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?" asked Sir Henry sharply. "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," said Sherlock Holmes. "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 yesterday's Times, Watson?"

"It is here in the corner."

"Might I trouble you for it--the inside page, please, with the
leading articles?" He glanced swiftly over it, running his eyes
up and down the columns. "Capital article this on free trade.
Permit me to give you an extract from it. 'You may be cajoled
into imagining that your own special trade or your own industry
will be encouraged by a protective tariff, but it stands to
reason that such legislation must in the long run keep away
wealth from the country, diminish the value of our imports, and
lower the general conditions of life in this island.' What do you
think of that, Watson?" cried Holmes in high glee, rubbing his
hands together with satisfaction. "Don't you think that is an
admirable sentiment?"

Dr. Mortimer looked at Holmes with an air of professional
interest, and Sir Henry Baskerville turned a pair of puzzled dark
eyes upon me.

"I don't know much about the tariff and things of that kind,"
said he; "but it seems to me we've 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.' Don't
you see now whence these words have been taken?"

"By thunder, you're right! Well, if that isn't smart!" cried Sir
Henry.

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

"Well, now--so it is!"

"Really, Mr. Holmes, this