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and sipping appreciatively. 14
    “It would seem that for once our friends at the Yard are not alone in being confounded,” he said. “I tell you, this maniac, whoever he is, may just as well be a ghost as a living creature, for all the spoor he has left behind him. No one saw him, no one heard him, no oneknows a thing! We have a murder without a motive — a singularly brutal murder, I might add — we have four people who came upon the victim within minutes, perhaps even seconds of the crime, we have only two directions in which the murderer could have gone, and we have nothing! Absolutely nothing!”
    “You have been back to Spitalfields?”
    Holmes plopped himself down in his favorite chair, crossed his legs Indian fashion, and gazed into the empty fireplace. “I have been to Spitalfields, I have been to the district police station, I have been to the local settlement house, to the local workhouse, to several doss-houses, and even to a few ‘houses of joy’ would you believe?”
    “Holmes!”
    “I have spoken to police constables, publicans, ladies of the street, missionaries, derelicts, teamsters, and jarvies, and just about everyone else you could think of short of the lord chancellor, and for all the good it has done me I might as well have frittered away the day as I see you have done.”
    Watson ignored the barb. “You have seen Abberline again?”
    “No,” he said disgustedly. “To what purpose? He has nothing, poor fellow. God knows he is trying hard enough. A good man, that — far better than most.” High praise, coming from Holmes.
    “So, what’s your next step?”
    Holmes brooded for a minute before answering, then shook his head violently as if to rid himself of depressing thoughts. “My next step? Why, a good wash-up and dinner! If I am not mistaken, that is Mrs. Hudson’s footfall upon the tread, and she most assuredly is accompanied by a leg of mutton, if the smells emanating from the kitchen are to be credited. And I, dear fellow, am famished!”
    For all his protestations of hunger, Holmes ate very little that Sabbathmeal; he merely pecked at his food, listlessly moving it around the plate, deep in thought. And when the dinner service was cleared away, he moved to his chair by the fireplace and spent the evening brooding, in one of his brown studies, not even looking up when several hours later Watson finally left the room to retire, quietly wishing him a good night.
    The next morning, a bright and sunny one, Watson awoke at his usual hour to find Holmes once again already gone. This time Mrs. Hudson was at least able to impart the news, when she arrived with the breakfast things, that he had left hurriedly, in summons to an urgent telegram, that he was carrying his battered Gladstone bag, and that she overheard him tell the cabby that his destination was Paddington Station. “And when I called after him to ask what time he wanted dinner served, he shouted back, ‘seven-thirty next October.’ Now, really!” She shook her head and moved toward the door. “Oh, he said to tell you to be sure to take notice of the mantel.”
    Watson went there at once, where he retrieved the note Holmes had left for him. It took a moment to decipher the hurried scrawl:
    W —
    Off to the countryside for a few days.
    Looks to be an interesting little matter.
    If nothing else, I shall enjoy the comforts
    and diversions of a country manor.
    H. 15
    The “few days” turned into several more. It was late Friday evening before Holmes returned from the countryside, a glow in his cheeks and, for once, in good humor. He declined to go into the details of the case, however, and even refrained from telling Watson where in the countryside he had been.
    “His lordship insisted upon total confidentiality, and I gave him my word. Can’t say as I blame him, though he is hardly the first old fool with a young wife and a randy groundskeeper. But it is nothing that would interest you, dear fellow, I assure you. Merely a