rrative. There is
a house indicated here which may be the residence of the
naturalist--Stapleton, if I remember right, was his name. Here are two
moorland farmhouses, High Tor and Foulmire. Then fourteen miles away the
great convict prison of Princetown. Between and around these scattered
points extends the desolate, lifeless moor. This, then, is the stage
upon which tragedy has been played, and upon which we may help to play
it again."

"It must be a wild place."

"Yes, the setting is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a
hand in the affairs of men--"

"Then you are yourself inclining to the supernatural explanation."

"The devil's agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not? There are
two questions waiting for us at the outset. The one is whether any crime
has been committed at all; the second is, what is the crime and how was
it committed? Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct,
and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature,
there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all
other hypotheses before falling back upon this one. I think we'll shut
that window again, if you don't mind. It is a singular thing, but I find
that a concentrated atmosphere 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