The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Venture of the Musgrave Ritual by Sir Arthur Keirnan Doyle.
An anomaly which often struck me in the character of
my friend Sherlock Holmes was that although in his methods
of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind,
and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress,
he was none the less in his personal habits, one

(00:22):
of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow
lodger to distraction. Not that I am in the least
conventional in that respect myself. The rough and tumbel work
in Afghanistan, coming on the top of natural bohemianism of disposition,
has made me rather more lax than befitsir medical man.
But with me there is a limit. And when I

(00:43):
find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal scuttle,
his tobacco in the tow end of a Persian slipper,
and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jackknife into the
very center of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to
give myself virtuous heirs. I have always held too that
pistol practice should be distinctly an open air pastime. And

(01:07):
when Holmes, in one of his queer humors, would sit
in an armed chair with his hair trigger and a
hundred boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall
with a patriotic v R done in bullet pox. I
felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of
our room was improved by it. Our chambers were always

(01:28):
full of chemicals and of criminal relics, which had a
way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up
in the butter dish or in even less desirable places.
But his papers were my great crucks. He had a
horror of destroying documents, especially those which were connected with
his past cases. And yet it was only once in

(01:49):
every year or two that he would muster energy to
dock it and arrange them. For, as I have mentioned
somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate energy
when he performed the remarkable feats with which his name
is associated were followed by reactions of lethargy, during which
he would lie about with his violin and his books,
hardly moving save from the sofa to the table. Thus,

(02:13):
month after month his papers accumulated until every corner of
the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were
on no account to be burned, and which could not
be put away save by their owner. One winter's night,
as we sat together by the fire, I ventured to
suggest to him that, as he had finished pasting extracts
into his commonplace book, he might employ the next two

(02:37):
hours in making our room a little more habitable. He
could not deny the justice of my request, so with
a rather rueful face, he went off to his bedroom,
from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box
behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor,
and squatting down upon a stool in front of it,
he threw back the lid. I could see that it

(02:58):
was already a third full of bundles of paper, tied
up with red tape into separate packages. There are cases
enough here, Watson said, he looking at me with mischievous eyes.
I think that if you knew all that I had
in this box, you would ask me to pull some
out instead of putting others in. These are the records
of your early work, then I asked. I have often

(03:18):
wished that I had notes of those cases. Yes, my boy,
these were all done prematurely, before my biography had come
to glorify me. He lifted bundle after bundle in a tender,
caressing sort of way. They are not all successes, Watson said, he,
but there are some pretty little problems among them. Ah,
here's the record of the Tarletan murders, and the case

(03:40):
of Vambury, the wine merchant, and the adventure of the
old Russian women, and the singular affair of the aluminum crutch,
as well as a full account of Ricolletti of the
club Foot and his abominable wife. And here and now
this really is something a little rare churchey. He dived
his arm down to the of the chest and brought

(04:01):
up a small wooden box with a sliding lid, such
as children's toys are kept in. From within, he produced
a crumpled piece of paper, an old fashioned brass key,
a peg of wood with a ball of string attached
to it, and three rusty old disks of metal. Well,
my boy, what do you make of this lot, he asked,

(04:21):
smiling at my expression. It is a curious collection, a
very curious and the story that hangs round it will
strike you as being more curious still, Ah, these relics
have a history, then, so much so that they are history.
But what do you mean by that? Shrlock Combs picked

(04:41):
them up one by one and laid them along the
edge of the table. Then he reseated himself in his
chair and looked them over with a gleam of satisfaction
in his eyes. These said he, all that I have
left to remind me of the adventure of the Musgrave ritual.
I had heard him mention the case more than once,

(05:01):
though I had never been able to gather the details.
I should be so glad, said I, if you will
give me an account of it, and leave the litter
as it is. He cried, Mischiefully, Your tightness won't bear
much strain, after all, Watson, But I should be glad
that you should add this case to your annals, for
there are points in it which make it quite unique
in the criminal records of this or, I believe, of

(05:23):
any other country. A collection of my trifling achievements would
certainly be incomplete which contained no account of this very
singular business. You may remember, how the affair of the
Gloria Scott and my conversation with the unhappy man whose
fate I told you of first turned my attention in
the direction of the profession which has become my life's work.

(05:43):
You see me now when my name has become known
far and wide, and when I am generally recognized both
by the public and by the official force, as being
a final court of appeal in doubtful cases. Even when
you knew me first at the time of the affair
which you have commemorated a study in Scarlet, I had
already established a considerable, though not a very lucrative connection.

(06:06):
You can hardly realize then, how difficult I find it
at first, and how long I had to wait before
I succeeded in making any headway. When I first came
up to London, I had rooms in Montague Street, just
round the corner from the British Museum, and there I waited,
filling in my too abundant leisure time by studying all
those branches of science which might make me more efficient.

(06:28):
Now and again, cases came in my way, principally through
the introduction of old fellow students, For during my last
years at the university there was a good deal of
talk there about myself and my methods. The third of
these cases was that of the Musgrave ritual. And it
is to the interest which was aroused by that singular
chain of events, and the large issues which proved to
be at stake, that I trace my first stride towards

(06:51):
the position which I now hold. Reginald Musgrave had been
in the same college as myself, and I had some
slight acquaintance with him. He was not generally popular among
the undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that which
was set down as pride was ready in an attempt
to cover extreme and natural diffidence. In appearance, he was
a man of an exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high nosed

(07:15):
and large eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners. He
was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest
families in the Kingdom, though his branch was a cadet
one which had separated from the Northern Mar's Graves at
some time in the sixteenth century and had established itself
in western Sussex, where the manor house of Hurlstone is
perhaps the oldest inhabited building in the county. Something of

(07:37):
his birthplace seemed to cling to the man, and I
never looked at his pale keen face or the poise
of his head, without associating him with gray archways and
mullioned windows and all the venerable wreckage of a feudal keep.
Once or trice we drifted into talk, and I can
remember that more than once he expressed a keen interest
in my methods of observation and inference. For four years

(08:00):
I'd seen nothing of him, until one morning he walked
into my room in Montague Street. He changed little, was
dressed like a young man of fashion. He was always
a bit of a dandy, and preserved the same quiet,
suave manner which had formerly distinguished him. How is all
gone with you, Musgrave, I asked, after we had cordially
shaken hands. You probably heard of my poor father's death,

(08:24):
said he He was carried off about two years ago.
Since then I have, of course had the Houlston estate
to manage, and as I am member for my district
as well, my life has been a busy one. But
I understand, Holmes, that you are turning to practical ends
those paws with which you used to amaze us. Yes,
said I I have taken to livy by my wits.

(08:45):
I am delighted to hear it, for your advice at
present would be exceedingly valuable to me. We've had some
very strange doings at Halstan, and the police have been
able to throw no light upon the matter. It is
really the most extraordinary and inexplicable business. You can imagine
with what eagerness I listened to him, Watson, for the
very chance for which I had been panting during those

(09:06):
months of inactions seemed to have come within my reach.
In my inmost heart, I believe that I could succeed
where others failed, and now I had the opportunity to
test myself. Pray, let me have the details, I cried.
Rachael Musgrave sat down opposite to me and lit the
cigarette which I had pushed towards him. You must know,

(09:27):
said he, that though I am a bachelor, I have
to keep up a considerable staff of servants at Helston,
for it is a rambling old place and takes a
good deal of looking after. I preserve too, and in
the Pesan months I usually have a house party, so
that it would not do to be short handed. Altogether
there are eight maids, the cook, the butler, two footmen

(09:47):
and a boy, the garden and the stables. Of course,
have a separate staff these servants. The one who has
been longest in our service was Brunton, the butler. He
was a young schoolmaster out of place when he was
first taken up by my father, But he was a
man of great energy and character, and he soon became
quite invaluable in the household. He was a well grown,

(10:09):
handsome man with a splendid forehead. And though he has
been with us for twenty years, he cannot be more
than forty now. With his personal advantages and his extraordinary gifts.
Or he can speak several languages and play nearly every
musical instrument. It is wonderful that he should have been
satisfied so long in such a position. But I suppose
that he was comfortable and lacked energy to make any change.

(10:32):
The butler of Hurston is always a thing that is
remembered by all who visit us. But this uh paragon
had one fault. He is a bit of a don John,
and you can imagine that for a man like him,
it is not a very difficult part to play in
a quiet country district. When he was married, it was
all right. But since he has been a widower, we

(10:53):
have had no end of trouble with him. A few
months ago we were in hopes that he was about
to settle down again, for he became engaged to Rachel Howls,
our second housemaid. But he has thrown her over since
then and taken up with Janet Tregellis, the daughter of
the head gamekeeper, Rachel, who is of any good girl,
but of an excitable Welsh temperament, had a sharp touch

(11:16):
of brain fever, and goes about the house now or
didn't till yesterday, like a black eyed shadow of her
former self. That was our first drama at Tulstan, but
a second one came to drive it from our minds,
and it was prefaced by the disgrace and dismissal of
Butler Brunton. This is how I came about. I have

(11:36):
said that the man was intelligent, and this very intelligence
has called his ruin, for it seemed to have led
to an insatiable curiosity about things which did not in
the least concern him. I had no idea of the
links to which this would carry him until the merest
accident opened my eyes to it. I have said that
the house is a rambling one. One day last week

(12:00):
on Thursday, night. To be more exact, I found that
I could not sleep, having foolishly taken a cup of
strong cafe noir after my dinner. After strugging against it
until two in the morning, I felt that it was
quite hopeless, so I rose and lit the candle with
the intention of a continuing a novel which I was reading.
The book, however, had been left in the billiard room,

(12:20):
so I pulled on my dressing gown and started off
to get it. In order to reach the billiard room,
I had to descend a flight of stairs and then
to cross the head of a passage which led to
the library and the gun room. You can imagine my
surprise when as I looked down this corridor I saw
a glimmer of light coming from the open door of
the library. I had myself extinguished the lamp and closed

(12:43):
the door before coming to bed. Naturally, my first thought
was of burglars. The corridors at Telson have their walls
largely decorated with trophies of old weapons. From one of these,
I picked a battle axe, and then, leaving my candle
behind me, I crept on tiptoe down the pass and
peeped in at the open door. Brunton, the Butler, was

(13:05):
in the library. He was sitting fully dressed in an
easy chair, with a slip of paper which looked like
a map, upon his knee, and his forehead sunk forward
upon his hand in deep thought. I stood dumb with astonishment,
watching him from the darkness. A small taper on the
edge of the table shed a feeble light which sufficed
to show me that he was fully dressed. Suddenly, as

(13:28):
I looked, he rose from his chair, and, walking over
to a bureau of society, he unlocked it and drew
out one of the drawers. From this he took a paper, and,
returning to his seat, he flattened it out beside the
taper on the edge of the table, and began to
study it with minute attention. My indignation of this calm
examination of our family documents overcame me so far that

(13:51):
I took a step forward, and Brunton, looking up, saw
me standing in the doorway. He sprang to his feet,
his face turned livid with fear, and he threw us
into his breast the chart like paper which he had
been originally studying. So said I, this is how you
repay the trust which we've reposed in you, you will
leave my service to morrow. He bowed with the look

(14:13):
of a man who is utterly crushed, and slunk past
me without a word. The paper was still on the table,
and by its light I glanced to see what the
paper was which Brunton had taken from the bureau. To
my surprise, it was nothing of any importance at all,
but simply a copy of the questions and answers in
the singular old observance called the Musgrave Ritual. It is

(14:35):
a sort of ceremony peculiar to our family, which each
musgrave for centuries past has gone through on his coming
of age, a think of private interest, and perhaps of
some little importance to the archaeologist, like our own blazonings
and charges, but of no practical use whatsoever. We had
better come back to the paper afterwards, said I. Nay,

(14:56):
if you think it really necessary, he answered, with some
hesit to continue my statement, however, I relocked the bureau
using the key which Brunton had left, and had turned
to go when I was surprised to find that the
butler had returned and was standing before me. Mister Musgrove, Sir,
He cried in a voice which was hoarse with emotion.

(15:19):
I can't bear disgrace, sir. I have always been proud
about my station in life, and disgrace would kill me.
My blood would be on your head, sir, it will, indeed,
if you drive me to despair. If you cannot keep
me after what has passed, then for God's sake, let
me give you notice and leave in a month, as
if my own free will, I would stand that, mister Musgrove,

(15:41):
but not to be cast out before all the folk
that I know so well. You don't deserve much consideration, Brunton,
I answered, Your conduct has been most infamous now, as
you have been a long time in the family, I
have no wish to bring public disgrace upon you. A month, however,
too long. Take yourself away in a week, and give

(16:02):
what reason you like for going only a week, sir,
he cried in a despairing voice. A fortnight, said at
least a fortnight a week, I repeated, and you may
consider yourself to be very leniently dealt with. He crept away,
his face sunk upon his breast like a broken man,

(16:23):
while I put out the light and returned to my room.
For two days after this Bruntum was most assiduous in
his attention to his duties. I made no allusion to
what had passed, and waited with some curiosity to see
how he would cover his disgrace. On the third morning, however,
he did not appear, as was his custom after breakfast

(16:43):
to receive my instructions for the day. As I left
the dining room, I happened to meet Rachel Howells, the maid.
I have told you that she had only recently recovered
from an illness, and was looking so wretchedly pale and
wan that I remonstrated with her for being at work.
You should be in bed, I said, come back to
your duties when you are stronger. She looked at me

(17:06):
with so strange an expression that I began to suspect
that her brain was affected. I'm strong enough, mister Masgrave,
said she. We will see what the doctor says. I answered,
you must stop work now, and when you go downstairs,
just say that I wish to see Brunton. The butler
is gone, said she gone. Gone. Where he's gone. No

(17:28):
one's seen him. He's not in his room. Oh, yes,
he's gone. He's gone. She fell back against the wall
with shriek after shriek of laughter. While I, horrified at
this sudden hysterical attack, rushed to the bell to summon help.
The girl was taken to her room, still screaming and sobbing,
while I made inquiries about Brunton. There was no doubt

(17:52):
about it that he had disappeared. His bed had not
been slept in, he had not been seen by anyone
since he had retired to his room the night before,
and it was difficult to see how he could have
left the house, as both windows and doors were found
to be fastened in the morning. His clothes, his watch,
and even his money were in his room, but the
black suit which he usually wore was missing. His slippers

(18:14):
too were gone, but his boots were left behind. Where
then could Butler Brunton have gone in the knightem What
could have become of him? Now? Of course, we searched
the house from cellar to Garrett, but there was no
trace of him. It is, as I have said, a
labyrinth of an old house, especially the original wing, which
is now practically uninhabited. But we ransacked every room and

(18:36):
cellar without discovering the least sign of the missing man.
It was incredible to me that he could have gone away,
leaving all his property behind him, and yet where could
he be? I called in the local police, but without success.
Rain had fallen on the night before, and we examined
the lawn and the path all round the house, but
in vain. Matters were in this state when a new

(18:57):
development quite drew our attention away from the original mystery.
For two days, Rachel Howls had been so ill, sometimes delirious,
sometimes hysterical, that a nurse had been employed to sit
up with her at night. On the third night after
Brunson's disappearance, the nurse, finding her patients sleeping nicely, had
dropped into her nap in the arm chair. When she

(19:20):
woke in the early morning to find the bed empty,
the window open, and no signs of the invalid. I
was instantly aroused, and with the two footmen, started off
at once in search of the missing girl. It was
not difficult to tell the direction which she had taken,
for starting from under her window, we could follow her
footmarks easily across the lawn at to the edge of

(19:40):
the mere, where they vanished close to the gravel path
with which leads out of the grounds the lake. There
is eight feet deep, and you can imagine our feelings
when we saw that the trail of the poor demented
girl came to an end at the edge of it.
Of course, we had the drags at once to work
to recover the remains, but no trace of her body

(20:03):
could be found. On the other hand, we brought to
the surface an object of a most unexpected kind. It
was a linen bag, which contained within it a mass
of old, rusted and discolored metal, and several dull color
pieces of pebble or glass. This strange find was all
that we could get from the mere, And although we

(20:25):
made every possible search and inquiry yesterday, we know nothing
of the fate either of Rachel Howells or of Richard Brunton,
the kindly piecer of their wits end, and have come
to you as a last resource. You can imagine Watson,
with what eagerness I listened to this extraordinary sequence of events,

(20:45):
and endeavored to piece them together and to devise some
common thread upon which they might all hang. The butler
was gone, the maid was gone. The maid had loved
the butler, but afterwards had cause to hate him. She
was of Welsh blood, fiery and passionate. She been terribly excited.
Immediately after his appearance, she flung into the lake a

(21:07):
bag containing some curious contents. These were all factors which
had to be taken into consideration, and yet none of
them got quite to the heart of the matter. What
was the starting point of this chain of events? There
lay the end of this tangled line. I must see
that paper, Musgrave, said, I which this butler of yours

(21:28):
tht it worth his while to consult, even at the
risk of the loss of his place. It is rather
an absurd business, this ritual of ours, he ex answered,
But it has at least the saving grace of antiquity
to excuse it. I have a copy of the questions
and answers here, if you careter on your eye over them.
He handed me the very paper which I have here, Watson,

(21:49):
And this is the strange catechism to which each Musgrave
had to submit when he came to Man's estate. I
will read you the questions and answers as they stand.
Whose was it is? Who is gone? Who shall have it?
He who will come? What was the month the sixth

(22:12):
from the first? Where was the sun over the oak?
Where was the shadow under the elm. How was it
stepped north by ten and by ten, east by five,
and by five, south by two and by two, west

(22:32):
by one and by one, and so under? What should
we give for it? All that is ours? Why should
we give it for the sake of the trust? The
original has no date, but tis is the spelling of
the middle of the seventeenth century, remarked Musgrave. I am afraid, however,

(22:54):
that it can be of little help to you in
solving this mystery. At least, said I, it gives us
another mystery, in one which is even more interesting than
the first. It may be that the solution of the
one may prove to be the solution of the other.
You would excuse me, Mausgrave, if I say that your
butler appears to me to have been a very clever man,
and to have had a clearer insight than ten generations

(23:16):
of his masters. I hardly follow you, said Marsgrave. The
paper seems to me to be of no practical importance.
But to me it seems immensely practical. And I fancy
that Brunton took the same view. He had probably seen
it before that night on which you caught him. It's
very possible we took no pains to hide it. He

(23:37):
simply wished I should imagine, to refresh his memory upon
that last occasion he had us understand some sort of
map or chart which he was comparing with the manuscript,
and which he thrust into his pocket when you appeared.
That is true, But what could he have to do
with this old family customers of ours? And what does
this rigmarole mean? I don't think that we should have

(23:59):
much difficulty and determining that, said I, and with your permission,
we will take the first train down to Sussex and
go a little more deeply into the matter. Upon the
spot the same afternoon saw us both at Hurlstone. Possibly
you've seen pictures and red descriptions of the famous old building,
So I will confine my account of it to saying
that it is built in the shape of an L,

(24:20):
the long arm being the more modern portion, and the
shorter the ancient nucleus from which the other has developed
over The low, heavy litled door in the center of
this old part is chiseled the date sixteen o seven,
but experts are agreed that the beams and stone work
are rarely much older than this. The enormously thick walls
and tiny windows of this part had in the last

(24:43):
century driven the family into buildings in the new wing,
and the old one was used now as a storehouse
and a cellar. When it was used at all, A
splendid park with fine old timber surrounds the house, and
the lake to which my client had referred laid close
to the avenue, about two hundred yards from the bill.
I was already firmly convinced Watson that there were not

(25:05):
three separate mysteries here, but one only, and that if
I could read the Musgrave Ritual aright, I should hold
in my hand the clue which would lead me to
the truth concerning both the Butler Brunton and the maid Howls.
To that then I turned on my energies. Why should
this servant be so anxious to master this old formula?

(25:27):
Evidently because he saw something in it which had escaped
all those generations of country squires, and from which he
expected some personal advantage. What was it, then, and how
had it affected his fate? It was perfectly obvious to me,
on reading the ritual that the measurements must refer to
some spot to which the rest of the document alluded,

(25:49):
and that if we could find that spot, which should
be in a fair way towards finding what the secret
was which the old Musgraves had thought it necessary to
embalm in so curious a fashion. There were two guides
given to us, to start with an oak and an elm.
As to the oak, there could be no question at all.
Right in front of the house, upon the left hand
side of the drive, there stood a patriarch among oaks,

(26:11):
one of the most magnificent trees that I have ever seen. Ah,
that was there when your ritual was drawn up, said I,
as we drove past it. He was there at the
Norman conquest. In all probability, he answered. It has a
girth of twenty three feet. Here was one of the
fixed points secured. Have you any old elms, I asked, Ah,

(26:34):
there used to be a very old one over yonder,
but it was struck by lightning ten years ago, and
we cut down the stump. You can see where it
used to be. Oh. Yes, there are no other elms,
no old ones, but to plenty of beeches. I should
like to see where it grew. We've driven up in
a dog cart to my plant, led me away at
once without our entering the house to the scar on

(26:57):
the lawn where the elm had stood. It was nearly
midway between the oak and the house. My investigation seemed
to be progressing. I suppose it is impossible to find
out how high the elm was, I asked, Oh, I
can give you it at once It was sixty four feet.
How do you come to know it, I asked, in surprise. Eh,

(27:18):
when my old tutor used to give me an exercise
in trigonometry, it always took the shape of measuring heights.
When I was a lad, I worked out every tree
in building in the estate. This was an unexpected piece
of luck. My data were coming more quickly than I
could have reasonably hoped. Tell me, I asked, Did your
butler ever ask you such a question? Reginald Marsgrave looked

(27:42):
at me in astonishment. Now that you call it to
my mind, he answered, Brumpton did ask me about the
height of the tree some months boo, in connection with
some little argument with the groom. Now this was excellent news, Watson,
for it showed me that I was on the right road.
I looked up at the sun. It was low in
the heavens, and I calculated that in less than an

(28:02):
hour it would lie just above the topmost branches of
the old oak. One condition mentioned in the ritual would
then be fulfilled, and the shadow of the elm must
mean the farther end of the shadow, Otherwise the trunk
would have been chosen as the guide. I had then
to find where the far end of the shadow would
fall when the sun was just clear of the oak.

(28:27):
That must have been difficult homes when the elm was
no longer there, But at least I knew that if
Brunton could do it, I could also. Besides, there was
no real difficulty. I went with Masgrave to his study
and whittled myself this peg, to which I tied this
long string with a knot at each yard. Then I
took two lengths of a fishing wood, which came to

(28:47):
just six feet, and I went back with my plants
to where the elm had been. The sun was just
grazing the top of the oak. I fastened the rod
on end marked out the direction of the shadow, and
it was nine feet in length. Of course, the calculation
now was a simple one. If a rod of six

(29:08):
feet through a shadow of nine a tree of sixty
four feet would throw one of ninety six, and the
line of the one would of course be the line
of the other. I measured at the distance which brought
me almost to the wall of the house, and I
thrust a peg into the spot. You can imagine my
exultation bottom when within two inches of my peg I

(29:29):
saw a conical depression in the ground, I knew that
it was the mark made by Brunton in his measurements,
and that I was still upon his trail. From this
starting point, I proceeded to step, having first taken the
cardinal points by my pocket compass. Ten steps with each
foot took me along parallel with the wall of the house,

(29:51):
and again I marked my spot with a peg, and
then I carefully paced off, five to the east and
two to the south. It brought me to the very
threshold of the old door. Two steps of the west
meant now that I was to go two paces down
the stowed flagged passage, and this was the place indicated

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by the ritual. Nevava held such a cold chill of
disappointment Watson. For a moment it seemed to me that
there must be some radical mistake in my calculations. The
setting sun shone full upon the passage floor, and I
could see that the old foot worn gray stones with
which it was paved were firmly cemented together, and had

(30:33):
certainly not been moved for many a long ear. Brandt
had not been at work here. I tapped upon the floor,
but it sounded the same all over, and there was
no sign of any crack or crevice. But fortunately Marsgrave,
who begun to appreciate the meaning of my proceedings, and
who is now as excited as myself, took out his
manuscript to check my calculations, and under, he cried, you

(30:58):
have omitted the And under I had thought that it
meant that we were to dig, But now, of course
I saw that at once that I was wrong. There
is a cellar under this. Then I cried, yes, and
as old as the house down here through this door
we went down a winding stone stair, and my companion
striking a match at a very large lantern which stood

(31:20):
on a barrel in the corner. In an instant it
was obvious that we had at last come upon the
true place, and they would not, being the only people
to visit the spot recently. It had been used for
the storage of wood, but the billets, which had evidently
been littered over the floor, were now piled to the
sides as to leave clear space in the middle. In

(31:41):
this space lay a large and heavy flagstone with a
rusted iron ring in the center, to which a thick
shepherd's check muffler was attached by Jove, cried, my cloud,
that's Brunton's muffler. I've seen it on him and could
swear to it. What has the villain been doing here?
My suggestion? A couple of the county piece were summoned

(32:01):
to be present, and I then endeavored to raise the
stone by pulling on the gravat. I could only move
it slightly, and it was with the aid of one
of the constables that had succeeded at last in carrying
it to one side. A black hole yawned beneath it,
into which all peered, while Marsgrave, kneading of the side,
pushed down the lantern. A small chamber about seven feet

(32:25):
deep and four feet square lay open to us. At
one side of this was a squat brass bound wooden box,
the lid of which was hinged upward, with this curious
old fashioned key projecting from the lock. It was furred
outside by a thick layer of dust and damp, and
worms had eaten through the wood, so that a crop

(32:46):
of livid fungi was growing on the inside of it.
Several disks of metal, old coins, apparently such as I
hold here, were scattered over the bottom of the box,
but it contained nothing else. At the moment, however, we
had no thought for the old chest, for our eyes
were riveted upon that which crouched beside it. It was

(33:09):
the figure of a man clad in a suit of black,
who squatted down upon his hands, with his forehead sunk
upon the edge of the box, and his two arms
thrown out on each side of it. The attitude had
drawn all the stagnant blood to the face, and no
man could have recognized that distorted, liver colored countenance. But

(33:29):
his height, his dress, and his hair were all sufficient
to show my clant when we had drawn the body up,
that it was indeed his missing butler. He had been
dead some days, but there was no wound or bruise
upon his person to show how he had met his
dreadful end. When his body being carried from the cellar,
we found ourselves still confined with a problem which was

(33:52):
almost as formidable as that which with which we had started.
I confess that so far, Watson, I had been disappointed
in my investigation. I had reckoned upon solving the matter
when once I had found the place referred to in
the ritual. But now I was there, and was apparently
as far as ever from knowing what it was which
the family concealed with such elaborate precautions. It is true

(34:15):
that I had thrown a light upon the fate of Brunton,
but now I had to ascertain how that fate had
come upon him, and what part had been played in
the matter by the woman who had disappeared. I sat
down upon a keg in the corner and thought the
whole matter carefully over. You know my methods in such cases, Watson.
I put myself in the man's place, and, having first

(34:36):
gaged his intelligence, I tried to imagine how I should
myself have proceeded under the same circumstances. In this case,
the matter was simplified by Brunton's intelligence being quite first rate,
so that it was unnecessary to make any alliance for
the personal equation, as the astronomers have dubbed it. He
knew that something valuable was concealed. He had spotted the

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place he found the stone which carvered it was just
too heavy for a man to move unaided. What would
he do next? He could not get help from outside,
even if he had some one whom he could trust,
without the unbarring of doors and considerable risk of detection.
It was better he could to have his helpmate inside
the house. But whom could he ask? This girl had

(35:18):
been devoted to him. A man always finds it hard
to realize that he may have finally lost a woman's love,
however badly he may have treated her. He would try,
by a few attentions, to make his peace with the
girl Howls, and then would engage her as his accomplice.
Together they would come at night to the cellar, and
their united force would suffice to raise the stone. So

(35:39):
far I could follow their actions as if I had
actually seen them. But for two of them and one
a woman, it must have been very heavy work the
raising of that stone her burliest Sussex policeman, and I
had found it no light job. What would they do
to assist them? Probably what I would have done myself.
I rose, and examined, and carefully the different billets of

(36:01):
wood which were scattered round the floor. Almost at once
I came upon what I expected. One piece about three
feet in length, had a very marked indentation at one end,
while several were flattened at the sides, as if they
had been compressed by some considerable weight. Evidently, as they
dragged the stone up, they'd thrust the chunks of wood

(36:22):
into the chink, until at last, when the evening was
large enough to crawl through, they would hold it open
by a bidet placed lengthwise, which might very well become
indented at the lower end, since the whole weight of
the stone would press it down on to the edge
of this other slab. So far I was still on
safe ground. And now how was I to proceed to

(36:43):
reconstruct this midnight drama? Clearly only one could fit into
the hole, and that one was Brunton. The girl must
have waited a brow. Branton then unlocked the box, handed
up the contents, presumably since they were not to be found.
And then, and then what happened? What a smoldering far

(37:04):
of vengeance had suddenly sprung into flame in this passionate
Celtic woman's soul when she saw the man who had
wronged her, wronged her perhaps far more than we suspected
in her power. Was it a chance that the wood
had slipped, and that the stone had shut Brunton into
water become his sepulcher? Had she only been guilty of
silence as to his fate, or had some sudden blow

(37:26):
from her hand dashed the support away and sent the
slab crashing down into its place. Be that as it might,
I seemed to see that woman's figure still clutching at
her treasure trove, and flying wildly up the winding stair,
with her ears ringing, perhaps with the muffled screams from
behind her, and with a drumming of frenzied hands against

(37:48):
the slab of stone which was choking her faithless lover's life.
Out Here was the secret of her blanched face, her
shaken nerves, her peals of ysotatical laughter. On the next morning,
But what had been in the box? What had she
done with that? Of course, it must have been the

(38:09):
old metal and pebbles which my clant had dragged from
the mere. She had thrown them in there at the
first opportunity to remove the last trace of her crime.
For twenty minutes. I sat motionless, thinking the matter out.
Mausgrave still stood with a very pale face, swinging his
lantern and peering down into the hole. These are coins

(38:32):
of Charles, the first, said he holding out the few
which had been in the box. You see, we were
right in fixing our date for the ritual. We may
find something else of Charles the first, I cried, as
the probable meaning of the first two questions of the
ritual broke suddenly upon me. Let me see the contents
of the bag which you fished for the mere. We

(38:53):
ascended to his study, and he laid the debris before me.
I could understand his regarding it as of small importance
when I looked at it, for the metal was almost black,
and the stones lusciless and dull. I rubbed one of
them on my sleeve, however, and it glowed afterwards like
a spark in the dark hollow of my hand. The

(39:13):
metal work was in the form of a double ring,
but it had been bent and twisted out of its
original shape. You must bear in mind, said I, that
the Royal party made head in England even after the
death of the king, and that when they at last
fled They probably left many of their most precious possessions
buried behind them, with intentions returning for them in more
peaceful times. My ancestor, Sir Ralph Marsgrave, was a prominent

(39:39):
cavalier and the right hand man of Charles the Second.
In his wanderings, said my friend, Ah, Indeed, I answered one,
I think that really should give us the last length
that we wanted. I must congratulate you on coming into
the possession, though in rather a tragic manner, of a
relic which is of great intrinsic value, but of even

(40:01):
greater importance as a historical curiosity. What is it, then,
he gasped in astonishment. It is nothing less than the
ancient crown of the Kings of England, the crown precisely.
Consider what the ritual says, How does it run? Whose

(40:21):
was it? His? Who is gone? That was after the
execution of Charles? Then who shall have it? He who
will come? That was Charles the Second, whose abvom was
already foreseen. There can, I think, be no doubt that
this battered and shapeless diadem once encircled the brows of
the royal Stuarts, And how came it in the pond.

(40:46):
That is a question that will take some time to answer.
And with that I sketched out to him the whole
long chain of surmise and of proof which I had constructed.
The twilight had closed in and the moon was shining
bright in the sky before my narrative was finished. And
how was it then that Charles did not get his

(41:06):
crown when he returned, asked Marsgrave, pushing back the redick
into its linen bag. Ah, there you lay up your
finger upon the one point which we shall probably never
be able to clear up. It is likely that the
Musgrave who held the secret died in the interval, and
by some oversight, left this guide to his descent without

(41:26):
explaining the meaning of it. From that day to this
it has been handed down from father to son, until
at last it came within reach of a man who
tore its secret out of it and lost his life
in the venture. And that's the story of the Musgrave Ritual. Watson.
They had the ground down at Tarlstan, though they had

(41:48):
some legal bother and a considerable sum to pay before
they were allowed to retain it. I am sure that
if you mention my name, they would be happy to
show it to you. Of the woman nothing was ever heard,
and the probability it is that she got away out
of England and carried herself and the memory of her crime,
to some land beyond the seas. End of the Adventure

(42:08):
of the Musgrave ritual