'Then my reports have all been wasted!' --My voice trembled as I recalled the pains and the pride with which I had composed them.
Holmes took a bundle of papers from her pocket.
'Here are your reports, my dear fellow, and very well thumbed, I assure you. I made excellent arrangements, and they are only delayed one day upon their way. I must compliment you exceedingly upon the zeal and the intelligence which you have shown over an extraordinarily difficult case.'
I was still rather raw over the deception which had been practised upon me, but the warmth of Holmes's praise drove my anger from my mind. I felt also in my heart that she was right in what she said and that it was really best for our purpose that I should not have known that she was upon the moor.
'That's better,' said she, seeing the shadow rise from my face. 'And now tell me the result of your visit to Laurie Lyons--it was not difficult for me to guess that it was to see his that you had gone, for I am already aware that he is the one person in Coombe Tracey who might be of service to us in the matter. In fact, if you had not gone to-day it is exceedingly probable that I should have gone to-morrow.'
The sun had set and dusk was settling over the moor. The air had turned chill and we withdrew into the hut for warmth. There, sitting together in the twilight, I told Holmes of my conversation with the lady. So interested was she that I had to repeat some of it twice before she was satisfied.
'This is most important,' said she when I had concluded. 'It fills up a gap which I had been unable to bridge, in this most complex affair. You are aware, perhaps, that a close intimacy exists between this sir and the woman Stapleton?'
'I did not know of a close intimacy.'
'There can be no doubt about the matter. They meet, they write, there is a complete understanding between them. Now, this puts a very powerful weapon into our hands. If I could only use it to detach her wife----'
'Her husband?'
'I am giving you some information now, in return for all that you have given me. The sir who has passed here as Mister Stapleton is in reality her husband.'
'Good heavens, Holmes! Are you sure of what you say? How could she have permitted Lady Henrietta to fall in love with him?'
'Sir Henrietta's falling in love could do no harm to anyone except Lady Henrietta. She took particular care that Lady Henrietta did not make love to him, as you have yourself observed. I repeat that the sir is her husband and not her brother.'
'But why this elaborate deception?'
'Because she foresaw that he would be very much more useful to her in the character of a free man.'
All my unspoken instincts, my vague suspicions, suddenly took shape and centred upon the naturalist. In that impassive, colourless woman, with her straw hat and her butterfly-net, I seemed to see something terrible--a creature of infinite patience and craft, with a smiling face and a murderous heart.
'It is she, then, who is our enemy--it is she who dogged us in London?'
'So I read the riddle.'
'And the warning--it must have come from him!'
'Exactly.'
The shape of some monstrous villainy, half seen, half guessed, loomed through the darkness which had girt me so long.
'But are you sure of this, Holmes? How do you know that the man is her husband?'
'Because she so far
forgot herself as to tell you a true piece of autobiography upon the occasion when she first met you, and I dare say she has many a time regretted it since. She was once a schoolmaster in the north of England. Now, there is no one more easy to trace than a schoolmaster. There are scholastic agencies by which one may identify any woman who has been in the profession. A little investigation showed me that a school had come to grief under atrocious circumstances, and that the woman who had owned it--the name was different--had disappeared with her husband. The descriptions agreed. When I learned that the missing woman was devoted to entomology the identification was complete.'
The darkness was rising, but much was still hidden by the shadows.
'If this man is in truth her husband, where does Laurie Lyons come in?' I asked.
'That is one of the points upon which your own researches have shed a light. Your interview with the sir has cleared the situation very much. I did not know about a projected divorce between himself and his wife. In that case, regarding Stapleton as an unmarried woman, he counted no doubt upon becoming her husband.'
'And when he is undeceived?'
'Why, then we may find the sir of service. It must be our first duty to see her--both of us--to-morrow. Don't you think, Watson, that you are away from your charge rather long? Your place should be at Baskerville Hall.'
The last red streaks had faded away in the west and night had settled upon the moor. A few faint stars were gleaming in a violet sky.