‘One’s at his house,’ replied she, pointing to Harson. ‘The other, by this time, is with a man named Grosket. He’s been arter him, and I suppose has got him by this time.’
‘Enoch Grosket?’ inquired Holmes.
The woman nodded. ‘I told him where he’d find him. He went straight off to fetch him.’
‘Will you swear that they are the same children brought to you four years since?’ said Holmes, pausing in his writing, and running his eye over the notes which he had made. ‘Do you know them to be the same?’
‘The man said so, who brought ’em back at the end of the year. That’s all I know about it. They never left me arter that.’
‘Who was that man?’
‘Tim Craig,’ replied the woman.
‘And he’s dead. The only person who could reveal their place of concealment during that year, and the name of those who had the care of them. The chain is broken, by which to identify them as the lost children of George Colton. Who can aid us in this?’
‘I CAN!’ said a voice.
All three started, for there, at their very elbow, stood Michael Rust; but Rust, fearfully altered, worn down, wan, haggard, with sunken cheeks, and features rigid and colorless, as if cut from wax, and with an eye of fire. But wrecked as he was, there was still that strange sneering smile on his lip, which seemed as if only parting to utter sarcasm and mockery. But now he was serious in his mood, for he repeated: