We had hardly alighted at North Walsham, and mentioned the name of our destination, when the station-master hurried towards us.  “I suppose that you are the detectives from London?” said he.

A look of annoyance passed over Holmes’s face.

“What makes you think such a thing?”

“Because Inspector Martin from Norwich has just passed through.  But maybe you are the surgeons.  She’s not dead—­or wasn’t by last accounts.  You may be in time to save her yet—­though it be for the gallows.”

Holmes’s brow was dark with anxiety.

“We are going to Riding Thorpe Manor,” said he, “but we have heard nothing of what has passed there.”

“It’s a terrible business,” said the stationmaster.  “They are shot, both Mr. Hilton Cubitt and his wife.  She shot him and then herself—­so the servants say.  He’s dead and her life is despaired of.  Dear, dear, one of the oldest families in the county of Norfolk, and one of the most honoured.”

Without a word Holmes hurried to a carriage, and during the long seven miles’ drive he never opened his mouth.  Seldom have I seen him so utterly despondent.  He had been uneasy during all our journey from town, and I had observed that he had turned over the morning papers with anxious attention, but now this sudden realization of his worst fears left him in a blank melancholy.  He leaned back in his seat, lost in gloomy speculation.  Yet there was much around to interest us, for we were passing through as singular a countryside as any in England, where a few scattered cottages represented the population of to-day, while on every hand enormous square-towered churches bristled up from the flat green landscape and told of the glory and prosperity of old East Anglia.  At last the violet rim of the German Ocean appeared over the green edge of the Norfolk coast, and the driver pointed with his whip to two old brick and timber gables which projected from a grove of trees.  “That’s Riding Thorpe Manor,” said he.

As we drove up to the porticoed front door, I observed in front of it, beside the tennis lawn, the black tool-house and the pedestalled sundial with which we had such strange associations.  A dapper little man, with a quick, alert manner and a waxed moustache, had just descended from a high dog-cart.  He introduced himself as Inspector Martin, of the Norfolk Constabulary, and he was considerably astonished when he heard the name of my companion.

“Why, Mr. Holmes, the crime was only committed at three this morning.  How could you hear of it in London and get to the spot as soon as I?”

“I anticipated it.  I came in the hope of preventing it.”

“Then you must have important evidence, of which we are ignorant, for they were said to be a most united couple.”

“I have only the evidence of the dancing men,” said Holmes.  “I will explain the matter to you later.  Meanwhile, since it is too late to prevent this tragedy, I am very anxious that I should use the knowledge which I possess in order to insure that justice be done.  Will you associate me in your investigation, or will you prefer that I should act independently?”