but you
will tell me what to do. I am not a rich man, but if there is any danger
threatening my little woman, I would spend my last copper to shield
her."

He was a fine creature, this man of the old English soil--simple,
straight, and gentle, with his great, earnest blue eyes and broad,
comely face. His love for his wife and his trust in her shone in his
features. Holmes had listened to his story with the utmost attention,
and now he sat for some time in silent thought.

"Don't you think, Mr. Cubitt," said he, at last, "that your best plan
would be to make a direct appeal to your wife, and to ask her to share
her secret with you?"

Hilton Cubitt shook his massive head.

"A promise is a promise, Mr. Holmes. If Elsie wished to tell me she
would. If not, it is not for me to force her confidence. But I am
justified in taking my own line--and I will."

"Then I will help you with all my heart. In the first place, have you
heard of any strangers being seen in your neighbourhood?"

"No."

"I presume that it is a very quiet place. Any fresh face would cause
comment?"

"In the immediate neighbourhood, yes. But we have several small
watering-places not very far away. And the farmers take in lodgers."

"These hieroglyphics have evidently a meaning. If it is a purely
arbitrary one, it may be impossible for us to solve it. If, on the other
hand, it is systematic, I have no doubt that we shall get to the bottom
of it. But this particular sample is so short that I can do nothing, and
the facts which you have brought me are so indefinite that we have no
basis for an investigation. I would suggest that you return to Norfolk,
that you keep a keen lookout, and that you take an exact copy of any
fresh dancing men which may appear. It is a thousand pities that we
have not a reproduction of those which were done in chalk upon the
window-sill. Make a discreet inquiry also as to any strangers in the
neighbourhood. When you have collected some fresh evidence, come to me
again. That is the best advice which I can give you, Mr. Hilton Cubitt.
If there are any pressing fresh developments, I shall be always ready to
run down and see you in your Norfolk home."

The interview left Sherlock Holmes very thoughtful, and several times in
the next few days I saw him take his slip of paper from his notebook
and look long and earnestly at the curious figures inscribed upon it. He
made no allusion to the affair, however, until one afternoon a fo