第22期:来到费尔班寓所(3)

"I shall never let it drop until the gems are found -- never, Mary! Your affection for Arthur blinds you as to the awful consequences to me.

Far from hushing the thing up, I have brought a gentleman down from London to inquire more deeply into it." "This gentleman?" she asked, facing round to me.

"No, his friend. He wished us to leave him alone. He is round in the stable lane now." "The stable lane?" She raised her dark eyebrows. "What can he hope to find there?

Ah! this, I suppose, is he. I trust, sir, that you will succeed in proving, what I feel sure is the truth, that my cousin Arthur is innocent of this crime."

"I fully share your opinion, and I trust, with you, that we may prove it," returned Holmes, going back to the mat to knock the snow from his shoes. "I believe I have the honour of addressing Miss Mary Holder. Might I ask you a question or two?"

"Pray do, sir, if it may help to clear this horrible affair up." "You heard nothing yourself last night?"

"Nothing, until my uncle here began to speak loudly. I heard that, and I came down." "You shut up the windows and doors the night before. Did you fasten all the windows?" "Yes."

"Were they all fastened this morning?" "Yes." "You have a maid who has a sweetheart? I think that you remarked to your uncle last night that she had been out to see him?"

"Yes, and she was the girl who waited in the drawing-room, and who may have heard uncle's remarks about the coronet." "I see. You infer that she may have gone out to tell her sweetheart, and that the two may have planned the robbery."