nquired for
Captain Basil made me understand that Holmes was working somewhere under
one of the numerous disguises and names with which he concealed his own
formidable identity. He had at least five small refuges in different
parts of London, in which he was able to change his personality. He
said nothing of his business to me, and it was not my habit to force a
confidence. The first positive sign which he gave me of the direction
which his investigation was taking was an extraordinary one. He had gone
out before breakfast, and I had sat down to mine when he strode into the
room, his hat upon his head and a huge barbed-headed spear tucked like
an umbrella under his arm.

"Good gracious, Holmes!" I cried. "You don't mean to say that you have
been walking about London with that thing?"

"I drove to the butcher's and back."

"The butcher's?"

"And I return with an excellent appetite. There can be no question,
my dear Watson, of the value of exercise before breakfast. But I am
prepared to bet that you will not guess the form that my exercise has
taken."

"I will not attempt it."

He chuckled as he poured out the coffee.

"If you could have looked into Allardyce's back shop, you would have
seen a dead pig swung from a hook in the ceiling, and a gentleman in
his shirt sleeves furiously stabbing at it with this weapon. I was that
energetic person, and I have satisfied myself that by no exertion of my
strength can I transfix the pig with a single blow. Perhaps you would
care to try?"

"Not for worlds. But why were you doing this?"

"Because it seemed to me to have an indirect bearing upon the mystery of
Woodman's Lee. Ah, Hopkins, I got your wire last night, and I have been
expecting you. Come and join us."

Our visitor was an exceedingly alert man, thirty years of age, dressed
in a quiet tweed suit, but retaining the erect bearing of one who was
accustomed to official uniform. I recognized him at once as Stanley
Hopkins, a young police inspector, for whose future Holmes had high
hopes, while he in turn professed the admiration and respect of a pupil
for the scientific methods of the famous amateur. Hopkins's brow was
clouded, and he sat down with an air of deep dejection.

"No, thank you, sir. I breakfasted before I came round. I spent the
night in town, for I came up yesterday to report."

"And what had you to report?"

"Failure, sir, absolute failure."

"You have made no progress?"

"None."

"Dear me!