Datasets:
DarqueDante
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test2

Dataset card Data Studio Files
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"Here is an advertisement which will interest you," said he. "It
appeared in all the papers about a year ago. Listen to this:
"'Lost, on the 9th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged twenty-six, a
hydraulic engineer. Left his lodgings at ten o'clock at night, and
has not been heard of since. Was dressed in--'
etc., etc. Ha! That represents the last time that the colonel needed
to have his machine overhauled, I fancy."
"Good heavens!" cried my patient. "Then that explains what the girl
said."
"Undoubtedly. It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and
desperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should
stand in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out pirates
who will leave no survivor from a captured ship. Well, every moment
now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall go down to
Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for Eyford."
Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train together,
bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village. There were
Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector Bradstreet, of
Scotland Yard, a plain-clothes man, and myself. Bradstreet had spread
an ordnance map of the county out upon the seat and was busy with his
compasses drawing a circle with Eyford for its centre.
"There you are," said he. "That circle is drawn at a radius of ten
miles from the village. The place we want must be somewhere near that
line. You said ten miles, I think, sir."
"It was an hour's good drive."
"And you think that they brought you back all that way when you were
unconscious?"
"They must have done so. I have a confused memory, too, of having
been lifted and conveyed somewhere."
"What I cannot understand," said I, "is why they should have spared
you when they found you lying fainting in the garden. Perhaps the
villain was softened by the woman's entreaties."
"I hardly think that likely. I never saw a more inexorable face in my
life."
"Oh, we shall soon clear up all that," said Bradstreet. "Well, I have
drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon it the
folk that we are in search of are to be found."
"I think I could lay my finger on it," said Holmes quietly.
"Really, now!" cried the inspector, "you have formed your opinion!
Come, now, we shall see who agrees with you. I say it is south, for
the country is more deserted there."
"And I say east," said my patient.
"I am for west," remarked the plain-clothes man. "There are several
quiet little villages up there."
"And I am for north," said I, "because there are no hills there, and
our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up any."
"Come," cried the inspector, laughing; "it's a very pretty diversity
of opinion. We have boxed the compass among us. Who do you give your
casting vote to?"
"You are all wrong."
"But we can't all be."
"Oh, yes, you can. This is my point." He placed his finger in the
centre of the circle. "This is where we shall find them."
"But the twelve-mile drive?" gasped Hatherley.
"Six out and six back. Nothing simpler. You say yourself that the
horse was fresh and glossy when you got in. How could it be that if
it had gone twelve miles over heavy roads?"
"Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough," observed Bradstreet
thoughtfully. "Of course there can be no doubt as to the nature of
this gang."
"None at all," said Holmes. "They are coiners on a large scale, and
have used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the place
of silver."
"We have known for some time that a clever gang was at work," said
the inspector. "They have been turning out half-crowns by the
thousand. We even traced them as far as Reading, but could get no
farther, for they had covered their traces in a way that showed that
they were very old hands. But now, thanks to this lucky chance, I
think that we have got them right enough."
But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not destined
to fall into the hands of justice. As we rolled into Eyford Station
we saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed up from behind a
small clump of trees in the neighbourhood and hung like an immense