It grew louder and louder, a hoarse shout of pain and fear and anger all mixed in the one dreadful scream. They say that away down in the village, and even further away than that, that cry raised sleeping people from their beds. It struck a cold feeling into our hearts, and I stood looking at Holmes, and he at me, until the last echoes of it had died away into the silence.

"What can it mean?" I asked.

"It means that it is all over," Holmes answered. "And perhaps, after all, it is the best thing that could have happened. Take your pistol, and we will enter Dr. Roylott's room."

With a serious expression on his face he lit the lamp and led the way down the corridor. Twice he knocked on the chamber door without any reply from inside. Then he turned the handle and entered, I at his heels, with the pistol in my hand, ready to fire.

It was a strange sight which we saw there. On the table stood a dark-lantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant beam of light upon the iron safe, the door of which was slightly open. Beside this table, on the wooden chair, sat Dr. Grimesby Roylott in a long grey dressing-gown, his bare ankles pushed out beneath, and his feet in red Turkish slippers.