y. Let me advise you, then,
to return to Norbury, and to examine the windows of the cottage again.
If you have reason to believe that it is inhabited, do not force your
way in, but send a wire to my friend and me. We shall be with you within
an hour of receiving it, and we shall then very soon get to the bottom
of the business."
"And if it is still empty?"
"In that case I shall come out to-morrow and talk it over with you.
Good-by; and, above all, do not fret until you know that you really have
a cause for it."
"I am afraid that this is a bad business, Watson," said my companion, as
he returned after accompanying Mr. Grant Munro to the door. "What do you
make of it?"
"It had an ugly sound," I answered.
"Yes. There's blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken."
"And who is the blackmailer?"
"Well, it must be the creature who lives in the only comfortable room
in the place, and has her photograph above his fireplace. Upon my word,
Watson, there is something very attractive about that livid face at the
window, and I would not have missed the case for worlds."
"You have a theory?"
"Yes, a provisional one. But I shall be surprised if it does not turn
out to be correct. This woman's first husband is in that cottage."
"Why do you think so?"
"How else can we explain her frenzied anxiety that her second one should
not enter it? The facts, as I read them, are something like this:
This woman was married in America. Her husband developed some hateful
qualities; or shall we say that he contracted some loathsome disease,
and became a leper or an imbecile? She flies from him at last, returns
to England, changes her name, and starts her life, as she thinks,
afresh. She has been married three years, and believes that her position
is quite secure, having shown her husband the death certificate of
some man whose name she has assumed, when suddenly her whereabouts
is discovered by her first husband; or, we may suppose, by some
unscrupulous woman who has attached herself to the invalid. They write
to the wife, and threaten to come and expose her. She asks for a hundred
pounds, and endeavors to buy them off. They come in spite of it, and
when the husband mentions casually to the wife that there are new-comers
in the cottage, she knows in some way that they are her pursuers. She
waits until her husband is asleep, and then she rushes down to endeavor
to persuade them to leave her in peace. Having no success, she goes
agai
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