"
With a motherly tenderness the gaunt woman put her arm round her
mistress and led her from the room.
"She has been with her all her life," said Hopkins.
"Nursed her as a baby, and came with her to England
when they first left Australia eighteen months ago.
Theresa Wright is her name, and the kind of maid you don't
pick up nowadays. This way, Mr. Holmes, if you please!"
The keen interest had passed out of Holmes's expressive face,
and I knew that with the mystery all the charm of the case had
departed. There still remained an arrest to be effected,
but what were these commonplace rogues that he should soil his
hands with them? An abstruse and learned specialist who finds
that he has been called in for a case of measles would experience
something of the annoyance which I read in my friend's eyes.
Yet the scene in the dining-room of the Abbey Grange was
sufficiently strange to arrest his attention and to recall
his waning interest.
It was a very large and high chamber, with carved oak ceiling,
oaken panelling, and a fine array of deer's heads and ancient
weapons around the walls. At the farther end from the door was
the high French window of which we had heard.
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