money. When she wouldn t do it, he kept on worrying her until she got
brain-fever, and for six weeks was at death s door. Then she got better
at last, all worn to a shadow, and with her beautiful hair cut off; but
that didn t make no change in her young man, and he stuck to her as
true as man could be.
Ah, said Holmes, I think that what you have been good enough to tell
us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce all that
remains. Mr. Rucastle then, I presume, took to this system of
imprisonment?
Yes, sir.
And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of the
disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler.
That was it, sir.
But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should be,
blockaded the house, and having met you succeeded by certain arguments,
metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that your interests were the
same as his.
Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman, said Mrs.
Toller serenely.
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.
You have it, sir, just as it happened.
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.
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
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