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Page 82
"Having gathered these facts, Watson, I smoked several
pipes over them, trying to separate those which were
crucial from others which were merely incidental.
There could be no question that the most distinctive
and suggestive point in the case was the singular
disappearance of the door-key. A most careful search
had failed to discover it in the room. Therefore it
must have been taken from it. But neither the Colonel
nor the Colonel's wife could have taken it. That was
perfectly clear. Therefore a third person must have
entered the room. And that third person could only
have come in through the window. It seemed to me that
a careful examination of the room and the lawn might
possibly reveal some traces of this mysterious
individual. You know my methods, Watson. There was
not one of them which I did not apply to the inquiry.
And it ended by my discovering traces, but very
different ones from those which I had expected. There
had been a man in the room, and he had crossed the lawn
coming from the road. I was able to obtain five very
clear impressions of his foot-marks: one in the
roadway itself, at the point where he had climbed the
low wall, two on the lawn, and two very faint ones
upon the stained boards near the window where he had
entered. He had apparently rushed across the lawn,
for his toe-marks were much deeper than his heels.
But it was not the man who surprised me. It was his
companion."
"His companion!"
Holmes pulled a large sheet of tissue-paper out of his
pocket and carefully unfolded it upon his knee.
"What do you make of that?" he asked.
The paper was covered with he tracings of the
foot-marks of some small animal. It had five
well-marked foot-pads, an indication of long nails,
and the whole print might be nearly as large as a
dessert-spoon.
"It's a dog," said I.
"Did you ever hear of a dog running up a curtain? I
found distinct traces that this creature had done so."
"A monkey, then?"
"But it is not the print of a monkey."
"What can it be, then?"
"Neither dog nor cat nor monkey nor any creature that
we are familiar with. I have tried to reconstruct it
from the measurements. Here are four prints where the
beast has been standing motionless. You see that it
is no less than fifteen inches from fore-foot to hind.
Add to that the length of neck and head, and you get a
creature not much less than two feet long--probably
more if there is any tail. But now observe this other
measurement. The animal has been moving, and we have
the length of its stride. In each case it is only
about three inches. You have an indication, you see,
of a long body with very short legs attached to it.
It has not been considerate enough to leave any of its
hair behind it. But its general shape must be what I
have indicated, and it can run up a curtain, and it is
carnivorous."
"How do you deduce that?"
"Because it ran up the curtain. A canary's cage was
hanging in the window, and its aim seems to have been
to get at the bird."
"Then what was the beast?"
"Ah, if I could give it a name it might go a long way
towards solving the case. On the whole, it was
probably some creature of the weasel and stoat
tribe--and yet it is larger than any of these that I
have seen."
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