“What! where?” shouted Mr. Windibank, turning white to his lips and

glancing about him like a rat in a trap.


“Oh, it won’t do—really it won’t,” said Holmes

suavely. “There is no possible getting out of it, Mr. Windibank. It is

quite too transparent, and it was a very bad compliment when you said that it

was impossible for me to solve so simple a question. That’s right! Sit

down and let us talk it over.”


Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face and a glitter of

moisture on his brow. “It—it’s not actionable,” he

stammered.


“I am very much afraid that it is not. But between ourselves, Windibank,

it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a petty way as ever came

before me. Now, let me just run over the course of events, and you will

contradict me if I go wrong.”


The man sat huddled up in his chair, with his head sunk upon his breast, like

one who is utterly crushed. Holmes stuck his feet up on the corner of the

mantelpiece and, leaning back with his hands in his pockets, began talking,

rather to himself, as it seemed, than to us.


“The man married a woman very much older than himself for her

money,” said he, “and he enjoyed the use of the money of the

daughter as long as she lived with them. It was a considerable sum, for people

in their position, and the loss of it would have made a serious difference. It

was worth an effort to preserve it. The daughter was of a good, amiable

disposition, but affectionate and warm-hearted in her ways, so that it was

evident that with her fair personal advantages, and her little income, she

would not be allowed to remain single long. Now her marriage would mean, of

course, the loss of a hundred a year, so what does her stepfather do to prevent

it? He takes the obvious course of keeping her at home and forbidding her to

seek the company of people of her own age. But soon he found that that would