“That McCarthy senior met his death from McCarthy junior and that all

theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.”


“Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog,” said Holmes,

laughing. “But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley Farm upon

the left.”


“Yes, that is it.” It was a widespread, comfortable-looking

building, two-storied, slate-roofed, with great yellow blotches of lichen upon

the grey walls. The drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys, however, gave it a

stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still lay heavy upon it. We

called at the door, when the maid, at Holmes’ request, showed us the

boots which her master wore at the time of his death, and also a pair of the

son’s, though not the pair which he had then had. Having measured these

very carefully from seven or eight different points, Holmes desired to be led

to the court-yard, from which we all followed the winding track which led to

Boscombe Pool.


Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent as this. Men

who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker Street would have

failed to recognise him. His face flushed and darkened. His brows were drawn

into two hard black lines, while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a

steely glitter. His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips

compressed, and the veins stood out like whipcord in his long, sinewy neck. His

nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind

was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him that a question or

remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a quick,

impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he made his way along the track

which ran through the meadows, and so by way of the woods to the Boscombe Pool.

It was damp, marshy ground, as is all that district, and there were marks of