"Doyle, Arthur Conan - Sherlock Holmes 04 - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

"We have found traces which show that a party of
gypsies encamped on Monday night within a mile of the
spot where the murder took place. On Tuesday they
were gone. Now, presuming that there was some
understanding between Simpson and these gypsies, might
he not have been leading the horse to them when he was
overtaken, and may they not have him now?"

"It is certainly possible."

"The moor is being scoured for these gypsies. I have
also examined every stable and out-house in Tavistock,
and for a radius of ten miles."

"There is another training-stable quite close, I
understand?"

"Yes, and that is a factor which we must certainly not
neglect. As Desborough, their horse, was second in
the betting, they had an interest in the disappearance
of the favorite. Silas Brown, the trainer, is known
to have had large bets upon the event, and he was no
friend to poor Straker. We have, however, examined
the stables, and there is nothing to connect him with
the affair."

"And nothing to connect this man Simpson with the
interests of the Mapleton stables?"

"Nothing at all."

Holmes leaned back in the carriage, and the
conversation ceased. A few minutes later our driver
pulled up at a neat little red-brick villa with
overhanging eaves which stood by the road. Some
distance off, across a paddock, lay a long gray-tiled
out-building. In every other direction the low curves
of the moor, bronze-colored from the fading ferns,
stretched away to the sky-line, broken only by the
steeples of Tavistock, and by a cluster of houses away
to the westward which marked the Mapleton stables. We
all sprang out with the exception of Holmes, who
continued to lean back with his eyes fixed upon the
sky in front of him, entirely absorbed in his own
thoughts. It was only when I touched his arm that he
roused himself with a violent start and stepped out of
the carriage.

"Excuse me," said he, turning to Colonel Ross, who