Tregennis had been a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon
middle age. Her dark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in
death, but there still lingered upon it something of that
convulsion of horror which had been her last human emotion. From
her bedroom we descended to the sitting-room, where this strange
tragedy had actually occurred. The charred ashes of the
overnight fire lay in the grate. On the table were the four
guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards scattered over
its surface. The chairs had been moved back against the walls,
but all else was as it had been the night before. Holmes paced
with light, swift steps about the room; he sat in the various
chairs, drawing them up and reconstructing their positions. He
tested how much of the garden was visible; he examined the floor,
the ceiling, and the fireplace; but never once did I see that
sudden brightening of his eyes and tightening of his lips which
would have told me that he saw some gleam of light in this utter
darkness.

"Why a fire?" he asked once. "Had they always a fire in this
small room on a spring evening?"

Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp.
For that reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit. "What are
you going to do now, Mr. Holmes?" he asked.

My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. "I think,
Watson, that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning
which you have so often and so justly condemned," said he. "With
your permission, gentlemen, we will now return to our cottage,
for I am not aware that any new factor is likely to come to our