he news so early this morning."

"I am an early riser and generally take a walk before breakfast. This
morning I had hardly started when the doctor in his carriage overtook
me. He told me that old Mrs. Porter had sent a boy down with an urgent
message. I sprang in beside him and we drove on. When we got there we
looked into that dreadful room. The candles and the fire must have
burned out hours before, and they had been sitting there in the dark
until dawn had broken. The doctor said Brenda must have been dead at
least six hours. There were no signs of violence. She just lay across
the arm of the chair with that look on her face. George and Owen were
singing snatches of songs and gibbering like two great apes. Oh, it
was awful to see! I couldn't stand it, and the doctor was as white as
a sheet. Indeed, he fell into a chair in a sort of faint, and we
nearly had him on our hands as well."

"Remarkable--most remarkable!" said Holmes, rising and taking his hat.
"I think, perhaps, we had better go down to Tredannick Wartha without
further delay. I confess that I have seldom known a case which at
first sight presented a more singular problem."

Our proceedings of that first morning did little to advance the
investigation. It was marked, however, at the outset by an incident
which left the most sinister impression upon my mind. The approach to
the spot at which the tragedy occurred is down a narrow, winding,
country lane. While we made our way along it we heard the rattle of a
carriage coming towards us and stood aside to let it pass. As it drove
by us I caught a glimpse through the closed window of a horribly
contorted, grinning face glaring out at us. Those staring eyes and
gnashing teeth flashed past us like a dreadful vision.

"My brothers!" cried Mortimer Tregennis, white to his lips. "They are
taking them to Helston."

We looked with horror after the black carriage, lumbering upon its way.
Then we turned our steps towards this ill-omened house in which they
had met their strange fate.

It was a large and bright dwelling, rather a villa than a cottage, with
a considerable garden which was already, in that Cornish air, well
filled with spring flowers. Towards this garden the window of the
sitting-room fronted, and from it, according to Mortimer Tregennis,
must have come that thing of evil which had by sheer horror in a single
instant blasted their minds. Holmes walked slowly and thoughtfully
among