sed 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 Riding Thorpe Manor," said he, "but we have heard
nothing of what has passed there."

"It's a terrible business," said the stationmaster. "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 countryside 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
Riding 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 sundial
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. He introduced himself as Inspector Martin, of the Norfolk
Constabulary, and he was considerably astonished when he heard the name
of my companion.

"Why, Mr. Holmes, the crime was only committed at three this morning.
How could you hear of it in London and get to the spot as soon as I?"

"I anticipated it. I came in the hope of preventing it."

"Then you must have important evidence, of which we are ignorant, for
they were said to be a most united couple."

"I have only the evidence of the dancing men," said Holmes. "I will
explain the m