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"I think that on the whole you have had a fortunate escape," said Sherlock Holmes.

"You have had him in your power and he knew it, and yet you are alive.

You have been walking for some months very near to the edge of a precipice.

We must wish you good-morning now, Mrs. Lyons, and it is probable that you will very shortly hear from us again."

"Our case becomes rounded off, and difficulty after difficulty thins away in front of us," said Holmes as we stood waiting for the arrival of the express from town.

"I shall soon be in the position of being able to put into a single connected narrative one of the most singular and sensational crimes of modern times.

Students of criminology will remember the analogous incidents in Godno, in Little Russia, in the year '66, and of course there are the Anderson murders in North Carolina, but this case possesses some features which are entirely its own.

Even now we have no clear case against this very wily man.

But I shall be very much surprised if it is not clear enough before we go to bed this night."

The London express came roaring into the station, and a small, wiry bulldog of a man had sprung from a first-class carriage.

We all three shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since the days when they had first worked together.

I could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite in the practical man.

"Anything good?" he asked.

"The biggest thing for years," said Holmes.

"We have two hours before we need think of starting.

I think we might employ it in getting some dinner and then, Lestrade, we will take the London fog out of your throat by giving you a breath of the pure night air of Dartmoor.

Never been there? Ah, well, I don't suppose you will forget your first visit."

One of Sherlock Holmes's defects-if, indeed, one may call it a defect-was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment.

Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate and surprise those who were around him.

Partly also from his professional caution, which urged him never to take any chances.

The result, however, was very trying for those who were acting as his agents and assistants.

I had often suffered under it, but never more so than during that long drive in the darkness.

The great ordeal was in front of us; at last we were about to make our final effort, and yet Holmes had said nothing, and I could only surmise what his course of action would be.

My nerves thrilled with anticipation when at last the cold wind upon our faces and the dark, void spaces on either side of the narrow road told me that we were back upon the moor once again.

Chapter 14. The Hound of the Baskervilles

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