“Does he always guard the premises in this way?” asked Holmes.

“Yes; he has followed my father’s custom. He was the favourite son you know, and I sometimes think that my father may have told him more than he ever told me. That is Bartholomew’s window up there where the moonshine strikes. It is quite bright, but there is no light from within, I think.”

“None,” said Holmes. “But I see the glint of a light in that little window beside the door.”

“Ah, that is the housekeeper’s room. That is where old Mrs. Bernstone sits. She can tell us all about it. But perhaps you would not mind waiting here for a minute or two, for if we all go in together, and she has had no word of our coming, she may be alarmed. But, hush! what is that?”

He held up the lantern, and his hand shook until the circles of light flickered and wavered all round us. Miss Morstan seized my wrist, and we all stood, with thumping hearts, straining our ears. From the great black house there sounded through the silent night the saddest and most pitiful of sounds—the shrill, broken whimpering of a frightened woman.

“It is Mrs. Bernstone,” said Sholto. “She is the only woman in the house. Wait here. I shall be back in a moment.”

He hurried for the door and knocked in his peculiar way. We could see a tall old woman admit him and sway with pleasure at the very sight of him.

“Oh, Mr. Thaddeus, sir, I am so glad you have come! I am so glad you have come, Mr. Thaddeus, sir!”

We heard her reiterated rejoicings until the door was closed and her voice died away into a muffled monotone.

Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung it slowly round and peered keenly at the house and at the great rubbish-heaps which cumbered the grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two, who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us.

“What a strange place!” she said, looking round.

“It looks as though all the moles in England had been let loose in it. I have seen something of the sort on the side of a hill near Ballarat, where the prospectors had been at work.”

“And from the same cause,” said Holmes. “These are the traces of the treasureseekers. You must remember that they were six years looking for it. No wonder that the grounds look like a gravel-pit.”

At that moment the door of the house burst open, and Thaddeus Sholto came running out, with his hands thrown forward and terror in his eyes.

“There is something amiss with Bartholomew!” he cried. “I am frightened! My nerves cannot stand it.”

He was, indeed, half blubbering with fear, and his twitching, feeble face peeping out from the great astrakhan collar had the helpless, appealing expression of a terrified child.

“Come into the house,” said Holmes in his crisp, firm way.

“Yes, do!” pleaded Thaddeus Sholto. “I really do not feel equal to giving directions.”