“Oh, you may carry that feeling away with you. I assure you thatyour little problem promises to be the most interesting whichhas come my way for some months. There is something distinctlynovel about some of the features. If you should find yourself indoubt or in danger—”
“Danger! What danger do you foresee?”
Holmes shook his head gravely. “It would cease to be a dangerif we could define it,” said he. “But at any time, day or night, atelegram would bring me down to your help.”
“That is enough.” She rose briskly from her chair with theanxiety all swept from her face. “I shall go down to Hampshirequite easy in my mind now. I shall write to Mr. Rucastle at once,sacrifice my poor hair to-night, and start for Winchester tomorrow.”
With a few grateful words to Holmes she bade us bothgood-night and bustled off upon her way.
“At least,” said I as we heard her quick, firm steps descendingthe stairs, “she seems to be a young lady who is very well able totake care of herself.”
“And she would need to be,” said Holmes gravely. “I am muchmistaken if we do not hear from her before many days are past.”
It was not very long before my friend’s prediction was fulfilled.
A fortnight went by, during which I frequently found my thoughtsturning in her direction and wondering what strange side-alleyof human experience this lonely woman had strayed into. Theunusual salary, the curious conditions, the light duties, all pointedto something abnormal, though whether a fad or a plot, orwhether the man were a philanthropist or a villain, it was quitebeyond my powers to determine. As to Holmes, I observed thathe sat frequently for half an hour on end, with knitted brows andan abstracted air, but he swept the matter away with a wave of hishand when I mentioned it. “Data! data! data!” he cried impatiently.
“I can’t make bricks without clay.” And yet he would always windup by muttering that no sister of his should ever have acceptedsuch a situation.
The telegram which we eventually received came late one nightjust as I was thinking of turning in and Holmes was settling downto one of those all-night chemical researches which he frequentlyindulged in, when I would leave him stooping over a retort anda test-tube at night and find him in the same position when Icame down to breakfast in the morning. He opened the yellowenvelope, and then, glancing at the message, threw it across to me.
“Just look up the trains in Bradshaw,” said he, and turned backto his chemical studies.
The summons was a brief and urgent one.
“Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday tomorrow,”
it said. “Do come! I am at my wit’s end.
“HUNTER.”
“Will you come with me?” asked Holmes, glancing up.
“I should wish to.”
“Just look it up, then.”
“There is a train at half-past nine,” said I, glancing over myBradshaw. “It is due at Winchester at 11:30.”
“That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postponemy analysis of the acetones, as we may need to be at our best inthe morning.”
By eleven o’clock the next day we were well upon our way tothe old English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morningpapers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshireborder he threw them down and began to admire the scenery. Itwas an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecywhite clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shiningvery brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air,which set an edge to a man’s energy. All over the countryside, awayto the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofsof the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light green of thenew foliage.
“Are they not fresh and beautiful?” I cried with all the enthusiasmof a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.
But Holmes shook his head gravely.
“Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses ofa mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything withreference to my own special subject. You look at these scatteredhouses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, andthe only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolationand of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.”
“Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate crime withthese dear old homesteads?”
“They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief,Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilestalleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin thandoes the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
“You horrify me!”
“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinioncan do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is nolane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of adrunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation amongthe neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is everso close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is buta step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonelyhouses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poorignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds ofhellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in,year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this lady whoappeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I should neverhave had a fear for her. It is the five miles of country which makesthe danger. Still, it is clear that she is not personally threatened.”
“No. If she can come to Winchester to meet us she can getaway.”
“Quite so. She has her freedom.”
“What can be the matter, then? Can you suggest no explanation?”
“I have devised seven separate explanations, each of whichwould cover the facts as far as we know them. But which of theseis correct can only be determined by the fresh information whichwe shall no doubt find waiting for us. Well, there is the tower ofthe cathedral, and we shall soon learn all that Miss Hunter has totell.”