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"Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman," said Mrs. Toller serenely.

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"And in this way he managed that your good man should have no want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment when your master had gone out."

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"You have it, sir, just as it happened."

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"I am sure we owe you an apology, Mrs. Toller," said Holmes, "for you have certainly cleared up everything which puzzled us. And here comes the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think. Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester, as it seems to me that our locus standi now is rather a questionable one."

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And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, but was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of his devoted wife. They still live with their old servants, who probably know so mUch of Rucastle's past life that he finds it difficult to part from them.


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