THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL

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$Title{MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES; The Musgrave Ritual}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

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$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

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                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                          MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

                             THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL

AN ANOMALY which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes

was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most

methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness

of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy

men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction.  Not that I am in the

least conventional in that respect myself.  The rough-and-tumble work in

Afghanistan, coming on the top of natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made

me rather more lax than befits a medical man.  But with me there is a limit,

and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in

the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed

by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin

to give myself virtuous airs.  I have always held, too, that pistol practice

should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer

humours, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer

cartridges and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done

in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the

appearance of our room was improved by it.

     Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which

had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the

butter-dish or in even less desirable places.  But his papers were my great

crux.  He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those which were

connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in every year or two

that he would muster energy to docket and arrange them; for, as I have

mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate

energy when he performed the remarkable feats with which his name is

associated were followed by reactions of lethargy during which he would lie

about with his violin and his books, hardly moving save from the sofa to the

table.  Thus month after month his papers accumulated until every corner of

the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be

burned, and which could not be put away save by their owner.  One winter's

night, as we sat together by the fire, I ventured to suggest to him that, as

he had finished pasting extracts into his commonplace book, he might employ

the next two hours in making our room a little more habitable.  He could not

deny the justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went off to

his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box behind

him.  This he placed in the middle of the floor, and, squatting down upon a

stool in front of it, he threw back the lid.  I could see that it was already

a third full of bundles of paper tied up with red tape into separate packages.

     "There are cases enough here, Watson," said he, looking at me with

mischievous eyes.  "I think that if you knew all that I had in this box you

would ask me to pull some out instead of putting others in."

     "These are the records of your early work, then?" I asked.  "I have often

wished that I had notes of those cases."

     "Yes, my boy, these were all done prematurely before my biographer had

come to glorify me."  He lifted bundle after bundle in a tender, caressing

sort of way.  "They are not all successes, Watson," said he.  "But there are

some pretty little problems among them.  Here's the record of the Tarleton

murders, and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant, and the adventure of the

old Russian woman, and the singular affair of the aluminum crutch, as well as

a full account of Ricoletti of the club-foot, and his abominable wife.  And

here--ah, now, this really is something a little recherche."

     He dived his arm down to the bottom of the chest and brought up a small

wooden box with a sliding lid such as children's toys are kept in.  From

within he produced a crumpled piece of paper, an old-fashioned brass key, a

peg of wood with a ball of string attached to it, and three rusty old discs of

metal.

     "Well, my boy, what do you make of this lot?" he asked, smiling at my

expression.

     "It is a curious collection."

     "Very curious, and the story that hangs round it will strike you as being

more curious still."

     "These relics have a history, then?"

     "So much so that they are history."

     "What do you mean by that?"

     Sherlock Holmes picked them up one by one and laid them along the edge of

the table.  Then he reseated himself in his chair and looked them over with a

gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

     "These," said he, "are all that I have left to remind me of the adventure

of the Musgrave Ritual."

     I had heard him mention the case more than once, though I had never been

able to gather the details.  "I should be so glad," said I, "if you would give

me an account of it."

     "And leave the litter as it is?" he cried mischievously.  "Your tidiness

won't bear much strain, after all, Watson.  But I should be glad that you

should add this case to your annals, for there are points in it which make it

quite unique in the criminal records of this or, I believe, of any other

country.  A collection of my trifling achievements would certainly be

incomplete which contained no account of this very singular business.

     "You may remember how the affair of the Gloria Scott, and my conversation

with the unhappy man whose fate I told you of, first turned my attention in

the direction of the profession which has become my life's work.  You see me

now when my name has become known far and wide, and when I am generally

recognized both by the public and by the official force as being a final court

of appeal in doubtful cases.  Even when you knew me first, at the time of the

affair which you have commemorated in 'A Study in Scarlet,' I had already

established a considerable, though not a very lucrative, connection.  You can

hardly realize, then, how difficult I found it at first, and how long I had to

wait before I succeeded in making any headway.

     "When I first came up to London I had rooms in Montague Street, just

round the corner from the British Museum, and there I waited, filling in my

too abundant leisure time by studying all those branches of science which

might make me more efficient.  Now and again cases came in my way, principally

through the introduction of old fellow-students, for during my last years at

the university there was a good deal of talk there about myself and my

methods.  The third of these cases was that of the Musgrave Ritual, and it is

to the interest which was aroused by that singular chain of events, and the

large issues which proved to be at stake, that I trace my first stride towards

the position which I now hold.

     "Reginald Musgrave had been in the same college as myself, and I had some

slight acquaintance with him.  He was not generally popular among the

undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that what was set down as pride

was really an attempt to cover extreme natural diffidence.  In appearance he

was a man of an exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high-nosed, and

large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners.  He was indeed a scion of

one of the very oldest families in the kingdom, though his branch was a cadet

one which had separated from the northern Musgraves some time in the sixteenth

century and had established itself in western Sussex, where the Manor House of

Hurlstone is perhaps the oldest inhabited building in the county.  Something

of his birth-place seemed to cling to the man, and I never looked at his pale,

keen face or the poise of his head without associating him with gray archways

and mullioned windows and all the venerable wreckage of a feudal keep.  Once

or twice we drifted into talk, and I can remember that more than once he

expressed a keen interest in my methods of observation and inference.

     "For four years I had seen nothing of him until one morning he walked

into my room in Montague Street.  He had changed little, was dressed like a

young man of fashion--he was always a bit of a dandy--and preserved the same

quiet, suave manner which had formerly distinguished him.

     "'How has all gone with you, Musgrave?' I asked after we had cordially

shaken hands.

     "'You probably heard of my poor father's death,' said he; 'he was carried

off about two years ago.  Since then I have of course had the Hurlstone estate

to manage, and as I am member for my district as well, my life has been a busy

one.  But I understand, Holmes, that you are turning to practical ends those

powers with which you used to amaze us?'

     "'Yes,' said I, 'I have taken to living by my wits.'

     "'I am delighted to hear it, for your advice at present would be

exceedingly valuable to me.  We have had some very strange doings at

Hurlstone, and the police have been able to throw no light upon the matter.

It is really the most extraordinary and inexplicable business.'

     "You can imagine with what eagerness I listened to him, Watson, for the

very chance for which I had been panting during all those months of inaction

seemed to have come within my reach.  In my inmost heart I believed that I

could succeed where others failed, and now I had the opportunity to test

myself.

     "'Pray let me have the details,' I cried.

     "Reginald Musgrave sat down opposite to me and lit the cigarette which I

had pushed towards him.

     "'You must know,' said he, 'that though I am a bachelor, I have to keep

up a considerable staff of servants at Hurlstone, for it is a rambling old

place and takes a good deal of looking after.  I preserve, too, and in the

pheasant months I usually have a house-party, so that it would not do to be

short-handed.  Altogether there are eight maids, the cook, the butler, two

footmen, and a boy.  The garden and the stables of course have a separate

staff.

     "'Of these servants the one who had been longest in our service was

Brunton, the butler.  He was a young schoolmaster out of place when he was

first taken up by my father, but he was a man of great energy and character,

and he soon became quite invaluable in the household.  He was a well-grown,

handsome man, with a splendid forehead, and though he has been with us for

twenty years he cannot be more than forty now.  With his personal advantages

and his extraordinary gifts--for he can speak several languages and play

nearly every musical instrument--it is wonderful that he should have been

satisfied so long in such a position, but I suppose that he was comfortable

and lacked energy to make any change.  The butler of Hurlstone is always a

thing that is remembered by all who visit us.

     "'But this paragon has one fault.  He is a bit of a Don Juan, and you can

imagine that for a man like him it is not a very difficult part to play in a

quiet country district.  When he was married it was all right, but since he

has been a widower we have had no end of trouble with him.  A few months ago

we were in hopes that he was about to settle down again, for he became engaged

to Rachel Howells, our second housemaid; but he has thrown her over since then

and taken up with Janet Tregellis, the daughter of the head game-keeper.

Rachel--who is a very good girl, but of an excitable Welsh temperament--had a

sharp touch of brain-fever and goes about the house now--or did until

yesterday--like a black-eyed shadow of her former self.  That was our first

drama at Hurlstone; but a second one came to drive it from our minds, and it

was prefaced by the disgrace and dismissal of butler Brunton.

     "'This was how it came about.  I have said that the man was intelligent,

and this very intelligence has caused his ruin, for it seems to have led to an

insatiable curiosity about things which did not in the least concern him.  I

had no idea of the lengths to which this would carry him until the merest

accident opened my eyes to it.

     "'I have said that the house is a rambling one.  One day last week--on

Thursday night, to be more exact--I found that I could not sleep, having

foolishly taken a cup of strong cafe noir after my dinner.  After struggling

against it until two in the morning, I felt that it was quite hopeless, so I

rose and lit the candle with the intention of continuing a novel which I was

reading.  The book, however, had been left in the billiard-room, so I pulled

on my dressing-gown and started off to get it.

     "'In order to reach the billiard-room I had to descend a flight of stairs

and then to cross the head of a passage which led to the library and the

gun-room.  You can imagine my surprise when, as I looked down this corridor, I

saw a glimmer of light coming from the open door of the library.  I had myself

extinguished the lamp and closed the door before coming to bed.  Naturally my

first thought was of burglars.  The corridors at Hurlstone have their walls

largely decorated with trophies of old weapons.  From one of these I picked a

battle-axe, and then, leaving my candle behind me, I crept on tiptoe down the

passage and peeped in at the open door.

     "'Brunton, the butler, was in the library.  He was sitting, fully

dressed, in an easy-chair, with a slip of paper which looked like a map upon

his knee, and his forehead sunk forward upon his hand in deep thought.  I

stood dumb with astonishment, watching him from the darkness.  A small taper

on the edge of the table shed a feeble light which sufficed to show me that he

was fully dressed.  Suddenly, as I looked, he rose from his chair, and,

walking over to a bureau at the side, he unlocked it and drew out one of the

drawers. From this he took a paper, and, returning to his seat, he flattened

it out beside the taper on the edge of the table and began to study it with

minute attention.  My indignation at this calm examination of our family

documents overcame me so far that I took a step forward, and Brunton, looking

up, saw me standing in the doorway.  He sprang to his feet, his face turned

livid with fear, and he thrust into his breast the chart-like paper which he

had been originally studying.

     "'"So!" said I.  "This is how you repay the trust which we have reposed

in you.  You will leave my service to-morrow."

     "'He bowed with the look of a man who is utterly crushed and slunk past

me without a word.  The taper was still on the table, and by its light I

glanced to see what the paper was which Brunton had taken from the bureau.  To

my surprise it was nothing of any importance at all, but simply a copy of the

questions and answers in the singular old observance called the Musgrave

Ritual.  It is a sort of ceremony peculiar to our family, which each Musgrave

for centuries past has gone through on his coming of age--a thing of private

interest, and perhaps of some little importance to the archaeologist, like our

own blazonings and charges, but of no practical use whatever.'

     "'We had better come back to the paper afterwards,' said I.

     "'If you think it really necessary,' he answered with some hesitation.

'To continue my statement, however:  I relocked the bureau, using the key

which Brunton had left, and I had turned to go when I was surprised to find

that the butler had returned, and was standing before me.

     "'"Mr. Musgrave, sir," he cried in a voice which was hoarse with emotion,

"I can't bear disgrace, sir.  I've always been proud above my station in life,

and disgrace would kill me.  My blood will be on your head, sir--it will,

indeed--if you drive me to despair.  If you cannot keep me after what has

passed, then for God's sake let me give you notice and leave in a month, as if

of my own free will.  I could stand that, Mr. Musgrave, but not to be cast out

before all the folk that I know so well."

     "'"You don't deserve much consideration, Brunton," I answered.  "Your

conduct has been most infamous.  However, as you have been a long time in the

family, I have no wish to bring public disgrace upon you.  A month, however,

is too long.  Take yourself away in a week, and give what reason you like for

going."

     "'"Only a week, sir?" he cried in a despairing voice.  "A fortnight--say

at least a fortnight!"

     "'"A week," I repeated, "and you may consider yourself to have been very

leniently dealt with."

     "'He crept away, his face sunk upon his breast, like a broken man, while

I put out the light and returned to my room.

     "'For two days after this Brunton was most assiduous in his attention to

his duties.  I made no allusion to what had passed and waited with some

curiosity to see how he would cover his disgrace.  On the third morning,

however, he did not appear, as was his custom, after breakfast to receive my

instructions for the day.  As I left the dining-room I happened to meet Rachel

Howells, the maid.  I have told you that she had only recently recovered from

an illness and was looking so wretchedly pale and wan that I remonstrated with

her for being at work.

     "'"You should be in bed," I said.  "Come back to your duties when you are

stronger."

     "'She looked at me with so strange an expression that I began to suspect

that her brain was affected.

     "'"I am strong enough, Mr. Musgrave," said she.

     "'"We will see what the doctor says," I answered.  "You must stop work

now, and when you go downstairs just say that I wish to see Brunton."

     "'"The butler is gone," said she.

     "'"Gone!  Gone where?"

     "'"He is gone.  No one has seen him.  He is not in his room.  Oh, yes, he

is gone, he is gone!"  She fell back against the wall with shriek after shriek

of laughter, while I, horrified at this sudden hysterical attack, rushed to

the bell to summon help.  The girl was taken to her room, still screaming and

sobbing, while I made inquiries about Brunton.  There was no doubt about it

that he had disappeared.  His bed had not been slept in, he had been seen by

no one since he had retired to his room the night before, and yet it was

difficult to see how he could have left the house, as both windows and doors

were found to be fastened in the morning.  His clothes, his watch, and even

his money were in his room, but the black suit which he usually wore was

missing.  His slippers, too, were gone, but his boots were left behind.  Where

then could butler Brunton have gone in the night, and what could have become

of him now?

     "'Of course we searched the house from cellar to garret, but there was no

trace of him.  It is, as I have said, a labyrinth of an old house, especially

the original wing, which is 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 armchair, 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 eight feet 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

of Richard Brunton.  The county police are at their wit's 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 disappearance.  She had flung into

the lake a bag containing some curious contents.  These were all factors which

had to be taken into consideration, and yet none of them got quite to the

heart of the matter.  What was the starting-point of this chain of events?

There lay the end of this tangled line.

     "'I must see that paper, Musgrave,' said I, 'which this butler of yours

thought it worth his while to consult, even at the risk of the loss of his

place.'

     "'It is rather an absurd business, this ritual of ours,' he answered.

'But it has at least the saving grace of antiquity to excuse it.  I have a

copy of the questions and answers here if you care to run your eye over them.'

     "He handed me the very paper which I have here, Watson, and this is the

strange catechism to which each Musgrave had to submit when he came to man's

estate.  I will read you the questions and answers as they stand.

     "'Whose was it?'

     "'His who is gone.'

     "'Who shall have it?'

     "'He who will come.'

     "'Where was the sun?'

     "'Over the oak.'

     "'Where was the shadow?'

     "'Under the elm.'

     "'How was it stepped?'

     "'North by ten and by ten, east by five and by five, south by two and by

two, west by one and by one, and so under.'

     "'What shall we give for it?'

     "'All that is ours.'

     "'Why should we give it?'

     "'For the sake of the trust.'

     "'The original has no date, but is in the spelling of the middle of the

seventeenth century,' remarked Musgrave.  'I am afraid, however, that it can

be of little help to you in solving this mystery.'

     "'At least,' said I, 'it gives us another mystery, and one which is even

more interesting than the first.  It may be that the solution of the one may

prove to be the solution of the other.  You will excuse me, Musgrave, if I say

that your butler appears to me to have been a very clever man, and to have had

a clearer insight than ten generations of his masters.'

     "'I hardly follow you,' said Musgrave.  'The paper seems to me to be of

no practical importance.'

     "'But to me it seems immensely practical, and I fancy that Brunton took

the same view.  He had probably seen it before that night on which you caught

him.'

     "'It is very possible.  We took no pains to hide it.'

     "'He simply wished, I should imagine, to refresh his memory upon that

last occasion.  He had, as I understand, some sort of map or chart which he

was comparing with the manuscript, and which he thrust into his pocket when

you appeared.'

     "'That is true.  But what could he have to do with this old family custom

of ours, and what does this rigmarole mean?'

     "'I don't think that we should have much difficulty in determining that,

' said I; 'with your permission we will take the first train down to Sussex

and go a little more deeply into the matter upon the spot.'

     "The same afternoon saw us both at Hurlstone.  Possibly you have seen

pictures and read descriptions of the famous old building, so I will confine

my account of it to saying that it is built in the shape of an L, the long arm

being the more modern portion, and the shorter the ancient nucleus from which

the other has developed.  Over the low, heavy-lintelled door, in the centre of

this old part, is chiselled the date, 1607, but experts are agreed that the

beams and stonework are really much older than this.  The enormously thick

walls and tiny windows of this part had in the last century driven the family

into building the new wing, and the old one was used now as a storehouse and a

cellar, when it was used at all.  A splendid park with fine old timber

surrounds the house, and the lake, to which my client had referred, lay close

to the avenue, about two hundred yards from the building.

     "I was already firmly convinced, Watson, that there were not three

separate mysteries here, but one only, and that if I could read the Musgrave

Ritual aright I should hold in my hand the clue which would lead me to the

truth concerning both the butler Brunton and the maid Howells.  To that then I

turned all my energies.  Why should this servant be so anxious to master this

old formula?  Evidently because he saw something in it which had escaped all

those generations of country squires, and from which he expected some personal

advantage.  What was it then, and how had it affected his fate?

     "It was perfectly obvious to me, on reading the Ritual, that the

measurements must refer to some spot to which the rest of the document

alluded, and that if we could find that spot we should be in a fair way

towards finding what the secret was which the old Musgraves had thought it

necessary to embalm in so curious a fashion.  There were two guides given us

to start with, an oak and an elm.  As to the oak there could be no question at

all.  Right in front of the house, upon the left-hand side of the drive, there

stood a patriarch among oaks, one of the most magnificent trees that I have

ever seen.

     "'That was there when your Ritual was drawn up,' said I as we drove past

it.

     "'It was there at the Norman Conquest in all probability,'  he answered.

'It has a girth of twenty-three feet.'

     "Here was one of my fixed points secured.

     "'Have you any old elms?' I asked.

     "'There used to be a very old one over yonder, but it was struck by

lightning ten years ago, and we cut down the stump.'

     "'You can see where it used to be?'

     "'Oh, yes.'

     "'There are no other elms?'

     "'No old ones, but plenty of beeches.'

     "'I should like to see where it grew.'

     "We had driven up in a dog-cart, and my client led me away at once,

without our entering the house, to the scar on the lawn where the elm had

stood.  It was nearly midway between the oak and the house.  My investigation

seemed to be progressing.

     "'I suppose it is impossible to find out how high the elm was?' I asked.

     "'I can give you it at once.  It was sixty-four feet.'

     "'How do you come to know it?' I asked in surprise.

     "'When my old tutor used to give me an exercise in trigonometry, it

always took the shape of measuring heights.  When I was a lad I worked out

every tree and building in the estate.'

     "This was an unexpected piece of luck.  My data were coming more quickly

than I could have reasonably hoped.

     "'Tell me,' I asked, 'did your butler ever ask you such a question?'

     "Reginald Musgrave looked at me in astonishment.  'Now that you call it

to my mind,' he answered, 'Brunton did ask me about the height of the tree

some months ago in connection with some little argument with the groom.'

     "This was excellent news, Watson, for it showed me that I was on the

right road.  I looked up at the sun.  It was low in the heavens, and I

calculated that in less than an hour it would lie just above the topmost

branches of the old oak.  One condition mentioned in the Ritual would then be

fulfilled.  And the shadow of the elm must mean the farther end of the shadow,

otherwise the trunk would have been chosen as the guide.  I had, then, to find

where the far end of the shadow would fall when the sun was just clear of the

oak."

     "That must have been difficult, Holmes, when the elm was no longer

there."

     "Well, at least I knew that if Brunton could do it, I could also.

Besides, there was no real difficulty.  I went with Musgrave to his study and

whittled myself this peg, to which I tied this long string with a knot at each

yard.  Then I took two lengths of a fishing-rod, which came to just six feet,

and I went back with my client to where the elm had been.  The sun was just

grazing the top of the oak.  I fastened the rod on end, marked out the

direction of the shadow, and measured it.  It was nine feet in length.

     "Of course the calculation now was a simple one.  If a rod of six feet

threw a shadow of nine, a tree of sixty-four feet would throw one of

ninety-six, and the line of the one would of course be the line of the other.

I measured out the distance, which brought me almost to the wall of the house,

and I thrust a peg into the spot.  You can imagine my exultation, Watson, when

within two inches of my peg I saw a conical depression in the ground.  I knew

that it was the mark made by Brunton in his measurements, and that I was still

upon his trail.

     "From this starting-point I proceeded to step, having first taken the

cardinal points by my pocket-compass.  Ten steps with each foot took me along

parallel with the wall of the house, and again I marked my spot with a peg.

Then I carefully paced off five to the east and two to the south.  It brought

me to the very threshold of the old door.  Two steps to the west meant now

that I was to go two paces down the stone-flagged passage, and this was the

place indicated by the Ritual.

     "Never have I felt such a cold chill of disappointment, Watson.  For a

moment it seemed to me that there must be some radical mistake in my

calculations.  The setting sun shone full upon the passage floor, and I could

see that the old, foot-worn gray stones with which it was paved were firmly

cemented together, and had certainly not been moved for many a long year.

Brunton had not been at work here.  I tapped upon the floor, but it sounded

the same all over, and there was no sign of any crack or crevice.  But,

fortunately, Musgrave, who had begun to appreciate the meaning of my

proceedings, and who was now as excited as myself, took out his manuscript to

check my calculations.

     "'And under,' he cried.  'You have omitted the "and under."'

     "I had thought that it meant that we were to dig, but now, of course, I

saw at once that I was wrong.  'There is a cellar under this then?' I cried.

     "'Yes, and as old as the house.  Down here, through this door.'

     "We went down a winding stone stair, and my companion, striking a match,

lit a large lantern which stood on a barrel in the corner.  In an instant it

was obvious that we had at last come upon the true place, and that we had not

been the only people to visit the spot recently.

     "It had been used for the storage of wood, but the billets, which had

evidently been littered over the floor, were now piled at the sides, so as to

leave a clear space in the middle.  In this space lay a large and heavy

flagstone with a rusted iron ring in the centre to which a thick

shepherd's-check muffler was attached.

     "'By Jove!' cried my client.  'That's Brunton's muffler.  I have seen it

on him and could swear to it.  What has the villain been doing here?'

     "At my suggestion a couple of the county police were summoned to be

present, and I then endeavoured to raise the stone by pulling on the cravat.

I could only move it slightly, and it was with the aid of one of the

constables that I succeeded at last in carrying it to one side.  A black hole

yawned beneath into which we all peered, while Musgrave, kneeling at the side,

pushed down the lantern.

     "A small chamber about seven feet deep and four feet square lay open to

us.  At one side of this was a squat, brass-bound wooden box, the lid of which

was hinged upward, with this curious old-fashioned key projecting from the

lock.  It was furred outside by a thick layer of dust, and damp and worms had

eaten through the wood, so that a crop of livid fungi was growing on the

inside of it.  Several discs of metal, old coins apparently, such as I hold

here, were scattered over the bottom of the box, but it contained nothing

else.

     "At the moment, however, we had no thought for the old chest, for our

eyes were riveted upon that which crouched beside it.  It was the figure of a

man, clad in a suit of black, who squatted down upon his hams with his

forehead sunk upon the edge of the box and his two arms thrown out on each

side of it.  The attitude had drawn all the stagnant blood to the face, and no

man could have recognized that distorted liver-coloured countenance; but his

height, his dress, and his hair were all sufficient to show my client, when we

had drawn the body up, that it was indeed his missing butler.  He had been

dead some days, but there was no wound or bruise upon his person to show how

he had met his dreadful end.  When his body had been carried from the cellar

we found ourselves still confronted with a problem which was almost as

formidable as that with which we had started.

     "I confess that so far, Watson, I had been disappointed in my

investigation.  I had reckoned upon solving the matter when once I had found

the place referred to in the Ritual; but now I was there, and was apparently

as far as ever from knowing what it was which the family had concealed with

such elaborate precautions.  It is true that I had thrown a light upon the

fate of Brunton, but now I had to ascertain how that fate had come upon him,

and what part had been played in the matter by the woman who had disappeared.

I sat down upon a keg in the corner and thought the whole matter carefully

over.

     "You know my methods in such cases, Watson.  I put myself in the man's

place, and, having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I

should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances.  In this case the

matter was simplified by Brunton's intelligence being quite first-rate, so

that it was unnecessary to make any allowance for the personal equation, as

the astronomers have dubbed it.  He knew that something valuable was

concealed.  He had spotted the place.  He found that the stone which covered

it was just too heavy for a man to move unaided.  What would he do next?  He

could not get help from outside, even if he had someone whom he could trust,

without the unbarring of doors and considerable risk of detection.  It was

better, if he could, to have his helpmate inside the house.  But whom could he

ask?  This girl had been devoted to him.  A man always finds it hard to

realize that he may have finally lost a woman's love, however badly he may

have treated her.  He would try by a few attentions to make his peace with the

girl Howells, and then would engage her as his accomplice.  Together they

would come at night to the cellar, and their united force would suffice to

raise the stone.  So far I could follow their actions as if I had actually

seen them.

     "But for two of them, and one a woman, it must have been heavy work, the

raising of that stone.  A burly Sussex policeman and I had found it no light

job.  What would they do to assist them?  Probably what I should have done

myself.  I rose and examined carefully the different billets of wood which

were scattered round the floor.  Almost at once I came upon what I expected.

One piece, about three feet in length, had a very marked indentation at one

end, while several were flattened at the sides as if they had been compressed

by some considerable weight.  Evidently, as they had dragged the stone up,

they had thrust the chunks of wood into the chink until at last when the

opening was large enough to crawl through, they would hold it open by a billet

placed lengthwise, which might very well become indented at the lower end,

since the whole weight of the stone would press it down on to the edge of this

other slab.  So far I was still on safe ground.

     "And now how was I to proceed to reconstruct this midnight drama?

Clearly, only one could fit into the hole, and that one was Brunton.  The girl

must have waited above.  Brunton then unlocked the box, handed up the contents

presumably --since they were not to be found--and then--and then what

happened?

     "What smouldering fire of vengeance had suddenly sprung into flame in

this passionate Celtic woman's soul when she saw the man who had wronged her--

wronged her, perhaps, far more than we suspected--in her power?  Was it a

chance that the wood had slipped and that the stone had shut Brunton into what

had become his sepulchre?  Had she only been guilty of silence as to his fate?

Or had some sudden blow from her hand dashed the support away and sent the

slab crashing down into its place?  Be that as it might, I seemed to see that

woman's figure still clutching at her treasure trove and flying wildly up the

winding stair, with her ears ringing perhaps with the muffled screams from

behind her and with the drumming of frenzied hands against the slab of stone

which was choking her faithless lover's life out.

     "Here was the secret of her blanched face, her shaken nerves, her peals

of hysterical laughter on the next morning.  But what had been in the box?

What had she done with that?  Of course, it must have been the old metal and

pebbles which my client had dragged from the mere.  She had thrown them in

there at the first opportunity to remove the last trace of her crime.

     "For twenty minutes I had sat motionless, thinking the matter out.

Musgrave still stood with a very pale face, swinging his lantern and peering

down into the hole.

     "'These are coins of Charles the First,' said he, holding out the few

which had been in the box; 'you see we were right in fixing our date for the

Ritual.'

     "'We may find something else of Charles the First,' I cried, as the

probable meaning of the first two questions of the Ritual broke suddenly upon

me.  'Let me see the contents of the bag which you fished from the mere.'

     "We ascended to his study, and he laid the debris before me.  I could

understand his regarding it as of small importance when I looked at it, for

the metal was almost black and the stones lustreless and dull.  I rubbed one

of them on my sleeve, however, and it glowed afterwards like a spark in the

dark hollow of my hand.  The metal work was in the form of a double ring, but

it had been bent and twisted out of its original shape.

     "'You must bear in mind,' said I, 'that the royal party made head in

England even after the death of the king, and that when they at last fled they

probably left many of their most precious possessions buried behind them, with

the intention of returning for them in more peaceful times.'

     "'My ancestor, Sir Ralph Musgrave, was a prominent cavalier and the

right-hand man of Charles the Second in his wanderings,' said my friend.

     "'Ah, indeed!' I answered.  'Well now, I think that really should give us

the last link that we wanted.  I must congratulate you on coming into the

possession, though in rather a tragic manner, of a relic which is of great

intrinsic value, but of even greater importance as a historical curiosity.'

     "'What is it, then?' he gasped in astonishment.

     "'It is nothing less than the ancient crown of the kings of England.'

     "'The crown!'

     "'Precisely.  Consider what the Ritual says.  How does it run?  "Whose

was it?"  "His who is gone."  That was after the execution of Charles.  Then,

"Who shall have it?"  "He who will come."  That was Charles the Second, whose

advent was already foreseen.  There can, I think, be no doubt that this

battered and shapeless diadem once encircled the brows of the royal Stuarts.'

     "'And how came it in the pond?'

     "'Ah, that is a question that will take some time to answer.'  And with

that I sketched out to him the whole long chain of surmise and of proof which

I had constructed.  The twilight had closed in and the moon was shining

brightly in the sky before my narrative was finished.

     "'And how was it then that Charles did not get his crown when he

returned?' asked Musgrave, pushing back the relic into its linen bag.

     "'Ah, there you lay your finger upon the one point which we shall

probably never be able to clear up.  It is likely that the Musgrave who held

the secret died in the interval, and by some oversight left this guide to his

descendant without explaining the meaning of it.  From that day to this it has

been handed down from father to son, until at last it came within reach of a

man who tore its secret out of it and lost his life in the venture.'

     "And that's the story of the Musgrave Ritual, Watson.  They have the

crown down at Hurlstone--though they had some legal bother and a considerable

sum to pay before they were allowed to retain it.  I am sure that if you

mentioned my name they would be happy to show it to you.  Of the woman nothing

was ever heard, and the probability is that she got away out of England and

carried herself and the memory of her crime to some land beyond the seas."