“There is nothing like first hand evidence,” he remarked; “as a matter of fact,

my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may as well learn all

that is to be learned.”

 

“You amaze me, Holmes,” said I. “Surely you are not as sure as you pretend to be

of all those particulars which you gave.”

 

“There’s no room for a mistake,” he answered. “The very first thing which I

observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts with its wheels

close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had no rain for a week, so

that those wheels which left such a deep impression must have been there during

the night. There were the marks of the horse’s hoofs, too, the outline of one of

which was far more clearly cut than that of the other three, showing that that

was a new shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not there

at any time during the morning—I have Gregson’s word for that—it follows that it

must have been there during the night, and, therefore, that it brought those two

individuals to the house.”

 

“That seems simple enough,” said I; “but how about the other man’s height?”

 

“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the length

of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though there is no use my

boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride both on the clay outside and

on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my calculation. When a man

writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write about the level of his own