‘Having first endangered it. Are you strong enough to
stand?’
‘Give me another mouthful of that brandy and I shall
be ready for anything. So! Now, if you will help me up.
What do you propose to do?’
‘To leave you here. You are not fit for further
adventures to-night. If you will wait, one or other of us
will go back with you to the Hall.’
He tried to stagger to his feet; but he was still ghastly
pale and trembling in every limb. We helped him to a
rock, where he sat shivering with his face buried in his
hands.
‘We must leave you now,’ said Holmes. ‘The rest of
our work must be done, and every moment is of
importance. We have our case, and now we only want
our man.
‘It’s a thousand to one against our finding him at the
house,’ he continued as we retraced our steps swiftly down
the path. ‘Those shots must have told him that the game
was up.’
‘We were some distance off, and this fog may have
deadened them.
‘He followed the hound to call him off—of that you
may be certain. No, no, he’s gone by this time! But we’ll
search the house and make sure.’
The front door was open, so we rushed in and hurried
from room to room to the amazement of a doddering old
manservant, who met us in the passage. There was no
light save in the dining-room, but Holmes caught up the
lamp and left no corner of the house unexplored. No sign
could we see of the man whom we were chasing. On the
upper floor, however, one of the bedroom doors was
locked.
‘There’s someone in here,’ cried Lestrade. ‘I can hear a
movement. Open this door!’
A faint moaning and rustling came from within.
Holmes struck the door just over the lock with the flat of
his foot and it flew open. Pistol in hand, we all three
rushed into the room.
But there was no sign within it of that desperate and
defiant villain whom we expected to see. Instead we were
faced by an object so strange and so unexpected that we
stood for a moment staring at it in amazement.
The room had been fashioned into a small museum,
and the walls were lined by a number of glass-topped cases
full of that collection of butterflies and moths the
formation of which had been the relaxation of this
complex and dangerous man. In the centre of this room
there was an upright beam, which had been placed at
some period as a support for the old worm-eaten baulk of
timber which spanned the roof. To this post a figure was
tied, so swathed and muffled in the sheets which had been
used to secure it that one could not for the moment tell
whether it was that of a man or a woman. One towel
passed round the throat and was secured at the back of the
pillar. Another covered the lower part of the face, and
over it two dark eyes—eyes full of grief and shame and a
dreadful questioning—stared back at us. In a minute we
had torn off the gag, unswathed the bonds, and Mrs.
Stapleton sank upon the floor in front of us. As her
beautiful head fell upon her chest I saw the clear red weal
of a whiplash across her neck.
‘The brute!’ cried Holmes. ‘Here, Lestrade, your
brandy-bottle! Put her in the chair! She has fainted from
ill-usage and exhaustion.’
She opened her eyes again.
‘Is he safe?’ she asked. ‘Has he escaped?’
‘He cannot escape us, madam.’
‘No, no, I did not mean my husband. Sir Henry? Is he
safe?’