Part 8

Of course, I congratulated the happy couple on behalf of THE STRAND MAGAZINE, and of course I carried away a piece of _the_ cake, one of the inimitable Buszard's, all glorious in silver decorations of flowers, fruit, Irish harps, etc., and mounted on a massive silver stand. For the benefit of my lady readers, I may remark that the bride was really beautiful (people generally say they _look_ so, but this one really _was_); cream satin, Venice point, and orange blossom were all in due order. But what chiefly interested me was the crowd of celebrities present--Rothschilds, Ambassadors (whose names are known and honoured), some of the French nobility, many familiar English faces, musical and dramatic stars, etc.

From here I proceed to the Dining Room, a fine apartment lighted with crystal chandeliers and silver-gilt candelabra, showing a splendidly painted ceiling, with walls of marble, carved oak, and crimson panels--these being hung with shields and pieces of armour, offensive and defensive. On the tables is a fine display of plate, formerly the property of Jerome Napoleon, a costly Burmese bowl, and other pieces of presentation plate too numerous to mention. I may here say that upstairs in the strong-room I saw a remarkably large collection of plate--some belonging to the Embassy, but a great deal of it the private property of the Marquis; all was of the richest in quality and design, but perhaps the gold Buddha from Burmah, a Burmese cup--wonderfully chased--and some candelabra, copied from originals found in Pompeii, were of the greatest interest.

From here you can step out into the Inner Hall, and then mount the splendidly wide marble staircase, soon finding yourself in a most beautiful suite of apartments.

The Second Red Saloon calls for your particular attention: it has much in it worth close study. The painted ceiling, brocaded walls, and parquetry floors are elegant and costly, and the furniture of the First Empire worth more than passing note; but the chief attraction undoubtedly is the unique collection of Indian Rajahs, paintings on ivory; these--seventy, I believe, in number--were presented to His Excellency before leaving India.

Nearly every one of the miniatures brings up some interesting and may-be amusing recollection, and carries the family back to sojourns in various places: at Calcutta, for instance, where Lady Dufferin tells with glee how on one of her visits she was literally garlanded with flowers, her pocket-handkerchief copiously drenched with a pungent scent, and a scented bouquet ornamented with tinsel thrust into her hands: thus bedecked, she had to drive through the streets, feeling, I should imagine, like a central figure in a circus display. It seems it was customary everywhere to make offerings of flowers, fruit, cakes, and candy; and as these latter were accepted and passed over to the servants, they were much delighted. The rule regarding other presents was curious: jewellery, etc., was accepted, but passed on to the Government Treasury, sold, and presents of equal value returned to the donors: rather aggravating this, when a specially nice article is given. Money, too, was often offered, but this was only touched, not taken!

Then, again, reminders crop up of Burmah, some not very pleasant ones too, when the bedrooms were kept lively with swarms of lizards, and even scorpions occasionally putting in an unwelcome appearance. Or of Simla, where a small Government House was perched at such a dizzy height as made falling over a precipice a great probability if venturing too far over the threshold: a place where carriages could not get along, where everybody had to go out in "jinrikshas," a species of Bath chair, which was half pulled and half pushed by four and sometimes six men: processions of them going along in single file, the merry occupants shouting remarks to the van or rear as they proceeded. Just you imagine going to church on Sunday morning in this fashion, or mounted on rough ponies, horses, or anything on legs that could be obtained. Fancy what a nondescript congregation it must be; occupants of jinrikshas, ladies in riding gear with boots and spurs complete, and black servants in every colour of the rainbow.

One might go on for any length of time with these reminiscences, but there are a few more rooms yet unexplored.

The next one I enter is known as the Yellow Saloon, nearly everything in it being gold and cream. The ceiling is painted cream and decorated in gold relief, the walls are hung with gold brocaded silk, carpets and curtains, settees and chairs all in character. On the walls may be seen some costly Italian pictures, collected by Lord Dufferin, also a few more miniatures of Rajahs. The marble mantels in this suite of rooms are also a special feature, so beautifully are they carved; also you will note the graceful crystal chandeliers and parquetry floors.

On one side of the room you will observe a very handsome silver-gilt frame containing a portrait of the Maharajah of Patiala, also a present. Lord and Lady Dufferin were occasional guests at this Prince's palace, he entertaining them right royally, even to providing bagpipe strains for after-dinner performance, the dusky pipers in Scottish attire, with legs cased in pink silk to keep up the semblance. I believe time and tune were not much regarded, but what mattered that? The intention was good.

Opening from here is Lady Dufferin's boudoir, a cosy apartment, crowded with artistic and useful pieces of furniture; music, books, and family photographs abound; and here Lady Dufferin finds time for arrangement and direction of much of the good work in which she is constantly engaged.

I may as well here state that Lady Dufferin is the daughter of the late Archibald R. Hamilton, Esq., of Killyleagh Castle, Co. Down; she has orders, the "Crown of India," the "Victoria and Albert," the "Crescent of the Shefkhat," and "Lion and Sun." Wherever Lord Dufferin has been appointed, there has Lady Dufferin worked zealously for the welfare of the poorer classes, but it is perhaps more especially for her splendid work for the women of India that she is so much honoured. Most of you know the wretched condition of these poor women, sufferers through the custom of the country. Lady Dufferin, by her noble efforts for the training of native women in medical skill, has earned the gratitude and alleviated the misery of thousands. The amount of correspondence alone that all this entails upon her ladyship is prodigious; every minute seems to be fully occupied.

We take a peep into the next room, a State bed-chamber. This, Lady Dufferin tells me, was formerly used by the Princess Pauline. Over the bed is displayed the eagle, and the letter "P.," in ormolu, is on much of the tulip, satinwood, and rosewood furniture, all of which is covered with the richest of brocades.

There is another room which must not be omitted--Lord Dufferin's study. Thither I proceed, and thus get a glance of the enormous amount of business devolving upon the Ambassador and his secretaries.

Everything is of the most orderly in the arrangements: all correspondence sorted up; papers and books of reference ready to hand; well-filled bookshelves containing Parliamentary and technical works, and all the other accessories of a hard-working Minister's room. On the walls I note a number of family portraits, chief of which are Lady Dufferin and Lord Ava--the eldest son.

Of the real work done here, few can form any idea; communications from all parts of the globe, arbitration here, intercession there. Very much fine tact is wanted to keep all this going smoothly: to uphold the majesty, please the public, and give no manner of offence. The multiplicity of affairs, some trivial, some weighty--to an ordinary mind--would be alarming. Not so long ago I was in conversation with one, who, residing in a town not far from Paris, had, as I think deservedly, brought himself under the vengeance of the French law; but he was an English subject. "So," said he, "I shall appeal to the Ambassador!" and appeal he did. This just gave me an instance of the number of petty matters that come for settlement to the Embassy.

Downstairs is another room where any amount of business is transacted, and where I had a few minutes' chat with Austin Lee, Esq., one of the secretaries; and opposite are the offices of the Consulate. To one and another there is a constant stream of people from morning till night; all sorts and conditions, and on all sorts of business. One thing you may be sure of: no one who really needs and deserves help or redress fails in obtaining it; Lord Dufferin and his able assistants--whose portraits are here presented--not only conducting affairs of State with dignified ability, but also giving ready sympathy of a practical nature wherever required.

_Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives._

THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.

BORN 1825.

The Right Rev. Anthony W. Thorold, Lord Bishop of Winchester, is the second son of the Rev. E. Thorold, Rector of Hougham. He graduated at Trinity College, Oxford, and was ordained in 1849. From 1874 to 1877 he was Canon Residentiary of York, and was consecrated to the Bishopric of Rochester in 1877. His lordship was transferred to the Bishopric of Winchester in 1891.

THE CZAR OF RUSSIA.

BORN 1845.

Alexander III. succeeded to the throne as Emperor of All the Russias in 1881. His coronation took place at Moscow in May, 1883. In 1866 he married Mary Feodorovna, daughter of Christian IX., King of Denmark, and sister of the Princess of Wales and the King of Greece.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

BORN 1846.

Henry Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, Prince of Waterloo, was late Major and Lieutenant-Colonel Grenadier Guards, Colonel 2nd Brigade Southern Division Royal Artillery Militia, and Honorary Colonel of the 3rd and 4th Battalions of the Duke of Wellington's West Riding Regiment. He succeeded to his uncle, son of the Great Duke of Wellington, as 3rd Duke in 1884. He was M.P. for Andover from 1874 to 1880, and married Evelyn Katerine Gwenfra, youngest daughter of the late Colonel Thomas Peers Williams, in 1882.

MR. JUSTICE KENNEDY.

BORN 1847.

The Hon. Sir William Rann Kennedy was born in Kensington, and was sent to Eton in 1858. At Cambridge, where he went in 1864 as a scholar of King's College, he carried off almost every prize that was open to his competition. He was for a time president of the Cambridge Union, and was elected to a Fellowship at Pembroke in 1868. Whilst still _in statu pupillari_ he enrolled himself as a student at Lincoln's Inn, and a short time before his call to the Bar, in 1870-71, he was private secretary to Mr. Goschen, who was President of the then Poor Law Board. In 1882 he came to London, and in 1885 applied for and obtained silk. He was raised to the Bench in 1892.

DAN GODFREY

BORN 1830.

Mr. Godfrey was educated at the Royal Academy of Music, of which he is now a Fellow. He was appointed Bandmaster of the Grenadier Guards by the late Prince Consort, and his first duty was to play into London the Brigade of Guards returning from the Crimea, for which occasion he composed a march called "The Return of the Guards." He was created honorary Second Lieutenant on the Queen's Jubilee, and his term of service has been prolonged beyond the usual age limit by special desire of Her Majesty.

_The Birth of a Smile._

BY A PHOTOGRAPHER.

Some people wonder why a photographer charges extra for taking infants in arms. They imagine, perhaps, that a photographer should conduct his business on the principle of the railway companies, and charge nothing for infants and half-price for children under twelve. But if the railway companies had as much trouble with children as the photographer has, they would charge double first-class fare for those under twelve, and make the infant in arms take a special train.

I am a photographer myself, although on mature consideration I think I should prefer to be a railway company. Of infants in arms I prefer not to speak here--there might even be a difficulty about printing some of the things I should say. Suffice it to say that I have a theory that Herod was a struggling photographer in his young days, and had his revenge when he came to the throne. Intelligent children of half-fare age are bad enough, but babies are beyond description. Girls are not always satisfactory, but boys are much worse. A boy turns up at a photographer's in much the same frame of mind that he visits the dentist--minus the terror. He is so determined to see the thing through with inflexible rigidity of countenance, that the overwrought muscles of his face either combine to give him an expression of intense suffering, or else break down under the strain and smudge the picture. It is always a doubtful experiment to ask a boy to smile--you never know what the result will be. Most boys don't seem to know what a smile is. It is best, instead of asking the boy to smile, to provide something likely to make him do it, and then have him photographed quickly before the smile gets too wide for the plate.

Many old photographers will remember Signor Berneri, a most admirable operator, for many years with Messrs. Elliott and Fry. Signor Berneri was an Italian, and his English vocabulary was small. His invariable direction to his sitters was, "Now, if you please--good express!" There was a certain want of definite clearness about this request, but by the time the worthy Signor had taken a ruinous number of negatives without achieving the "express" he was aiming for, his comic distress and inability to convey a precise notion of what he required usually worked their own cure, and the sitter was smiling as widely as anybody could ask. An actual illustration of these persevering attempts of Berneri is to be seen on these pages, and a gradually dawning perception of the photographer's intention is observable--and on the face of a boy. The boy's original conception of a "good express" is in the nature of a compromise wherein frowning determination mingles with a guarded defiance.

After Berneri's usual "No good! Bad express!" the boy modifies his original notion, and stirs in a little dignified truculence with the facial ingredients he used at first. "Ah, no good--no good! Bad express--more badder express!"--as one can now almost hear the excitable Berneri shouting. The boy abates his truculence, and without altogether abandoning the frown, tries a look of half-amused and quite uncomprehending inquiry, which is, perhaps, justified by the circumstances. This, again, is "no good express," and by this time the operator has grown impatient and amusing; the boy begins actually to smile; and at last there is a _real_ smile--some might say it verged on an amused grin. This boy, by-the-bye, is now Mr. Elliott, jun.--still of Elliott and Fry, and six feet six inches high.

Berneri has betaken himself to a well-earned retirement in Italy--he retired, in fact, some years ago. But, excellent operator as he was, he will be remembered in the profession for some time--if only because of his wildly despairing entreaties for "Good express--now, if you _please_--good express!"

But it is bad enough when your English is of full vocabulary. Why is it no part of our English boy's education to know what a naturally pleasant expression of countenance is? Why can he see no middle course between an aspect of warlike grimness and a self-conscious grin? I am thinking, seriously thinking, of cultivating Signor Berneri's manner and speech for special use--with boy sitters. I may even spoil more plates than I do at present--although that is scarcely possible--but the smile--or grin--which I extract will, at least, be intelligent, because it will have a definite object--myself.

_Martin Hewitt, Investigator._

THE LENTON CROFT ROBBERIES.

Those who retain any memory of the great law cases of fifteen or twenty years back will remember, at least, the title of that extraordinary will case, "Bartley _v._ Bartley and others," which occupied the Probate Court for some weeks on end, and caused an amount of public interest rarely accorded to any but the cases considered in the other division of the same court. The case itself was noted for the large quantity of remarkable and unusual evidence presented by the plaintiff's side--evidence that took the other party completely by surprise, and overthrew their case like a house of cards. The affair will, perhaps, be more readily recalled as the occasion of the sudden rise to eminence, in their profession, of Messrs. Crellan, Hunt, and Crellan, solicitors for the plaintiff--a result due entirely to the wonderful ability shown in this case of building up, apparently out of nothing, a smashing weight of irresistible evidence. That the firm has since maintained--indeed, enhanced--the position it then won for itself, need scarcely be said here; its name is familiar to everybody. But there are not many of the outside public who know that the credit of the whole performance was primarily due to a young clerk in the employ of Messrs. Crellan, who had been given charge of the seemingly desperate task of collecting evidence in the case.

This Mr. Martin Hewitt had, however, full credit and reward for his exploit from his firm and from their client, and more than one other firm of lawyers engaged in contentious work made good offers to entice Hewitt to change his employers. Instead of this, however, he determined to work independently for the future, having conceived the idea of making a regular business of doing, on behalf of such clients as might retain him, similar work to that he had just done, with such conspicuous success, for Messrs. Crellan, Hunt, and Crellan. This was the beginning of the private detective business of Martin Hewitt, and his action at that time has been completely justified by the brilliant professional successes he has since achieved.

His business has always been conducted in the most private manner, and he has always declined the help of professional assistants, preferring to carry out, himself, such of the many investigations offered him as he could manage. He has always maintained that he has never lost by this policy, since the chance of his refusing a case begets competition for his services, and his fees rise by a natural process. At the same time, no man could know better how to employ casual assistance at the right time.

Some curiosity has been expressed as to Mr. Martin Hewitt's system, and as he himself always consistently maintains that he has no system beyond a judicious use of ordinary faculties, I intend setting forth in detail a few of the more interesting of his cases, in order that the public may judge for itself if I am right in estimating Mr. Hewitt's "ordinary faculties" as faculties very extraordinary indeed. He is not a man who has made many friendships (this, probably, for professional reasons), notwithstanding his genial and companionable manners. I myself first made his acquaintance as a result of an accident resulting in a fire at the old house in which Hewitt's office was situated, and in an upper floor of which I occupied bachelor chambers. I was able to help in saving a quantity of extremely important papers relating to his business, and, while repairs were being made, allowed him to lock them in an old wall-safe in one of my rooms, which the fire had scarcely damaged.

The acquaintance thus begun has lasted many years, and has become a rather close friendship. I have even accompanied Hewitt on some of his expeditions, and, in a humble way, helped him. Such of the cases, however, as I personally saw nothing of I have put into narrative form from the particulars given me.

"I consider you, Brett," he said, addressing me, "the most remarkable journalist alive. Not because you're particularly clever, you know; because, between ourselves, I hope you'll admit you're not: but because you have known something of me and my doings for some years, and have never yet been guilty of giving away any of my little business secrets you may have become acquainted with. I'm afraid you're not so enterprising a journalist as some, Brett. But now, since you ask, you shall write something--if you think it worth while."

This he said, as he said most things, with a cheery, chaffing good-nature that would have been, perhaps, surprising to a stranger who thought of him only as a grim and mysterious discoverer of secrets and crimes. Indeed, the man had always as little of the aspect of the conventional detective as may be imagined. Nobody could appear more cordial or less observant in manner, although there was to be seen a certain sharpness of the eye--which might, after all, only be the twinkle of good-humour.

I _did_ think it worth while to write something of Martin Hewitt's investigations, and a description of one of his adventures follows.

* * * * *

At the head of the first flight of a dingy staircase leading up from an ever-open portal in a street by the Strand stood a door, the dusty ground-glass upper panel of which carried in its centre the single word "Hewitt," while at its right-hand lower corner, in smaller letters, "Clerk's Office" appeared. On a morning when the clerks in the ground-floor offices had barely hung up their hats, a short, well-dressed young man, wearing spectacles, hastening to open the dusty door, ran into the arms of another man who suddenly issued from it.

"I beg pardon," the first said. "Is this Hewitt's Detective Agency Office?"

"Yes, I believe you will find it so," the other replied. He was a stoutish, clean-shaven man, of middle height, and of a cheerful, round countenance. "You'd better speak to the clerk."