arish vestry would be too inconceivable
a thing."

"You put the matter more flippantly, Mr. Holmes, than you would probably
do if you were brought into personal contact with these things. Your
advice, then, as I understand it, is that the young man will be as safe
in Devonshire as in London. He comes in fifty minutes. What would you
recommend?"

"I recommend, sir, that you take a cab, call off your spaniel who is
scratching at my front door, and proceed to Waterloo to meet Sir Henry
Baskerville."

"And then?"

"And then you will say nothing to him at all until I have made up my
mind about the matter."

"How long will it take you to make up your mind?"

"Twenty-four hours. At ten o'clock tomorrow, Dr. Mortimer, I will be
much obliged to you if you will call upon me here, and it will be
of help to me in my plans for the future if you will bring Sir Henry
Baskerville with you."

"I will do so, Mr. Holmes." He scribbled the appointment on his
shirt-cuff and hurried off in his strange, peering, absent-minded
fashion. Holmes stopped him at the head of the stair.

"Only one more question, Dr. Mortimer. You say that before Sir Charles
Baskerville's death several people saw this apparition upon the moor?"

"Three people did."

"Did any see it after?"

"I have not heard of any."

"Thank you. Good-morning."

Holmes returned to his seat with that quiet look of inward satisfaction
which meant that he had a congenial task before him.

"Going out, Watson?"

"Unless I can help you."

"No, my dear fellow, it is at the hour of action that I turn to you for
aid. But this is splendid, really unique from some points of view.
When you pass Bradley's, would you ask him to send up a pound of the
strongest shag tobacco? Thank you. It would be as well if you could make
it convenient not to return before evening. Then I should be very glad
to compare impressions as to this most interesting problem which has
been submitted to us this morning."

I knew that seclusion and solitude were very necessary for my friend
in those hours of intense mental concentration during which he weighed
every particle of evidence, constructed alternative theories, balanced
one against the other, and made up his mind as to which points were
essential and which immaterial. I therefore spent the day at my club and
did not return to Baker Street until evening. It was nearly nine o'clock
when I found myself in the sitting-room once more.

My first