“There were some most singular points about the man.  In ordinary life, he was a strict Puritan—­a silent, gloomy fellow.  His household consisted of his wife, his daughter, aged twenty, and two female servants.  These last were continually changing, for it was never a very cheery situation, and sometimes it became past all bearing.  The man was an intermittent drunkard, and when he had the fit on him he was a perfect fiend.  He has been known to drive his wife and daughter out of doors in the middle of the night and flog them through the park until the whole village outside the gates was aroused by their screams.

“He was summoned once for a savage assault upon the old vicar, who had called upon him to remonstrate with him upon his conduct.  In short, Mr. Holmes, you would go far before you found a more dangerous man than Peter Carey, and I have heard that he bore the same character when he commanded his ship.  He was known in the trade as Black Peter, and the name was given him, not only on account of his swarthy features and the colour of his huge beard, but for the humours which were the terror of all around him.  I need not say that he was loathed and avoided by every one of his neighbours, and that I have not heard one single word of sorrow about his terrible end.

“You must have read in the account of the inquest about the man’s cabin, Mr. Holmes, but perhaps your friend here has not heard of it.  He had built himself a wooden outhouse—­he always called it the ’cabin’—­a few hundred yards from his house, and it was here that he slept every night.  It was a little, single-roomed hut, sixteen feet by ten.  He kept the key in his pocket, made his own bed, cleaned it himself, and allowed no other foot to cross the threshold.  There are small windows on each side, which were covered by curtains and never opened.  One of these windows was turned towards the high road, and when the light burned in it at night the folk used to point it out to each other and wonder what Black Peter was doing in there.  That’s the window, Mr. Holmes, which gave us one of the few bits of positive evidence that came out at the inquest.

“You remember that a stonemason, named Slater, walking from Forest Row about one o’clock in the morning—­two days before the murder—­stopped as he passed the grounds and looked at the square of light still shining among the trees.  He swears that the shadow of a man’s head turned sideways was clearly visible on the blind, and that this shadow was certainly not that of Peter Carey, whom he knew well.  It was that of a bearded man, but the beard was short and bristled forward in a way very different from that of the captain.  So he says, but he had been two hours in the public-house, and it is some distance from the road to the window.  Besides, this refers to the Monday, and the crime was done upon the Wednesday.