d elaborate calculation. For
two hours I watched him as he covered sheet after sheet of paper with
figures and letters, so completely absorbed in his task that he had
evidently forgotten my presence. Sometimes he was making progress and
whistled and sang at his work; sometimes he was puzzled, and would sit
for long spells with a furrowed brow and a vacant eye. Finally he sprang
from his chair with a cry of satisfaction, and walked up and down the
room rubbing his hands together. Then he wrote a long telegram upon a
cable form. "If my answer to this is as I hope, you will have a very
pretty case to add to your collection, Watson," said he. "I expect that
we shall be able to go down to Norfolk to-morrow, and to take our friend
some very definite news as to the secret of his annoyance."

I confess that I was filled with curiosity, but I was aware that Holmes
liked to make his disclosures at his own time and in his own way; so I
waited until it should suit him to take me into his confidence.

But there was a delay in that answering telegram, and two days of
impatience followed, during which Holmes pricked up his ears at every
ring of the bell. On the evening of the second there came a letter from
Hilton Cubitt. All was quiet with him, save that a long inscription had
appeared that morning upon the pedestal of the sun-dial. He inclosed a
copy of it, which is here reproduced:--

GRAPHIC

Holmes bent over this grotesque frieze for some minutes, and then
suddenly sprang to his feet with an exclamation of surprise and dismay.
His face was haggard with anxiety.

"We have let this affair go far enough," said he. "Is there a train to
North Walsham to-night?"

I turned up the time-table. The last had just gone.

"Then we shall breakfast early and take the very first in the morning,"
said Holmes. "Our presence is most urgently needed. Ah! here is our
expected cablegram. One moment, Mrs. Hudson; there may be an answer. No,
that is quite as I expected. This message makes it even more essential
that we should not lose an hour in letting Hilton Cubitt know how
matters stand, for it is a singular and a dangerous web in which our
simple Norfolk squire is entangled."

So, indeed, it proved, and as I come to the dark conclusion of a story
which had seemed to me to be only childish and bizarre I experience once
again the dismay and horror with which I was filled. Would that I had
some brighter ending to communicate to my readers, but