“Ah! who?  I would call your attention very particularly to two points.  One is that the murdered man had an appointment with someone at the pool, and that the someone could not have been his son, for his son was away, and he did not know when he would return.  The second is that the murdered man was heard to cry ‘Cooee!’ before he knew that his son had returned.  Those are the crucial points upon which the case depends.  And now let us talk about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until to-morrow.”

There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morning broke bright and cloudless.  At nine o’clock Lestrade called for us with the carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and the Boscombe Pool.

“There is serious news this morning,” Lestrade observed.  “It is said that Mr. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is despaired of.”

“An elderly man, I presume?” said Holmes.

“About sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by his life abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time.  This business has had a very bad effect upon him.  He was an old friend of McCarthy’s, and, I may add, a great benefactor to him, for I have learned that he gave him Hatherley Farm rent free.”

“Indeed!  That is interesting,” said Holmes.

“Oh, yes!  In a hundred other ways he has helped him.  Everybody about here speaks of his kindness to him.”

“Really!  Does it not strike you as a little singular that this McCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have been under such obligations to Turner, should still talk of marrying his son to Turner’s daughter, who is, presumably, heiress to the estate, and that in such a very cocksure manner, as if it were merely a case of a proposal and all else would follow?  It is the more strange, since we know that Turner himself was averse to the idea.  The daughter told us as much.  Do you not deduce something from that?”

“We have got to the deductions and the inferences,” said Lestrade, winking at me.  “I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies.”

“You are right,” said Holmes demurely; “you do find it very hard to tackle the facts.”

“Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it difficult to get hold of,” replied Lestrade with some warmth.

“And that is—­”

“That McCarthy senior met his death from McCarthy junior and that all theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.”

“Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog,” said Holmes, laughing.  “But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley Farm upon the left.”