I helped him out of it while Holmes
knocked a blaze out of the logs in the grate.
"Now, my dear Hopkins, draw up and warm your toes," said he.
"Here's a cigar, and the doctor has a prescription containing hot
water and a lemon which is good medicine on a night like this.
It must be something important which has brought you out
in such a gale."
"It is indeed, Mr. Holmes. I've had a bustling afternoon,
I promise you. Did you see anything of the Yoxley case in
the latest editions?"
"I've seen nothing later than the fifteenth century to-day."
"Well, it was only a paragraph, and all wrong at that, so you
have not missed anything. I haven't let the grass grow under
my feet. It's down in Kent, seven miles from Chatham and three
from the railway line. I was wired for at three-fifteen, reached
Yoxley Old Place at five, conducted my investigation, was back
at Charing Cross by the last train, and straight to you by cab."
"Which means, I suppose, that you are not quite clear about your case?"
"It means that I can make neither head nor tail of it.
So far as I can see it is just as tangled a business as ever I
handled, and yet at first it seemed so simple that one couldn't
go wrong.
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