


      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 a 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 common-place 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 aluminium 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 _recherché_.”

      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 disks 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 recognised 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
      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
      birthplace 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 grey 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 estates 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 gamekeeper. 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 _café 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 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 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 had
      developed. Over the low, heavily-lintelled door, in the centre of
      this old part, is chiseled 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.’

      “‘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 grey
      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 calculation.

      “‘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 upwards, 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
      recognised 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 some one 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 _débris_ 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 an 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.”




VII. 
