1 The Murder of Ronald Adair

The Empty HOUSE

Chapter 1 The Murder of Ronald Adair It was the spring of 1894 and the whole of London was reeling as details emerged about the appalling murder of Mr. Ronald Adair. How I wished that my late friend Sherlock Holmes was still here, for there was a strangeness and mystery to this crime that I know would have appealed to the great detective. Three years had passed since Holmes's death. During a violent struggle with his arch enemy, Professor James Moriarty, above the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, they had both plunged to their doom in its foaming waters. Now all I had left were my memories of a dear friend, and a treasure trove of stories about our adventures together. My years spent with Holmes had also left me with an enduring interest in crime, and every day I scoured the newspapers for accounts of unsolved thefts and murders. Sometimes I even

tried using Holmes's techniques to unravel them, though without much success. The murder of Ronald Adair held a particular fascination for me, and I read very carefully the evidence presented at the inquest. All day long, as I went on my rounds visiting patients, I turned the case over in my mind. Yet I could not work out how the murder was done, let alone who did it.

Ronald Adair was the second son of the Earl of Maynooth, governor of one of the Australian colonies. Adair's mother returned to England from Australia in the summer of 1893 to have an operation on her eye. She, Ronald, and her daughter Hilda lived together at 427 Park Lane in London. Ronald quickly became friendly with the elite of London society. He was, as far as I can tell, a popular young man with no enemies. In the autumn of that year, he became betrothed to a Miss Edith Woodley, but the engagement was broken off by Christmas. There were no hard

feelings about this on either side and the two remained friends. Those who knew him described Adair as quiet-spoken, modest, and easygoing. There seemed nothing about his life or character to suggest the man might meet a violent end. Yet death came to him in a most strange and brutal form between the hours of ten and eleven-twenty on the night of March 30, 1894. Ronald Adair was fond of card games. He was a member of three London card clubs and played nearly every day, though rarely for high stakes. On the day of his death, he played two rounds of

whist at the Bagatelle Club, one in the afternoon and another after dinner. His fellow players— Mr. Henry Murray, Sir John Hardy, and Colonel Sebastian Moran—said later there had been no big winners or losers that day. Adair may have lost five pounds, no more, which would have meant nothing to a man of his wealth. He was a cautious player by nature, though he did occasionally win big. On one occasion, with Colonel Moran as his partner, he won as much as ￡420 in a single round. On the evening of his death, Adair returned from his club at exactly ten o'clock. His mother and sister were out visiting a relative. The servant