here helps a concentration of
thought. I have not pushed it to the length of getting into a box
to think, but that is the logical outcome of my convictions. Have
you turned the case over in your mind?"

"Yes, I have thought a good deal of it in the course of the day."

"What do you make of it?"

"It is very bewildering."

"It has certainly a character of its own. There are points of
distinction about it. That change in the footprints, for example.
What do you make of that?"

"Mortimer said that the man had walked on tiptoe down that
portion of the alley."

"He only repeated what some fool had said at the inquest. Why
should a man walk on tiptoe down the alley?"

"What then?"

"He was running, Watson--running desperately, running for his
life, running until he burst his heart and fell dead upon his
face."

"Running from what?"

"There lies our problem. There are indications that the man was
crazed with fear before ever he began to run."

"How can you say that?"

"I am presuming that the cause of his fears came to him across
the moor. If that were so, and it seems most probable, only a man
who had lost his wits would have run from the house instead of
towards it. If the gipsy's evidence may be taken as true, he ran
with cries for help in the direction where help was least likely
to be. Then, again, whom was he waiting for that night, and why
was he waiting for him in the Yew Alley rather than in his own
house?"

"You think that he was waiting for someone?"

"The man was elderly and infirm. We can understand his taking an
evening stroll, but the ground was damp and the night inclement.
Is it natural that he should stand for five or ten minutes, as
Dr. Mortimer, with more practical sense than I should have given
him credit for, deduced from the cigar ash?"

"But he went out every evening."

"I think it unlikely that he waited at the moor-gate every
evening. On the contrary, the evidence is that he avoided the
moor. That night he waited there. It was the night before he made
his departure for London. The thing takes shape, Watson. It
becomes coherent. Might I ask you to hand me my violin, and we
will postpone all further thought upon this business until we
have had the advantage of meeting Dr. Mortimer and Sir Henry
Baskerville in the morning."

Chapter 4

Sir Henry Baskerville

Our breakfast-table was cleared early, and Holmes waited in his
dressing-gown for the promised interview. Our