The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

  "'"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