There is one other small
point upon which I desire some light. This fellow Hayes had
shod his horses with shoes which counterfeited the tracks of cows.
Was it from Mr. Wilder that he learned so extraordinary a device?"
The Duke stood in thought for a moment, with a look of intense
surprise on his face. Then he opened a door and showed us into
a large room furnished as a museum. He led the way to a glass
case in a corner, and pointed to the inscription.
"These shoes," it ran, "were dug up in the moat of Holdernesse
Hall. They are for the use of horses; but they are shaped below
with a cloven foot of iron, so as to throw pursuers off the
track. They are supposed to have belonged to some of the
marauding Barons of Holdernesse in the Middle Ages."
Holmes opened the case, and moistening his finger he passed it
along the shoe. A thin film of recent mud was left upon his skin.
"Thank you," said he, as he replaced the glass. "It is the
second most interesting object that I have seen in the North."
"And the first?"
Holmes folded up his cheque and placed it carefully in his
note-book. "I am a poor man," said he, as he patted it
affectionately and thrust it into the depths of his inner pocket.
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