第 42 页

"I shall try not to miss anything of importance. The one

unpleasant thing about the house, which struck me at once, was

the appearance and conduct of the servants. There are only two,

a man and his wife. Toller, for that is his name, is a rough,

uncouth man, with grizzled hair and whiskers, and a perpetual

smell of drink. Twice since I have been with them he has been

quite drunk, and yet Mr. Rucastle seemed to take no notice of it.

His wife is a very tall and strong woman with a sour face, as

silent as Mrs. Rucastle and much less amiable. They are a most

unpleasant couple, but fortunately I spend most of my time in the

nursery and my own room, which are next to each other in one

corner of the building.

"For two days after my arrival at the Copper Beeches my life

was very quiet; on the third, Mrs. Rucastle came down just after

breakfast and whispered something to her husband.

" 'Oh, yes,' said he, turning to me, 'we are very much

obliged to you, 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 reper-

toire, 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 gray 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 be-

tween 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 bonom 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 invaria-

bly 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 occasion-

ally, 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 penetrat-

ing 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 some-

thing 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.