“On the Tuesday, Peter Carey was in one of his blackest moods, flushed with drink and as savage as a dangerous wild beast.  He roamed about the house, and the women ran for it when they heard him coming.  Late in the evening, he went down to his own hut.  About two o’clock the following morning, his daughter, who slept with her window open, heard a most fearful yell from that direction, but it was no unusual thing for him to bawl and shout when he was in drink, so no notice was taken.  On rising at seven, one of the maids noticed that the door of the hut was open, but so great was the terror which the man caused that it was midday before anyone would venture down to see what had become of him.  Peeping into the open door, they saw a sight which sent them flying, with white faces, into the village.  Within an hour, I was on the spot and had taken over the case.

“Well, I have fairly steady nerves, as you know, Mr. Holmes, but I give you my word, that I got a shake when I put my head into that little house.  It was droning like a harmonium with the flies and bluebottles, and the floor and walls were like a slaughter-house.  He had called it a cabin, and a cabin it was, sure enough, for you would have thought that you were in a ship.  There was a bunk at one end, a sea-chest, maps and charts, a picture of the sea Unicorn, a line of logbooks on a shelf, all exactly as one would expect to find it in a captain’s room.  And there, in the middle of it, was the man himself—­his face twisted like a lost soul in torment, and his great brindled beard stuck upward in his agony.  Right through his broad breast a steel harpoon had been driven, and it had sunk deep into the wood of the wall behind him.  He was pinned like a beetle on a card.  Of course, he was quite dead, and had been so from the instant that he had uttered that last yell of agony.

“I know your methods, sir, and I applied them.  Before I permitted anything to be moved, I examined most carefully the ground outside, and also the floor of the room.  There were no footmarks.”

“Meaning that you saw none?”

“I assure you, sir, that there were none.”

“My good Hopkins, I have investigated many crimes, but I have never yet seen one which was committed by a flying creature.  As long as the criminal remains upon two legs so long must there be some indentation, some abrasion, some trifling displacement which can be detected by the scientific searcher.  It is incredible that this blood-bespattered room contained no trace which could have aided us.  I understand, however, from the inquest that there were some objects which you failed to overlook?”

The young inspector winced at my companion’s ironical comments.