Mystery of Cloomber , livre ebook

The Floating Press - Conan Doyle Arthur

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

115 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Although many readers think that Arthur Conan Doyle's literary career begins and ends with his creation of master detective Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle dabbled in a variety of genres and styles. The Mystery of Cloomber has elements of the classic detective genre, but it is closer to a nuanced psychological thriller than one of the cut-and-dried cases that Holmes and Watson solved.

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 janvier 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775450894
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE MYSTERY OF CLOOMBER
* * *
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

*

The Mystery of Cloomber First published in 1889 ISBN 978-1-775450-89-4 © 2011 The Floating Press While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Chapter I - The Hegira of the Wests from Edinburgh Chapter II - Of the Strange Manner in Which a Tenant Came to Cloomber Chapter III - Of Our Further Acquaintance with Major-General J. B. Heatherstone Chapter IV - Of a Young Man with a Grey Head Chapter V - How Four of Us Came to Be Under the Shadow of Cloomber Chapter VI - How I Came to Be Enlisted as One of the Garrison of Cloomber Chapter VII - Of Corporal Rufus Smith and His Coming to Cloomber Chapter VIII - Statement of Israel Stakes Chapter IX - Narrative of John Easterling, Frcpedin Chapter X - Of the Letter Which Came from the Hall Chapter XI - Of the Casting Away of the Barque "Belinda" Chapter XII - Of the Three Foreign Men Upon the Coast Chapter XIII - In Which I See that Which Has Been Seen by Few Chapter XIV - Of the Visitor Who Ran Down the Road in the Night-Time Chapter XV - The Day-Book of John Berthier Heatherstone Chapter XVI - At the Hole of Cree Endnotes
Chapter I - The Hegira of the Wests from Edinburgh
*
I John Fothergill West, student of law in the University of St. Andrews,have endeavoured in the ensuing pages to lay my statement before thepublic in a concise and business-like fashion.
It is not my wish to achieve literary success, nor have I any desire bythe graces of my style, or by the artistic ordering of my incidents, tothrow a deeper shadow over the strange passages of which I shall haveto speak. My highest ambition is that those who know something of thematter should, after reading my account, be able to conscientiouslyindorse it without finding a single paragraph in which I have eitheradded to or detracted from the truth.
Should I attain this result, I shall rest amply satisfied with theoutcome of my first, and probably my last, venture in literature.
It was my intention to write out the sequence of events in due order,depending on trustworthy hearsay when I was describing that which wasbeyond my own personal knowledge. I have now, however, through thekind cooperation of friends, hit upon a plan which promises to be lessonerous to me and more satisfactory to the reader. This is nothing lessthan to make use of the various manuscripts which I have by me bearingupon the subject, and to add to them the first-hand evidence contributedby those who had the best opportunities of knowing Major-General J. B.Heatherstone.
In pursuance of this design I shall lay before the public the testimonyof Israel Stakes, formerly coachman at Cloomber Hall, and ofJohn Easterling, F.R.C.P. Edin., now practising at Stranraer, inWigtownshire. To these I shall add a verbatim account extracted fromthe journal of the late John Berthier Heatherstone, of the events whichoccurred in the Thul Valley in the autumn of '41 towards the end ofthe first Afghan War, with a description of the skirmish in the Teradadefile, and of the death of the man Ghoolab Shah.
To myself I reserve the duty of filling up all the gaps and chinks whichmay be left in the narrative. By this arrangement I have sunk from theposition of an author to that of a compiler, but on the other handmy work has ceased to be a story and has expanded into a series ofaffidavits.
My Father, John Hunter West, was a well known Oriental and Sanskritscholar, and his name is still of weight with those who are interestedin such matters. He it was who first after Sir William Jones calledattention to the great value of early Persian literature, and histranslations from the Hafiz and from Ferideddin Atar have earned thewarmest commendations from the Baron von Hammer-Purgstall, of Vienna,and other distinguished Continental critics.
In the issue of the Orientalisches Scienzblatt for January, 1861,he is described as "Der beruhmte und sehr gelhernte Hunter West vonEdinburgh" —a passage which I well remember that he cut out and stowedaway, with a pardonable vanity, among the most revered family archives.
He had been brought up to be a solicitor, or Writer to the Signet, asit is termed in Scotland, but his learned hobby absorbed so much of histime that he had little to devote to the pursuit of his profession.
When his clients were seeking him at his chambers in George Street, hewas buried in the recesses of the Advocates' Library, or poring oversome mouldy manuscript at the Philosophical Institution, with his brainmore exercised over the code which Menu propounded six hundred yearsbefore the birth of Christ than over the knotty problems of Scottish lawin the nineteenth century. Hence it can hardly be wondered at thatas his learning accumulated his practice dissolved, until at the verymoment when he had attained the zenith of his celebrity he had alsoreached the nadir of his fortunes.
There being no chair of Sanscrit in any of his native universities, andno demand anywhere for the only mental wares which he had to disposeof, we should have been forced to retire into genteel poverty, consolingourselves with the aphorisms and precepts of Firdousi, Omar Khayyam, andothers of his Eastern favourites, had it not been for the kindnessand liberality of his half-brother William Farintosh, the Laird ofBranksome, in Wigtownshire.
This William Farintosh was the proprietor of a landed estate, theacreage which bore, unfortunately, a most disproportional relation toits value, for it formed the bleakest and most barren tract of landin the whole of a bleak and barren shire. As a bachelor, however, hisexpenses had been small, and he had contrived from the rents of hisscattered cottages, and the sale of the Galloway nags, which he bredupon the moors, not only to live as a laird should, but to put by aconsiderable sum in the bank.
We had heard little from our kinsman during the days of our comparativeprosperity, but just as we were at our wit's end, there came a letterlike a ministering angel, giving us assurance of sympathy and succour.In it the Laird of Branksome told us that one of his lungs had beengrowing weaker for some time, and that Dr. Easterling, of Stranraer, hadstrongly advised him to spend the few years which were left to him insome more genial climate. He had determined, therefore to set out forthe South of Italy, and he begged that we should take up our residenceat Branksome in his absence, and that my father should act as his landsteward and agent at a salary which placed us above all fear of want.
Our mother had been dead for some years, so that there were only myself,my father, and my sister Esther to consult, and it may be readilyimagined that it did not take us long to decide upon the acceptanceof the laird's generous offer. My father started for Wigtown that verynight, while Esther and I followed a few days afterwards, bearing withus two potato-sacksful of learned books, and such other of our householdeffects that were worth the trouble and expense of transport.
Chapter II - Of the Strange Manner in Which a Tenant Came to Cloomber
*
Branksome might have appeared a poor dwelling-place when compared withthe house of an English squire, but to us, after our long residence instuffy apartments, it was of regal magnificence.
The building was broad-spread and low, with red-tiled roof,diamond-paned windows, and a profusion of dwelling rooms withsmoke-blackened ceilings and oaken wainscots. In front was a small lawn,girt round with a thin fringe of haggard and ill grown beeches, allgnarled and withered from the effects of the sea-spray. Behind lay thescattered hamlet of Branksome-Bere—a dozen cottages at most—inhabitedby rude fisher-folk who looked upon the laird as their naturalprotector.
To the west was the broad, yellow beach and the Irish Sea, while in allother directions the desolate moors, greyish-green in the foregroundand purple in the distance, stretched away in long, low curves to thehorizon.
Very bleak and lonely it was upon this Wigtown coast. A man mightwalk many a weary mile and never see a living thing except the white,heavy-flapping kittiwakes, which screamed and cried to each other withtheir shrill, sad voices.
Very lonely and very bleak! Once out of sight of Branksome and therewas no sign of the works of man save only where the high, white tower ofCloomber Hall shot up, like a headstone of some giant grave, from amidthe firs and larches which girt it round.
This great house, a mile or more from our dwelling, had been built by awealthy Glasgow merchant of strange tastes and lonely habits, but atthe time of our arrival it had been untenanted for many years, and stoodwith weather-blotched walls and vacant, staring windows looking blanklyout over the hill side.
Empty and mildewed, it served only as a landmark to the fishermen, forthey had found by experience that by keeping the laird's chimney and thewhite tower of Cloomber in a line they could steer their way throughthe ugly reef which raises its jagged back, like that of some sleepingmonster, above the troubled waters of the wind-swept bay.
To this wild spot it was that Fate had brought my father, my sister,and myself. For us its loneliness had no terrors. After the hubbub andbustle of a great city, and the weary task of upholding appearances upona slender income, there was a grand, soul-soothing serenity in the longsky-line and the eager air. Here at least there was no neighbour to pryand chatter.
The laird had left his phaet