“ ‘Of course we searched the house from cellar to garret, butthere was no trace of him. It is, as I have said, a labyrinth of anold house, especially the original wing, which is now practicallyuninhabited; but we ransacked every room and cellar withoutdiscovering the least sign of the missing man. It was incredible tome that he could have gone away leaving all his property behindhim, and yet where could he be? I called in the local police, butwithout success. Rain had fallen on the night before and weexamined the lawn and the paths all round the house, but in vain.
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Matters were in this state, when a new development quite drewour attention away from the original mystery.
“ ‘For two days Rachel Howells had been so ill, sometimesdelirious, sometimes hysterical, that a nurse had been employedto sit up with her at night. On the third night after Brunton’sdisappearance, the nurse, finding her patient sleeping nicely, haddropped into a nap in the armchair, when she woke in the earlymorning to find the bed empty, the window open, and no signs ofthe invalid. I was instantly aroused, and, with the two footmen,started off at once in search of the missing girl. It was not difficultto tell the direction which she had taken, for, starting from underher window, we could follow her footmarks easily across the lawnto the edge of the mere, where they vanished close to the gravelpath which leads out of the grounds. The lake there is eight feetdeep, and you can imagine our feelings when we saw that the trailof the poor demented girl came to an end at the edge of it.
“ ‘Of course, we had the drags at once, and set to work torecover the remains, but no trace of the body could we find. Onthe other hand, we brought to the surface an object of a mostunexpected kind. It was a linen bag which contained within it amass of old rusted and discolored metal and several dull-coloredpieces of pebble or glass. This strange find was all that we couldget from the mere, and, although we made every possible searchand inquiry yesterday, we know nothing of the fate either ofRachel Howells or of Richard Brunton. The county police are attheir wits’ end, and I have come up to you as a last resource.’
“You can imagine, Watson, with what eagerness I listened tothis extraordinary sequence of events, and endeavored to piecethem together, and to devise some common thread upon whichthey might all hang. The butler was gone. The maid was gone.
The maid had loved the butler, but had afterwards had cause tohate him. She was of Welsh blood, fiery and passionate. She hadbeen terribly excited immediately after his disappearance. She hadflung into the lake a bag containing some curious contents. Thesewere all factors which had to be taken into consideration, and yetnone of them got quite to the heart of the matter. What was thestarting-point of this chain of events? There lay the end of thistangled line.
“ ‘I must see that paper, Musgrave,’ said I, ‘which this butler ofyour thought it worth his while to consult, even at the risk of theloss of his place.’
“ ‘It is rather an absurd business, this ritual of ours,’ he answered.
‘But it has at least the saving grace of antiquity to excuse it. I havea copy of the questions and answers here if you care to run youreye over them.’
738 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
“He handed me the very paper which I have here, Watson,and this is the strange catechism to which each Musgrave had tosubmit when he came to man’s estate. I will read you the questionsand answers as they stand.
“ ‘Whose was it?’
“ ‘His who is gone.’
“ ‘Who shall have it?’
“ ‘He who will come.’
“ ‘Where was the sun?’
“ ‘Over the oak.’
“ ‘Where was the shadow?’
“ ‘Under the elm.’
“How was it stepped?’
“ ‘North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by twoand by two, west by one and by one, and so under.’
“ ‘What shall we give for it?’
“ ‘All that is ours.’
“ ‘Why should we give it?’
“ ‘For the sake of the trust.’
“ ‘The original has no date, but is in the spelling of the middleof the seventeenth century,’ remarked Musgrave. ‘I am afraid,however, that it can be of little help to you in solving this mystery.’
“ ‘At least,’ said I, ‘it gives us another mystery, and one which iseven more interesting than the first. It may be that the solution ofthe one may prove to be the solution of the other. You will excuseme, Musgrave, if I say that your butler appears to me to havebeen a very clever man, and to have had a clearer insight than tengenerations of his masters.’
“ ‘I hardly follow you,’ said Musgrave. ‘The paper seems to meto be of no practical importance.’
“ ‘But to me it seems immensely practical, and I fancy thatBrunton took the same view. He had probably seen it before thatnight on which you caught him.’
“ ‘It is very possible. We took no pains to hide it.’
“ ‘He simply wished, I should imagine, to refresh his memoryupon that last occasion. He had, as I understand, some sort ofmap or chart which he was comparing with the manu, andwhich he thrust into his pocket when you appeared.’
“ ‘That is true. But what could he have to do with this old familycustom of ours, and what does this rigmarole mean?’
“ ‘I don’t think that we should have much difficulty indetermining that,’ said I; ‘with your permission we will take thefirst train down to Sussex and go a little more deeply into thematter upon the spot.’
“The same afternoon saw us both at Hurlstone. Possibly youMemoirs of Sherlock Holmes 739