"You are an impudent fellow!" cried Theresa. "Do you mean to
say that my mistress has told a lie?"
Holmes rose from his chair.
"Have you nothing to tell me?"
"I have told you everything."
"Think once more, Lady Brackenstall. Would it not be better
to be frank?"
For an instant there was hesitation in her beautiful face.
Then some new strong thought caused it to set like a mask.
"I have told you all I know."
Holmes took his hat and shrugged his shoulders. "I am sorry,"
he said, and without another word we left the room and the
house. There was a pond in the park, and to this my friend
led the way. It was frozen over, but a single hole was left
for the convenience of a solitary swan. Holmes gazed at it and
then passed on to the lodge gate. There he scribbled a short
note for Stanley Hopkins and left it with the lodge-keeper.
"It may be a hit or it may be a miss, but we are bound to do
something for friend Hopkins, just to justify this second visit,"
said he. "I will not quite take him into my confidence yet.
I think our next scene of operations must be the shipping office
of the Adelaide-Southampton line, which stands at the end of
Pall Mall, if I remember right.
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