Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 23).djvu/372

364

“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 balk 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