His Adventures in Search of the Truth BY BERNARD CAPES WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS BY CYRUS CUNEO TORONTO THE COPP CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED 1911...

[ All Rights Reserved ] Prologue I. The Quest of the Sleeping Beauty II. The Quest of the Sleeping Beauty ( continued ) III. The Quest of the Empty House IV. The Quest of the Dog V. The Quest of the Marble Statuette VI. The Quest of the Rose-Ring VII. The Quest of the Wax Hand VIII. The Quest of the Red-Morocco Handbag IX. The Quest of the Registered Parcel X. The Quest of the Shadow XI. The Quest of the Veiled Woman XII. The Quest of the Obese Gentleman XIII. The Quest of the Obese Gentleman (

Gilead Balm had most things to recommend him—youth, comeliness, a bright intelligence, an excellent heart, a flawless digestion; best of all, an indestructible capacity for interesting himself in the affairs of the world into which he was born. He was fresh, fair, shapely, and of that graceful height which, as representing the classic perfection of symmetry, disposes the vision at the most reasonable level for contemplating the true stature of things, and their relative, mundane, proportions. Hi

Mr Herbert Nestle , knocking confidently and entering softly, laid the morning’s Daily Post before his Chief, who had just entered and was pulling off his gloves. “Anything especial?” asked Gilead. “I have thumb-marked one,” said the secretary, “which seemed to me perhaps worth your personal attention.” The Bureau—known as Lamb’s Agency —was already in working order, and daily settling into its pace. Its operations so far had seemed wholly to justify its existence, and its founder was satisfied.

Gilead re-entered the quiet little room with a feeling as if he were desecrating a woodland shrine. As yet he could not associate that figure of immortal loveliness with the piteous vision of the advertisement. He saw her risen to greet him, all warm and flushed, a maid, yet seeming young-motherly in the soft plenitude of her form, with evidences of some suppressed emotion in her eyes. Her drooped right hand held the telegram. She addressed him in a voice of sweet low embarrassment:— “Your visit

Man wanted immediately to assist in practical refutation of calumny. Apply Judex: Raxe’s Private Hotel, Aldwych. The above advertisement met Gilead’s eyes a day or two after his adventure with the beautiful lepidopterist. He fastened upon it at once. “I shall follow this up,” he said to the secretary. “What can a ‘practical refutation’ mean?” Nestle shook his head, with a smile. “I really can’t guess, sir,” he said. “Unless it refers to the argumentum baculinum .” Gilead mused a little. “It says

Gilead had often encountered in the Daily Post —sandwiched, say, between a heart-moving appeal on behalf of the outcast and houseless, and a last drowning cry for help from a soul almost submerged—a plea for some dog or cat seeking a kind home, and had reflected on the curious variety and varied quality of the petitions which a medium for benevolence was calculated to attract. He hoped that those, thus fondly appealing to charity for their animal beloveds, were in the habit of scrutinizing the l

Gilead , the most disinterested of utilitarians, had no sympathy with that order of State socialism which would deprive all personal effort of its motive and initiative by illegalising private Capital. On the contrary, he perceived in individual wealth the driving-wheels to an immense multitude of lesser parts, which, without that stimulus, would move sluggishly or not at all. Theoretic equality was no doubt a beautiful vision, only, as long as man should go lacking the eight beatitudes, he did

Wanted , old parrakeet skins, in particular the rose-ringed. Description: Green Plumage; black band extending from chin nearly to nape; rose-coloured collar. Length about 16 inches. A fair price given for all and suitable. Apply 14a Lower Marsh, Westminster Bridge Rd. Herbert Nestle, the astute, the resourceful, stood questioningly behind his principal as the latter ran through the above advertisement submitted to his consideration. Gilead looked up, with a slightly puzzled expression. “Certainl

It was not to be supposed that the Agency, so catholic, so philanthropic, so disinterested in its labours, and withal so boundlessly endowed, would long escape the notice of those social powers, which, through all changes of creed and government, work steadily on in the cause of the human decencies. With these Gilead’s name was soon to become an almost apostolic one, and gradually, as he proceeded on his way, the executive, the police, the Home Office itself became his informal allies. A latitud

“ A Young lady asks immediate assistance from some benevolent capitalist to enable her to recover property of considerable value. Address D. L. 078542 Daily Post. ” Gilead looked up from a perusal of the above advertisement with a twinkle in his eye. “A young lady again?” said he. “Upon my word I don’t know if I dare to risk the bait a second time.” “You mean the implied invitation?” answered Miss Halifax, with a smile. “I mustn’t venture to advise, Mr Balm. Your judgments put us all to shame.”

The typical Agony Column of the Daily Post was built up in courses which varied in little but their diurnal degree of thickness. Starting from a plinth, say, of Dancing and Gymnastics, it would rise by successive stages, through Cast-off Clothes, Skin-beautifiers and Superfluous-hair Removers, Patent-medicines and Special-cure Treatments, Detective Agencies, Paying-Guest and Social Introduction offers, to Personal Appeals, whence soaring through Club-fixtures and Lost Property advertisements, it

There came a certain September evening whose memory was destined to imprint itself ineffaceably on the souls of the three most intimately associated in the conduct of the Agency. Gilead had left the office betimes to attend a meeting convened for the purpose of discussing the Arts Education Bill , a measure which it was proposed to bring before Parliament, and for whose actual initiation he himself was more than anyone responsible. Its main purpose was to reform and direct popular taste in all m

To the benevolent and pitiful. Fifty pounds will save a wretched wife and mother from ruin and disgrace. Help implored: by letter or personal interview. Address, Suppliant , 050271, Daily Post. No one instituting a philanthropic mission could have been less adequately equipped for it in one way than Gilead himself. Beginning by presuming in all others an integrity as pure as his own, he had from the first to put force upon his nature to cultivate that suspicion of motive, that moral self-guarded

Nothing short of the direct interposition of Providence can be held to explain the premature chancing into Gilead’s hands one morning of an ex-official copy of the Daily Post . The thing might have happened on any other morning in the year and signified nothing; it happened, as it happened, on the one and only morning on which it could signify a great deal. He invariably read the Times at breakfast, and the other paper, or Nestle’s report on it, on his arrival at the office. Providence, desiring

Utterly dumfoundered as he was for the moment, Gilead very quickly rallied from his stupefaction, and, summoning all his native urbanity to his aid, advanced a step and seized the stranger’s right hand in both of his own. “Mr Bundy,” he said, “I apologise to you with all my heart.” His tone was so unmistakably sincere, that the obese gentleman descended, figuratively, from the stilts on which he was mounted and involuntarily returned the pressure of his fingers, only gasping a little in a slow a