nd fill in the time until we are due at the
hotel."

Chapter 5

Three Broken Threads

Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable degree, the power of
detaching his mind at will. For two hours the strange business in
which we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he was
entirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern Belgian masters.
He would talk of nothing but art, of which he had the crudest
ideas, from our leaving the gallery until we found ourselves at
the Northumberland Hotel.

"Sir Henry Baskerville is upstairs expecting you," said the
clerk. "He asked me to show you up at once when you came."

"Have you any objection to my looking at your register?" said
Holmes.

"Not in the least."

The book showed that two names had been added after that of
Baskerville. One was Theophilus Johnson and family, of Newcastle;
the other Mrs. Oldmore and maid, of High Lodge, Alton.

"Surely that must be the same Johnson whom I used to know," said
Holmes to the porter. "A lawyer, is he not, gray-headed, and
walks with a limp?"

"No, sir; this is Mr. Johnson, the coal-owner, a very active
gentleman, not older than yourself."

"Surely you are mistaken about his trade?"

"No, sir! he has used this hotel for many years, and he is very
well known to us."

"Ah, that settles it. Mrs. Oldmore, too; I seem to remember the
name. Excuse my curiosity, but often in calling upon one friend
one finds another."

"She is an invalid lady, sir. Her husband was once mayor of
Gloucester. She always comes to us when she is in town."

"Thank you; I am afraid I cannot claim her acquaintance. We have
established a most important fact by these questions, Watson," he
continued in a low voice as we went upstairs together. "We know
now that the people who are so interested in our friend have not
settled down in his own hotel. That means that while they are, as
we have seen, very anxious to watch him, they are equally anxious
that he should not see them. Now, this is a most suggestive
fact."

"What does it suggest?"

"It suggests--halloa, my dear fellow, what on earth is the
matter?"

As we came round the top of the stairs we had run up against Sir
Henry Baskerville himself. His face was flushed with anger, and
he held an old and dusty boot in one of his hands. So furious was
he that he was hardly articulate, and when he did speak it was in
a much broader and more Western dialect than any which we had
heard from him in