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all-night chemical researches which he frequently indulged in, when I
would leave him stooping over a retort and a test-tube at night and
find him in the same position when I came down to breakfast in the
morning. He opened the yellow envelope, and then, glancing at the
message, threw it across to me.
“Just look up the trains in Bradshaw, said he, and turned back to his
chemical studies.
The summons was a brief and urgent one.
“Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday to-morrow,
it said. “Do come! I am at my wit’s end.
“HUNTER.
“Will you come with me? asked Holmes, glancing up.
“I should wish to.
“Just look it up, then.
“There is a train at half-past nine, said I, glancing over my
Bradshaw. “It is due at Winchester at 11:30.
“That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postpone my
analysis of the acetones, as we may need to be at our best in the
morning.
By eleven o’clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old
English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the
way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them
down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a
light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across
from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was
an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man’s energy.
All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot,
the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from
amid the light green of the new foliage.
“Are they not fresh and beautiful? I cried with all the enthusiasm of
a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.
But Holmes shook his head gravely.
“Do you know, Watson, said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind
with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to
my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are
impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which
comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with
which crime may be committed there.
“Good heavens! I cried. “Who would associate crime with these dear old
homesteads?
“They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson,
founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London
do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and
beautiful countryside.
“You horrify me!
“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do
in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile
that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow,
does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then
the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of
complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime
and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields,
filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the
law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which
may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had
this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I
should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of country
which makes the danger. Still, it is clear that she is not personally
threatened.
“No. If she can come to Winchester to meet us she can get away.
“Quite so. She has her freedom.
“What can be the matter, then? Can you suggest no explanation?
“I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would cover
the facts as far as we know them. But which of these is correct can
only be determined by the fresh information which we shall no doubt
find waiting for us. Well, there is the tower of the cathedral, and we
shall soon learn all that Miss Hunter has to tell.
The Black Swan is an inn of repute in the High Street, at no distance
from the station, and there we found the young lady waiting for us. She
had engaged a sitting-room, and our lunch awaited us upon the table.
“I am so delighted that you have come, she said earnestly. “It is so
very kind of you both; but indeed I do not know what I should do. Your
advice will be altogether invaluable to me.
“Pray tell us what has happened to you.