"Mr. Mortimer Tregennis died during the night, and with exactly the
same symptoms as the rest of his family."

Holmes sprang to his feet, all energy in an instant.

"Can you fit us both into your dog-cart?"

"Yes, I can."

"Then, Watson, we will postpone our breakfast. Mr. Roundhay, we are
entirely at your disposal. Hurry--hurry, before things get
disarranged."

The lodger occupied two rooms at the vicarage, which were in an angle
by themselves, the one above the other. Below was a large
sitting-room; above, his bedroom. They looked out upon a croquet lawn
which came up to the windows. We had arrived before the doctor or the
police, so that everything was absolutely undisturbed. Let me describe
exactly the scene as we saw it upon that misty March morning. It has
left an impression which can never be effaced from my mind.

The atmosphere of the room was of a horrible and depressing stuffiness.
The servant had first entered had thrown up the window, or it would
have been even more intolerable. This might partly be due to the fact
that a lamp stood flaring and smoking on the centre table. Beside it
sat the dead man, leaning back in his chair, his thin beard projecting,
his spectacles pushed up on to his forehead, and his lean dark face
turned towards the window and twisted into the same distortion of
terror which had marked the features of his dead sister. His limbs
were convulsed and his fingers contorted as though he had died in a
very paroxysm of fear. He was fully clothed, though there were signs
that his dressing had been done in a hurry. We had already learned
that his bed had been slept in, and that the tragic end had come to him
in the early morning.

One realized the red-hot energy which underlay Holmes's phlegmatic
exterior when one saw the sudden change which came over him from the
moment that he entered the fatal apartment. In an instant he was tense
and alert, his eyes shining, his face set, his limbs quivering with
eager activity. He was out on the lawn, in through the window, round
the room, and up into the bedroom, for all the world like a dashing
foxhound drawing a cover. In the bedroom he made a rapid cast around
and ended by throwing open the window, which appeared to give him some
fresh cause for excitement, for he leaned out of it with loud
ejaculations of interest and delight. Then he rushed down the stair,
out through the open window, threw himself upon his face on the law