INTRODUCTION.

To introduce the last book by the late Bernard Capes is a sad sortof honour in more ways than one; for not only was his death untimelyand unexpected, but he had a mind of that fertile type which mustalways leave behind it, with the finished life, a sense of unfinishedlabour. From the first his prose had a strong element of poetry, whichan appreciative reader could feel even more, perhaps, when it refineda frankly modern and even melodramatic theme, like that of thismystery story, than when it gave dignity, as in “Our Lady ofDarkness,” to more tragic or more historic things. It may seem aparadox to say that he was insufficiently appreciated because he didpopular things well. But it is true to say that he always gave a touchof distinction to a detective story or a tale of adventure; and sogave it where it was not valued, because it was not expected. In asense, in this department of his work at least, he carried on thetradition of the artistic conscience of Stevenson; the technicalliberality of writing a penny-dreadful so as to make it worth a pound.In his short stories, as in his historical studies, he did indeedpermit himself to be poetic in a more direct and serious fashion; butin his touch upon such tales as this the same truth may be traced. Itis a good general rule that a poet can be known not only in his poems,but in the very titles of his poems. In the case of many works ofBernard Capes, “The Lake of Wine,” for instance, the title is itself apoem. And that case would alone illustrate what I mean about a certaintransforming individual magic, with which he touched the meremelodrama of mere modernity. Numberless novels of crime have beenconcerned with a lost or stolen jewel; and “The Lake of Wine” wasmerely the name of a ruby. Yet even the name is original, exactly inthe detail that is hardly ever original. Hundreds of such preciousstones have been scattered through sensational fiction; and hundredsof them have been called “The Sun of the Sultan” or “The Eye ofVishnu” or “The Star of Bengal.” But even in such a trifle as thechoice of the title, an indescribable and individual fancy is felt; asub-conscious dream of some sea like a sunset, red as blood andintoxicant as wine. This is but a small example; but the same elementclings, as if unconsciously, to the course of the same story. Manyanother eighteenth century hero has ridden on a long road to a lonelyhouse; but Bernard Capes, by something fine and personal in thetreatment, does succeed in suggesting that at least along thatparticular road, to that particular house, no man had ever riddenbefore. We might put this truth flippantly, and therefore falsely, bysaying he put superior work into inferior works. I should not admitthe distinction; for I deny that there is necessarily anythinginferior in sensationalism, when it can really awaken sensations. Butthe truer way of stating it would perhaps be this; that to a type ofwork which generally is, for him or anybody else, a work of invention,he always added at least one touch of imagination.

The detective or mystery tale, in which this last book is anexperiment, involves in itself a problem for the artist, as odd as anyof the problems which it puts to the policeman. A detective storymight well be in a special sense a spiritual tragedy; since it is astory in which even the moral sympathies may b

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