"'"Only a week, sir?" he cried, in a despairing voice.
"A fortnight--say at least a fortnight!"
"'"A week," I repeated, "and you may consider yourself
to have been very leniently dealt with."
"'He crept away, his face sunk upon his breast, like a
broken man, while I put out the light and returned to
my room.
""For two days after this Brunton was most assiduous
in his attention to his duties. I made no allusion to
what had passed, and waited with some curiosity to see
how he would cover his disgrace. On the third
morning, however he did not appear, as was his custom,
after breakfast to receive my instructions for the
day. As I left the dining-room I happened to meet
Rachel Howells, the maid. I have told you that she
had only recently recovered from an illness, and was
looking so wretchedly pale and wan that I remonstrated
with her for being at work.
"'"You should be in bed," I said. "Come back to your
duties when you are stronger."
"'She looked at me with so strange an expression that
I began to suspect that her brain was affected.
"'"I am strong enough, Mr. Musgrave," said she.
"'"We will see what the doctor says," I answered.
"You must stop work now, and when you go downstairs
just say that I wish to see Brunton."
"'"The butler is gone," said she.
"'"Gone! Gone where?"
"'"He is gone. No one has seen him. He is not in his
room. Oh, yes, he is gone, he is gone!" She fell
back against the wall with shriek after shriek of
laughter, while I, horrified at this sudden hysterical
attack, rushed to the bell to summon help. The girl
was taken to her room, still screaming and sobbing,
while I made inquiries about Brunton. There was no
doubt about it that he had disappeared. His bed had
not been slept in, he had been seen by no one since he
had retired to his room the night before, and yet it
was difficult to see how he could have left the house,
as both windows and doors were found to be fastened in
the morning. His clothes, his watch, and even his
money were in his room, but the black suit which he
usually wore was missing. His slippers, too, were
gone, but his boots were left behind. Where then
could butler Brunton have gone in the night, and what
could have become of him now?
"'Of course we searched the house from cellar to
garret, but there was no trace of him. It is, as I
have said, a labyrinth of an old house, especially the
original wing, which is now practically uninhabited;
but we ransacked every room and cellar without
discovering the least sign of the missing man. It was
incredible to me that he could have gone away leaving
all his property behind him, and yet where could he
be? I called in the local police, but without
success. Rain had fallen on the night before and we
examined the lawn and the paths all round the house,
but in vain. Matters were in this state, when a new
development quite drew our attention away from the
original mystery.
"'For two days Rachel Howells had been so ill,
sometimes delirious, sometimes hysterical, that a
nurse had been employed to sit up with her at night.
On the third night after Brunton's disappearance, the
nurse, finding her patient sleeping nicely, had
dropped into a nap in the arm-chair, when shoe woke in
the early morning to find the bed empty, the window
open, and no signs of the invalid. I was instantly
aroused, and, with the two footmen, started off at
once in search of the missing girl. It was not
difficult to tell the direction which she had taken,
for, starting from under her window, we could follow
her footmarks easily across the lawn to the edge of
the mere, where they vanished close to the gravel path
which leads out of the grounds. The lake there is
eight feet deep, and you can imagine our feelings when
we saw that the trail of 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
to recover the remains, but no trace of the body could
we find. On the other hand, we brought to the surface
an object of a most unexpected kind. It was a linen
bag which contained within it a mass of old rusted and
discolored metal and several dull-colored pieces of
pebble or glass. This strange find was all that we
could get from the mere, and, although we made every
possible search and inquiry yesterday, we know nothing
of the fate either of Rachel Howells or of Richard
Brunton. The county police are at their wits' end,
and I have come up to you as a last resource.'
"You can imagine, Watson, with what eagerness I
listened to this extraordinary sequence of events, and
endeavored to piece them together, and to devise some
common thread upon which they might all hang. The
butler was gone. The maid was gone. The maid had
loved the butler, but had afterwards had cause to hate
him. She was of Welsh blood, fiery and passionate.
She had been terribly excited immediately after his
disappearance. She had flung into the lake a bag
containing some curious contents. These were all
factors which had to be taken into consideration, and
yet none of them got quite to the heart of the matter.
What was the starting-point of this chain of events?
There lay the end of this tangled line.
"'I must see that paper, Musgrave,' said I, 'which
this butler of your thought it worth his while to
consult, even at the risk of the loss 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 have a copy of the
questions and answers here if you care to run your eye
over them.'
"He handed me the very paper which I have here,
Watson, and this is the strange catechism to which
each Musgrave had to submit when he came to man's
estate. I will read you the questions and 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 two and 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 middle of the seventeenth century,' remarked
Musgrave. 'I am afraid, however, that it can be of
little help to you in solving this mystery.'
r /> "'At least,' said I, 'it gives us another mystery, and
one which is even more interesting than the first. It
may be that the solution of the one may prove to be
the solution of the other. You will excuse me,
Musgrave, if I say that your butler appears to me to
have been a very clever man, and to have had a clearer
insight that ten generations of his masters.'
"'I hardly follow you,' said Musgrave. 'The paper
seems to me to be of no practical importance.'
"'But to me it seems immensely practical, and I fancy
that Brunton took the same view. He had probably seen
it before that night 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
memory upon that last occasion. He had, as I
understand, some sort of map or chart which he was
comparing with the manuscript, and which he thrust
into his pocket when you appeared.'
"'That is true. But what could he have to do with
this old family custom of ours, and what does this
rigmarole mean?'
"'I don't think that we should have much difficulty in
determining that,' said I; 'with your permission we
will take the first train down to Sussex, and go a
little more deeply into the matter upon the spot.'
"The same afternoon saw us both at Hurlstone.
Possibly you have seen pictures and read descriptions
of the famous old building, so I will confine my
account of it to saying that it is built in the shape
of an L, the long arm being the more modern portion,
and the shorter the ancient nucleus, from which the
other had developed. Over the low, heavily-lintelled
door, in the centre of this old part, is chiseled the
date, 1607, but experts are agreed that the beams and
stone-work are really much older than this. The
enormously thick walls and tiny windows of this part
had in the last century driven the family into
building the new wing, and the old one was used now as
a store-house and a cellar, when it was used at all.
A splendid park with fine old timber surrounds the
house, and the lake, to which my client had referred,
lay close to the avenue, about tow hundred yards from
the building.
"I was already firmly convinced, Watson, that there
were not three separate mysteries here, but one only,
and that if I could read the Musgrave Ritual aright I
should hold in my hand the clue which would lead me to
the truth concerning both the butler Brunton and the
maid Howells. To that then I turned all my energies.
Why should this servant be so anxious to master this
old formula? Evidently because he saw something in it
which had escaped all those generations of country
squires, and from which he expected some personal
advantage. What was it then, and how had it affected
his fate?
"It was perfectly obvious to me, on reading the
ritual, that the measurements must refer to some spot
to which the rest of the document alluded, and that if
we could find that spot, we should be in a fair way
towards finding what the secret was which the old
Musgraves had thought it necessary to embalm in so
curious a fashion. There were two guides given us to
start with, an oak and an elm. As to the oak there
could be no question at all. Right in front of the
house, upon the left-hand side of the drive, there
stood a patriarch among oaks, one of the most
magnificent trees that I have ever seen.
"'That was there when you ritual was drawn up,' said
I, as we drove past it.
"'It was there at the Norman Conquest in all
probability,' he answered. 'It has a girth of
twenty-three feet.'
"'Have you any old elms?' I asked.
"'There used to be a very old one over yonder but it
was struck by lightning ten years ago, and we cut down
the stump,'
"'You can see where it used to be?'
"'Oh, yes.'
"'There are no other elms?'
"'No old ones, but plenty of beeches.'
"'I should like to see where it grew.'
"We had driven up in a dogcart, and my client led me
away at once, without our entering the house, to the
scar on the lawn where the elm had stood. It was
nearly midway between the oak and the house. My
investigation seemed to be progressing.
"'I suppose it is impossible to find out how high the
elm was?' I asked.
"'I can give you it at once. It was sixty-four feet.'
"'How do you come to know it?' I asked, in surprise.
"'When my old tutor used to give me an exercise in
trigonometry, it always took the shape of measuring
heights. When I was a lad I worked out every tree and
building in the estate.'
"This was an unexpected piece of luck. My data were
coming more quickly than I could have reasonably
hoped.
"'Tell me,' I asked, 'did your butler ever ask you
such a question?'
"Reginald Musgrave looked at me in astonishment. 'Now
that you call it to my mind,' he answered, 'Brunton
did ask me about the height of the tree some months
ago, in connection with some little argument with the
groom,'
"This was excellent news, Watson, for it showed me
that I was on the right road. I looked up at the sun.
It was low in the heavens, and I calculated that in
less than an hour it would lie just above the topmost
branches of the old oak. One condition mentioned in
the Ritual would then be fulfilled. And the shadow of
the elm must mean the farther end of the shadow,
otherwise the trunk would have been chosen as the
guide. I had, then, to find where the far end of the
shadow would fall when the sun was just clear of the
oak."
"That must have been difficult, Holmes, when the elm
was no longer there."
"Well, at least I knew that if Brunton could do it, I
could also. Besides, there was no real difficulty. I
went with Musgrave to his study and whittled myself
this peg, to which I tied this long string with a knot
at each yard. Then I took two lengths of a
fishing-rod, which came to just six feet, and I went
back with my client to where the elm had been. The
sun was just grazing the top of the oak. I fastened
the rod on end, marked out the direction of the
shadow, and measured it. It was nine feet in length.
"Of course the calculation now was a simple one. If a
rod of six feet threw a shadow of nine, a tree of
sixty-four feet would throw one of ninety-six, and the
line of the one would of course the line of the other.
I measured out the distance, which brought me almost
to the wall of the house, and I thrust a peg into the
spot. You can imagine my exultation, Watson, when
within two inches of my peg I saw a conical depression
in the ground. I k
new that it was the mark made by
Brunton in his measurements, and that I was still upon
his trail.
"From this starting-point I proceeded to step, having
first taken the cardinal points by my pocket-compass.
Ten steps with each foot took me along parallel with
the wall of the house, and again I marked my spot with
a peg. Then I carefully paced off five to the east
and two to the south. It brought me to the very
threshold of the old door. Two steps to the west
meant now that I was to go two paces down the
stone-flagged passage, and this was the place
indicated by the Ritual.
"Never have I felt such a cold chill of
disappointment, Watson. For a moment is seemed to me
that there must be some radical mistake in my
calculations. The setting sun shone full upon the
passage floor, and I could see that the old, foot-worn
gray stones with which it was paved were firmly
cemented together, and had certainly not been moved
for many a long year. Brunton had not been at work
here. I tapped upon the floor, but it sounded the
same all over, and there was no sign of any crack or
crevice. But, Fortunately, Musgrave, who had begun to
appreciate the meaning of my proceedings, and who was
now as excited as myself, took out his manuscript to
check my calculation.
"'And under,' he cried. 'You have omitted the "and
under."'
"I had thought that it meant that we were to dig, but
now, of course, I saw at once that I was wrong.
'There is a cellar under this then?' I cried.
"'Yes, and as old as the house. Down here, through
this door.'
"We went down a winding stone stair, and my companion,
striking a match, lit a large lantern which stood on a
barrel in the corner. In an instant it was obvious
that we had at last come upon the true place, and that
we had not been the only people to visit the spot
recently.
"It had been used for the storage of wood, but the
billets, which had evidently been littered over the
floor, were now piled at the sides, so as to leave a
clear space in the middle. In this space lay a large
and heavy flagstone with a rusted iron ring in the
centre to which a thick shepherd's-check muffler was
attached.
"'By Jove!' cried my client. 'That's Brunton's
muffler. I have seen it on him, and could swear to
it. What has the villain been doing here?'
"At my suggestion a couple of the county police were
summoned to be present, and I then endeavored to raise
the stone by pulling on the cravat. I could only move
it slightly, and it was with the aid of one of the
constables that I succeeded at last in carrying it to
one side. A black hole yawned beneath into which we
all peered, while Musgrave, kneeling at the side,
pushed down the lantern.
"A small chamber about seven feet deep and four feet
square lay open to us. At one side of this was a
squat, brass-bound wooden box, the lid of which was
hinged upwards, with this curious old-fashioned key
projecting from the lock. It was furred outside by a
thick layer of dust, and damp and worms had eaten
through the wood, so that a crop of livid fungi was
growing on the inside of it. Several discs of metal,
old coins apparently, such as I hold here, were
scattered over the bottom of the box, but it contained
nothing else.
"At the moment, however, we had no thought for the old
chest, for our eyes were riveted upon that which
crouched beside it. It was the figure of a man, clad
in a suit of black, who squatted down upon him hams
with his forehead sunk upon the edge of the box and
his two arms thrown out on each side of it. The
attitude had drawn all the stagnant blood to the face,
and no man could have recognized that distorted
liver-colored countenance; but his height, his dress,
and his hair were all sufficient to show my client,
when we had drawn the body up, that it was indeed his
missing butler. He had been dead some days, but there
was no wound or bruise upon his person to show how he
had met his dreadful end. When his body had been
carried from the cellar we found ourselves still
confronted with a problem which was almost as