The Adventure of the Dancing Men
Sherlock Holmes and I had hardly alighted at North Walsham when the stationmaster hurried towards us. "I suppose that you are the detectives from London?" said he.
A look of annoyance passed over Holmes' face.
"What makes you think such a thing?”
"Because Inspector Martin from Norwich has just passed through. But maybe you are the surgeons. She's not dead or wasn't by last accounts. You may be in time to save her yet, though it be for the gallows.”
Holmes' brow was dark with anxiety.
"We are going to Riding Thorpe Manor," said he, "but we have heard nothing of what has passed there.”
"It's a terrible business," said the stationmaster. "They are shot, both Mr. Hilton Cubitt and his wife. She shot him and then herself in the study—so the servants say. He's dead, and her life is despaired of. Dear, dear, one of the oldest families in the county of Norfolk, and one of the most honoured.”
Without a word Holmes hurried to a carriage, and during the long seven miles' drive he never opened his mouth. Seldom have I seen him so utterly despondent. He had been uneasy during all our journey from town, and I had observed that he had turned over the morning papers with anxious attention, but now this sudden realization of his worst fears left him in a blank melancholy.
Seventeen days ago, Hilton Cubitt had arrived at our lodgings in Baker Street with what he believed at first to be absurd childish hieroglyphics of dancing men that had been left in the house by some prankster.
The sight of these dancing men, however, terrified his wife to the point that Hilton Cubitt believed them to be killing her by inches. Mrs. Hilton Cubitt, née Elsie Patrick, was American and evidently had some disagreeable associations in her past. She wished to forget these associations and, as a condition of marriage, told her husband never to allude to or enquire about them. Hilton Cubitt loved her and immediately agreed. He told us he had refused to enquire what upset her about a letter she once received from America. His wife's face had turned white, and she had thrown the letter into a fire. He resolutely would not ask now why the hieroglyphics upset her.
"A promise is a promise, Mr. Holmes," Hilton Cubitt had said. "If Elsie wished to tell me she would. If not, it is not for me to force her confidence. But I am justified in taking my own line to get to the bottom of the matter, and I will."
Holmes took the case, as it was a promising and most unusual kind. A fortnight later, Hilton Cubitt arrived on our doorstep with more of the hieroglyphics, to Holmes' delight, and the information that he had seen an unknown man near this latest one.
The moment that Hilton Cubitt's broad back had disappeared through the door my comrade rushed to the table, laid out all the slips of paper containing dancing men in front of him, and threw himself into an intricate and elaborate calculation. For two hours I watched him as he covered sheet after sheet of paper with figures and letters, so completely absorbed in his task that he had evidently forgotten my presence. Sometimes he was making progress and whistled and sang at his work; sometimes he was puzzled and would sit for long spells with a furrowed brow and a vacant eye. Finally, he sprang from his chair with a cry of satisfaction and walked up and down the room rubbing his hands together. Then he wrote a long telegram upon a cable form.
"If my answer to this is as I hope, you will have a very pretty case to add to your collection, Watson," said he. "I expect that we shall be able to go down to Norfolk tomorrow and to take our friend some very definite news as to the secret of his annoyance.”
There was a delay, however, in the answer to Holmes' telegram, and it was my friend's belief that this delay proved fatal to Hilton Cubitt. We had missed the last train to North Walsham and were compelled to take the first train this morning. The telegram included a most disturbing message that Holmes deciphered.
Holmes' investigation of the study showed that there was indeed a third person near the window, as there was a bullet hole in the window sash, and that the bullet had been fired from Hilton Cubitt's weapon. If we could capture that third person, we could clear Elsie Cubitt of all suspicion of wrongdoing. Holmes sent the following scrawl to Elridge's Farm addressed to an Abe Slaney.
Holmes suggested, based on the American nickname of "Abe" and the nature of the notes, Slaney had a past romantic entanglement with Mrs. Cubitt and it was Slaney whom Mrs. Cubitt was desperate to escape and forget.
"I think, Inspector," Holmes remarked, "that you would do well to let Watson post what has happened so far and the hieroglyphic messages on the geocaching website to gather an escort of geocachers, as, if my calculations prove to be correct, you may have a particularly dangerous prisoner to convey to the county jail and geocachers are an intrepid folk. Tell them, Watson, that they may find this extremely useful and to pay particular attention to the message that I wrote. I recommend they use this resource to verify the meeting place as well as the best place for coach parking."