extraordinary state of things. His two brothers and his sister were
seated round the table exactly as he had left them, the cards still
spread in front of them and the candles burned down to their sockets.
The sister lay back stone-dead in her chair, while the two brothers
sat on each side of her laughing, shouting, and singing, the senses
stricken clean out of them. All three of them, the dead woman and the
two demented men, retained upon their faces an expression of the
utmost horror--a convulsion of terror which was dreadful to look
upon. There was no sign of the presence of anyone in the house,
except Mrs. Porter, the old cook and housekeeper, who declared that
she had slept deeply and heard no sound during the night. Nothing had
been stolen or disarranged, and there is absolutely no explanation of
what the horror can be which has frightened a woman to death and two
strong men out of their senses. There is the situation, Mr. Holmes,
in a nutshell, and if you can help us to clear it up you will have
done a great work."
I had hoped that in some way I could coax my companion back into the
quiet which had been the object of our journey; but one glance at his
intense face and contracted eyebrows told me how vain was now the
expectation. He sat for some little time in silence, absorbed in the
strange drama which had broken in upon our peace.
"I will look into this matter," he said at last. "On the face of it,
it would appear to be a case of a very exceptional nature. Have you
been there yourself, Mr. Roundhay?"
"No, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Tregennis brought back the account to the
vicarage, and I at once hurried over with him to consult you."
"How far is it to the house where this singular tragedy occurred?"
"About a mile inland."
"Then we shall walk over together. But before we start I must ask you
a few questions, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis."
The other had been silent all this time, but I had observed that his
more controlled excitement was even greater than the obtrusive
emotion of the clergyman. He sat with a pale, drawn face, his anxious
gaze fixed upon Holmes, and his thin hands clasped convulsively
together. His pale lips quivered as he listened to the dreadful
experience which had befallen his family, and his dark eyes seemed to
reflect something of the horror of the scene.
"Ask what you like, Mr. Holmes," said he eagerly. "It is a bad thing
to speak of, but I will answer you the truth."
"Tell me about last night."
"Well, Mr. Holmes, I supped there, as the vicar has said, and my
elder brother George proposed a game of whist afterwards. We sat down
about nine o'clock. It was a quarter-past ten when I moved to go. I
left them all round the table, as merry as could be."
"Who let you out?"
"Mrs. Porter had gone to bed, so I let myself out. I shut the hall
door behind me. The window of the room in which they sat was closed,
but the blind was not drawn down. There was no change in door or
window this morning, or any reason to think that any stranger had
been to the house. Yet there they sat, driven clean mad with terror,
and Brenda lying dead of fright, with her head hanging over the arm
of the chair. I'll never get the sight of that room out of my mind so
long as I live."
"The facts, as you state them, are certainly most remarkable," said
Holmes. "I take it that you have no theory yourself which can in any
way account for them?"
"It's devilish, Mr. Holmes, devilish!" cried Mortimer Tregennis. "It
is not of this world. Something has come into that room which has
dashed the light of reason from their minds. What human contrivance
could do that?"
"I fear," said Holmes, "that if the matter is beyond humanity it is
certainly beyond me. Yet we must exhaust all natural explanations
before we fall back upon such a theory as this. As to yourself, Mr.
Tregennis, I take it you were divided in some way from your family,
since they lived together and you had rooms apart?"
"That is so, Mr. Holmes, though the matter is past and done with. We
were a family of tin-miners at Redruth, but we sold our venture to a
company, and so retired with enough to keep us. I won't deny that
there was some feeling about the division of the money and it stood
between us for a time, but it was all forgiven and forgotten, and we
were the best of friends together."
"Looking back at the evening which you spent together, does anything
stand out in your memory as throwing any possible light upon the
tragedy? Think carefully, Mr. Tregennis, for any clue which can help
me."
"There is nothing at all, sir."
"Your people were in their usual spirits?"
"Never better."
"Were they nervous people? Did they ever show any apprehension of
coming danger?"
"Nothing of the kind."
"You have nothing to add then, which could assist me?"
Mortimer Tregennis considered earnestly for a moment.
"There is one thing occurs to me," said he at last. "As we sat at the
table my back was to the window, and my brother George, he being my
partner at cards, was facing it. I saw him once look hard over my
shoulder, so I turned round and looked also. The blind was up and the
window shut, but I could just make out the bushes on the lawn, and it
seemed to me for a moment that I saw something moving among them. I
couldn't even say if it was man or animal, but I just thought there
was something there. When I asked him what he was looking at, he told
me that he had the same feeling. That is all that I can say."
"Did you not investigate?"
"No; the matter passed as unimportant."
"You left them, then, without any premonition of evil?"
"None at all."
"I am not clear how you came to hear the news so early this morning."
"I am an early riser and generally take a walk before breakfast. This
morning I had hardly started when the doctor in his carriage overtook
me. He told me that old Mrs. Porter had sent a boy down with an
urgent message. I sprang in beside him and we drove on. When we got
there we looked into that dreadful room. The candles and the fire
must have burned out hours before, and they had been sitting there in
the dark until dawn had broken. The doctor said Brenda must have been
dead at least six hours. There were no signs of violence. She just
lay across the arm of the chair with that look on her face. George
and Owen were singing snatches of songs and gibbering like two great
apes. Oh, it was awful to see! I couldn't stand it, and the doctor
was as white as a sheet. Indeed, he fell into a chair in a sort of
faint, and we nearly had him on our hands as well."
"Remarkable--most remarkable!" said Holmes, rising and taking his
hat. "I think, perhaps, we had better go down to Tredannick Wartha
without further delay. I confess that I have seldom known a case
which at first sight presented a more singular problem."
Our proceedings of that first morning did little to advance the
investigation. It was marked, however, at the outset by an incident
which left the most sinister impression upon my mind. The approach to
the spot at which the tragedy occurred is down a narrow, winding,
country lane. While we made our way along it we heard the rattle of a
carriage coming towards us and stood aside to let it pass. As it
drove by us I caught a glimpse through the closed window of a
horribly contorted, grinning face glaring out at us. Those staring
eyes and gnashing teeth flashed past us like a dreadful vision.
"My brothers!" cried Mortimer Tregennis, white to his lips. "They are
taking them to Helston."
We looked with horror after the black carriage, lumbering upon its
way. Then we turned our steps towards this ill-omened house in which
they had met their strange fate.
It was a large and bright dwelling, rather a villa than a cottage,
with a considerable garden which was already, in that Cornish air,
well filled with spring flowers. Towards this garden the window of
the sitting-room fronted, and from it, according to Mortimer
Tregennis, must have come that thing of evil which had by sheer
horror in a single instant blasted their minds. Holmes walked slowly
and thoughtfully among the flower-plots and along the path before we
entered the porch. So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember,
that he stumbled over the watering-pot, upset its contents, and
deluged both our feet and the garden path. Inside the house we were
met by the elderly Cornish housekeeper, Mrs. Porter, who, with the
aid of a young girl, looked after the wants of the family. She
readily answered all Holmes's questions. She had heard nothing in the
night. Her employers had all been in excellent spirits lately, and
she had never known them more cheerful and prosperous. She had
fainted with horror upon entering the room in the morning and seeing
that dreadful company round the table. She had, when she recovered,
thrown open the window to let the morning air in, and had run down to
the lane, whence she sent a farm-lad for the doctor. The lady was on
her bed upstairs if we cared to see her. It took four strong men to
get the brothers into the asylum carriage. She would not herself stay
in the house another day and was starting that very afternoon to
rejoin her family at St. Ives.
We ascended the stairs and viewed the body. Miss Brenda Tregennis had
been a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon middle age. Her
dark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in death, but there still
lingered upon it something of that convulsion of horror which had
been her last human emotion. From her bedroom we descended to the
sitting-room, where this strange tragedy had actually occurred. The
charred ashes of the overnight fire lay in the grate. On the table
were the four guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards
scattered over its surface. The chairs had been moved back against
the walls, but all else was as it had been the night before. Holmes
paced with light, swift steps about the room; he sat in the various
chairs, drawing them up and reconstructing their positions. He tested
how much of the garden was visible; he examined the floor, the
ceiling, and the fireplace; but never once did I see that sudden
brightening of his eyes and tightening of his lips which would have
told me that he saw some gleam of light in this utter darkness.
"Why a fire?" he asked once. "Had they always a fire in this small
room on a spring evening?"
Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp. For
that reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit. "What are you going
to do now, Mr. Holmes?" he asked.
My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. "I think, Watson,
that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have
so often and so justly condemned," said he. "With your permission,
gentlemen, we will now return to our cottage, for I am not aware that
any new factor is likely to come to our notice here. I will turn the
facts over in my mid, Mr, Tregennis, and should anything occur to me
I will certainly ommunicate with you and the vicar. In the meantime I
wish you both good-morning."
It was not until long after we were back in Poldhu Cottage that
Holmes broke his complete and absorbed silence. He sat coiled in his
armchair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible amid the blue
swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down, his forehead
contracted, his eyes vacant and far away. Finally he laid down his
pipe and sprang to his feet.
"It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh. "Let us walk along the
cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more likely to
find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain work without
sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to
pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson--all else will
come.
"Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson," he continued as we
skirted the cliffs together. "Let us get a firm grip of the very
little which we do know, so that when fresh facts arise we may be
ready to fit them into their places. I take it, in the first place,
that neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical intrusions into
the affairs of men. Let us begin by ruling that entirely out of our
minds. Very good. There remain three persons who have been grievously
stricken by some conscious or unconscious human agency. That is firm
ground. Now, when did this occur? Evidently, assuming his narrative
to be true, it was immediately after Mr. Mortimer Tregennis had left
the room. That is a very important point. The presumption is that it
was within a few minutes afterwards. The cards still lay upon the
table. It was already past their usual hour for bed. Yet they had not
changed their position or pushed back their chairs. I repeat, then,
