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Page 27
"And if it is still empty?"
"In that case I shall come out to-morrow and talk it
over with you. Good-by; and, above all, do not fret
until you know that you really have a cause for it."
"I am afraid that this is a bad business, Watson,"
said my companion, as he returned after accompanying
Mr. Grant Munro to the door. "What do you make of
it?"
"It had an ugly sound," I answered.
"Yes. There's blackmail in it, or I am much
mistaken."
"And who is the blackmailer?"
"Well, it must be the creature who lives in the only
comfortable room in the place, and has her photograph
above his fireplace. Upon my word, Watson, there is
something very attractive about that livid face at the
window, and I would not have missed the case for
worlds."
"You have a theory?"
"Yes, a provisional one. But I shall be surprised if
it does not turn out to be correct. This woman's
first husband is in that cottage."
"Why do you think so?"
"How else can we explain her frenzied anxiety that her
second one should not enter it? The facts, as I read
them, are something like this: This woman was married
in America. Her husband developed some hateful
qualities; or shall we say that he contracted some
loathsome disease, and became a leper or an imbecile?
She flies from him at last, returns to England,
changes her name, and starts her life, as she thinks,
afresh. She has been married three years, and
believes that her position is quite secure, having
shown her husband the death certificate of some man
whose name she has assumed, when suddenly her
whereabouts is discovered by her first husband; or, we
may suppose, by some unscrupulous woman who has
attached herself to the invalid. They write to the
wife, and threaten to come and expose her. She asks
for a hundred pounds, and endeavors to buy them off.
They come in spite of it, and when the husband
mentions casually to the wife that there are new-comers
in the cottage, she knows in some way that they are
her pursuers. She waits until her husband is asleep,
and then she rushes down to endeavor to persuade them
to leave her in peace. Having no success, she goes
again next morning, and her husband meets her, as he
has told us, as she comes out. She promises him then
not to go there again, but two days afterwards the
hope of getting rid of those dreadful neighbors was
too strong for her, and she made another attempt,
taking down with her the photograph which had probably
been demanded from her. In the midst of this
interview the maid rushed in to say that the master
had come home, on which the wife, knowing that he
would come straight down to the cottage, hurried the
inmates out at the back door, into the grove of
fir-trees, probably, which was mentioned as standing
near. In this way he found the place deserted. I
shall be very much surprised, however, if it still so
when he reconnoitres it this evening. What do you
think of my theory?"
"It is all surmise."
"But at least it covers all the facts. When new facts
come to our knowledge which cannot be covered by it,
it will be time enough to reconsider it. We can do
nothing more until we have a message from our friend
at Norbury."
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