But there was a delay in that answering telegram, and two daysof impatience followed, during which Holmes pricked up his earsat every ring of the bell. On the evening of the second there camea letter from Hilton Cubitt. All was quiet with him, save that along inion had appeared that morning upon the pedestal ofthe sundial. He inclosed a copy of it, which is here reproduced:
Holmes bent over this grotesque frieze for some minutes, andthen suddenly sprang to his feet with an exclamation of surpriseand dismay. His face was haggard with anxiety.
“We have let this affair go far enough,” said he. “Is there a trainto North Walsham to-night?”
I turned up the time-table. The last had just gone.
“Then we shall breakfast early and take the very first in themorning,” said Holmes. “Our presence is most urgently needed.
Ah! here is our expected cablegram. One moment, Mrs. Hudson,there may be an answer. No, that is quite as I expected. Thismessage makes it even more essential that we should not lose anhour in letting Hilton Cubitt know how matters stand, for it is asingular and a dangerous web in which our simple Norfolk squireis entangled.”
So, indeed, it proved, and as I come to the dark conclusion ofa story which had seemed to me to be only childish and bizarre,I experience once again the dismay and horror with which I wasfilled. Would that I had some brighter ending to communicate tomy readers, but these are the chronicles of fact, and I must followto their dark crisis the strange chain of events which for some daysmade Riding Thorpe Manor a household word through the lengthand breadth of England.
We had hardly alighted at North Walsham, and mentioned thename of our destination, when the station-master hurried towardsus. “I suppose that you are the detectives from London?” said he.
A look of annoyance passed over Holmes’s face.
“What makes you think such a thing?”
“Because Inspector Martin from Norwich has just passedthrough. But maybe you are the surgeons. She’s not dead—or wasn’tby last accounts. You may be in time to save her yet—though it befor the gallows.”
Holmes’s brow was dark with anxiety.
“We are going to Riding Thorpe Manor,” said he, “but we haveheard nothing of what has passed there.”
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“It’s a terrible business,” said the stationmaster. “They areshot, both Mr. Hilton Cubitt and his wife. She shot him and thenherself—so the servants say. He’s dead and her life is despaired of.
Dear, dear, one of the oldest families in the county of Norfolk, andone of the most honoured.”
Without a word Holmes hurried to a carriage, and during thelong seven miles’ drive he never opened his mouth. Seldom have Iseen him so utterly despondent. He had been uneasy during all ourjourney from town, and I had observed that he had turned overthe morning papers with anxious attention, but now this suddenrealization of his worst fears left him in a blank melancholy. Heleaned back in his seat, lost in gloomy speculation. Yet therewas much around to interest us, for we were passing through assingular a countryside as any in England, where a few scatteredcottages represented the population of to-day, while on every handenormous square-towered churches bristled up from the flat greenlandscape and told of the glory and prosperity of old East Anglia.
At last the violet rim of the German Ocean appeared over thegreen edge of the Norfolk coast, and the driver pointed with hiswhip to two old brick and timber gables which projected from agrove of trees. “That’s Riding Thorpe Manor,” said he.
As we drove up to the porticoed front door, I observed in front ofit, beside the tennis lawn, the black tool-house and the pedestalledsundial with which we had such strange associations. A dapperlittle man, with a quick, alert manner and a waxed moustache,had just descended from a high dog-cart. He introduced himselfas Inspector Martin, of the Norfolk Constabulary, and hewas considerably astonished when he heard the name of mycompanion.
“Why, Mr. Holmes, the crime was only committed at three thismorning. How could you hear of it in London and get to the spotas soon as I?”
“I anticipated it. I came in the hope of preventing it.”
“Then you must have important evidence, of which we areignorant, for they were said to be a most united couple.”
“I have only the evidence of the dancing men,” said Holmes. “Iwill explain the matter to you later. Meanwhile, since it is too lateto prevent this tragedy, I am very anxious that I should use theknowledge which I possess in order to insure that justice be done.
Will you associate me in your investigation, or will you prefer thatshould act independently?”
“I should be proud to feel that we were acting together, Mr.
Holmes,” said the inspector, earnestly.
“In that case I should be glad to hear the evidence and to examinethe premises without an instant of unnecessary delay.”
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Inspector Martin had the good sense to allow my friend to dothings in his own fashion, and contented himself with carefullynoting the results. The local surgeon, an old, white-haired man,had just come down from Mrs. Hilton Cubitt’s room, and hereported that her injuries were serious, but not necessarily fatal.
The bullet had passed through the front of her brain, and it wouldprobably be some time before she could regain consciousness. Onthe question of whether she had been shot or had shot herself, hewould not venture to express any decided opinion. Certainly thebullet had been discharged at very close quarters. There was onlythe one pistol found in the room, two barrels of which had beenemptied. Mr. Hilton Cubitt had been shot through the heart. Itwas equally conceivable that he had shot her and then himself, orthat she had been the criminal, for the revolver lay upon the floormidway between them.
“Has he been moved?” asked Holmes.
“We have moved nothing except the lady. We could not leaveher lying wounded upon the floor.”
“How long have you been here, Doctor?”