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maid Howells. To that then I turned all my energies.
Why should this servant be so anxious to master this
old formula? Evidently because he saw something in it
which had escaped all those generations of country
squires, and from which he expected some personal
advantage. What was it then, and how had it affected
his fate?

"It was perfectly obvious to me, on reading the
ritual, that the measurements must refer to some spot
to which the rest of the document alluded, and that if
we could find that spot, we should be in a fair way
towards finding what the secret was which the old
Musgraves had thought it necessary to embalm in so
curious a fashion. There were two guides given us to
start with, an oak and an elm. As to the oak there
could be no question at all. Right in front of the
house, upon the left-hand side of the drive, there
stood a patriarch among oaks, one of the most
magnificent trees that I have ever seen.

"'That was there when your ritual was drawn up,' said
I, as we drove past it.

"'It was there at the Norman Conquest in all
probability,' he answered. 'It has a girth of
twenty-three feet.'

"'Have you any old elms?' I asked.

"'There used to be a very old one over yonder but it
was struck by lightning ten years ago, and we cut down
the stump.'

"'You can see where it used to be?'

"'Oh, yes.'

"'There are no other elms?'

"'No old ones, but plenty of beeches.'

"'I should like to see where it grew.'

"We had driven up in a dog-cart, and my client led me
away at once, without our entering the house, to the
scar on the lawn where the elm had stood. It was
nearly midway between the oak and the house. My
investigation seemed to be progressing.

"'I suppose it is impossible to find out how high the
elm was?' I asked.

"'I can give you it at once. It was sixty-four feet.'

"'How do you come to know it?' I asked, in surprise.

"'When my old tutor used to give me an exercise in
trigonometry, it always took the shape of measuring
heights. When I was a lad I worked out every tree and
building in the estate.'

"This was an unexpected piece of luck. My data were
coming more quickly than I could have reasonably
hoped.

"'Tell me,' I asked, 'did your butler ever ask you
such a question?'

"Reginald Musgrave looked at me in astonishment. 'Now
that you call it to my mind,' he answered, 'Brunton
did ask me about the height of the tree some months
ago, in connection with some little argument with the
groom.'

"This was excellent news, Watson, for it showed me
that I was on the right road. I looked up at the sun.
It was low in the heavens, and I calculated that in
less than an hour it would lie just above the topmost
branches of the old oak. One condition mentioned in
the Ritual would then be fulfilled. And the shadow of
the elm must mean the farther end of the shadow,
otherwise the trunk would have been chosen as the
guide. I had, then, to find where the far end of the

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