“Alas!” replied our visitor, “the very horror of my situation liesin the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions dependso entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another,that even he to whom of all others I have a right to look for helpand advice looks upon all that I tell him about it as the fancies ofa nervous woman. He does not say so, but I can read it from hissoothing answers and averted eyes. But I have heard, Mr. Holmes,that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of thehuman heart. You may advise me how to walk amid the dangerswhich encompass me.”
“I am all attention, madam.”
“My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, whois the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England,the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of Surrey.”
Holmes nodded his head. “The name is familiar to me,” said he.
“The family was at one time among the richest in England, andthe estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north,and Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, foursuccessive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, andthe family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the daysof the Regency. Nothing was left save a few acres of ground, andthe two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under aheavy mortgage. The last squire dragged out his existence there,living the horrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but his only son,my stepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to the newconditions, obtained an advance from a relative, which enabledhim to take a medical degree and went out to Calcutta, where, byhis professional skill and his force of character, he established alarge practice. In a fit of anger, however, caused by some robberieswhich had been perpetrated in the house, he beat his native butlerto death and narrowly escaped a capital sentence. As it was, hesuffered a long term of imprisonment and afterwards returned toEngland a morose and disappointed man.
“When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs.
Stoner, the young widow of Major-General Stoner, of the BengalArtillery. My sister Julia and I were twins, and we were onlytwo years old at the time of my mother’s re-marriage. She had aconsiderable sum of money—not less than ￡1000 a year—and thisshe bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely while we resided with him,with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed toeach of us in the event of our marriage. Shortly after our returnto England my mother died—she was killed eight years ago ina railway accident near Crewe. Dr. Roylott then abandoned hisattempts to establish himself in practice in London and took usto live with him in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran. Themoney which my mother had left was enough for all our wants,and there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness.
“But a terrible change came over our stepfather about thistime. Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with ourneighbours, who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylottof Stoke Moran back in the old family seat, he shut himself upin his house and seldom came out save to indulge in ferociousquarrels with whoever might cross his path. Violence of temperapproaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the family,and in my stepfather’s case it had, I believe, been intensified byhis long residence in the tropics. A series of disgraceful brawlstook place, two of which ended in the police-court, until at lasthe became the terror of the village, and the folks would fly at hisapproach, for he is a man of immense strength, and absolutelyuncontrollable in his anger.
“Last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet intoa stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which Icould gather together that I was able to avert another publicexposure. He had no friends at all save the wandering gipsies,and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon thefew acres of bramble-covered land which represent the familyestate, and would accept in return the hospitality of their tents,wandering away with them sometimes for weeks on end. He hasa passion also for Indian animals, which are sent over to himby a correspondent, and he has at this moment a cheetah and ababoon, which wander freely over his grounds and are feared bythe villagers almost as much as their master.
“You can imagine from what I say that my poor sister Julia andI had no great pleasure in our lives. No servant would stay with us,and for a long time we did all the work of the house. She was butthirty at the time of her death, and yet her hair had already begunto whiten, even as mine has.”
“Your sister is dead, then?”
“She died just two years ago, and it is of her death that I wish tospeak to you. You can understand that, living the life which I havedescribed, we were little likely to see anyone of our own age andposition. We had, however, an aunt, my mother’s maiden sister,Miss Honoria Westphail, who lives near Harrow, and we wereoccasionally allowed to pay short visits at this lady’s house. Juliawent there at Christmas two years ago, and met there a half-paymajor of marines, to whom she became engaged. My stepfatherlearned of the engagement when my sister returned and offered noobjection to the marriage; but within a fortnight of the day whichhad been fixed for the wedding, the terrible event occurred whichhas deprived me of my only companion.”
Sherlock Holmes had been leaning back in his chair with hiseyes closed and his head sunk in a cushion, but he half opened hislids now and glanced across at his visitor.
“Pray be precise as to details,” said he.
“It is easy for me to be so, for every event of that dreadful timeis seared into my memory. The manor-house is, as I have alreadysaid, very old, and only one wing is now inhabited. The bedroomsin this wing are on the ground floor, the sitting-rooms being in thecentral block of the buildings. Of these bedrooms the first is Dr.