some sign of more criminal work, but then again, she may have hoped it would be put down to the carelessness of her staff. The letters in the snow she scratched there herself, then stood over them exclaiming. Hence her footsteps mark the snow, but no others. The abbreviation of her name and the use of the Roman five are not uningenious, I will admit—she has been somewhat heavy-handed elsewhere. In the study, she herself wrote the number five upon the wall. Standing on the librarian's steps, I had to lean down some way, the exact distance needed for a woman of her height, on those same steps, to form the number. You noticed the five, though drawn carefully, was also three times abruptly smeared, particularly on the lower curve. This was where her blue topaz ring, which at that time did not properly fit her, slipped down and pulled the ink, just as it had on her note to me. The ivy she herself disarranged from the window, with an almost insolent lack of conviction."
"Holmes, it seems to me that this once you assume a great deal too much—"
"At Baker Street I watched her in the window as she looked at me. My back was turned to her, and in her obvious unease, she forgot I might see her lamplit reflection on the night outside. Her face, Watson, was as predatory as that of any hawk. I fancied then she was not to be trusted. And there is too much that fits my notion."
"When the fox screamed, I thought she would faint."
"It is a frightful cry, and she had not anticipated it. That one moment was quite genuine."
"Vine," I said, "and Lucy."
"I have not decided on their role in this, save that the boy is obviously disgruntled and the girl maybe was not sensible. As for the letter Lucy is said to have written to Miss Caston, that first warning which so unfortunately was thrown away, being thought at the time of no importance—it never existed. Why should Lucy, dismissed from her employment and her lover, desire to warn the inventor of her loss?"
"Perhaps Lucy meant to frighten her."
"An interesting deduction, Watson, on which I congratulate you. However, you must look at the other side of the coin. If the inventor of Lucy's loss received a sinister warning from her, would she too not conclude it was an attempt to frighten?"
"Very well. But the deaths, Holmes. I too have read Derwent. The elder Miss Caston undeniably died here. The other three women certainly seem to have done."
"There is such a thing as coincidence, Watson. Mistress Hannah Castone choked on a chicken bone. The French lady slipped on the icy stair. Maria Caston was shot by a spurned and vengeful suitor. The aunt was apoplectic and terrified out of her wits by having to remain in the house at Christmas. You as a doctor will easily see the possibility of death in such a situation."
"She had left her bed and lay by the fireplace."
"In her agony, and finding herself alone, she struggled to reach the bell-rope and so summon help."
"And the bell-rope is by the fire."
"Phenomenal, Watson."
"By God, Holmes, for once I wish you might be in error."
"I seldom am in error. Think of our subject, Watson. She has come from a miserable life, which has toughened her almost into steel, to a great fortune. Now she thinks she may have anything she wants, and do as she wishes. She flies in the face of convention, as exemplified in her refusal to wear mourning for the old lady. She prefers, now she can afford better, an inferior writing-paper she likes—a little thing, but how stubborn, how wilful. And she has got us here by dint of her wiles and her lies."
"Then in God's name why?"
"Of that I have no definite idea. But she is in the grip of someone, we may be sure of it. Some powerful man who bears me a grudge. He has a honed and evil cast of mind, and works her strings like a master of marionettes. Certain women, and often the more strong among their sex, are made slaves by the man who can subdue them. And now, old chap, I shall be delighted to see you later."
I was so downcast and irascible after our talk, I went up to my room, where I wrote out the facts of the case up to that point. These notes have assisted me now, in putting the story