First published in the June 1892 issue of The Strand Magazine

First published in a collection in 1892 in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

 

Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, Violet Hunter, Jephro Rucastle, Alice Rucastle, Mrs Rucastle, Mr Fowler

Case Date: 7th April 1890

 

Storyline:

To an out-of-work governess accustomed to a salary of £48 a year, Mr. Jephro Rucastle’s offer of £30 a quarter could not have been anything but alluring; save for one detail-the curious conditions he stipulated. Miss Violet Hunter must be prepared to sit where she was told, wear any dress required, and, worst of all, cut short her beautiful chestnut hair. Economic considerations had at length prevailed: after all, there was a Mrs. Rucastle, and the commands, if eccentric, were "such as a lady might with Propriety obey". But it is as well that Miss Hunter decided to confide her doubts to Sherlock Holmes before leaving to take charge of the sadistic six-year-old heir to 'The Copper Beeches', near Winchester. At the receipt of her urgent telegram, Holmes and Watson are alert to repair at once to her side and determine which of seven explanations covering the known facts is to be proved correct by fresh information awaiting them; information, as it turns out, concerning a dog as large as a calf, a locked room in an unused wing of the house, and an impertinent loiterer with nothing better to do than to gape from the roadway outside while Miss Hunter rocks with laughter at her employer’s jokes. "I think, Watson, that it would be as well for you to have your pistol ready," Holmes is moved to remark; and not long passes before it is needed.