think I have known how to frame the letter," said Sherlock Holmes.
"In fact, if I am not very much mistaken, here is the gentleman himself
coming up the drive."

A man was striding up the path which led to the door. He was a tall,
handsome, swarthy fellow, clad in a suit of gray flannel, with a Panama
hat, a bristling black beard, and a great, aggressive hooked nose, and
flourishing a cane as he walked. He swaggered up a path as if as if
the place belonged to him, and we heard his loud, confident peal at the
bell.

"I think, gentlemen," said Holmes, quietly, "that we had best take up
our position behind the door. Every precaution is necessary when dealing
with such a fellow. You will need your handcuffs, Inspector. You can
leave the talking to me."

We waited in silence for a minute--one of those minutes which one can
never forget. Then the door opened and the man stepped in. In an instant
Holmes clapped a pistol to his head, and Martin slipped the handcuffs
over his wrists. It was all done so swiftly and deftly that the fellow
was helpless before he knew that he was attacked. He glared from one to
the other of us with a pair of blazing black eyes. Then he burst into a
bitter laugh.

"Well, gentlemen, you have the drop on me this time. I seem to have
knocked up against something hard. But I came here in answer to a letter
from Mrs. Hilton Cubitt. Don't tell me that she is in this? Don't tell
me that she helped to set a trap for me?"

"Mrs. Hilton Cubitt was seriously injured, and is at death's door."

The man gave a hoarse cry of grief, which rang through the house.

"You're crazy!" he cried, fiercely. "It was he that was hurt, not she.
Who would have hurt little Elsie? I may have threatened her--God forgive
me!--but I would not have touched a hair of her pretty head. Take it
back--you! Say that she is not hurt!"

"She was found badly wounded, by the side of her dead husband."

He sank with a deep groan on the settee and buried his face in his
manacled hands. For five minutes he was silent. Then he raised his face
once more, and spoke with the cold composure of despair.

"I have nothing to hide from you, gentlemen," said he. "If I shot the
man he had his shot at me, and there's no murder in that. But if you
think I could have hurt that woman, then you don't know either me or
her. I tell you, there was never a man in this world loved a woman more
than I loved her. I had a right to her. She was pledged to me ye