the flower-plots and along the path before we entered the porch.
So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember, that he stumbled over
the watering-pot, upset its contents, and deluged both our feet and the
garden path. Inside the house we were met by the elderly Cornish
housekeeper, Mrs. Porter, who, with the aid of a young girl, looked
after the wants of the family. She readily answered all Holmes's
questions. She had heard nothing in the night. Her employers had all
been in excellent spirits lately, and she had never known them more
cheerful and prosperous. She had fainted with horror upon entering the
room in the morning and seeing that dreadful company round the table.
She had, when she recovered, thrown open the window to let the morning
air in, and had run down to the lane, whence she sent a farm-lad for
the doctor. The lady was on her bed upstairs if we cared to see her.
It took four strong men to get the brothers into the asylum carriage.
She would not herself stay in the house another day and was starting
that very afternoon to rejoin her family at St. Ives.

We ascended the stairs and viewed the body. Miss Brenda Tregennis had
been a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon middle age. Her
dark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in death, but there still
lingered upon it something of that convulsion of horror which had been
her last human emotion. From her bedroom we descended to the
sitting-room, where this strange tragedy had actually occurred. The
charred ashes of the overnight fire lay in the grate. On the table
were the four guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards scattered
over its surface. The chairs had been moved back against the walls,
but all else was as it had been the night before. Holmes paced with
light, swift steps about the room; he sat in the various chairs,
drawing them up and reconstructing their positions. He tested how much
of the garden was visible; he examined the floor, the ceiling, and the
fireplace; but never once did I see that sudden brightening of his eyes
and tightening of his lips which would have told me that he saw some
gleam of light in this utter darkness.

"Why a fire?" he asked once. "Had they always a fire in this small
room on a spring evening?"

Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp. For that
reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit. "What are you going to do
now, Mr. Holmes?" he asked.

My friend smiled and l