The Adventure at Baskerville Hall & Other Cases

maid heard the noise and began screaming out of the window. That brought the police, but the rascals had got away."
    "What did they take?" Holmes asked.
    "Well, I don't think there is anything of value missing. I am sure there was nothing in my son's trunks."
    "Did the men leave no clue?"
    "There was one sheet of paper which I may have torn from the man that I grasped. It was lying all crumpled on the floor. It is in my son's handwriting."
    "Which means that it is not of much use," interrupted the policeman. "Now if it had been in the burglar's–"
    "Exactly," said Holmes, and I was sure that this time the irony in his voice could not fail to be audible to all. "What rugged common sense! And how very disobliging of the criminal class not to be in the habit of leaving signed communiqués behind them. None the less, I should be curious to see it."
    The inspector drew a folded sheet of foolscap from his pocketbook.
    "I never pass anything, however trifling," said he with some pomposity. "That is my advice to you, Mr. Holmes. In twenty-five years' experience I have learned my lesson. There is always the chance of finger-marks or something."
    At the gentle jostle of my elbow against his ribs, Holmes forbore to comment. Instead, he inspected the sheet of paper and asked, with an air of malicious innocence: "What do you make of it, Inspector?"
    "Seems to be the end of some queer novel, so far as I can see."
    "It may certainly prove to be the end of a queer tale," said Holmes cryptically. "You have noticed the number on the top of the page. It is two hundred and forty-five. Where are the odd two hundred and forty-four pages?"
    "Well, I suppose the burglars got those. Much good may it do them!"
    "It seems a queer thing to break into a house in order to steal such papers as that. Does it suggest anything to you, Inspector?"
    "Yes, sir, it suggests that in their hurry the rascals just grabbed at what came first to hand. I wish them joy of what they got."
    "Why should they go to my son's things?" asked Mrs. Maberley.
    "Well, they found nothing valuable downstairs, so they tried their luck upstairs. That is how I read it. What do you make of it, Mr. Holmes?"
    "I must think it over, Inspector. Come to the window, Watson."
    He drew me away with a hand on my elbow, and I caught the faintest of impatient sighs at the slow, plodding self-importance of the village police inspector.
    "Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself," I breathed to him, too softly to be heard by the small knot of people standing behind us, "but talent instantly recognises genius."
    Holmes smiled gratefully at me. "Watson, you flatter me far too much, but I will admit that that narrow-minded inspector is intolerable. I believe I actually miss Lestrade and Gregson, although I wouldn't have them know it for the world."
    Then, as we stood together, Holmes read over the fragment of paper. It began in the middle of a sentence and ran like this:
    ". . . face bled considerably from the cuts and blows, but it was nothing to the bleeding of his heart as he saw that lovely face, the face for which he had been prepared to sacrifice his very life, looking out at his agony and humiliation. She smiled – yes, by Heaven! she smiled, like the heartless fiend she was, as he looked up at her. It was at that moment that love died and hate was born. Man must live for something. If it is not for your embrace, my lady, then it shall surely be for your undoing and my complete revenge."
    "Queer grammar!" said Holmes with a smile as he handed the paper back to the inspector. "Did you notice how the 'he' suddenly changed to 'my'? The writer was so carried away by his own story that he imagined himself at the supreme moment to be the hero."
    "It seemed mighty poor stuff," said the inspector as he replaced it in his book with a dismissive air. "What! Are you off already, Mr. Holmes?"
    "I don't think there is anything more for me to do now that the case is in such capable hands." Holmes's tone was as dry as the Sahara, but as he turned back to Mrs. Maberley his attitude became one of gentle solicitude. "By the way, Mrs. Maberley, did you say you wished to travel?"
    The lady smiled. "It has always been my dream, Mr. Holmes."
    "Where would you like to go – Cairo, Madeira, the Riviera?" Holmes's voice was quiet yet insistent, as though he were urging her to dream large, and then larger still.
    "Oh, if I had the money I would go round the world."
    "Quite so. Round the world." Holmes