The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Part 54 (1/1)
”Yes, sir, I do, and I ah to tell what I know”
”Then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it for there are several points 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 so before now if I could ha' got out from the cellar If there's police-court business over this, you'll remember that I was the one that stood your friend, and that I was Miss Alice's friend too
”She was never happy at home, Miss Alice wasn't, frohted like and had no say in anything, but it never really became bad for her until after she 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 and patient, she was, that she never said a word about the in Mr Rucastle's hands He kneas safe with her; but when there was a chance of a husband coive hiht it tin a paper, so that whether she married or not, he could use herher until she got brain-fever, and for six weeks was at death's door Then she got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and with her beautiful hair cut off; but that didn'tman, and he stuck to her as true as man could be”
”Ah,” said Holh to tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce all that remains Mr Rucastle then, I presume, took to this systeht Miss Hunter down froreeable persistence of Mr Fowler”
”That was it, sir”
”But Mr Fowler being a persevering ood sea u you that your interests were the same as his”
”Mr Foas a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman,” said Mrs Toller serenely
”And in this way he ood man should have no want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the one out”
”You have it, sir, just as it happened”
”I ay, Mrs Toller,” said Hol which puzzled us And here coeon 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 a questionable one”
And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper beeches in front of the door Mr Rucastle survived, but was always a broken h the care of his devoted wife They still live with their old servants, who probably know so much of Rucastle's past life that he finds it difficult to part from them Mr Fowler and Miss Rucastle were married, by special license, in Southaht, and he is now the holder of a government appointment in the island of Mauritius As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success