Violet Hunter consults Holmes after being offered a governess job subject to a number of unusual conditions, including cutting her hair short. The wage is extremely high, £120, and she decides to accept the job, though Holmes tells her to contact him if she needs to. After a number of strange occurrences, including the discovery of a sealed-off wing of the house, she does so. Holmes discovers that someone had been kept prisoner in the wing, but when Holmes, Watson and Hunter enter, it is empty. They are accused of freeing the prisoner, who was the daughter of Hunter's employer, who sets his dog on them, though it attacks him instead. It is revealed that Hunter had been hired to impersonate her employer's daughter so that her fiancé would believe she was no longer interested in seeing him, but the daughter had escaped and the pair later married.