The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

'It is strange that you should mention this,' replied Mr. Appley. 'Their relationship has been a source of pain to me for some time past. But in justice I must add that the fault lies with the young lady. For no reason, she is gratuitously offensive to him. Worst of all, she shows her dislike in public.'

'Ah! And Mr. Ainsworth?'

'Ainsworth is too good a fellow not to deplore his fiancйe's behaviour to my nephew. He takes it almost as a personal affront.'

'Indeed. Most praiseworthy. But here, unless I am much mistaken, are our visitors.'

The old door creaked open and a tall, graceful girl swept into the room. Her dark eyes, glowing with an unnatural brilliance, turned from one to the other of us with a long, searching glance that had in it a glint of animosity and something more of despair. A slim, fair-haired young man with a fresh complexion and a pair of singularly clear, shrewd blue eyes followed behind her and greeted Appley with a friendly word.

'Which of you is Mr. Sherlock Holmes?' cried the young lady. 'Ah, yes. You have uncovered fresh evidence, I imagine?'

'I have come to hear it, Miss Dale. Indeed, I have heard everything except what actually happened on the night your uncle—died.'

'You stress the word 'died,' Mr. Holmes.'

'But hang it all, my dear, what else could he say?' asked young Ainsworth, with an attempt at a laugh. 'You have probably got a lot of superstitious nonsense in your head because the thunder-storm on Tuesday night upset your uncle. But it was over before he was dead.'

'How do you know that?'

'Dr. Griffin said that he didn't die until about three o'clock in the morning. Anyway, he was all right in the early hours!'

'You seem very sure.'

The young man looked at Holmes in obvious perplex­ity. 'Of course I am. As Mr. Lestrade can tell you, I was in that room three times during the night. The squire asked me to go there.'

'Then be good enough to let me have the facts from the beginning. Perhaps, Miss Dale—?'

'Very well, Mr. Holmes. On Tuesday night, my uncle asked my fiancй and Dr. Griffin to dine with us at Goodman's Rest. From the first, he was uneasy. I put it down to the far-off muttering of thunder; he loathed and feared storms. But now I am wondering whether his uneasiness lay in his mind or his conscience. Be that as it may, our nerves grew more and more tense as the evening went on, nor did Dr. Griffin's sense of humor improve matters when lightning struck a tree in the copse. 'I've got to drive home tonight,' he said, 'and I hope nothing happens to me in this storm.' Dr. Griffin is positively insufferable!

' 'Well, I'm glad that I'm staying,' laughed Jeffrey; 'we are snug enough with the good old lightning- conductors.'

'My uncle leaped from his chair.

' 'You young fool!' he cried. 'Don't you know that there are none on this house?' And my uncle stood there shivering like a man out of his wits.'

'I couldn't imagine what I'd said,' interrupted Ains­worth naively. 'Then, when he flew off about his nightmares—'

'Nightmares?' said Holmes.

'Yes. He screeched out that he suffered from night­mares, and that this was no night for the human soul to be alone.'

'He grew calmer,' continued Miss Dale, 'when Jeffrey offered to look in once or twice during the night. It was really rather pitiful. My fiance went in—when was it, Jeffrey?'

'Once at ten-thirty; once at midnight and finally at one in the morning.'

'Did you speak with him?' asked Sherlock Holmes.

'No, he was asleep.'

'Then, how do you know that he was alive?'

'Well, like many elderly people, the squire kept a night-light. It was a kind of rushlight burning blue in a bowl on the hearth. I couldn't see much, but I could hear his heavy breathing under the howl of the storm.'

'It was just after five on the following morning—' said Miss Dale, 'when—I can't go on!' she burst out. 'I can't!'

'Gently, my dear,' said Ainsworth, who was looking at her steadily. 'Mr. Holmes, this has been a great strain on my fiancйe.'

'Perhaps I may be permitted to continue,' suggested the vicar. 'Dawn was just breaking when I was roused by a heavy pounding on the vicarage door. A stableboy had been dispatched post-haste from Goodman's Rest with horrible news. It appears that the housemaid carried up the squire's morning tea as usual. On drawing the curtains, she screamed out in horror at beholding her master dead in the bed. Huddling in my clothes, I rushed to Goodman's Rest. When I entered the bedroom, fol­lowed by Dolores and Jeffrey, Dr. Griffin—who had been summoned first— had concluded his examination.

' 'He has been dead for about two hours,' said the doctor. 'But for the life of me I can't understand how he died.'

'I had moved round to the other side of the bed, com­posing myself to pray, when I caught sight of Trelawney's gold watch, gleaming in a ray of morning sunlight. The watch was a stem-winder, without a key. It lay on a small marble-topped table, amid a litter of patent-medicine bottles and liniment-bottles which diffused a strong odour in the stuffy room.

'We are told that in times of crisis our minds will occupy themselves with trifles. This is so, else I cannot account for my own behaviour.

'Fancying that the watch was not ticking, I lifted it to my ear. But it was ticking. I gave the stem two full turns until it was stopped by the spring; but, in any case, I should not have proceeded. The winding caused a harsh noise, cr-r-ack, which drew from Dolores an unnerving scream. I recall her exact words.

' 'Vicar! Put it down! It is like—like a death-rattle.' '

For a moment we sat in silence. Miss Dale turned away her head.

'Mr. Holmes,' said Ainsworth earnestly, 'these wounds are too recent. May I beg that you will excuse Miss Dale from any further questions tonight?'

Holmes rose to his feet.

'Fears are groundless things without proof, Miss Dale,' he observed. Taking out his watch, he looked at it thoughtfully.

'The hour grows late, eh, Mr. Holmes,' remarked Lestrade.

'That did not occur to me. But you are right. And now, to Goodman's Rest.'

A short journey in the vicar's carriage brought us to a pair of lodge gates opening into a narrow drive. The moon had risen and the long, glimmering avenue stretched away before us, all mottled and barred with the shadows of the great elm trees. As we swung round the final curve, the golden cones of light from the carriage- lamps gleamed faintly on the face of a gaunt, ugly mansion. All the drab-painted window-shutters were closed against the casements, and the front door was shrouded in black crepe.

'It's a house of gloom, all right,' said Lestrade in a subdued voice as he tugged at the bell-pull. 'Hullo! How's this! What are you doing here, Dr. Griffin?'

The door had swung open and a tall, red-bearded man, clad in a loose-fitting Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, stood in the entrance. As he glared fiercely from one to the other of us, I noted the clenched hands and heaving chest that told of some fearsome inner tension.

'Must I get your permission to walk a mile, Mr. Lestrade?' he cried. 'Isn't it enough that your cursed suspicions have roused the whole country-side against me?' His great hand shot out and siezed my friend by the shoulder. 'You're Holmes!' he said passionately. 'I got your note, and here I am. Please God that you live up to your repute. So far as I can see, you are all that stands between me and the hangman. There, now, what a brute I am! I've frightened her.'

With a low moan, Miss Dale had buried her face in her hands.

'It's the strain, it's—it's everything!' she sobbed. 'Oh, horror unthinkable!'

I was really very annoyed with Holmes; for, while we gathered round the weeping girl with words of comfort, he merely observed to Lestrade that presumably the dead man's body was inside. Turning his back on us, he strode