Omaha Sherlockian Society

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
=====The Musgrave Ritual=====
===Sir Arthur Conan Doyle===

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.”
Omaha Sherlockian Society

User Tools

Site Tools

Page Tools
