the morning.

"Seems to me they are playing me for a sucker in this hotel," he
cried. "They'll find they've started in to monkey with the wrong
man unless they are careful. By thunder, if that chap can't find
my missing boot there will be trouble. I can take a joke with the
best, Mr. Holmes, but they've got a bit over the mark this time."

"Still looking for your boot?"

"Yes, sir, and mean to find it."

"But, surely, you said that it was a new brown boot?"

"So it was, sir. And now it's an old black one."

"What! you don't mean to say----?"

"That's just what I do mean to say. I only had three pairs in the
world--the new brown, the old black, and the patent leathers,
which I am wearing. Last night they took one of my brown ones,
and to-day they have sneaked one of the black. Well, have you got
it? Speak out, man, and don't stand staring!"

An agitated German waiter had appeared upon the scene.

"No, sir; I have made inquiry all over the hotel, but I can hear
no word of it."

"Well, either that boot comes back before sundown or I'll see the
manager and tell him that I go right straight out of this hotel."

"It shall be found, sir--I promise you that if you will have a
little patience it will be found."

"Mind it is, for it's the last thing of mine that I'll lose in
this den of thieves. Well, well, Mr. Holmes, you'll excuse my
troubling you about such a trifle----"

"I think it's well worth troubling about."

"Why, you look very serious over it."

"How do you explain it?"

"I just don't attempt to explain it. It seems the very maddest,
queerest thing that ever happened to me."

"The queerest perhaps----" said Holmes, thoughtfully.

"What do you make of it yourself?"

"Well, I don't profess to understand it yet. This case of yours
is very complex, Sir Henry. When taken in conjunction with your
uncle's death I am not sure that of all the five hundred cases of
capital importance which I have handled there is one which cuts
so deep. But we hold several threads in our hands, and the odds
are that one or other of them guides us to the truth. We may
waste time in following the wrong one, but sooner or later we
must come upon the right."

We had a pleasant luncheon in which little was said of the
business which had brought us together. It was in the private
sitting-room to which we afterwards repaired that Holmes asked
Baskerville what were his intentions.

"To go to Baskerville Hall."

"And when?"