Page:The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927).djvu/228

 He stood leaning forward, his hands swinging straight before him, his head turning from side to side. The secretary with a last wave slipped off among the trees, and we saw him presently rejoin his employer, the two entering the house together in what seemed to be animated and even excited conversation.

“I expect the old gentleman has been putting two and two together,” said Holmes, as we walked hotelwards. “He struck me as having a particularly clear and logical brain, from the little I saw of him. Explosive, no doubt, but then from his point of view he has something to explode about if detectives are put on his track and he suspects his own household of doing it. I rather fancy that friend Bennett is in for an uncomfortable time.”

Holmes stopped at a post office and sent off a telegram on our way. The answer reached us in the evening, and he tossed it across to me. ‘‘Have visited the Commercial Road and seen Dorak. Suave person, Bohemian, elderly. Keeps large general store.—Mercer.”

“Mercer is since your time,” said Holmes. “He is my general utility man who looks up routine business. It was important to know something of the man with whom our Professor was so secretly corresponding. His nationality connects up with the Prague visit.”

“Thank goodness that something connects with something,” said I. “At present we seem to be faced by a long series of inexplicable incidents with no bearing upon each other. For example, what, possible connection can there be between an angry wolf-hound and a visit to Bohemia, or either of them with a man