It was the body of a tall, well-made man, about forty years of age.  He lay upon his back, his face upturned, with his white teeth grinning through his short, black beard.  His two clenched hands were raised above his head, and a heavy, blackthorn stick lay across them.  His dark, handsome, aquiline features were convulsed into a spasm of vindictive hatred, which had set his dead face in a terribly fiendish expression.  He had evidently been in his bed when the alarm had broken out, for he wore a foppish, embroidered nightshirt, and his bare feet projected from his trousers.  His head was horribly injured, and the whole room bore witness to the savage ferocity of the blow which had struck him down.  Beside him lay the heavy poker, bent into a curve by the concussion.  Holmes examined both it and the indescribable wreck which it had wrought.

‘He must be a powerful man, this elder Randall,’ he remarked.

‘Yes,’ said Hopkins.  ’I have some record of the fellow, and he is a rough customer.’

‘You should have no difficulty in getting him.’

’Not the slightest.  We have been on the look-out for him, and there was some idea that he had got away to America.  Now that we know that the gang are here, I don’t see how they can escape.  We have the news at every seaport already, and a reward will be offered before evening.  What beats me is how they could have done so mad a thing, knowing that the lady could describe them and that we could not fail to recognize the description.’

’Exactly.  One would have expected that they would silence Lady Brackenstall as well.’

‘They may not have realized,’ I suggested, ’that she had recovered from her faint.’

’That is likely enough.  If she seemed to be senseless, they would not take her life.  What about this poor fellow, Hopkins?  I seem to have heard some queer stories about him.’

’He was a good-hearted man when he was sober, but a perfect fiend when he was drunk, or rather when he was half drunk, for he seldom really went the whole way.  The devil seemed to be in him at such times, and he was capable of anything.  From what I hear, in spite of all his wealth and his title, he very nearly came our way once or twice.  There was a scandal about his drenching a dog with petroleum and setting it on fire—­her ladyship’s dog, to make the matter worse—­and that was only hushed up with difficulty.  Then he threw a decanter at that maid, Theresa Wright—­there was trouble about that.  On the whole, and between ourselves, it will be a brighter house without him.  What are you looking at now?’

Holmes was down on his knees, examining with great attention the knots upon the red cord with which the lady had been secured.  Then he carefully scrutinized the broken and frayed end where it had snapped off when the burglar had dragged it down.

’When this was pulled down, the bell in the kitchen must have rung loudly,’ he remarked.