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then you are yourself inclining to the supernatural explanation .

yes i have thought a good deal of it in the course of the day .

what do you make of it ?

it is very bewildering .

it has certainly a character of its own . there are points of distinction about it . that change in the footprints for example . what do you make of that ?

mortimer said that the man had walked on tiptoe down that portion of the alley .

he only repeated what some fool had said at the inquest . why should a man walk on tiptoe down the alley ?

what then ?

he was running watsonrunning desperately running for his life running until he burst his heartand fell dead upon his face .

running from what ?

there lies our problem . there are indications that the man was crazed with fear before ever he began to run .

how can you say that ?

i am presuming that the cause of his fears came to him across the moor . if that were so and it seems most probable only a man who had lost his wits would have run from the house instead of towards it . if the gipsys evidence may be taken as true he ran with cries for help in the direction where help was least likely to be . then again whom was he waiting for that night and why was he waiting for him in the yew alley rather than in his own house ?

you think that he was waiting for someone ?

the man was elderly and infirm . we can understand his taking an evening stroll but the ground was damp and the night inclement . is it natural that he should stand for five or ten minutes as dr . mortimer with more practical sense than i should have given him credit for deduced from the cigar ash ?

but he went out every evening .

i think it unlikely that he waited at the moorgate every evening . on the contrary the evidence is that he avoided the moor . that night he waited there . it was the night before he made his departure for london . the thing takes shape watson . it becomes coherent . might i ask you to hand me my violin and we will postpone all further thought upon this business until we have had the advantage of meeting dr . mortimer and sir henry baskerville in the morning .

this is sir henry baskerville

why yes and the strange thing is mr . sherlock holmes that if my friend here had not proposed coming round to you this morning i should have come on my own account . i understand that you think out little puzzles and ive had one this morning which wants more thinking out than i am able to give it .

pray take a seat sir henry . do i understand you to say that you have yourself had some remarkable experience since you arrived in london ?

nothing of much importance mr . holmes . only a joke as like as not . it was this letter if you can call it a letter which reached me this morning .

sir henry baskerville northumberland hotel charing cross

who knew that you were going to the northumberland hotel ?

no one could have known . we only decided after i met dr . mortimer .

but dr . mortimer was no doubt already stopping there ?

no i had been staying with a friend

there was no possible indication that we intended to go to this hotel .

hum ! someone seems to be very deeply interested in your movements .

now perhaps you will tell me mr . holmes what in thunder is the meaning of that and who it is that takes so much interest in my affairs ?

what do you make of it dr . mortimer ? you must allow that there is nothing supernatural about this at any rate ?

no sir but it might very well come from someone who was convinced that the business is supernatural .

what business ? it seems to me that all you gentlemen know a great deal more than i do about my own affairs .

you shall share our knowledge before you leave this room sir henry . i promise you that we will confine ourselves for the present with your permission to this very interesting document which must have been put together and posted yesterday evening . have you yesterdays times watson ?

it is here in the corner .

i dont know much about the tariff and things of that kind but it seems to me weve got a bit off the trail so far as that note is concerned .

on the contrary i think we are particularly hot upon the trail sir henry . watson here knows more about my methods than you do but i fear that even he has not quite grasped the significance of this sentence .

no i confess that i see no connection .

and yet my dear watson there is so very close a connection that the one is extracted out of the other . you your your life reason value keep away from the . dont you see now whence these words have been taken ?

by thunder youre right ! well if that isnt smart !

if any possible doubt remained it is settled by the fact that keep away and from the are cut out in one piece .

well nowso it is !

really mr . holmes this exceeds anything which i could have imagined i could understand anyone saying that the words were from a newspaper but that you should name which and add that it came from the leading article is really one of the most remarkable things which i have ever known . how did you do it ?

i presume doctor that you could tell the skull of a negro from that of an esquimau ?

most certainly .

but how ?

because that is my special hobby . the differences are obvious . the supraorbital crest the facial angle the maxillary curve the

so far as i can follow you then mr . holmes someone cut out this message with a scissors

nailscissors you can see that it was a very shortbladed scissors since the cutter had to take two snips over keep away .

that is so . someone then cut out the message with a pair of shortbladed scissors pasted it with paste

gum

with gum on to the paper . but i want to know why the word moor should have been written ?

because he could not find it in print . the other words were all simple and might be found in any issue but moor would be less common .

why of course that would explain it . have you read anything else in this message mr . holmes ?

we are coming now rather into the region of guesswork

say rather into the region where we balance probabilities and choose the most likely . it is the scientific use of the imagination but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculation . now you would call it a guess no doubt but i am almost certain that this address has been written in a hotel .

how in the world can you say that ?

well ?

nothing it is a blank halfsheet of paper without even a watermark upon it . i think we have drawn as much as we can from this curious letter and now sir henry has anything else of interest happened to you since you have been in london ?

why no mr . holmes . i think not .

you have not observed anyone follow or watch you ?

i seem to have walked right into the thick of a dime novel why in thunder should anyone follow or watch me ?

we are coming to that . you have nothing else to report to us before we go into this matter ?

well it depends upon what you think worth reporting .

i think anything out of the ordinary routine of life well worth reporting .

i dont know much of british life yet for i have spent nearly all my time in the states and in canada . but i hope that to lose one of your boots is not part of the ordinary routine of life over here .

you have lost one of your boots ?

my dear sir it is only mislaid . you will find it when you return to the hotel . what is the use of troubling mr . holmes with trifles of this kind ?

well he asked me for anything outside the ordinary routine .

exactly however foolish the incident may seem . you have lost one of your boots you say ?

well mislaid it anyhow . i put them both outside my door last night and there was only one in the morning . i could get no sense out of the chap who cleans them . the worst of it is that i only bought the pair last night in the strand and i have never had them on .

if you have never worn them why did you put them out to be cleaned ?

they were tan boots and had never been varnished . that was why i put them out .

then i understand that on your arrival in london yesterday you went out at once and bought a pair of boots ?

i did a good deal of shopping . dr . mortimer here went round with me . you see if i am to be squire down there i must dress the part and it may be that i have got a little careless in my ways out west . among other things i bought these brown bootsgave six dollars for themand had one stolen before ever i had them on my feet .

it seems a singularly useless thing to steal i confess that i share dr . mortimers belief that it will not be long before the missing boot is found .

and now gentlemen it seems to me that i have spoken quite enough about the little that i know . it is time that you kept your promise and gave me a full account of what we are all driving at .

your request is a very reasonable one dr . mortimer i think you could not do better than to tell your story as you told it to us .

well i seem to have come into an inheritance with a vengeance of course ive heard of the hound ever since i was in the nursery . its the pet story of the family though i never thought of taking it seriously before . but as to my uncles deathwell it all seems boiling up in my head and i cant get it clear yet . you dont seem quite to have made up your mind whether its a case for a policeman or a clergyman .

precisely .

and now theres this affair of the letter to me at the hotel . i suppose that fits into its place .

it seems to show that someone knows more than we do about what goes on upon the moor

and also that someone is not illdisposed towards you since they warn you of danger .

or it may be that they wish for their own purposes to scare me away .

well of course that is possible also . i am very much indebted to you dr . mortimer for introducing me to a problem which presents several interesting alternatives . but the practical point which we now have to decide sir henry is whether it is or is not advisable for you to go to baskerville hall .

why should i not go ?

there seems to be danger .

do you mean danger from this family fiend or do you mean danger from human beings ?

well that is what we have to find out .

is that convenient to you watson ?

perfectly .

then you may expect us . shall i have a cab called ?