“It was like him to take that way. He knew that the sound would go on for ever and ever in that pit and betray me in the end. Don’t you hear it now, coming from the garden? But you needn’t be afraid to touch me, my lord; my hands are clean. Gentlemen of the Jury, I did not kill him. Please let me pass. He has a headache, and it is my duty to attend to him. He is a very handsome man when he is himself. I should like to tell him that--it is so little--and I have never said as much to him before. I think it might help to cure him and stop the sound. Gentlemen--please!” At a sign from Jannaway the two constables advanced, and put firm but not ungentle hands upon the poor creature. She struggled, uttering shriek upon shriek. “Best leave her to us, sir,” panted one of the men. “She’ll go quiet in a little.” Mr Shapter led me, inexpressibly agitated, from the room, and out into the open at the back. Here the detective took the lead, and, conducting us by way of weed-grown paths and tangled vegetation through a wicket into an old walled fruit garden, turned towards an angle of the enclosure where, on a little elevation, the yoke of a great well sprouted from the ground. My heart shuddered in me as we approached the thing. It was a pretty massive structure, built for endurance, and calculated to the strain of a heavy load of water. The bucket, the loop of a strong chain connecting it with the windlass barrel, stood empty on the grass by the well rim--a great sheet-iron pail, capable of holding eight or perhaps half-a-score gallons. But the machinery by which it was manipulated was the most curious, being a nest of powerful cog-wheels and blocks, so adjusted under the butt of the windlass that, by turning a handle, a child, or little stronger, could wheel up the full bucket with perfect ease and as many pauses by the way as he chose. What was as striking as anything, perhaps, was the state of preservation of the whole structure; but, no doubt, the entire water supply of the farm depending on it had made that a perennial necessity. “Will you look down now, gentlemen,” said the detective, “and see if anything strikes you? Hold steady, sir!” I balanced myself by the upright post of the windlass, and peered into the well. Its heavy wooden lid, pierced by a trap in the middle, through which the bucket could be raised and lowered without disturbing the rest, had been bodily removed, and stood on its rim against the wall hard by. The diameter of the shaft was considerable--a full six feet, I should say--and the depth of the boring, it might be, two hundred, but I am not certain. I know only that the eye of water at the bottom looked no larger than a full moon, and that a surprising interval elapsed between the dropping of a stone from above and its answering plop from below. “Well, gentlemen?” said Jannaway, after we had been gazing down some moments; “nothing strikes you out of the common?” “Nothing whatever.”