[adapted]

by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

HOLMES had been sitting for several hours in silence with his long, thin back bent over a glass bottle in which he was making a very bad-smelling mixture. His head was down on his chest, and to me he looked like a strange, thin bird, with dull grey feathers and a black crest.

“So, Watson,” he said, suddenly, “you do not plan to put money into South African investments?”

I jumped with surprise. Even though I was used to Holmes’s strange skills, this sudden look into my most private thoughts was completely impossible to explain.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

He turned around on his stool, with a hot test tube in his hand, and an amused look in his eyes.

“Now, Watson, admit you are completely surprised,” he said.

“I am.”

“I should make you sign a paper to say that.”

“Why?”

“Because in five minutes you will say that it is all so very simple.”

“I am sure that I will not say anything like that.”

“You see, my dear Watson,” — he put his test-tube in the rack, and began to speak like a professor talking to his class — “it is not really hard to make a set of guesses, each depending on the one before it and each simple by itself. If, after doing so, one simply leaves out all the middle guesses and shows the audience the beginning and the end, one may make a surprising, though possibly a fake, result. Now, it was not really hard, by looking at the line between your left forefinger and thumb, to be sure that you did not plan to put your small savings into the gold fields.”

“I don’t see how they go together.”

“Very likely not; but I can quickly show you a clear connection. Here are the missing parts of the very simple chain: 1. You had chalk between your left finger and thumb when you came back from the club last night. 2. You put chalk there when you play billiards, to keep the cue steady. 3. You only play billiards with Thurston. 4. You told me, four weeks ago, that Thurston had a right to buy some South African land which would end in a month, and which he wanted you to share with him. 5. Your checkbook is locked in my drawer, and you have not asked for the key. 6. You do not plan to invest your money in this way.”

“How very simple!” I shouted.

“Exactly!” he said, a little annoyed. “Every problem becomes very easy when someone explains it to you. Here is one that is not explained. See what you can understand from that, friend Watson.” He threw a piece of paper on the table, and turned again to his chemical work.

I looked with surprise at the silly signs on the paper.

“Oh, Holmes, it is a child’s drawing,” I said.

“Oh, that’s your idea!”

“What else could it be?”

That is what Mr. Hilton Cubitt, of Riding Thorpe Manor, Norfolk, wants very much to know. This little puzzle came in the first mail, and he was going to come on the next train. The bell is ringing, Watson. I would not be very surprised if this is him.

A heavy step was heard on the stairs, and a moment later there came in a tall, rosy gentleman with no beard, whose clear eyes and red cheeks showed a life lived far from the fogs of Baker Street. He seemed to bring a breath of his strong, fresh, cool, east-coast air with him as he entered. After shaking hands with each of us, he was going to sit down, when his eye stopped on the paper with the strange marks, which I had just looked at and left on the table.

“Well, Mr. Holmes, what do you think of these?” he said. “They told me that you liked strange mysteries, and I don’t think you can find a stranger one than that. I sent the paper ahead, so that you could have time to study it before I came.”

“It is certainly a rather strange thing,” said Holmes. “At first look it seems to be a childish joke. It is made up of a number of silly little figures dancing across the paper on which they are drawn. Why should you give any importance to so strange an object?”

“I wouldn’t, Mr. Holmes. But my wife does. It is scaring her very much. She says nothing, but I can see fear in her eyes. That’s why I want to find out the truth.”

Holmes held up the paper so the sunlight shone on it. It was a page torn out of a notebook. The marks were done in pencil, and looked like this: —

Holmes looked at it for some time, and then, folding it carefully, he put it in his wallet.

“This looks like a very interesting and unusual case,” he said. “You gave me a few details in your letter, Mr. Hilton Cubitt, but I would be very grateful if you could please tell it all again to help my friend, Dr. Watson.”

“I’m not good at telling stories,” said our visitor, nervously opening and closing his big, strong hands. “Just ask me about anything that I don’t make clear. I’ll begin at the time of my marriage last year, but I want to say first that, although I’m not a rich man, my family has been at Riding Thorpe for about five hundred years, and there is no family better known in the County of Norfolk. Last year I went to London for the Jubilee, and I stayed at a boarding house in Russell Square, because Parker, the priest of our parish, was staying there. There was an American young woman there — Patrick was the name — Elsie Patrick. Somehow we became friends, and before my month was up I was as in love as a man could be. We were married quietly at a registry office, and we returned to Norfolk as a married couple. You will think it very foolish, Mr. Holmes, that a man from a good old family should marry a wife in this way, knowing nothing of her past or of her family, but if you saw her and knew her, it would help you to understand.”

“She was very honest about it, was Elsie. I can’t say that she did not give me every chance to get out of it if I wanted to do so. ‘I have had some very unpleasant things in my life,’ said she, ‘I wish to forget all about them. I would rather never speak of the past, for it is very painful to me. If you take me, Hilton, you will take a woman who has nothing she needs to be personally ashamed of, but you will have to accept my word for it, and to allow me to be silent about all that happened up to the time when I became yours. If these conditions are too hard, then go back to Norfolk, and leave me to the lonely life where you found me.’ It was only the day before our wedding that she said those very words to me. I told her that I was happy to accept her on her own terms, and I have kept my word.”

“Well, we have been married for a year now, and very happy we have been. But about a month ago, at the end of June, I saw the first signs of trouble. One day my wife received a letter from America. I saw the American stamp. She turned very pale, read the letter, and threw it into the fire. She made no mention of it afterwards, and I did not mention it, for a promise is a promise, but she has not had one easy hour from that moment. There is always a look of fear on her face — a look as if she were waiting and expecting. She would do better to trust me. She would find that I was her best friend. But until she speaks, I can say nothing. Please remember, she is an honest woman, Mr. Holmes, and whatever trouble there may have been in her past, it was not her fault. I am only a simple Norfolk country gentleman, but there is not a man in England who values his family honour more than I do. She knows it well, and she knew it well before she married me. She would never bring any shame on it — of that I am sure.”

“Well, now I come to the strange part of my story. About a week ago — it was the Tuesday of last week — I found on one of the window-sills a number of silly little dancing pictures like these on the paper. They were roughly drawn with chalk. I thought that it was the boy who works with the horses who had drawn them, but the boy swore he knew nothing about it. Anyway, they had come there during the night. I had them cleaned off, and I only spoke about it to my wife afterwards. To my surprise, she took it very seriously, and asked me very seriously, if any more came, to let her see them. None came for a week, and then yesterday morning I found this paper lying on the sun clock in the garden. I showed it to Elsie, and she fell down in a faint. Since then she has looked like a woman in a dream, half in a daze, and with fear always hiding in her eyes. It was then that I wrote and sent the paper to you, Mr. Holmes. It was not something that I could take to the police, because they would have laughed at me, but you will tell me what to do. I am not a rich man, but if there is any danger to my dear wife, I would spend my last coin to protect her.”

He was a good man, this man from the old English countryside — simple, honest, and gentle, with his big, serious blue eyes and wide, good-looking face. His love for his wife and his trust in her showed in his face. Holmes had listened to his story very carefully, and now he sat for some time in silent thought.

“Don’t you think, Mr. Cubitt,” he said, at last, “that your best plan would be to talk to your wife directly, and to ask her to share her secret with you?”

Hilton Cubitt shook his very big head.

“A promise is a promise, Mr. Holmes. If Elsie wanted to tell me she would. If not, I must not make her tell me. But I am right to do things my own way — and I will.”

“Then I will help you very gladly. First, have you heard that anyone has seen any strangers in your area?”

“No.”

“I think that it is a very quiet place. Would any new person make people talk?”

“In the nearby area, yes. But we have several small seaside towns not very far away. And the farmers rent rooms to visitors.”

“These signs clearly have a meaning. If it is just random, it may be impossible for us to understand it. If, on the other hand, it follows rules, I am sure that we shall find out the truth. But this small example is so short that I cannot do anything, and the information which you have brought me is so unclear that we have no starting point to investigate. I would advise that you go back to Norfolk, that you watch carefully, and that you make an exact copy of any new dancing men that may appear. It is very sad that we have not a copy of the ones that were done in chalk on the window-sill. Make a quiet inquiry also about any strangers in the area. When you have collected some new information, come to me again. That is the best advice which I can give you, Mr. Hilton Cubitt. If there are any urgent new events, I shall be always ready to come quickly and see you in your Norfolk home.”

The meeting made Sherlock Holmes think a lot, and several times in the next few days I saw him take his small piece of paper from his notebook and look for a long time and seriously at the strange signs written on it. He did not speak about the case, however, until one afternoon about two weeks later. I was going out when he called me back.

“You should stay here, Watson.”

“Why?”

“Because I got a message from Hilton Cubitt this morning. You remember Hilton Cubitt, of the dancing men? He was to arrive at Liverpool Street at one-twenty. He may be here at any moment. I understand from his message that there have been some new important events.”

We did not have to wait long, because our gentleman from Norfolk came straight from the station as fast as a cab could bring him. He was looking worried and sad, with tired eyes and a wrinkled forehead.

“It’s making me very nervous, this business, Mr. Holmes,” said he, as he sat down, like a tired man, in an armchair. “It’s bad enough to feel that you are surrounded by people you cannot see or know, who have some kind of plan against you, but when, besides that, you know that it is just killing your wife, bit by bit, then it is as much as a human can bear. She’s getting weaker because of it — just getting weaker before my eyes.”

“Has she said anything yet?”

“No, Mr. Holmes, she has not. And yet there have been times when the poor girl has wanted to speak, and yet could not quite make herself do it. I have tried to help her, but I think I did it badly, and scared her away from it. She has spoken about my old family, and our reputation in the county, and our pride in our honour that is not spoiled, and I always felt it was leading to the point, but somehow it changed before we got there.”

“But you have found out something for yourself?”

“A lot, Mr. Holmes. I have several new pictures of dancing men for you to look at, and, more important, I have seen the man.”

“What, the man who draws them?”

“Yes, I saw him at his work. But I will tell you everything step by step. When I got back after my visit to you, the very first thing I saw the next morning was a new set of dancing men. They had been drawn in chalk on the black wooden door of the tool shed, which stands next to the lawn in clear view of the front windows. I took an exact copy, and here it is.” He opened the paper and put it on the table. Here is a copy of the symbols: —