“Yes, miss. Mr. Rucastle let me out when he came back beforehe went 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 done sobefore now if I could ha’ got out from the cellar. If there’s policecourtbusiness over this, you’ll remember that I was the one thatstood your friend, and that I was Miss Alice’s friend too.
“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 until aftershe met Mr. Fowler at a friend’s house. As well as I could learn,Miss Alice had rights of her own by will, but she was so quiet andpatient, she was, that she never said a word about them but justleft everything in Mr. Rucastle’s hands. He knew he was safe withher; but when there was a chance of a husband coming forward,who would ask for all that the law would give him, then her fatherthought it time to put a stop on it. He wanted her to sign a paper,so that whether she married or not, he could use her money. Whenshe wouldn’t do it, he kept on worrying her until she got brainfever,and for six weeks was at death’s door. Then she got better atlast, all worn to a shadow, and with her beautiful hair cut off; butthat didn’t make no change in her young man, and he stuck to heras true as man could be.”
“Ah,” said Holmes, “I think that what you have been goodenough to tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I candeduce all that remains. Mr. Rucastle then, I presume, took to thissystem of imprisonment?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to getrid of the disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler.”
“That was it, sir.”
“But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seamanshould be, blockaded the house, and having met you succeeded bycertain arguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you thatyour interests were the same as his.”
“Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman,”
said Mrs. Toller serenely.
“And in this way he managed that your good man should haveno want 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. And herecomes the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think, Watson,that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester, as itseems to me that our locus standi now is rather a questionable 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 of hisdevoted wife. They still live with their old servants, who probablyknow so much of Rucastle’s past life that he finds it difficult topart from them. Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle were married, byspecial license, in Southampton the day after their flight, and heis now the holder of a government appointment in the island ofMauritius. As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather tomy disappointment, manifested no further interest in her whenonce she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems, andshe is now the head of a private school at Walsall, where I believethat she has met with considerable success.
