Miss Hunter, for falling in with our whims so far as to cut your
hair. I assure you that it has not detracted in the tiniest iota from
your appearance. We shall now see how the electric-blue dress will
become you. You will find it laid out upon the bed in your room, and
if you would be so good as to put it on we should both be extremely
obliged.'
"The dress which I found waiting for me was of a peculiar shade of
blue. It was of excellent material, a sort of beige, but it bore
unmistakable signs of having been worn before. It could not have been
a better fit if I had been measured for it. Both Mr. and Mrs.
Rucastle expressed a delight at the look of it, which seemed quite
exaggerated in its vehemence. They were waiting for me in the
drawing-room, which is a very large room, stretching along the entire
front of the house, with three long windows reaching down to the
floor. A chair had been placed close to the central window, with its
back turned towards it. In this I was asked to sit, and then Mr.
Rucastle, walking up and down on the other side of the room, began to
tell me a series of the funniest stories that I have ever listened
to. You cannot imagine how comical he was, and I laughed until I was
quite weary. Mrs. Rucastle, however, who has evidently no sense of
humour, never so much as smiled, but sat with her hands in her lap,
and a sad, anxious look upon her face. After an hour or so, Mr.
Rucastle suddenly remarked that it was time to commence the duties of
the day, and that I might change my dress and go to little Edward in
the nursery.
"Two days later this same performance was gone through under exactly
similar circumstances. Again I changed my dress, again I sat in the
window, and again I laughed very heartily at the funny stories of
which my employer had an immense r閜ertoire, and which he told
inimitably. Then he handed me a yellow-backed novel, and moving my
chair a little sideways, that my own shadow might not fall upon the
page, he begged me to read aloud to him. I read for about ten
minutes, beginning in the heart of a chapter, and then suddenly, in
the middle of a sentence, he ordered me to cease and to change my
dress.
"You can easily imagine, Mr. Holmes, how curious I became as to what
the meaning of this extraordinary performance could possibly be. They
were always very careful, I observed, to turn my face away from the
window, so that I became consumed with the desire to see what was
going on behind my back. At first it seemed to be impossible, but I
soon devised a means. My hand-mirror had been broken, so a happy
thought seized me, and I concealed a piece of the glass in my
handkerchief. On the next occasion, in the midst of my laughter, I
put my handkerchief up to my eyes, and was able with a little
management to see all that there was behind me. I confess that I was
disappointed. There was nothing. At least that was my first
impression. At the second glance, however, I perceived that there was
a man standing in the Southampton Road, a small bearded man in a grey
suit, who seemed to be looking in my direction. The road is an
important highway, and there are usually people there. This man,
however, was leaning against the railings which bordered our field
and was looking earnestly up. I lowered my handkerchief and glanced
at Mrs. Rucastle to find her eyes fixed upon me with a most searching
gaze. She said nothing, but I am convinced that she had divined that
I had a mirror in my hand and had seen what was behind me. She rose
at once.
"'Jephro,' said she, 'there is an impertinent fellow upon the road
there who stares up at Miss Hunter.'
"'No friend of yours, Miss Hunter?' he asked.
"'No, I know no one in these parts.'
"'Dear me! How very impertinent! Kindly turn round and motion to him
to go away.'
"'Surely it would be better to take no notice.'
"'No, no, we should have him loitering here always. Kindly turn round
and wave him away like that.'
"I did as I was told, and at the same instant Mrs. Rucastle drew down
the blind. That was a week ago, and from that time I have not sat
again in the window, nor have I worn the blue dress, nor seen the man
in the road."
"Pray continue," said Holmes. "Your narrative promises to be a most
interesting one."
"You will find it rather disconnected, I fear, and there may prove to
be little relation between the different incidents of which I speak.
On the very first day that I was at the Copper Beeches, Mr. Rucastle
took me to a small outhouse which stands near the kitchen door. As we
approached it I heard the sharp rattling of a chain, and the sound as
of a large animal moving about.
"'Look in here!' said Mr. Rucastle, showing me a slit between two
planks. 'Is he not a beauty?'
"I looked through and was conscious of two glowing eyes, and of a
vague figure huddled up in the darkness.
"'Don't be frightened,' said my employer, laughing at the start which
I had given. 'It's only Carlo, my mastiff. I call him mine, but
really old Toller, my groom, is the only man who can do anything with
him. We feed him once a day, and not too much then, so that he is
always as keen as mustard. Toller lets him loose every night, and God
help the trespasser whom he lays his fangs upon. For goodness' sake
don't you ever on any pretext set your foot over the threshold at
night, for it's as much as your life is worth.'
"The warning was no idle one, for two nights later I happened to look
out of my bedroom window about two o'clock in the morning. It was a
beautiful moonlight night, and the lawn in front of the house was
silvered over and almost as bright as day. I was standing, rapt in
the peaceful beauty of the scene, when I was aware that something was
moving under the shadow of the copper beeches. As it emerged into the
moonshine I saw what it was. It was a giant dog, as large as a calf,
tawny tinted, with hanging jowl, black muzzle, and huge projecting
bones. It walked slowly across the lawn and vanished into the shadow
upon the other side. That dreadful sentinel sent a chill to my heart
which I do not think that any burglar could have done.
"And now I have a very strange experience to tell you. I had, as you
know, cut off my hair in London, and I had placed it in a great coil
at the bottom of my trunk. One evening, after the child was in bed, I
began to amuse myself by examining the furniture of my room and by
rearranging my own little things. There was an old chest of drawers
in the room, the two upper ones empty and open, the lower one locked.
I had filled the first two with my linen, and as I had still much to
pack away I was naturally annoyed at not having the use of the third
drawer. It struck me that it might have been fastened by a mere
oversight, so I took out my bunch of keys and tried to open it. The
very first key fitted to perfection, and I drew the drawer open.
There was only one thing in it, but I am sure that you would never
guess what it was. It was my coil of hair.
"I took it up and examined it. It was of the same peculiar tint, and
the same thickness. But then the impossibility of the thing obtruded
itself upon me. How could my hair have been locked in the drawer?
With trembling hands I undid my trunk, turned out the contents, and
drew from the bottom my own hair. I laid the two tresses together,
and I assure you that they were identical. Was it not extraordinary?
Puzzle as I would, I could make nothing at all of what it meant. I
returned the strange hair to the drawer, and I said nothing of the
matter to the Rucastles as I felt that I had put myself in the wrong
by opening a drawer which they had locked.
"I am naturally observant, as you may have remarked, Mr. Holmes, and
I soon had a pretty good plan of the whole house in my head. There
was one wing, however, which appeared not to be inhabited at all. A
door which faced that which led into the quarters of the Tollers
opened into this suite, but it was invariably locked. One day,
however, as I ascended the stair, I met Mr. Rucastle coming out
through this door, his keys in his hand, and a look on his face which
made him a very different person to the round, jovial man to whom I
was accustomed. His cheeks were red, his brow was all crinkled with
anger, and the veins stood out at his temples with passion. He locked
the door and hurried past me without a word or a look.
"This aroused my curiosity, so when I went out for a walk in the
grounds with my charge, I strolled round to the side from which I
could see the windows of this part of the house. There were four of
them in a row, three of which were simply dirty, while the fourth was
shuttered up. They were evidently all deserted. As I strolled up and
down, glancing at them occasionally, Mr. Rucastle came out to me,
looking as merry and jovial as ever.
"'Ah!' said he, 'you must not think me rude if I passed you without a
word, my dear young lady. I was preoccupied with business matters.'
"I assured him that I was not offended. 'By the way,' said I, 'you
seem to have quite a suite of spare rooms up there, and one of them
has the shutters up.'
"He looked surprised and, as it seemed to me, a little startled at my
remark.
"'Photography is one of my hobbies,' said he. 'I have made my dark
room up there. But, dear me! what an observant young lady we have
come upon. Who would have believed it? Who would have ever believed
it?' He spoke in a jesting tone, but there was no jest in his eyes as
he looked at me. I read suspicion there and annoyance, but no jest.
"Well, Mr. Holmes, from the moment that I understood that there was
something about that suite of rooms which I was not to know, I was
all on fire to go over them. It was not mere curiosity, though I have
my share of that. It was more a feeling of duty--a feeling that some
good might come from my penetrating to this place. They talk of
woman's instinct; perhaps it was woman's instinct which gave me that
feeling. At any rate, it was there, and I was keenly on the lookout
for any chance to pass the forbidden door.
"It was only yesterday that the chance came. I may tell you that,
besides Mr. Rucastle, both Toller and his wife find something to do
in these deserted rooms, and I once saw him carrying a large black
linen bag with him through the door. Recently he has been drinking
hard, and yesterday evening he was very drunk; and when I came
upstairs there was the key in the door. I have no doubt at all that
he had left it there. Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle were both downstairs, and
the child was with them, so that I had an admirable opportunity. I
turned the key gently in the lock, opened the door, and slipped
through.
"There was a little passage in front of me, unpapered and uncarpeted,
which turned at a right angle at the farther end. Round this corner
were three doors in a line, the first and third of which were open.
They each led into an empty room, dusty and cheerless, with two
windows in the one and one in the other, so thick with dirt that the
evening light glimmered dimly through them. The centre door was
closed, and across the outside of it had been fastened one of the
broad bars of an iron bed, padlocked at one end to a ring in the
wall, and fastened at the other with stout cord. The door itself was
locked as well, and the key was not there. This barricaded door
corresponded clearly with the shuttered window outside, and yet I
could see by the glimmer from beneath it that the room was not in
darkness. Evidently there was a skylight which let in light from
above. As I stood in the passage gazing at the sinister door and
wondering what secret it might veil, I suddenly heard the sound of
steps within the room and saw a shadow pass backward and forward
against the little slit of dim light which shone out from under the
door. A mad, unreasoning terror rose up in me at the sight, Mr.
Holmes. My overstrung nerves failed me suddenly, and I turned and
ran--ran as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the
skirt of my dress. I rushed down the passage, through the door, and
straight into the arms of Mr. Rucastle, who was waiting outside.
"'So,' said he, smiling, 'it was you, then. I thought that it must be
when I saw the door open.'
"'Oh, I am so frightened!' I panted.
"'My dear young lady! my dear young lady!'--you cannot think how
caressing and soothing his manner was--'and what has frightened you,
my dear young lady?'
"But his voice was just a little too coaxing. He overdid it. I was
keenly on my guard against him.
"'I was foolish enough to go into the empty wing,' I answered. 'But
it is so lonely and eerie in this dim light that I was frightened and
ran out again. Oh, it is so dreadfully still in there!'
"'Only that?' said he, looking at me keenly.
