of a famous
vintage. Holmes then threw the handkerchief to a distance, fastened a
stout cord to the mongrel's collar, and led him to the foot of the
water-barrel. The creature instantly broke into a succession of high,
tremulous yelps, and, with his nose on the ground, and his tail in the
air, pattered off upon the trail at a pace which strained his leash and
kept us at the top of our speed.

The east had been gradually whitening, and we could now see some
distance in the cold gray light. The square, massive house, with its
black, empty windows and high, bare walls, towered up, sad and forlorn,
behind us. Our course led right across the grounds, in and out among
the trenches and pits with which they were scarred and intersected.
The whole place, with its scattered dirt-heaps and ill-grown shrubs,
had a blighted, ill-omened look which harmonized with the black tragedy
which hung over it.

On reaching the boundary wall Toby ran along, whining eagerly,
underneath its shadow, and stopped finally in a corner screened by a
young beech. Where the two walls joined, several bricks had been
loosened, and the crevices left were worn down and rounded upon the
lower side, as though they had frequently been used as a ladder.
Holmes clambered up, and, taking the dog from me, he dropped it over
upon the other side.

"There's the print of wooden-leg's hand," he remarked, as I mounted up
beside him. "You see the slight smudge of blood upon the white
plaster. What a lucky thing it is that we have had no very heavy rain
since yesterday! The scent will lie upon the road in spite of their
eight-and-twenty hours' start."

I confess that I had my doubts myself when I reflected upon the great
traffic which had passed along the London road in the interval. My
fears were soon appeased, however. Toby never hesitated or swerved,
but waddled on in his peculiar rolling fashion. Clearly, the pungent
smell of the creasote rose high above all other contending scents.

"Do not imagine," said Holmes, "that I depend for my success in this
case upon the mere chance of one of these fellows having put his foot
in the chemical. I have knowledge now which would enable me to trace
them in many different ways. This, however, is the readiest and, since
fortune has put it into our hands, I should be culpable if I neglected
it. It has, however, prevented the case from becoming the pretty
little intellectual problem which it at one time promised t