“Now,” said Holmes, when the rejoicing lackey had disappeared, “having secured the future, we can afford to be more lenient with the past.  I am not in an official position, and there is no reason, so long as the ends of justice are served, why I should disclose all that I know.  As to Hayes, I say nothing.  The gallows awaits him, and I would do nothing to save him from it.  What he will divulge I cannot tell, but I have no doubt that your Grace could make him understand that it is to his interest to be silent.  From the police point of view he will have kidnapped the boy for the purpose of ransom.  If they do not themselves find it out, I see no reason why I should prompt them to take a broader point of view.  I would warn your Grace, however, that the continued presence of Mr. James Wilder in your household can only lead to misfortune.”

“I understand that, Mr. Holmes, and it is already settled that he shall leave me forever, and go to seek his fortune in Australia.”

“In that case, your Grace, since you have yourself stated that any unhappiness in your married life was caused by his presence I would suggest that you make such amends as you can to the Duchess, and that you try to resume those relations which have been so unhappily interrupted.”

“That also I have arranged, Mr. Holmes.  I wrote to the Duchess this morning.”

“In that case,” said Holmes, rising, “I think that my friend and I can congratulate ourselves upon several most happy results from our little visit to the North.  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 check and placed it carefully in his notebook.  “I am a poor man,” said he, as he patted it affectionately, and thrust it into the depths of his inner pocket.

THE ADVENTURE OF BLACK PETER