"
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.
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