And that is
That McCarthy senior met his death from McCarthy junior and that all
theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.
Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog, said Holmes, laughing.
But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley Farm upon the
left.
Yes, that is it. It was a widespread, comfortable-looking building,
two-storied, slate-roofed, with great yellow blotches of lichen upon
the grey walls. The drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys, however,
gave it a stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still lay
heavy upon it. We called at the door, when the maid, at Holmes
request, showed us the boots which her master wore at the time of his
death, and also a pair of the son s, though not the pair which he had
then had. Having measured these very carefully from seven or eight
different points, Holmes desired to be led to the court-yard, from
which we all followed the winding track which led to Boscombe Pool.
Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent as
this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker
Street would have failed to recognise him. His face flushed and
darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard black lines, while his
eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was
bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins
stood out like whipcord in his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed
to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so
absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him that a question or
remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a
quick, impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he made his way
along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by way of the
woods to the Boscombe Pool. It was damp, marshy ground, as is all that
district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon the path and
amid the short grass which bounded it on either side. Sometimes Holmes
would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and once he made quite a little
detour into the meadow. Lestrade and I walked behind him, the detective
indifferent and contemptuous, while I watched my friend with the
interest which sprang from the conviction that every one of his actions
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