while he sprang forward with
clenched hands towards my companion. Then he stopped, and with a
violent effort he resumed a cold, rigid calmness, which was, perhaps,
more suggestive of danger than his hot-headed outburst.

"I have lived so long among savages and beyond the law," said he, "that
I have got into the way of being a law to myself. You would do well,
Mr. Holmes, not to forget it, for I have no desire to do you an injury."

"Nor have I any desire to do you an injury, Dr. Sterndale. Surely the
clearest proof of it is that, knowing what I know, I have sent for you
and not for the police."

Sterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, perhaps, the first time
in his adventurous life. There was a calm assurance of power in
Holmes's manner which could not be withstood. Our visitor stammered
for a moment, his great hands opening and shutting in his agitation.

"What do you mean?" he asked at last. "If this is bluff upon your
part, Mr. Holmes, you have chosen a bad man for your experiment. Let us
have no more beating about the bush. What DO you mean?"

"I will tell you," said Holmes, "and the reason why I tell you is that
I hope frankness may beget frankness. What my next step may be will
depend entirely upon the nature of your own defence."

"My defence?"

"Yes, sir."

"My defence against what?"

"Against the charge of killing Mortimer Tregennis."

Sterndale mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. "Upon my word,
you are getting on," said he. "Do all your successes depend upon this
prodigious power of bluff?"

"The bluff," said Holmes sternly, "is upon your side, Dr. Leon
Sterndale, and not upon mine. As a proof I will tell you some of the
facts upon which my conclusions are based. Of your return from
Plymouth, allowing much of your property to go on to Africa, I will say
nothing save that it first informed me that you were one of the factors
which had to be taken into account in reconstructing this drama--"

"I came back--"

"I have heard your reasons and regard them as unconvincing and
inadequate. We will pass that. You came down here to ask me whom I
suspected. I refused to answer you. You then went to the vicarage,
waited outside it for some time, and finally returned to your cottage."

"How do you know that?"

"I followed you."

"I saw no one."

"That is what you may expect to see when I follow you. You spent a
restless night at your cottage, and you formed certain plans, wh