Holmes thought a little and then burst out laughing. ‘No, don’t,’ said he. ‘I shall write to you about it. No tricks now or—’
‘Oh, you can trust me, you can trust me!’
‘You must see to it on the day as if it were your own.’
‘You can rely upon me.’
‘Yes, I think I can. Well, you shall hear from me tomorrow.’ He turned upon his heel, disregarding the trembling hand which the other held out to him, and we set off for King’s Pyland.
‘A more perfect compound of the bully, coward, and sneak than Master Silas Brown I have seldom met with,’ remarked Holmes, as we trudged along together.
‘He has the horse, then?’
‘He tried to bluster out of it, but I described to him so exactly what his actions had been upon that morning, that he is convinced that I was watching him. Of course, you observed the peculiarly square toes in the impressions, and that his own boots exactly corresponded to them. Again, of course, no subordinate would have dared to have done such a thing. I described to him how when, according to his custom, he was the first down, he perceived a strange horse wandering over the moor; how he went out to it, and his astonishment at recognising from the white forehead which has given the favourite its name that chance had put in his power the only horse which could beat the one upon which he had put his money. Then I described how his first impulse had been to lead it back to King’s Pyland, and how the devil had shown him how he could hide the horse until the race was over, and how he had led it back and concealed it at Capleton. When I told him every detail he gave it up, and thought only of saving his own skin.’
‘But his stables had been searched.’
‘Oh, an old horse-faker like him has many a dodge.’
‘But are you not afraid to leave the horse in his power now, since he has every interest in injuring it?’
‘My dear fellow, he will guard it as the apple of his eye. He knows that his only hope of mercy is to produce it safe.’
‘Colonel Ross did not impress me as a man who would be likely to show much mercy in any case.’
‘The matter does not rest with Colonel Ross. I follow my own methods, and tell as much or as little as I choose. That is the advantage of being unofficial. I don’t know whether you observed it, Watson, but the Colonel’s manner has been just a trifle cavalier to me. I am inclined now to have a little amusement at his expense. Say nothing to him about the horse.’
‘Certainly not, without your permission.’
‘And, of course, this is all quite a minor case compared with the question of who killed John Straker.’
‘And you will devote yourself to that?’
‘On the contrary, we both go back to London by the night train.’
I was thunderstruck by my friend’s words. We had only been a few hours in Devonshire, and that he should give up an investigation which he had begun so brilliantly was quite incomprehensible to me.