now practically uninhabited, but
we ransacked every room and cellar without discovering the least sign of
the missing man. It was incredible to me that he could have gone away
leaving all his property behind him, and yet where could he be? I called
in the local police, but without success. Rain had fallen on the night
before, and we examined the lawn and the paths all round the house, but
in vain. Matters were in this state when a new development quite drew
our attention away from the original mystery.

"'For two days Rachel Howells had been so ill, sometimes delirious,
sometimes hysterical, that a nurse had been employed to sit up with her
at night. On the third night after Brunton's disappearance the nurse,
finding her patient sleeping nicely, had dropped into a nap in the
arm-chair, when she woke in the early morning to find the bed empty, the
window open, and no signs of the invalid. I was instantly aroused, and
with the two footmen started off at once in search of the missing girl.
It was not difficult to tell the direction which she had taken, for,
starting from under her window, we could follow her footmarks easily
across the lawn to the edge of the mere, where they vanished, close to
the gravel path which leads out of the grounds. The lake there is 8 ft.
deep, and you can imagine our feelings when we saw that the trail of the
poor demented girl came to an end at the edge of it.

"'Of course, we had the drags at once, and set to work to recover the
remains; but no trace of the body could we find. On the other hand, we
brought to the surface an object of a most unexpected kind. It was a
linen bag, which contained within it a mass of old rusted and
discoloured metal and several dull-coloured pieces of pebble or glass.
This strange find was all that we could get from the mere, and although
we made every possible search and inquiry yesterday, we know nothing of
the fate either of Rachel Howells or Richard Brunton. The county police
are at their wits' end, and I have come up to you as a last resource.'

"You can imagine, Watson, with what eagerness I listened to this
extraordinary sequence of events, and endeavoured to piece them
together, and to devise some common thread upon which they might all
hang.

"The butler was gone. The maid was gone. The maid had loved the butler,
but had afterwards had cause to hate him. She was of Welsh blood, fiery
and passionate. She had been terribly excited immediately after his
d