious reasons, I use an assumed name. At Elliott and Fry's I got his portrait for a shilling. It is lying before me now. Not a man to make an enemy of. His chin betokens resolution; lips, firmness; nostrils, daring; eyes, cruelty; forehead, intellect. He was a tall man I ascertained, and dark enough to have been taken for a Spaniard. Debrett told me that he had been an only child; that he married a duke's daughter, that there was no issue of the marriage, and that when his decease occurred he must have been thirty-five years of age. From private sources, from men who had frequented the same clubs as his lordship, I received a very bad account of him. He was, according to them, an individual to be avoided. The girls he had seduced, the friends he had ruined at play, the duels he had fought, some of them with fatal results, would fill a volume. He took no active part in politics, and seemed to live entirely for his own amusement. His wife, who was very pretty, and who it was said, worshipped him, was sadly neglected; and he resided principally on the Continent.

The next heir to the title and estate was a cousin, who was not a little surprised to be informed that everything that money could be raised on had been mortgaged. This was all the more strange when it was known, that Lord Seamord was unusually careful in monetary matters, and that most of his speculations resulted in an addition to his large fortune. What had become of these immense sums of money?

This was the first question I set myself to answer. I was charmed with the insurmountable difficulties surrounding the case, and entered on the investigation with great relish. You may ask what business it was of mine, and the only reply I think it necessary to give is that the enquiry interested me, and that if success crowned my efforts I could if I chose earn a large sum of money.

I went down to Craigmillar, but the information I gleaned there did not amount to much. No one could say how the money had gone. His lordship was at Milan when he died, and he had with him a servant called Robert Simmons. This man had been in the family for many years, but he was much disliked. Like master like man. There was nobody to say a good word about either. It was thought that Simmons was a ready and willing assistant in the many villainies perpetrated by Lord Seamord. To my enquiry as to what had become of Simmons, I was told that he left soon after the funeral, and had not been heard of since. This was suspicious. There were now two questions in my note book—first, how had the money been disposed of? and the second, why had the servant disappeared?

I may or may not have had an interview with the family solicitor, but at all events I went on the Continent, and traced his lordship on his last journey to the town in which he died. Up to reaching Milan I found nothing remarkable. His stay in Paris was short, and presented no feature of interest. The people at the hotel knew him well, and I had no trouble in getting at his daily doings. At Milan the case was different. It assumed the mysterious at once. To begin with, he dropped the title and used a feigned name. He kept changing his hotel, and finally rented a house of his own. Altogether he remained in this rather dull Italian town upwards of six months. There must have been a powerful reason, I thought, for his prolonged stay and erratic conduct, but neither the people he came in contact with nor the authorities were aware of it. Simmons was with him all the time, and could no doubt explain many things, but the man was not available. In despair, I asked for a file of one of the daily papers, to see if anything remarkable occurred about the first of November, and my attention was arrested by a thrilling paragraph relating to the death of a young lady. It ran thus:—

"Murder or Suicide?—It is our painful duty to notify the death of the daughter of M. Rousell, the famous sculptor. The young lady was only nineteen years of age, and had shown great promise as a painter. Her voice would have insured her a hearty welcome on the operatic stage. A more accomplished, beautiful and fascinating young lady it would be difficult to find, and much sympathy is felt for the bereaved father, the more so on account of the manner of his daughter's death. She was found in the public gardens stabbed to the heart."