these are the
chronicles of fact, and I must follow to their dark crisis the strange
chain of events which for some days made Ridling Thorpe Manor a
household word through the length and breadth of England.

We had hardly alighted at North Walsham, and mentioned the name of our
destination, when the station-master hurried towards us. "I suppose that
you are the detectives from London?" said he.

A look of annoyance passed over Holmes's face.

"What makes you think such a thing?"

"Because Inspector Martin from Norwich has just passed through. But
maybe you are the surgeons. She's not dead--or wasn't by last accounts.
You may be in time to save her yet--though it be for the gallows."

Holmes's brow was dark with anxiety.

"We are going to Ridling Thorpe Manor," said he, "but we have heard
nothing of what has passed there."

"It's a terrible business," said the station-master. "They are shot,
both Mr. Hilton Cubitt and his wife. She shot him and then herself--so
the servants say. He's dead and her life is despaired of. Dear, dear,
one of the oldest families in the County of Norfolk, and one of the most
honoured."

Without a word Holmes hurried to a carriage, and during the long seven
miles' drive he never opened his mouth. Seldom have I seen him so
utterly despondent. He had been uneasy during all our journey from
town, and I had observed that he had turned over the morning papers with
anxious attention; but now this sudden realization of his worst fears
left him in a blank melancholy. He leaned back in his seat, lost in
gloomy speculation. Yet there was much around to interest us, for we
were passing through as singular a country-side as any in England, where
a few scattered cottages represented the population of to-day, while on
every hand enormous square-towered churches bristled up from the flat,
green landscape and told of the glory and prosperity of old East Anglia.
At last the violet rim of the German Ocean appeared over the green edge
of the Norfolk coast, and the driver pointed with his whip to two old
brick and timber gables which projected from a grove of trees. "That's
Ridling Thorpe Manor," said he.

As we drove up to the porticoed front door I observed in front of
it, beside the tennis lawn, the black tool-house and the pedestalled
sun-dial with which we had such strange associations. A dapper little
man, with a quick, alert manner and a waxed moustache, had just
descended from a high dog-cart. H