A045_Valley of Fear4.txt

Valley of Fear When it was getting dark, Holmes led Watson and two policemen into the manor, hiding in a concealment facing the window of the study. It was getting darker. The window was opened. A person stretched the head out of the window, used something to stir in the moat, and pulled up a big and round thing. Holmes and the other three people dashed promptly to press the doorbell. On entering the room, they immediately found the package, which had been just pulled out of the river, from under a desk. They opened it and saw some clothes, a pair of boots, a long knife and that lost dumbbell. Holding those clothes in his hand, Holmes said, "These clothes were made in USA. By inference, they were put on the murderer by somebody else. The footprints outside the window show the killer hasn't gone out of the room since he entered it. Those footprints on the window-sill were not made by the murderer but Barker. I have examined them carefully. The reason why Barker did so was obviously to let people make the dummy reasoning that the murderer had hit and run. This shows more clearly that the killer had never run away. He is in the room all the time. How can you make the murderer say nothing when facing the police, then? The only possibility is that he died. At the moment the body we saw was unable to recognize. We had to judge his identification according to his figure. Therefore, I infer that the body is not Mr. Douglas' but the murderer's." Hearing Holmes' analysis, Barker was astonished. He said sarcastically, "Now that you know everything so well, why not tell us more?" Holmes responded with a smile, "We'd better ask Mr. Douglas himself to come out to do so." All the people there were astounded. At the moment, Mr. Douglas, who was considered dead, walked out of a corner.