the fate of the unhappy native who is
subjected to the ordeal by the priest of his tribe. I told him also
how powerless European science would be to detect it. How he took it I
cannot say, for I never left the room, but there is no doubt that it
was then, while I was opening cabinets and stooping to boxes, that he
managed to abstract some of the devil's-foot root. I well remember how
he plied me with questions as to the amount and the time that was
needed for its effect, but I little dreamed that he could have a
personal reason for asking.

"I thought no more of the matter until the vicar's telegram reached me
at Plymouth. This villain had thought that I would be at sea before
the news could reach me, and that I should be lost for years in Africa.
But I returned at once. Of course, I could not listen to the details
without feeling assured that my poison had been used. I came round to
see you on the chance that some other explanation had suggested itself
to you. But there could be none. I was convinced that Mortimer
Tregennis was the murderer; that for the sake of money, and with the
idea, perhaps, that if the other members of his family were all insane
he would be the sole guardian of their joint property, he had used the
devil's-foot powder upon them, driven two of them out of their senses,
and killed his sister Brenda, the one human being whom I have ever
loved or who has ever loved me. There was his crime; what was to be
his punishment?

"Should I appeal to the law? Where were my proofs? I knew that the
facts were true, but could I help to make a jury of countrymen believe
so fantastic a story? I might or I might not. But I could not afford
to fail. My soul cried out for revenge. I have said to you once
before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent much of my life outside the law,
and that I have come at last to be a law to myself. So it was even
now. I determined that the fate which he had given to others should be
shared by himself. Either that or I would do justice upon him with my
own hand. In all England there can be no man who sets less value upon
his own life than I do at the present moment.

"Now I have told you all. You have yourself supplied the rest. I did,
as you say, after a restless night, set off early from my cottage. I
foresaw the difficulty of arousing him, so I gathered some gravel from
the pile which you have mentioned, and I used it to throw up to his
window. He came down and admitt