“Certainly, I will come at once. But I retain your services, Mr. Holmes. I desire you to spare no expense and no pains to get at the truth.”

My friend turned to the country inspector.

“I suppose that you have no objection to my collaborating with you, Mr. Baynes?”

“Highly honoured, sir, I am sure.”

“You appear to have been very prompt and business-like in all that you have done. Was there any clue, may I ask, as to the exact hour that the man met his death?”

“He had been there since one o’clock. There was rain about that time, and his death had certainly been before the rain.”

“But that is perfectly impossible, Mr. Baynes,” cried our client. “His voice is unmistakable. I could swear to it that it was he who addressed me in my bedroom at that very hour.”

“Remarkable, but by no means impossible,” said Holmes, smiling.

“You have a clue?” asked Gregson.

“On the face of it the case is not a very complex one, though it certainly presents some novel and interesting features. A further knowledge of facts is necessary before I would venture to give a final and definite opinion. By the way, Mr. Baynes, did you find anything remarkable besides this note in your examination of the house?”

The detective looked at my friend in a singular way.

“There were,” said he, “one or two very remarkable things. Perhaps when I have finished at the police-station you would care to come out and give me your opinion of them.”

“I am entirely at your service,” said Sherlock Holmes, ringing the bell. “You will show these gentlemen out, Mrs. Hudson, and kindly send the boy with this telegram. He is to pay a five-shilling reply.”

We sat for some time in silence after our visitors had left. Holmes smoked hard, with his brows drawn down over his keen eyes, and his head thrust forward in the eager way characteristic of the man.

“Well, Watson,” he asked, turning suddenly upon me, “what do you make of it?”

“I can make nothing of this mystification of Scott Eccles.”

“But the crime?”

“Well, taken with the disappearance of the man’s companions, I should say that they were in some way concerned in the murder and had fled from justice.”

“That is certainly a possible point of view. On the face of it you must admit, however, that it is very strange that his two servants should have been in a conspiracy against him and should have attacked him on the one night when he had a guest. They had him alone at their mercy every other night in the week.”

“Then why did they fly?”

“Quite so. Why did they fly? There is a big fact. Another big fact is the remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles. Now, my dear Watson, is it beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an explanation which would cover both these big facts? If it were one which would also admit of the mysterious note with its very curious phraseology, why, then it would be worth accepting as a temporary hypothesis. If the fresh facts which come to our knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become a solution.”

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