The Adventure of the Devils Foot | Page 7

taking them to
Helston."
We looked with horror after the black carriage, lumbering upon its way. Then we turned
our steps towards this ill-omened house in which they had met their strange fate.
It was a large and bright dwelling, rather a villa than a cottage, with a considerable
garden which was already, in that Cornish air, well filled with spring flowers. Towards
this garden the window of the sitting-room fronted, and from it, according to Mortimer
Tregennis, must have come that thing of evil which had by sheer horror in a single instant
blasted their minds. Holmes walked slowly and thoughtfully among the flower- plots and
along the path before we entered the porch. So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I
remember, that he stumbled over the watering-pot, upset its contents, and deluged both
our feet and the garden path. Inside the house we were met by the elderly Cornish
housekeeper, Mrs. Porter, who, with the aid of a young girl, looked after the wants of the
family. She readily answered all Holmes's questions. She had heard nothing in the night.
Her employers had all been in excellent spirits lately, and she had never known them
more cheerful and prosperous. She had fainted with horror upon entering the room in the
morning and seeing that dreadful company round the table. She had, when she recovered,

thrown open the window to let the morning air in, and had run down to the lane, whence
she sent a farm-lad for the doctor. The lady was on her bed upstairs if we cared to see her.
It took four strong men to get the brothers into the asylum carriage. She would not herself
stay in the house another day and was starting that very afternoon to rejoin her family at
St. Ives.
We ascended the stairs and viewed the body. Miss Brenda Tregennis had been a very
beautiful girl, though now verging upon middle age. Her dark, clear-cut face was
handsome, even in death, but there still lingered upon it something of that convulsion of
horror which had been her last human emotion. From her bedroom we descended to the
sitting-room, where this strange tragedy had actually occurred. The charred ashes of the
overnight fire lay in the grate. On the table were the four guttered and burned-out candles,
with the cards scattered over its surface. The chairs had been moved back against the
walls, but all else was as it had been the night before. Holmes paced with light, swift
steps about the room; he sat in the various chairs, drawing them up and reconstructing
their positions. He tested how much of the garden was visible; he examined the floor, the
ceiling, and the fireplace; but never once did I see that sudden brightening of his eyes and
tightening of his lips which would have told me that he saw some gleam of light in this
utter darkness.
"Why a fire?" he asked once. "Had they always a fire in this small room on a spring
evening?"
Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp. For that reason, after his
arrival, the fire was lit. "What are you going to do now, Mr. Holmes?" he asked.
My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. "I think, Watson, that I shall resume
that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have so often and so justly condemned," said
he. "With your permission, gentlemen, we will now return to our cottage, for I am not
aware that any new factor is likely to come to our notice here. I will turn the facts over in
my mid, Mr, Tregennis, and should anything occur to me I will certainly ommunicate
with you and the vicar. In the meantime I wish you both good-morning."
It was not until long after we were back in Poldhu Cottage that Holmes broke his
complete and absorbed silence. He sat coiled in his armchair, his haggard and ascetic face
hardly visible amid the blue swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down, his
forehead contracted, his eyes vacant and far away. Finally he laid down his pipe and
sprang to his feet.
"It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh. "Let us walk along the cliffs together and
search for flint arrows. We are more likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let
the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces.
The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson--all else will come.
"Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson," he continued as we skirted the cliffs
together. "Let us get a firm grip of the very little which we DO know, so that when fresh
facts arise we may be ready to fit