able-boy? And yet I was at a loss to know why. There have been
cases before now where trainers have made sure of great sums of money
by laying against their own horses, through agents, and then preventing
them from winning by fraud. Sometimes it is a pulling jockey. Sometimes
it is some surer and subtler means. What was it here? I hoped that the
contents of his pockets might help me to form a conclusion.

"And they did so. You cannot have forgotten the singular knife which was
found in the dead man's hand, a knife which certainly no sane man would
choose for a weapon. It was, as Dr. Watson told us, a form of knife
which is used for the most delicate operations known in surgery. And it
was to be used for a delicate operation that night. You must know, with
your wide experience of turf matters, Colonel Ross, that it is possible
to make a slight nick upon the tendons of a horse's ham, and to do it
subcutaneously, so as to leave absolutely no trace. A horse so treated
would develop a slight lameness, which would be put down to a strain in
exercise or a touch of rheumatism, but never to foul play."

"Villain! Scoundrel!" cried the Colonel.

"We have here the explanation of why John Straker wished to take the
horse out on to the moor. So spirited a creature would have certainly
roused the soundest of sleepers when it felt the prick of the knife. It
was absolutely necessary to do it in the open air."

"I have been blind!" cried the Colonel. "Of course that was why he
needed the candle, and struck the match."

"Undoubtedly. But in examining his belongings I was fortunate enough to
discover not only the method of the crime, but even its motives. As a
man of the world, Colonel, you know that men do not carry other people's
bills about in their pockets. We have most of us quite enough to do to
settle our own. I at once concluded that Straker was leading a double
life, and keeping a second establishment. The nature of the bill showed
that there was a lady in the case, and one who had expensive tastes.
Liberal as you are with your servants, one can hardly expect that they
can buy twenty-guinea walking dresses for their ladies. I questioned
Mrs. Straker as to the dress without her knowing it, and having
satisfied myself that it had never reached her, I made a note of the
milliner's address, and felt that by calling there with Straker's
photograph I could easily dispose of the mythical Derbyshire.

"From that time on all was plai