"If so, it would, of course, be against the first hypothesis and
in favour of the second. Moriarty may have been engaged to
engineer it on a promise of part spoils, or he may have been paid
so much down to manage it. Either is possible. But whichever it
may be, or if it is some third combination, it is down at
Birlstone that we must seek the solution. I know our man too
well to suppose that he has left anything up here which may lead
us to him."

"Then to Birlstone we must go!" cried MacDonald, jumping from his
chair. "My word! it's later than I thought. I can give you,
gentlemen, five minutes for preparation, and that is all."

"And ample for us both," said Holmes, as he sprang up and
hastened to change from his dressing gown to his coat. "While we
are on our way, Mr. Mac, I will ask you to be good enough to tell
me all about it."

"All about it" proved to be disappointingly little, and yet there
was enough to assure us that the case before us might well be
worthy of the expert's closest attention. He brightened and
rubbed his thin hands together as he listened to the meagre but
remarkable details. A long series of sterile weeks lay behind
us, and here at last there was a fitting object for those
remarkable powers which, like all special gifts, become irksome
to their owner when they are not in use. That razor brain
blunted and rusted with inaction.

Sherlock Holmes's eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a warmer
hue, and his whole eager face shone with an inward light when the