THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 24 page

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 361.

"I will try. What is it?"

"We shall be at the Copper Beeches by seven o'clock, my friend

and I. The Rucastles will be gone by that time, and Toller will,

we hope, be incapable. There only remains Mrs. Toller, who might

give the alarm. If you could send her into the cellar on some

errand, and then turn the key upon her, you would facilitate

matters immensely."

"I will do it."

"Excellent! We shall then look thoroughly into the affair. Of

course there is only one feasible explanation. You have been

brought there to personate someone, and the real person is

imprisoned in this chamber. That is obvious. As to who this

prisoner is, I have no doubt that it is the daughter, Miss Alice

Rucastle, if I remember right, who was said to have gone to

America. You were chosen, doubtless, as resembling her in height,

figure, and the colour of your hair. Hers had been cut off, very

possibly in some illness through which she has passed, and so, of

course, yours had to be sacrificed also. By a curious chance you

came upon her tresses. The man in the road was undoubtedly some

friend of hers--possibly her fiancй--and no doubt, as you wore

the girl's dress and were so like her, he was convinced from your

laughter, whenever he saw you, and afterwards from your gesture,

that Miss Rucastle was perfectly happy, and that she no longer

desired his attentions. The dog is let loose at night to prevent

him from endeavouring to communicate with her. So much is fairly

clear. The most serious point in the case is the disposition of

the child."

"What on earth has that to do with it?" I ejaculated.

"My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining

light as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the

parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have

frequently gained my first real insight into the character of

parents by studying their children. This child's disposition is

abnormally cruel, merely for cruelty's sake, and whether he

derives this from his smiling father, as I should suspect, or

from his mother, it bodes evil for the poor girl who is in their

power."

"I am sure that you are right, Mr. Holmes," cried our client. "A

thousand things come back to me which make me certain that you

have hit it. Oh, let us lose not an instant in bringing help to

this poor creature."

"We must be circumspect, for we are dealing with a very cunning

man. We can do nothing until seven o'clock. At that hour we shall

be with you, and it will not be long before we solve the

mystery."

We were as good as our word, for it was just seven when we

reached the Copper Beeches, having put up our trap at a wayside

public-house. The group of trees, with their dark leaves shining

like burnished metal in the light of the setting sun, were

sufficient to mark the house even had Miss Hunter not been

standing smiling on the door-step.

"Have you managed it?" asked Holmes.

A loud thudding noise came from somewhere downstairs. "That is

Mrs. Toller in the cellar," said she. "Her husband lies snoring

on the kitchen rug. Here are his keys, which are the duplicates

of Mr. Rucastle's."

"You have done well indeed!" cried Holmes with enthusiasm. "Now

lead the way, and we shall soon see the end of this black

business."

We passed up the stair, unlocked the door, followed on down a

passage, and found ourselves in front of the barricade which Miss

Hunter had described. Holmes cut the cord and removed the

transverse bar. Then he tried the various keys in the lock, but

without success. No sound came from within, and at the silence

Holmes' face clouded over.

"I trust that we are not too late," said he. "I think, Miss

Hunter, that we had better go in without you. Now, Watson, put

your shoulder to it, and we shall see whether we cannot make our

way in."

It was an old rickety door and gave at once before our united

strength. Together we rushed into the room. It was empty. There

was no furniture save a little pallet bed, a small table, and a

basketful of linen. The skylight above was open, and the prisoner

gone.

"There has been some villainy here," said Holmes; "this beauty

has guessed Miss Hunter's intentions and has carried his victim

off."

"But how?"

"Through the skylight. We shall soon see how he managed it." He

swung himself up onto the roof. "Ah, yes," he cried, "here's the

end of a long light ladder against the eaves. That is how he did

it."

"But it is impossible," said Miss Hunter; "the ladder was not

there when the Rucastles went away."

"He has come back and done it. I tell you that he is a clever and

dangerous man. I should not be very much surprised if this were

he whose step I hear now upon the stair. I think, Watson, that it

would be as well for you to have your pistol ready."

The words were hardly out of his mouth before a man appeared at

the door of the room, a very fat and burly man, with a heavy

stick in his hand. Miss Hunter screamed and shrunk against the

wall at the sight of him, but Sherlock Holmes sprang forward and

confronted him.

"You villain!" said he, "where's your daughter?"

The fat man cast his eyes round, and then up at the open

skylight.

"It is for me to ask you that," he shrieked, "you thieves! Spies

and thieves! I have caught you, have I? You are in my power. I'll

serve you!" He turned and clattered down the stairs as hard as he

could go.

"He's gone for the dog!" cried Miss Hunter.

"I have my revolver," said I.

"Better close the front door," cried Holmes, and we all rushed

down the stairs together. We had hardly reached the hall when we

heard the baying of a hound, and then a scream of agony, with a

horrible worrying sound which it was dreadful to listen to. An

elderly man with a red face and shaking limbs came staggering out

at a side door.

"My God!" he cried. "Someone has loosed the dog. It's not been

fed for two days. Quick, quick, or it'll be too late!"

Holmes and I rushed out and round the angle of the house, with

Toller hurrying behind us. There was the huge famished brute, its

black muzzle buried in Rucastle's throat, while he writhed and

screamed upon the ground. Running up, I blew its brains out, and

it fell over with its keen white teeth still meeting in the great

creases of his neck. With much labour we separated them and

carried him, living but horribly mangled, into the house. We laid

him upon the drawing-room sofa, and having dispatched the sobered

Toller to bear the news to his wife, I did what I could to

relieve his pain. We were all assembled round him when the door

opened, and a tall, gaunt woman entered the room.

"Mrs. Toller!" cried Miss Hunter.

"Yes, miss. Mr. Rucastle let me out when he came back before he

went up to you. Ah, miss, it is a pity you didn't let me know

what you were planning, for I would have told you that your pains

were wasted."

"Ha!" said Holmes, looking keenly at her. "It is clear that Mrs.

Toller knows more about this matter than anyone else."

"Yes, sir, I do, and I am ready enough to tell what I know."

"Then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it for there are several

points on which I must confess that I am still in the dark."

"I will soon make it clear to you," said she; "and I'd have done

so before now if I could ha' got out from the cellar. If there's

police-court business over this, you'll remember that I was the

one that stood your friend, and that I was Miss Alice's friend

too.

"She was never happy at home, Miss Alice wasn't, from the time

that her father married again. She was slighted like and had no

say in anything, but it never really became bad for her until

after she met Mr. Fowler at a friend's house. As well as I could

learn, Miss Alice had rights of her own by will, but she was so

quiet and patient, she was, that she never said a word about them

but just left everything in Mr. Rucastle's hands. He knew he was

safe with her; but when there was a chance of a husband coming

forward, who would ask for all that the law would give him, then

her father thought it time to put a stop on it. He wanted her to

sign a paper, so that whether she married or not, he could use

her money. When she wouldn't do it, he kept on worrying her until

she got brain-fever, and for six weeks was at death's door. Then

she got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and with her

beautiful hair cut off; but that didn't make no change in her

young man, and he stuck to her as true as man could be."

"Ah," said Holmes, "I think that what you have been good enough

to tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce

all that remains. Mr. Rucastle then, I presume, took to this

system of imprisonment?"

"Yes, sir."

"And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of

the disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler."

"That was it, sir."

"But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should

be, blockaded the house, and having met you succeeded by certain

arguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that your

interests were the same as his."

"Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman," said

Mrs. Toller serenely.

"And in this way he managed that your good man should have no

want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment

when your master had gone out."

"You have it, sir, just as it happened."

"I am sure we owe you an apology, Mrs. Toller," said Holmes, "for

you have certainly cleared up everything which puzzled us. And

here comes the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think,

Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester,

as it seems to me that our locus standi now is rather a

questionable one."

And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the

copper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, but

was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of

his devoted wife. They still live with their old servants, who

probably know so much of Rucastle's past life that he finds it

difficult to part from them. Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle were

married, by special license, in Southampton the day after their

flight, and he is now the holder of a government appointment in

the island of Mauritius. As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend

Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further

interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one

of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at

Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success.