Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
page 31 of 406 (07%)
page 31 of 406 (07%)
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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 do 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 recognizing, from the white forehead which has given the favorite 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 him 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 Mapleton. 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." |
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