The Bishop's Secret

E-text prepared by Annie McGuire, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)



[Illustration: Book Cover]

THE BISHOP'S SECRET

by

FERGUS HUME,

Author of "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," "For the Defense," "The
Harlequin Opal," "The Girl from Malta," Etc.







Chicago and New York:
Rand, McNally & Company,
Publishers.

Copyright, 1900, by Rand, McNally & Co.
Copyright, 1906, by Rand, McNally & Co.




PREFACE.


In his earlier works, notably in "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab" and "The
Silent House in Pimlico," Mr. Hume won a reputation second to none for
plot of the stirring, ingenious, misleading, and finally surprising
kind, and for working out his plot in vigorous and picturesque English.

In "The Bishop's Secret," while there is no falling off in plot and
style, there is a welcome and marvelous broadening out as to the cast of
characters, representing an unusually wide range of typical men and
women. These are not laboriously described by the author, but are made
to reveal themselves in action and speech in a way that has, for the
reader, all the charm of personal intercourse with living people.

Mr. Hume's treatment of the peculiar and exclusive ecclesiastical
society of a small English cathedral city is quite worthy of Anthony
Trollope, and his leading character, Bishop Pendle, is equal to
Trollope's best bishop. The Reverend Mr. Cargrim, the Bishop's poor and
most unworthy protege, is a meaner Uriah Heep. Mrs. Pansey is the
embodiment of all shrewishness, and yields unlimited amusement. The
Gypsies are genuine--such as George Borrow, himself, would have pictured
them--not the ignorant caricatures so frequently drawn by writers too
lazy to study their subject.

Besides these types, there are several which seem to have had no exact
prototypes in preceding fiction. Such are Doctor Graham, "The Man with a
Scar," the Mosk family--father, mother, and daughter--Gabriel Pendle,
Miss Winchello, and, last but not least, Mr. Baltic--a detective so
unique in character and methods as to make Conan Doyle turn green with
envy.

All in all, this story is so rich in the essential elements of worthy
fiction--in characterization, exciting adventure, suggestions of the
marvelous, wit, humor, pathos, and just enough of tragedy--that it is
offered to the American public in all confidence that it will be
generally and heartily welcomed.

THE PUBLISHERS.




CHAPTER I

'ENTER MRS PANSEY AS CHORUS'


Of late years an anonymous mathematician has declared that in the
British Isles the female population is seven times greater than the
male; therefore, in these days is fulfilled the scriptural prophecy that
seven women shall lay hold of one man and entreat to be called by his
name. Miss Daisy Norsham, a veteran Belgravian spinster, decided, after
some disappointing seasons, that this text was particularly applicable
to London. Doubtful, therefore, of securing a husband at the rate of one
chance in seven, or dissatisfied at the prospect of a seventh share in a
man, she resolved upon trying her matrimonial fortunes in the country.
She was plain, this lady, as she was poor; nor could she rightly be said
to be in the first flush of maidenhood. In all matters other than that
of man-catching she was shallow past belief. Still, she did hope, by
dint of some brisk campaigning in the diocese of Beorminster, to capture
a whole man unto herself.

Her first step was to wheedle an invitation out of Mrs Pansey, an
archdeacon's widow--then on a philanthropic visit to town--and she
arrived, towards the end of July, in the pleasant cathedral city of
Beorminster, in time to attend a reception at the bishop's palace. Thus
the autumn manoeuvres of Miss Norsham opened most auspiciously.

Mrs Pansey, with whom this elderly worshipper of Hymen had elected to
stay during her visit, was a gruff woman, with a scowl, who 'looked all
nose and eyebrows.' Few ecclesiastical matrons were so well known in
the diocese of Beorminster as was Mrs Pansey; not many, it must be
confessed, were so ardently hated, for there were few pies indeed in
which this dear lady had not a finger; few keyholes through which her
eye did not peer. Her memory and her tongue, severally and combined, had
ruined half the reputations in the county. In short, she was a renowned
social bully, and like most bullies she gained her ends by scaring the
lives out of meeker and better-bred people than herself. These latter
feared her 'scenes' as she rejoiced in them, and as she knew the pasts
of her friends from their cradle upwards, she usually contrived, by a
pitiless use of her famous memory, to put to rout anyone so ill-advised
as to attempt a stand against her domineering authority. When her tall,
gaunt figure--invariably arrayed in the blackest of black silks--was
sighted in a room, those present either scuttled out of the way or
judiciously held their peace, for everyone knew Mrs Pansey's talent for
twisting the simplest observation into some evil shape calculated to get
its author into trouble.