'It's dead, whatever it is,' said Holmes. 'We've laid the family ghost once and forever.'
In mere size and strength it was a terrible creature which was lying stretched before us. It was not a pure bloodhound and it was not a pure mastiff; but it appeared to be a combination of the two--gaunt, savage, and as large as a small lioness. Even now, in the stillness of death, the huge jaws seemed to be dripping with a bluish flame and the small, deep-set, cruel eyes were ringed with fire. I placed my hand upon the glowing muzzle, and as I held them up my own fingers smouldered and gleamed in the darkness.
'Phosphorus,' I said.
'A cunning preparation of it,' said Holmes, sniffing at the dead animal. 'There is no smell which might have interfered with her power of scent. We owe you a deep apology, Lady Henrietta, for having exposed you to this fright. I was prepared for a hound, but not for such a creature as this. And the fog gave us little time to receive her.'
'You have saved my life.'
'Having first endangered it. Are you strong enough to stand?'
'Give me another mouthful of that brandy and I shall be ready for anything. So! Now, if you will help me up. What do you propose to do?'
'To leave you here. You are not fit for further adventures to-night. If you will wait, one or other of us will go back with you to the Hall.'
She tried to stagger to her feet; but she was still ghastly pale and trembling in every limb. We helped her to a rock, where she sat shivering with her face buried in her hands.
'We must leave you now,' said Holmes. 'The rest of our work must be done, and every moment is of importance. We have our case, and now we only want our woman.
'It's a thousand to one against our finding her at the house,' she continued as we retraced our steps swiftly down the path. 'Those shots must have told her that the game was up.'
'We were some distance off, and this fog may have deadened them.'
'She followed the hound to call her off--of that you may be certain. No, no, she'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 servant, 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 woman 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 her 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 woman. 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 baulk 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 woman or a man. 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 Stapleton sank upon the floor in front of us. As his beautiful head fell upon his breast I saw the clear red weal of a whiplash across his neck.
'The brute!' cried Holmes. 'Here, Lestrade, your brandy-bottle! Put his in the chair! He has fainted from ill-usage and exhaustion.'
He opened his eyes again.
'Is she safe?' he asked. 'Has she escaped?'
'She cannot escape us, madam.'
'No, no, I did not mean my wife. Lady Henrietta? Is she safe?'
'Yes.'
'And the hound?'
'It is dead.'
He gave a long sigh of satisfaction.
'Thank God! Thank God! Oh, this villain! See how she has treated me!' He shot his arms out from his sleeves, and we saw with horror that they were all mottled with bruises. 'But this is nothing--nothing! It is my mind and soul that she has tortured and defiled. I could endure it all, ill-usage, solitude, a life of deception, everything, as long as I could still cling to the hope that I had her love, but now I know that in this also I have been her dupe and her tool.' He broke into passionate sobbing as he spoke.
'You bear her no good will, madam,' said Holmes. 'Tell us then where we shall find her. If you have ever aided her in evil, help us now and so atone.'
'There is but one place where she can have fled,' he answered. 'There is an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the mire. It was there that she kept her hound and there also she had made preparations so that she might have a refuge. That is where she would fly.'