"Better close the front door," cried Holmes, and we all rusheddown the stairs together. We had hardly reached the hall when weheard the baying of a hound, and then a scream of agony, with ahorrible worrying sound which it was dreadful to listen to. Anelderly man with a red face and shaking limbs came staggering outat a side door.
"My God!" he cried. "Someone has loosed the dog. It's not beenfed for two days. Quick, quick, or it'll be too late!"
Holmes and I rushed out and round the angle of the house, withToller hurrying behind us. There was the huge famished brute, itsblack muzzle buried in Rucastle's throat, while he writhed andscreamed upon the ground. Running up, I blew its brains out, andit fell over with its keen white teeth still meeting in the greatcreases of his neck. With much labour we separated them andcarried him, living but horribly mangled, into the house. We laidhim upon the drawing-room sofa, and having dispatched the soberedToller to bear the news to his wife, I did what I could torelieve his pain. We were all assembled round him when the dooropened, and a tall, gaunt woman entered the room.
"Mrs. Toller!" cried Miss Hunter.
"Yes, miss. Mr. Rucastle let me out when he came back before hewent up to you. Ah, miss, it is a pity you didn't let me knowwhat you were planning, for I would have told you that your painswere wasted."
"Ha!" said Holmes, looking keenly at her. "It is clear that Mrs.Toller knows more about this matter than anyone else."
"Yes, sir, I do, and I am ready enough to tell what I know."
"Then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it for there are severalpoints on which I must confess that I am still in the dark."
"I will soon make it clear to you," said she; "and I'd have doneso before now if I could ha' got out from the cellar. If there'spolice-court business over this, you'll remember that I was theone that stood your friend, and that I was Miss Alice's friendtoo.
"She was never happy at home, Miss Alice wasn't, from the timethat her father married again. She was slighted like and had nosay in anything, but it never really became bad for her untilafter she met Mr. Fowler at a friend's house. As well as I couldlearn, Miss Alice had rights of her own by will, but she was soquiet and patient, she was, that she never said a word about thembut just left everything in Mr. Rucastle's hands. He knew he wassafe with her; but when there was a chance of a husband comingforward, who would ask for all that the law would give him, thenher father thought it time to put a stop on it. He wanted her tosign a paper, so that whether she married or not, he co
uld useher money. When she wouldn't do it, he kept on worrying her untilshe got brain-fever, and for six weeks was at death's door. Thenshe got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and with herbeautiful hair cut off; but that didn't make no change in heryoung man, and he stuck to her as true as man could be."
"Ah," said Holmes, "I think that what you have been good enoughto tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduceall that remains. Mr. Rucastle then, I presume, took to thissystem of imprisonment?"
"Yes, sir."
"And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid ofthe disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler."
"That was it, sir."
"But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman shouldbe, blockaded the house, and having met you succeeded by certainarguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that yourinterests were the same as his."
"Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman," saidMrs. Toller serenely.
"And in this way he managed that your good man should have nowant of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the momentwhen your master had gone out."
"You have it, sir, just as it happened."
"I am sure we owe you an apology, Mrs. Toller," said Holmes, "foryou have certainly cleared up everything which puzzled us. Andhere comes the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think,Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester,as it seems to me that our locus standi now is rather aquestionable one."
And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with thecopper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, butwas always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care ofhis devoted wife. They still live with their old servants, whoprobably know so much of Rucastle's past life that he finds itdifficult to part from them. Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle weremarried, by special license, in Southampton the day after theirflight, and he is now the holder of a government appointment inthe island of Mauritius. As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friendHolmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no furtherinterest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of oneof his problems, and she is now the head of a private school atWalsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success.