No one wanted to work at the house. We had to do all the work ourselves. Julia was only thirty when she died. But her hair was already getting white. You can see that my hair is getting white too.”

“Your sister is dead, then?” Holmes asked.

“She died two years ago. It is of her death that I wish to speak. My sister and I did not get many chances to leave Stoke Moran. But we have an aunt. My stepfather let Julia and me pay short visits to her house.

“On one of those visits, my sister met a young man. She fell in love with him. They planned to marry. My stepfather said nothing against her marriage. But less than two weeks later, Julia was dead.”

Sherlock Holmes had been sitting back in his chair. But at these last words he sat up. His eyes opened.

“Please give us every little fact,” said he.

“That will be easy,” Helen Stoner said. “Every little bit of that night will be burned into my mind for the rest of my life. As I have said, the house is very old. We live in only one wing of it. All our bedrooms are on the ground floor. The first bedroom is Dr. Roylott’s. The second bedroom was my sister’s. The third bedroom is mine. There are no doors between the bedrooms. But they all open out onto the same long hall.

“On the night Julia died, Dr. Roylott went to his room early. But we knew he had not gone to sleep. Julia could smell his cigars.

“Julia never could stand that smell. So she came to my room. We sat there for some time, talking about her wedding.