He said they had despaired of her life for weeks. His uncle, who is also their family doctor, this fellow Sacker, and a devoted maid had brought the lady to England in the hope of speeding her recovery, but they'd hardly reached London when she took a turn for the worse. The uncle, by the way, is the one that Violet Sacker called "the bird-faced man." It appears the lady's symptoms take the form of violent delusions in which she does not recognize her family or friends. The poor fellow was quite embarrassed about it. It's a rough thing for a coming young gent to have a madwoman in the family, though he appears quite devoted to her. I'm afraid I pried a bit when I questioned him. "And how did Miss Sacker come by her brain fever?" I asked. I thought he'd crawl under the rug. It turns out there'd been a young man in the picture, wouldn't you know; he'd been rather a loose screw, who'd left abruptly for South America. Well, you know how these women are when they're hitting middle age and not a man in sight. She'd apparently carried on something fierce until she'd finally broke her health, and there you are.'

"It sounded plausible enough, Watson. There was nothing in what he'd said so far that was absolutely contradicted by the physical facts I had observed this morning. But still there were one or two points that bothered me.

" 'Why didn't they turn up to claim her earlier?' I put the most obvious of them to him. 'Or contact the police as soon as she was missed?'

" 'I wondered that too,' said the inspector. 'Sacker said they'd been out searching for her ever since she'd turned up absent from her bed, and hadn't seen a paper till this morning; the uncle had wanted to call the police, but Sacker had a horror of the publicity that would ensue, and wanted to search himself first. The uncle had convinced him to go to the Yard this morning, when they saw the article in yesterday's paper. The old doctor was quite done in by that time, and sent Sacker around alone to Bart's to collect her.