is your remark that there is some connection between the professor
and the crime. That you get from the warning received through the
man Porlock. Can we for our present practical needs get any further
than that?"

"We may form some conception as to the motives of the crime.
It is, as I gather from your original remarks, an inexplicable,
or at least an unexplained, murder. Now, presuming that the
source of the crime is as we suspect it to be, there might be two
different motives. In the first place, I may tell you that Moriarty
rules with a rod of iron over his people. His discipline is
tremendous. There is only one punishment in his code. It is
death. Now we might suppose that this murdered man -- this
Douglas whose approaching fate was known by one of the
arch-criminal's subordinates -- had in some way betrayed the chief.
His punishment followed, and would be known to all -- if only to
put the fear of death into them."

"Well, that is one suggestion, Mr. Holmes."

"The other is that it has been engineered by Moriarty in the
ordinary course of business. Was there any robbery?"

"I have not heard."

"If so, it would, of course, be against the first hypothesis and
in favour of the second. Moriarty may have been engaged to
engineer it on a promise of part spoils, or he may have been paid
so much down to manage it. Either is possible. But whichever it
may be, or if it is some third combination, it is down at Birlstone
that we must seek the solution. I know our man too well to
suppose that he has left anything up here which may lead us to
him."

"Then to Birlstone we must go!" cried MacDonald, jumping
from his chair. "My word! it's later than I thought. I can give
you, gentlemen, five minutes for preparation, and that is all."

"And ample for us both," said Holmes, as he sprang up and
hastened to change from his dressing gown to his coat. "While
we are on our way, Mr. Mac, I will ask you to be good enough
to tell me all about it."

"All about it" proved to be disappointingly little, and yet
there was enough to assure us that the case before us might well
be worthy of the expert's closest attention. He brightened and
rubbed his thin hands together as he listened to the meagre but
remarkable details. A long series of sterile weeks lay behind us,
and here at last there was a fitting object for those remarkable
powers which, like all special gifts, become irksome to their
owner when they are not in use. That razor brain blunted and
rusted with inaction.

Sherlock Holmes's eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a
warmer hue, and his whole eager face shone with an inward light
when the call for work reached him. Leaning forward in the cab,
he listened intently to MacDonald's short sketch of the problem
which awaited us in Sussex. The inspector was himself dependent,
as he explained to us, upon a scribbled account forwarded to him
by the milk train in the early hours of the morning. White
Mason, the local officer, was a personal friend, and hence
MacDonald had been notified much more promptly than is usual
at Scotland Yard when provincials need their assistance. It is a
very cold scent upon which the Metropolitan expert is generally
asked to run.


"DEAR INSPECTOR MACDONALD [said the letter which he read to us]:

"Official requisition for your services is in separate

envelope. This is for your private eye. Wire me what train in

the morning you can get for Birlstone, and I will meet it --

or have it met if I am too occupied. This case is a snorter.

Don't waste a moment in getting started. If you can bring

Mr. Holmes, please do so; for he will find something after

his own heart. We would think the whole thing had been

fixed up for theatrical effect if there wasn't a dead man in

the middle of it. My word! it is a snorter."


"Your friend seems to be no fool," remarked Holmes.

"No, sir, White Mason is a very live man, if I am any judge."

"Well, have you anything more?"

"Only that he will give us every detail when we meet."

"Then how did you get at Mr. Douglas and the fact that he
had been horribly murdered?"

"That was in the enclosed official report. It didn't say