“Thank you,” responded Holmes after a moment. “Your account has been a very clear one, Mr Harte. I shall do what I can to assuage your anxieties on the matter. It is certainly a singular little mystery! You have been lied to, your room at the inn has been rifled, and you have every right, it seems to me, to know what lies at the bottom of it all. Before we proceed any further, however, could you clear up one point?”

“Certainly.”

“Did the mysterious intruder at the Fox and Goose take anything from either of the bedrooms?”

“I do not think so. A few loose items of Mr Bradbury’s had been scattered around, but he said that as far as he could see there was nothing missing. He also had a locked trunk, which was pushed under his bed, but that did not appear to have been touched. I, of course, had no luggage of any kind, except for the wretched brown-paper parcel that I had been lugging around fruitlessly all day, so I had nothing to lose.”

“The parcel was still there?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“On top of the wardrobe, where I had flung it earlier.”

“Very well. And that is the parcel in question, I take it,” said Holmes, indicating the brown-paper bundle that Mr Harte had placed upon the table. “May I see the contents?”

“By all means,” returned his visitor. He unfastened the parcel on the hearthrug, and produced from within it a stout-looking leather satchel with a shoulder strap. This he passed to Holmes, who examined it closely for several minutes, turning it over and over. At length, evidently satisfied, he stood it on the rug, unfastened the two buckles at the front, opened it up and took out the contents. These consisted of two thick volumes, one of which appeared very new, a few loose foolscap sheets and some folded brown paper, a small square bottle of black ink, two pens, a pencil and a short length of string. Each of these items Holmes examined carefully, then placed upon the rug. He then turned his attention to the interior of the satchel. On the underside of the lid were two lines of faded lettering, and after squinting at these for a moment, Holmes took his magnifying lens from the mantelpiece and carried the satchel over to the window, where he examined the lettering very closely for several minutes.

Presently, he handed the lens and satchel to me without saying a word, then sat back down in his chair again, his eyes closed and his brow furrowed with intense concentration. I examined the satchel. The leather on the inside was an untreated, dull grey colour, lighter in some places than others. The lettering inside the flap was faded and faint, and very difficult to make out. It appeared to have been worn away by years of rubbing against books and documents. The first letter in the line was almost certainly a capital “A”, and the second might have been a small “d”, but there then followed several letters which were impossible to decipher. After a gap came what might have been a capital “K”, followed by more indecipherable smaller letters, the last of which appeared, when I examined it through the lens, to be a small “s”. Below these letters, in small capitals, was the name “KARL”, followed by a full stop, then the numbers “3” and “8”.

Holmes had risen from his chair and was standing by his shelf of reference works, thumbing through a thick red-backed volume. Finding the page he was looking for, he carried the book to the window and stood reading it in silence for several minutes.

I picked up the books and papers from the hearthrug. The copy of David Copperfield was bound in dark blue morocco, moderately worn and rubbed at the corners. On the fly leaf, in ink, were the initials “A. K.”. A thin piece of blank card was inserted between the pages as a bookmark, near the middle of the book. The other volume was The Story of English Literature, from the Earliest Times to the Present, by Professor Walters of Trinity College, Cambridge. This was bound in dark green cloth, and appeared to be new. On the fly leaf was an inscription written in ink, in a florid hand, which read as follows: “A. K. Kindest Regards. Your friend, D. W.”. The loose sheets of paper had very little written upon them. There were the titles and authors of what appeared to be three works of literary criticism, and five or six lines of notes, little more than odd words, such as might be jotted down by someone listening to a lecture.

Holmes had put down the red-backed book he had been reading and extracted a volume of his encyclopedia from the shelf, turning over the pages rapidly until he had found the entry he was seeking. For a minute he stood reading, with a frown upon his face, then he shut the book with a bang and began pacing the floor in silence, his chin in his hand.

“What is it?” asked Harte after a moment, appearing slightly anxious at the intensity of Holmes’s manner. “It is certainly a perplexing business, is it not?” he continued when Holmes did not reply.

“Not at all,” responded Holmes abruptly, ceasing his pacing about. “It is crystal clear.”

“What!” cried Harte. “Are you saying that you have fathomed the mystery already?”

“Precisely.”

“But how is that possible? How can you pretend to understand what is happening at Owl’s Hill simply by sitting here in this room?”

“By using my brain,” responded Holmes testily.

“I thought that, having heard my story, you would wish to make a few enquiries and perhaps travel down to Little Gissingham yourself.”

“That is the question.”

“What is?” asked Harte in a tone of puzzlement.

“Whether to travel down to Suffolk now, or – but, no, I must go! The alternative is impossible! I could make enquiries in London to confirm matters, but that would take a day, perhaps two. I could consult Superintendent Richards at Scotland Yard, who may know something, but that would waste another day, and besides, that part of rural Suffolk is probably beyond his jurisdiction. No, we must go down there now!” He pulled open the top drawer of his desk. “Will you come with us, Watson?”

“Certainly.”

“Then look up the trains in Bradshaw, will you?” he continued, as he took out his revolver and a box of cartridges. “Is your own pistol ready for service?”

“I believe so,” I replied in surprise as I picked up the railway timetable. “Do you expect that it will be necessary?”

“Very likely. Unless, of course, the murder has already been committed before we get there! Let us hope that we are not too late!”

“What is all this talk of firearms and murder?” cried Harte in alarm. “Surely you exaggerate? I did not expect such a response when I decided to consult you.”

“My response is to the facts,” returned Holmes in a preoccupied tone as he loaded his pistol.

“But what are the facts?” demanded Harte.

“That cold-blooded murder is planned. I shall give you the details on the way down. Have you found the train times yet, Watson?”

“We have just missed one,” I replied. “There is a train at eighteen minutes past four, which would enable us to reach Little Gissingham not much after half past six.”

“That will have to do, then. The sun does not set until about half past seven, so there should be sufficient daylight for our purposes. Will we be able to get away from Little Gissingham again tonight?”

“The last train, the one Mr Harte missed yesterday, leaves at about quarter past eight.”

“Excellent! I shall just write out a couple of telegrams, and then I think we should make our way to Liverpool Street station straight away! However bad the traffic is now, it will be worse later in the afternoon. There is an excellent and economical restaurant, which serves luncheons all afternoon, just round the corner from the station in Bishopsgate. We can get a meal there and ensure that we are at the station in good time. Whatever happens, we must not, under any circumstances, miss that train!”