3. The Sheffield Hall murder

Lord Bartley led us into the murder scene, but before we could go into the house, Holmes stopped and examined the outside area around the house. He was down on his hands and knees scrutinized every inch of the ground, especially the one beneath the window of Lord Bartley and Lady Lilac's bedroom. He found a pile of broken glass beneath the window. When he was satisfied, they continued into the house. True to her words, Adeline immediately went to talk to Lady Lilac. The rest of us went to the scene of the crime.

The bedroom was like any other bedroom. Only this one had some slashed curtains by the window opposite of the door, which was broken. There were a few pieces of glass on the floor. The bed, which was on the right side of the door, wasn't left undisturbed. There also slash marks on the draperies as well as on the bed indicating where the unsuccessful attempt was made. In the same manner as before, Holmes inspected the room, every inch of it. The detective was inspecting the wall when he exclaimed out loud,

"Watson, what do you make of this?" He was pointing to the bottom of the wall opposite the bed on the right side about three feet from the door. There were slash marks. It was as if the murderer, or whoever it was, was having so much fun slashing everything else decided to makes some marks on the bottom of the wall as well to match all the other damage.

"I can make nothing of it, Holmes," I replied truthfully.

Holmes wasn't paying any heed to me. He was deep in scrutiny of the marks. When he was satisfied with the inspection, Adeline had also done her job. Holmes announced himself finished, and a few seconds later, Adeline came in announcing she had done all she could.

"Were you successful?" asked Lestrade, "Did she agree to talk?"
"How is my wife?" Lord Bartley asked anxiously, "She hadn't been herself ever since the attempt."

"Lady Lilac told me everything," Adeline announced, "and is now having tea in the sitting room. Poor thing, she was absolutely traumatized and couldn't confide in a single soul. The poor woman was in tears the whole time I was talking to her. Don't worry Lord Bartley! She is fine now." She stopped and thought for a moment. "Well, she is as fine as a person could be after a murder attempt on them by a maniac."

"Good God!" Lord Bartley exclaimed. He rushed out of the room obviously to tend to his beloved wife. Adeline smiled mischievously after him.

"What did the poor lady tell you?" Holmes asked immediately not forgetting the task at hand.

"As much as I can make it out, amidst the mumbling and bawling and sniffling, this is how the story goes:

"About ten o'clock on the night of the murder, Lady Lilac was in her bedroom ready to call it a night. Lord Bartley wasn't there. He was doing some late reading time or whatever it was. That's beside the point. Anyway, so she was in her bed trying to go to sleep. Then, she heard the window opening. She thought to herself, 'this is weird!" So, she climbed out of her bed and go to close the window.

"After the closed the window, she turned around. There was this guy in dark clothes and a cloth covering his face revealing only his eye standing in front of her. If a mask man in dark clothes didn't scare her, the shiny sharp sword he was holding did. He swung it at her. She would scream, but at that time luckily there was another person came to rescue her. He or she, Lady Lilac couldn't tell covered her mouth and pulled her down just in time. Lady Lilac's rescuer motioned her to be quiet. Unfortunately for her, her savior was unarmed. The murderer made several more attempts for her life, and luckily for her they were unsuccessful due to her mysterious rescuer. They ran around the room dodging the sword stroke being swung at them." Here Adeline observed the room. She pointed to the slash marks around the room. "I guess, these are where the attempt murderer tried to kill them. Back to the story, after like a few minutes, the pursuer got them in a corner near the door. Seeing their disadvantage, our hero, I guess we can call him that, flung himself at the killer to protect Lady Lilac. Regrettably, this time the killer managed to wound her rescuer. He was cut, I think, quite deeply at the stomach. The mysterious hero managed to achieve his goal. At least I think it was his goal. He fell down upon the killer. When he threw the wounded man off, the wounded man was able to get something important from the killer.

"Clutching his wound, he said, 'Hey, K-man, I think you're missing something.' The wounded hero then threw himself off the window therefore causing the crashing sound that Lord Bartley heard. The killer, forgetting Lady Lilac for a moment, searched himself and found that he was indeed missing something. Instinctively, he went after his robber. However, before he went on his pursuit, the killer warned, Lady Lilac, 'It is you I'm paid to kill. If you don't keep your mouth shut, I might consider doing a little more killing than I'm willing to do, like your husband and your son. Be warned! I'll come back for you after I catch this thief.' With that being said, the killer jumped off the window. Sometime before he said the warning, I think Lady Lilac said he slash at the wall in anger and frustration. Lord Bartley came in after the attempted killer went off. You all know the rest of the story."