[adapted]

by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

“I am sorry, Watson, that I have to go,” said Holmes, as we sat down together to eat our breakfast one morning.

“Go! Where to?”

“To Dartmoor; to King’s Pyland.”

I was not surprised. I only wondered why he had not already been involved in this strange case, which was the one thing people talked about all over England. For a whole day my companion walked around the room with his head down and a frown, filling and refilling his pipe with strong black tobacco, and he did not hear any of my questions or remarks. New editions of every newspaper came from our news agent. He only glanced at them and threw them into a corner. Though he was silent, I knew very well what he was thinking about. There was only one problem that could test his skill: the strange disappearance of the favorite for the Wessex Cup, and the sad murder of its trainer. So when he suddenly said he would go to the place where it happened, it was just what I had expected and hoped.

“I would be very happy to go with you if I am not in the way,” I said.

“My dear Watson, you would do me a very great favour by coming. And I think that your time will not be wasted at all, because there are things about the case that may make it truly special. We have, I think, just enough time to catch our train at Paddington, and I will explain more about the matter during our journey. You would help me by bringing your very good binoculars with you, please.”

And so it happened that an hour or so later I sat in the corner of a first-class train carriage going fast on the way to Exeter, while Sherlock Holmes, with his sharp, eager face, wearing a travelling cap with ear flaps, read quickly through a pile of new newspapers which he had got at Paddington. We had left Reading far behind us before he pushed the last one of them under the seat, and offered me his cigar case.

“We are going well,” he said, as he looked out of the window and looked at his watch. “Our speed now is fifty-three and a half miles an hour.”

“I did not see the quarter-mile posts,” I said.

“I have not, either. But the telegraph posts on this line are sixty yards apart, and the calculation is easy. I suppose that you have checked this case of the murder of John Straker and the disappearance of Silver Blaze?”

“I have read what the Telegraph and the Chronicle have to say.”

“This is one of those cases where the skill of a thinker should be used more to sort details than to get new evidence. The tragedy is so unusual, so complete, and so important to many people that we now have too many guesses and ideas. The hard part is to separate the real facts — facts we are sure about — from the extra stories of people with theories and from reporters. When we have this strong base, it is our job to see what we can learn and what special points the whole mystery depends on. On Tuesday evening I got telegrams from both Colonel Ross, the owner of the horse, and from Inspector Gregory, who is in charge of the case, asking me to help.”

“Tuesday evening!” I shouted. “And now it is Thursday morning. Why didn’t you go there yesterday?”

“Because I made a mistake, my dear Watson. I am afraid I make mistakes more often than people would think if they only knew me from your stories. I could not believe that the most famous horse in England could stay hidden for long, especially in the quiet north of Dartmoor, where few people live. All day yesterday I waited to hear that the horse was found, and that the man who took him also killed John Straker. But this morning I saw that nothing was done, except the arrest of young Fitzroy Simpson. So I felt it was time for me to do something. Still, I feel that yesterday was not a waste.”

“You have an idea, then?”

“At least I understand the main facts of the case. I will list them for you, for nothing makes a case so clear as telling it to another person, and I cannot really expect your help if I do not show you the point where we start.

I leaned back against the cushions, slowly smoking my cigar, while Holmes leaned forward, with his long, thin first finger counting the points on the palm of his left hand, and then told me the main events which had led to our journey.

“Silver Blaze,” said he, “is from the Isonomy family of horses and has a record as good as his famous ancestor. He is five years old and has won, one by one, all the big racing prizes for Colonel Ross, his lucky owner. Before the recent trouble he was the top favourite for the Wessex Cup, and people were betting three to one on him. He has always been a big favourite with racing fans and has never let them down, so even at those odds people put huge sums of money on him. So it is clear that many people had a strong reason to stop Silver Blaze from being at the start of the race next Tuesday.”

“People at King’s Pyland understood this, where the Colonel’s training stable stood. Every care was taken to guard the favourite. The trainer, John Straker, had stopped riding as a jockey. He once rode for Colonel Ross, but later grew too heavy to ride. He served the Colonel for five years as a jockey and for seven as a trainer. He was hard-working and honest. Under him worked three lads. The stable was small, with only four horses. Each night one lad sat up in the stable. The other two slept in the loft. All three were honest boys. John Straker was a married man. He lived in a small house about two hundred yards from the stables. He had no children, kept one maid, and had enough money. The country round was very lonely. About half a mile to the north there was a small group of villas. A Tavistock builder made them for sick people and others who wanted the clean Dartmoor air. Tavistock was two miles to the west. Across the moor, also about two miles away, was the larger training place of Mapleton. It belonged to Lord Backwater and was run by Silas Brown. In other directions the moor was wild and empty, with only a few roaming gypsies. This was the situation last Monday night when the disaster happened.

“That evening the horses were exercised and given water as usual, and the stables were locked at nine. Two of the boys went to the trainer’s house and had supper in the kitchen. The third boy, Ned Hunter, stayed to keep watch. A few minutes after nine, the maid, Edith Baxter, took his supper to the stables. It was a dish of curried mutton. She brought no drink, because there was a water tap in the stables, and the rule was that the boy on duty should drink only water. She carried a lantern because it was very dark and the path went across the open moor.

“Edith Baxter was about thirty yards from the stables, when a man came out of the dark and called to her to stop. As he stepped into the bright yellow circle of light from the lantern she saw that he was a very polite gentleman, wearing a grey tweed suit with a cloth cap. He wore gaiters on his legs, and he carried a heavy stick with a round knob. What struck her most, however, was how very pale his face was and how nervous his manner seemed. His age, she thought, was a little over thirty, rather than under it.”

“Can you tell me where I am?” he asked. “I had almost decided to sleep on the moor, when I saw the light from your lantern.”

“You are near the King’s Pyland training stables,” she said.

“Oh, really! What good luck!” he cried. “I understand that a stable-boy sleeps there alone every night. Maybe that is his supper you are carrying to him. I am sure you would not be too proud to earn money for a new dress, would you?” He took a small piece of folded white paper from his jacket pocket. “Make sure the boy gets this tonight, and you shall have the prettiest dress that money can buy.”

“She was scared by how serious he seemed, and ran past him to the window where she usually gave out the meals. It was already open, and Hunter was sitting at the small table inside there. She had started to tell him what had happened, when the stranger walked up to them once more.

“Good evening,” he said, looking through the window. “I wanted to talk with you.” The girl swore that as he spoke she saw the corner of the small paper packet sticking out from his closed hand.

“What are you doing here?” asked the boy.

“It’s business that may give you some money,” said the other man. “You have two horses in the Wessex Cup — Silver Blaze and Bayard. Tell me the truth and you will not lose money. Is it true that, with the weights, Bayard could let the other start a hundred yards ahead in five furlongs, and that the stable has bet on him?”

“So, you are one of those bad horse spies!” shouted the boy. “I will show you how we deal with them in King’s Pyland.” He jumped up and ran across the stable to let the dog loose. The girl ran away to the house, but as she ran, she looked back and saw that the stranger was leaning in through the window. A minute later, when Hunter ran out with the dog, the man was gone, and he ran all around the buildings, but he could not find any sign of him.

“One moment,” I asked. “Did the stable boy, when he ran out with the dog, leave the door not locked behind him?”

“Excellent, Watson, excellent!” said my friend softly. “I saw the point was very important, so I sent a special telegram to Dartmoor yesterday to clear it up. The boy locked the door before he left. Also, the window was not big enough for a man to go through.”

“Hunter waited until the other grooms came back. Then he sent a message to the trainer and told him what had happened. Straker became excited when he heard it, though he did not see how important it was. Still, he felt uneasy. At one in the morning, Mrs. Straker woke and saw he was getting dressed. She asked why. He said he could not sleep because he worried about the horses, and he wanted to walk to the stables to check them. She begged him to stay home because she heard the rain on the window. But he put on his big raincoat and left the house.

“Mrs. Straker woke up at seven in the morning, and saw that her husband had not come back yet. She got dressed quickly, called the maid, and went to the stables. The door was open; inside, Hunter was curled up on a chair and was not waking up at all, the favorite horse’s stall was empty, and there was no sign of his trainer.

“The two boys who slept in the chaff-cutting loft above the harness-room were woken quickly. They had heard nothing in the night, as they both sleep very heavily. Hunter was clearly under a strong drug, and he made no sense, so they left him to sleep it off. The two boys and the two women ran out to search for the missing people. They still hoped the trainer had taken the horse for early exercise. But when they climbed the small hill near the house, where they could see the nearby moors, they saw no sign of the missing favourite. Instead, they saw something that warned them that something very bad had happened.

“About a quarter of a mile from the stables, John Straker’s overcoat was hanging and flapping on a bush. Just beyond, there was a small hollow in the moor like a bowl. At the bottom, they found the poor trainer’s dead body. His head was broken by a hard blow from a heavy weapon. He also had a long, clean cut on his thigh, made by a very sharp tool. It was clear that Straker had fought hard against his attackers. In his right hand he held a small knife, covered with blood up to the handle. In his left hand he held a red and black silk scarf. The maid said the stranger who visited the stables wore it the night before.

“Hunter, when he woke up from his faint, was also very sure about who owned the tie. He was just as sure that the same stranger, while he was standing at the window, put a drug into his curried mutton, and so left the stables without their watchman.

“As for the missing horse, there were many signs in the mud at the bottom of the deep hole that he had been there at the time of the fight. But since that morning he has been gone, and although a large reward has been offered, and all the gypsies of Dartmoor are looking out, no news has come about him. Finally, a test showed that the leftovers of his supper, left by the stable boy, had quite a lot of powdered opium, while the people at the house ate the same dish on the same night without getting ill.

“These are the main facts of the case, without any guessing at all, and said as simply as possible. I will now repeat what the police have done in this case.”

“Inspector Gregory, who has the case, is a very good officer. If he had more ideas, he might rise very high in his job. When he arrived, he quickly found and arrested the man people would naturally suspect. It was not hard to find him, because he lived in one of the villas I have mentioned. His name was Fitzroy Simpson. He was from a good family and had a good education, but he had spent a lot of money on horse racing, and now he lived by doing a little quiet and polite betting work in the sports clubs of London. A look at his betting book shows that he had written bets for five thousand pounds against the favorite horse.”

“When he was arrested, he said, without being asked, that he had come down to Dartmoor to try to get some information about the King’s Pyland horses, and also about Desborough, the second favourite, which was in the care of Silas Brown at the Mapleton stables. He did not try to deny what he had done on the evening before, as others had already said, but he said that he had no bad plan at all, and that he had only wished to get the facts for himself, with his own eyes and ears. When they showed him his cravat, he turned very pale, and he could not explain, in any way, why it was found in the hand of the murdered man. His clothes were wet, which showed that he had been out in the storm during the night before, and his stick, a Penang-lawyer heavy with lead, was just the kind of weapon that might, with many hard blows, have caused the terrible injuries that the trainer had suffered and from which he had died.

“On the other hand, there was no cut on his body, while the way Straker’s knife looked would show that at least one of his attackers must have his mark on him. There you have it all in a few words, Watson, and if you can give me any help I will be very grateful to you.”

I had listened with the greatest interest to the statement which Holmes, in his usual clear way, had put before me. Though most of the facts were known to me, I had not understood well their different importance, or their connection to each other.

“Is it not possible,” I suggested, “that the cut on Straker could have been made by his own knife during the strong shaking that comes after any brain injury?”

“It is more than possible; it is likely,” said Holmes. “If so, one of the main points in favour of the accused is gone.”

“And yet,” I said, “even now I still do not understand what the police’s idea or explanation could be.”

“I am afraid that any idea we make has big problems,” said my companion. “The police think that Fitzroy Simpson drugged the boy and somehow got a second key. He opened the stable door and took the horse, planning to take it away for good. The bridle is missing, so Simpson must have put it on. He left the door open and led the horse over the moor. Then the trainer met him or caught up with him. A fight started. Simpson killed the trainer with his heavy stick. Straker used a small knife to protect himself, but he did not hurt Simpson. After that the thief either took the horse to a secret place, or the horse ran away during the fight and is now walking around on the moor. That is the police story. It does not sound likely, but other ideas sound even less likely. I will check this quickly when I get there, and until then we cannot do much more.”

It was evening when we reached the small town of Tavistock. It lies in the middle of the big moor, Dartmoor. Two gentlemen were waiting for us at the station. One was a tall, fair man with hair and beard like a lion, and sharp light blue eyes. The other was a small, quick man, very neat, in a frock-coat and gaiters, with small side-whiskers and a glass over one eye. The small man was Colonel Ross, a well-known sportsman. The tall man was Inspector Gregory, a detective who was quickly making his name in the English police.

“I am very glad that you have come here, Mr. Holmes,” said the Colonel. “The Inspector here has done everything that anyone could think of, but I want to try every possible way to punish the person who hurt poor Straker and to get my horse back.”

“Have there been any new events?” asked Holmes.

“I am sorry to say that we have not made much progress,” said the Inspector. “We have an open carriage outside, and as you would surely like to see the place before it gets dark, we can talk about it as we drive.”

A minute later we were all seated in a comfortable carriage, and we rode quickly through the old city in Devon. Inspector Gregory talked a lot about the case, while Holmes asked a few short questions. Colonel Ross leaned back with his arms crossed and his hat low over his eyes, and I listened with interest to the two detectives. Gregory explained his idea, which was almost the same as what Holmes had said on the train.

“We are very close to catching Fitzroy Simpson,” he said, “and I believe he is our man. At the same time I know the evidence is only from the situation, and some new event may change it.”

“What about Straker’s knife?”

We are quite sure that he hurt himself when he fell down to the ground.

“My friend, Dr. Watson, gave me that idea as we came down. If that is true, it would be bad for this man, Simpson.”