“You think it will come to that?”

He was in his most cheerful and debonair humour.  “My dear Watson, when I have exterminated that fourth egg I shall be ready to put you in touch with the whole situation.  I don’t say that we have fathomed it—­far from it—­but when we have traced the missing dumb-bell—­”

“The dumb-bell!”

“Dear me, Watson, is it possible that you have not penetrated the fact that the case hangs upon the missing dumb-bell?  Well, well, you need not be downcast; for between ourselves I don’t think that either Inspector Mac or the excellent local practitioner has grasped the overwhelming importance of this incident.  One dumb-bell, Watson!  Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell!  Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature.  Shocking, Watson, shocking!”

He sat with his mouth full of toast and his eyes sparkling with mischief, watching my intellectual entanglement.  The mere sight of his excellent appetite was an assurance of success; for I had very clear recollections of days and nights without a thought of food, when his baffled mind had chafed before some problem while his thin, eager features became more attenuated with the asceticism of complete mental concentration.  Finally he lit his pipe, and sitting in the inglenook of the old village inn he talked slowly and at random about his case, rather as one who thinks aloud than as one who makes a considered statement.

“A lie, Watson—­a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising lie—­that’s what meets us on the threshold!  There is our starting point.  The whole story told by Barker is a lie.  But Barker’s story is corroborated by Mrs. Douglas.  Therefore she is lying also.  They are both lying, and in a conspiracy.  So now we have the clear problem.  Why are they lying, and what is the truth which they are trying so hard to conceal?  Let us try, Watson, you and I, if we can get behind the lie and reconstruct the truth.

“How do I know that they are lying?  Because it is a clumsy fabrication which simply could not be true.  Consider!  According to the story given to us, the assassin had less than a minute after the murder had been committed to take that ring, which was under another ring, from the dead man’s finger, to replace the other ring—­a thing which he would surely never have done—­and to put that singular card beside his victim.  I say that this was obviously impossible.

“You may argue—­but I have too much respect for your judgment, Watson, to think that you will do so—­that the ring may have been taken before the man was killed.  The fact that the candle had been lit only a short time shows that there had been no lengthy interview.  Was Douglas, from what we hear of his fearless character, a man who would be likely to give up his wedding ring at such short notice, or could we conceive of his giving it up at all?  No, no, Watson, the assassin was alone with the dead man for some time with the lamp lit.  Of that I have no doubt at all.