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Updated: June 1, 2025
As to who this prisoner is, I have no doubt that it is the daughter, Miss Alice Rucastle, if I remember right, who was said to have gone to America. You were chosen, doubtless, as resembling her in height, figure, and the colour of your hair. Hers had been cut off, very possibly in some illness through which she has passed, and so, of course, yours had to be sacrificed also.
But I cannot understand them, and I am not easy in my mind about them." "What can you not understand?" "Their reasons for their conduct. But you shall have it all just as it occurred. When I came down, Mr. Rucastle met me here and drove me in his dog-cart to the Copper Beeches.
Rucastle expressed a delight at the look of it, which seemed quite exaggerated in its vehemence. They were waiting for me in the drawing-room, which is a very large room, stretching along the entire front of the house, with three long windows reaching down to the floor. A chair had been placed close to the central window, with its back turned towards it. In this I was asked to sit, and then Mr.
Rucastle, so I think, Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester, as it seems to me that our locus standi now is rather a questionable one." And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, but was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of his devoted wife.
By a curious chance you came upon her tresses. The man in the road was undoubtedly some friend of hers possibly her fiancé and no doubt, as you wore the girl's dress and were so like her, he was convinced from your laughter, whenever he saw you, and afterwards from your gesture, that Miss Rucastle was perfectly happy, and that she no longer desired his attentions.
Rucastle, walking up and down on the other side of the room, began to tell me a series of the funniest stories that I have ever listened to. You cannot imagine how comical he was, and I laughed until I was quite weary. Mrs. Rucastle, however, who has evidently no sense of humour, never so much as smiled, but sat with her hands in her lap, and a sad, anxious look upon her face.
"But you would not advise me to refuse?" "I confess that it is not the situation which I should like to see a sister of mine apply for." "What is the meaning of it all, Mr. Holmes?" "Ah, I have no data. I cannot tell. Perhaps you have yourself formed some opinion?" "Well, there seems to me to be only one possible solution. Mr. Rucastle seemed to be a very kind, good-natured man.
Rucastle at once, sacrifice my poor hair to-night, and start for Winchester to-morrow." With a few grateful words to Holmes she bade us both good-night and bustled off upon her way. "At least," said I as we heard her quick, firm steps descending the stairs, "she seems to be a young lady who is very well able to take care of herself." "And she would need to be," said Holmes gravely.
"'Dear me! How very impertinent! Kindly turn round and motion to him to go away. "'Surely it would be better to take no notice. "'No, no, we should have him loitering here always. Kindly turn round and wave him away like that. "I did as I was told, and at the same instant Mrs. Rucastle drew down the blind.
From their conversation I have gathered that they have been married about seven years, that he was a widower, and that his only child by the first wife was the daughter who has gone to Philadelphia. Mr. Rucastle told me in private that the reason why she had left them was that she had an unreasoning aversion to her stepmother.
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