3 A Trip to Norfolk

Chapter 3 A Trip to Norfolk Sherlock Holmes kept up his calm, professional manner until our visitor had departed. Once Hilton Cubitt's broad back had disappeared through the door, my friend rushed over to the table. He laid out all the slips of paper, then threw himself into an intense examination of the dancing men. For two hours he covered sheet after sheet of his notepad with figures and letters. So absorbed was he in this task that he completely forgot I was there.

Sometimes, as he made progress, he sang and whistled while he worked; at other times, when he was stuck, he would sit in silence, frowning at the symbols as if trying to force them to make sense. Finally, he sprang from his chair with a cry of triumph and walked around the room rubbing his hands together. Then he wrote a long telegram. "If this brings the answer I expect, Watson," he said, "then you'll have another very pretty case to write about. I hope the answer will come tomorrow and then we can go to Norfolk and explain the whole mystery to our friend." But the answer to the telegram didn't come the next day, nor the day after that, and my friend

grew increasingly impatient. On the evening of the second day, a letter arrived from Hilton Cubitt. He had found some more dancing men written on the pedestal of the sundial. Here is the copy he made... After studying these for some minutes, Holmes let out a gasp of surprise and dismay. "We have to go to Norfolk at once!" he exclaimed. "Is there a train to North Walsham tonight?" "The last one has just gone," I said, after checking the timetable. "Then we must take the first one tomorrow morning." Our landlady Mrs. Hudson came in with a telegram—the long expected reply to the one Holmes had sent. "Just as I expected," said Holmes, after he had read it. I had rarely seen him look so gaunt with anxiety. "This makes it even more essential that

we inform Mr. Cubitt of the situation, for he has no idea what terrible danger he is in." As it turned out, Holmes was right. How I wish we could have taken that earlier train and thus prevented the dark conclusion of this story. We had barely stepped off the train at North Walsham the following morning when the station master hurried toward us. "I suppose you are the detectives from London heading for Ridling Thorpe Manor?" he panted.

A look of fear passed across Holmes's face. "Why do you ask?" he said. "Or maybe you are the surgeons? She's not dead—or wasn't the last I heard. You may be in time to save her yet, even if it's only for the gallows." "We are going to Ridling Thorpe Manor," said Holmes, "but we've heard nothing of what's happened there." "It's a terrible business," said the stationmaster. "Mrs. Cubitt shot her husband and then herself, so the servants say. He's dead, and her life is hanging by a thread. Dear me! And to

think the Cubitts are one of the oldest and most respected families in Norfolk." Without a word, Holmes hurried to a waiting carriage. During the drive to Ridling Thorpe, he never opened his mouth. The pretty Norfolk countryside was entirely lost on him. I've seldom seen him so despondent. At last we came in sight of Ridling Thorpe Manor, a beautiful old brick-and-timber house rising above a grove of trees. As we drove up to the front door we passed the sundial on the lawn and the toolshed where the messages had appeared.