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elapt1c
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ElapticAI-512

Dataset card Data Studio Files
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you and asking your advice.
“You have done wisely, said my friend. “But have you told me all?
“Yes, all.
“Miss Roylott, you have not. You are screening your stepfather.
“Why, what do you mean?
For answer Holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which fringed the
hand that lay upon our visitor’s knee. Five little livid spots, the
marks of four fingers and a thumb, were printed upon the white wrist.
“You have been cruelly used, said Holmes.
The lady coloured deeply and covered over her injured wrist. “He is a
hard man, she said, “and perhaps he hardly knows his own strength.
There was a long silence, during which Holmes leaned his chin upon his
hands and stared into the crackling fire.
“This is a very deep business, he said at last. “There are a thousand
details which I should desire to know before I decide upon our course
of action. Yet we have not a moment to lose. If we were to come to
Stoke Moran to-day, would it be possible for us to see over these rooms
without the knowledge of your stepfather?
“As it happens, he spoke of coming into town to-day upon some most
important business. It is probable that he will be away all day, and
that there would be nothing to disturb you. We have a housekeeper now,
but she is old and foolish, and I could easily get her out of the way.
“Excellent. You are not averse to this trip, Watson?
“By no means.
“Then we shall both come. What are you going to do yourself?
“I have one or two things which I would wish to do now that I am in
town. But I shall return by the twelve o’clock train, so as to be there
in time for your coming.
“And you may expect us early in the afternoon. I have myself some small
business matters to attend to. Will you not wait and breakfast?
“No, I must go. My heart is lightened already since I have confided my
trouble to you. I shall look forward to seeing you again this
afternoon. She dropped her thick black veil over her face and glided
from the room.
“And what do you think of it all, Watson? asked Sherlock Holmes,
leaning back in his chair.
“It seems to me to be a most dark and sinister business.
“Dark enough and sinister enough.
“Yet if the lady is correct in saying that the flooring and walls are
sound, and that the door, window, and chimney are impassable, then her
sister must have been undoubtedly alone when she met her mysterious
end.
“What becomes, then, of these nocturnal whistles, and what of the very
peculiar words of the dying woman?
“I cannot think.
“When you combine the ideas of whistles at night, the presence of a
band of gipsies who are on intimate terms with this old doctor, the
fact that we have every reason to believe that the doctor has an
interest in preventing his stepdaughter’s marriage, the dying allusion
to a band, and, finally, the fact that Miss Helen Stoner heard a
metallic clang, which might have been caused by one of those metal bars
that secured the shutters falling back into its place, I think that
there is good ground to think that the mystery may be cleared along
those lines.
“But what, then, did the gipsies do?
“I cannot imagine.
“I see many objections to any such theory.
“And so do I. It is precisely for that reason that we are going to
Stoke Moran this day. I want to see whether the objections are fatal,
or if they may be explained away. But what in the name of the devil!
The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the fact that our
door had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had framed
himself in the aperture. His costume was a peculiar mixture of the
professional and of the agricultural, having a black top-hat, a long
frock-coat, and a pair of high gaiters, with a hunting-crop swinging in
his hand. So tall was he that his hat actually brushed the cross bar of
the doorway, and his breadth seemed to span it across from side to
side. A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with
the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the
other of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high, thin,
fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird
of prey.