SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: A BRACELET AT BRUGES

"A Bracelet at Bruges" by Arnold Bennett  (first published in The Windsor Magazine, August 1904; included in Bennett's collection The Loot of Cities, Bring the Adventures of a Millionaire in Search of joy (a fantasia), 1905; included in More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Hugh Greene, 1971 [American title:  Cosmopolitan Crimes:  More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes]; included in Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Alan Russell, 1978; included in The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Nick Rennison, 2008; included in Continental Crimes, edited by Martin Edwards, 2017)

Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was a prolific and popular writer who was "the most financially successful author of his day."  He published 34 novels (including The Grand Babylon Hotel, The Old Wives' Tale, and the Clayhanger trilogy), seven collections of short stories [plus two posthumous collections] (including The Loot of Cities, Tales of the Five Towns, and The Grim Smile of the Five Towns), 22 stage and screenplays (including Milestones, The Great Adventure, and Piccadilly), 29 books of nonfiction (including Literary Taste:  How to Form It, How to Live on Twenty-Four hours a Day, and Those United States), as well as articles for more than 100 newspapers and magazines, a personal journal which totaled over 1,000,000 words.  His stories were adapted for ten films, fifteen television episodes, and seven stage plays.  He died, alas, of typhoid after drinking two glasses of tap water in France in 1931 (a very risky act at the time).

The six stories contained in The Loot of Cities were published in The Windsor Magazine from June through November, 1904, and relate the adventures of millionaire Cecil Thorold, a very clever man who is half-detective, half rogue.  "a Bracelet in Bruges" was the third of these tales.

Kitty Sartoriuis, a very talented, very beautiful, very vain, famous actress with the brain of a bird, is during a holiday tour of Europe with her friend and companion Eve Fincastle.  Kitty, who likes all things bright and shiny, wanted to take her complete collection of jewelry on the trip, but the more cautious Eve convinced her to limit her choices.  As result Kitty brought only an expensive gold and diamond bracelet recently by her manager, and "the usual half dozen rings."  Because the bracelet was so valuable /(the diamonds alone were worth five hundred pounds), Kitty wore the bracelet constantly, rather than leaving it in her room on occasion -- perhaps not the wisest idea because the first sentence of the story reads "The bracelet had fallen into the canal."  The canal in Bruges was at that point only nine feet deep, so it should have been retrievable.  But it wasn't.

The other players in this saga included:

• Madame Lawrence, a new friend of Kitty and Eve; Belgisn by b irth, she ws the widow of an English barrister, and sold sold genuine Bruges lace that had been made under  her own supervision; she was equally interested in the peerage and the poor; she settled in Bruges because it was inexpensive, picturesque, and inordinately respectable --"Besides an English church and chapel, it has two cathedrals, with  an episcopal palace, with a real bishop in it."
• Cecil Thorold, "appallingly rich, but we mustn't let that frighten us"; and
• The Count d'Avrec, just too handsome and too sophisticated; d'Avrec is one of those chaps who is an expert at everything, knowledgeable about all sciences, arts, sports, and religion, able to speak many languages fluently; no one on earth can handle himself better or more properly at an afternoon tea than d'Avrec; he has taken an obvious liking to Kitty and she seems to be inclined to return the favor -- something the Thorold is strongly against.  It will come as no surprise to the modern reader that d'Avrec is an adventurer (!), a cad.

Back to the bracelet.  Where has it gone?  It has not been found at the bottom of the canal, nor, according to very reliable witnesses, could it have been taken from the canal before the search commenced, or during the search itself.

It's up to Thorold to discover how the bauble vanished. recover it, foil d'Avrec's love pursuit of Kitty, and somehow manage to make a tidy profit of the affair.

An interesting story, and very original for tis time.  "A Bracelet at Bruges" remains a good read, even after more that 120 years.

The story, as well as the rest of The Loot of Cities, is available to be read at the Internet Archive and other locations on the web; an audio version is available at Libravox.