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"So you did not yourself see it, on that former tragic occasion?"
"No, sir. No one did."
"But surely, Mrs. Castle, the present Miss Caston's former maid, Lucy, saw the white fox in the fields at the time of the elder lady's death?"
"Perhaps she did, sir. For it would have been about," Mrs. Castle replied ominously.
"Well, I must not keep you any longer, Mrs. Castle."
"No, sir. I need to see to my kitchen. Some cold cuts of meat have been stolen from the larder, just as happened before."
"Cold meat, you say?"
"I think someone has been in. Someone other than should have been, sir. Twice I found the door to the yard unlocked."
When she had left us, Holmes did not pause. He called in the footman, Vine. The boy appeared nervous and awkward as he had during di
"However, food has been stolen from the kitchen, has it not?"
"So cook says," the boy answered sullenly.
"A gypsy, perhaps, or a vagrant."
"I saw no one. And in the snow, they would leave their footprints."
"Well done. Yes, one would think so."
"I saw the letters dug out there," blurted the boy, "and Miss Caston standing over them, with her hand to her mouth. Look here, she says to me, who has written this?"
"And who had?"
The boy stared hard at Holmes. "You are a famous gentleman, sir. And I am nothing. Do you suspect me?"
"Should I?"
Vine cried out, "I never did anything I should not have! Not I. I wish I never had stayed here. I should have left when Lucy did. Miss Caston was a hard mistress."
I frowned, but Holmes said, amiably, "Lucy. She was obliged to care for her ailing mother, I believe."
Vine looked flustered, but he said, "The mistress never mourned her aunt, the old woman. Mistress likes only her books and piano, and her thoughts. I asked her leave to go home for the Christmas afternoon. We live only a mile or so distant, at Crowby. I should have been back by nightfall. And she says to me, Oh no, Vine. I will have you here."
"It was your place to be here," I said, "at such a time. You were then the only man in the house."
Holmes dismissed the boy.
I would have said more, but Holmes forestalled me. Instead we saw the maid, Reynolds, who had waited at di
Lastly Nettie Prince came in, the successor to Lucy, and now Miss Caston's personal maid. She had been at the house only a few months.
Nettie was decorous and at ease, treating Holmes, I thought, to his surprise, as some kind of elevated policeman.
"Is your mistress fair to you?" Holmes asked her at once.
"Yes, sir. Perfectly fair."
"You have no cause for complaint."
"None, sir. In my last employment the mistress had a temper. But Miss Caston stays cool."
"You are not fond of her, then?"
Nettie Prince raised her eyes. "I do not ask to love her, sir. Only to please her as best I can. She is appreciative of what I do, in her own way."
"Do you believe the tales of a curse on the Caston women?"
"I have heard stranger things."
"Have you."
"Miss Caston is not afraid of it, sir. I think besides she would be the match for any man, thief or murderer-even a ghost. Old Sir Hugh de Castone himself would have had to be wary of her."
"Why do you say that?"
"She talks very little of her past, but she made her way in the world with only her wits. She will not suffer a fool. And she knows a great deal."
"Yet she has sent for me."
"Yes, sir." Nettie Prince looked down. "She spoke of you, sir, and I understand you are a very important and clever gentleman."
"And yet."
Nettie said, "I am amazed, sir, at her, wanting you in. From all I know of Miss Caston, I would say she would sit up with a pistol or a dagger in her lap, and face anything out-alone!"
"Well, Watson," said Holmes, when we were once more by ourselves in the parlour.
"That last girl, Nettie Prince, seems to have the right of it. An admirable woman, Miss Caston, brave as a lioness."
"But also cold and selfish. Unsympathetic to and intolerant of her inferiors. Does anything else strike you?"
"An oddity in names, Holmes."
Holmes glanced my way. "Pray enlighten me."
"The letters in the snow, ENRV. And here we have a Nettie, a Reynolds and a Vine."
"The E?"
"Perhaps for Eleanor Caston herself."
"I see. And perhaps it strikes you too, Watson, the similarity between the names Castle and Caston? Or between Caston and Watson, each of which is almost an anagram of the other, with only the C and the W being different. Just as, for example, both your name and that of our own paragon, Mrs. Hudson, end in S.O.N."
"Holmes!"
"No, Watson, my dear fellow, you are being too complex. Think."
I thought, and shook my head.
"ENR," said Holmes, "I believe to be an abbreviation of the one name, Eleanor, where the E begins, the N centres, and the R finishes."
"But the V, Holmes."
"Not a V, Watson, a Roman five. A warning of the five dangerous days, or that Miss Caston will be the fifth victim of the Gall. Just as the number five is written in her study, where I should now like to inspect it."
Miss Caston had not gone to bed. This was not to be wondered at, yet she asked us nothing when she appeared in the upper corridor, where now the gas burned low.
"The room is here," she said, and opened a door. "A moment, while I light a lamp."
When she moved forward and struck the match, her elegant figure was outlined on the light. As she raised the lamp, a bright blue flash on the forefinger of her right hand showed a ring. It was a square cut gem, which I took at first for a pale sapphire.
"There, Mr. Holmes, Doctor. Do you see?"
The number was written in red, and quite large, above the height of a man, on the old plaster of the wall which, in most other areas, was hidden by shelves of books.
"Quite so." Holmes went forward, looked about, and took hold of a librarian's steps, kept no doubt so that Miss Caston could reach the higher book shelves. Standing up on the steps, Holmes craned close, and inspected the number. "Would you bring the lamp nearer. Thank you. Why, Miss Caston, what an exquisite ring."
"Yes, it is. It was my aunt's and too big for me, but in London today it was made to fit. A blue topaz. I am often fascinated, Mr. Holmes, by those things which are reckoned to be one thing, but are, in reality, another."
"Where are you, Watson?" asked Holmes. I duly approached. "Look at this number." I obeyed. The five was very carefully drawn, I thought, despite its size, yet in some places the edges had run, giving it a thorny, bloody look. Holmes said no more, however, and descended from the steps.
"Is it paint, Holmes?"
"Ink, I believe."
Miss Caston assented. She pointed to a bottle standing on her desk, among the books and papers there. "My own ink. And the instrument too-this paper knife."
"Yes. The stain is still on it. And here is another stain, on the blotting paper, where it was laid down."
Holmes crossed the room, and pulled aside one of the velvet curtains. Outside the night had again given way to snow. Opening the window, he leaned forth into the fluttering darkness. "The ivy is torn somewhat on the wall." He leaned out yet further. Snow fell past him, and dappled the floor. "But, curiously, not further down." He now craned upwards and the lamplight caught his face, hard as ivory, the eyes gleaming. "It is possible the intruder came down from the roof rather than up from the garden below. The bough of a tree almost touches the leads just there. But it is very thin."