The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes | Page 4

mutton, and so
deprived the stables of their watchman. As to the missing horse, there
were abundant proofs in the mud which lay at the bottom of the fatal
hollow that he had been there at the time of the struggle. But from that
morning he has disappeared, and although a large reward has been
offered, and all the gypsies of Dartmoor are on the alert, no news has
come of him. Finally, an analysis has shown that the remains of his
supper left by the stable-lad contain an appreciable quantity of
powdered opium, while the people at the house partook of the same
dish on the same night without any ill effect.
"Those are the main facts of the case, stripped of all surmise, and stated
as baldly as possible. I shall now recapitulate what the police have done

in the matter.
"Inspector Gregory, to whom the case has been committed, is an
extremely competent officer. Were he but gifted with imagination he
might rise to great heights in his profession. On his arrival he promptly
found and arrested the man upon whom suspicion naturally rested.
There was little difficulty in finding him, for he inhabited one of those
villas which I have mentioned. His name, it appears, was Fitzroy
Simpson. He was a man of excellent birth and education, who had
squandered a fortune upon the turf, and who lived now by doing a little
quiet and genteel book-making in the sporting clubs of London. An
examination of his betting-book shows that bets to the amount of five
thousand pounds had been registered by him against the favorite. On
being arrested he volunteered that statement that he had come down to
Dartmoor in the hope of getting some information about the King's
Pyland horses, and also about Desborough, the second favorite, which
was in charge of Silas Brown at the Mapleton stables. He did not
attempt to deny that he had acted as described upon the evening before,
but declared that he had no sinister designs, and had simply wished to
obtain first-hand information. When confronted with his cravat, he
turned very pale, and was utterly unable to account for its presence in
the hand of the murdered man. His wet clothing showed that he had
been out in the storm of the night before, and his stick, which was a
Penang-lawyer weighted with lead, was just such a weapon as might,
by repeated blows, have inflicted the terrible injuries to which the
trainer had succumbed. On the other hand, there was no wound upon
his person, while the state of Straker's knife would show that one at
least of his assailants must bear his mark upon him. There you have it
all in a nutshell, Watson, and if you can give me any light I shall be
infinitely obliged to you."
I had listened with the greatest interest to the statement which Holmes,
with characteristic clearness, had laid before me. Though most of the
facts were familiar to me, I had not sufficiently appreciated their
relative importance, nor their connection to each other.
"Is it not possible," I suggested, "that the incised wound upon Straker

may have been caused by his own knife in the convulsive struggles
which follow any brain injury?"
"It is more than possible; it is probable," said Holmes. "In that case one
of the main points in favor of the accused disappears."
"And yet," said I, "even now I fail to understand what the theory of the
police can be."
"I am afraid that whatever theory we state has very grave objections to
it," returned my companion. "The police imagine, I take it, that this
Fitzroy Simpson, having drugged the lad, and having in some way
obtained a duplicate key, opened the stable door and took out the horse,
with the intention, apparently, of kidnapping him altogether. His bridle
is missing, so that Simpson must have put this on. Then, having left the
door open behind him, he was leading the horse away over the moor,
when he was either met or overtaken by the trainer. A row naturally
ensued. Simpson beat out the trainer's brains with his heavy stick
without receiving any injury from the small knife which Straker used in
self-defence, and then the thief either led the horse on to some secret
hiding-place, or else it may have bolted during the struggle, and be now
wandering out on the moors. That is the case as it appears to the police,
and improbable as it is, all other explanations are more improbable still.
However, I shall very quickly test the matter when I am once upon the
spot, and until then I cannot really see how we can get much further
than our present position."
It was evening before we reached the little