The mere sight
of his excellent appetite was an assurance of success; for I had
very clear recollections of days and nights without a thought of
food, when his baffled mind had chafed before some problem while
his thin, eager features became more attenuated with the
asceticism of complete mental concentration. Finally he lit his
pipe, and sitting in the inglenook of the old village inn he
talked slowly and at random about his case, rather as one who
thinks aloud than as one who makes a considered statement.
"A lie, Watson--a great, big, thumping, obtrusive, uncompromising
lie--that's what meets us on the threshold! There is our
starting point. The whole story told by Barker is a lie. But
Barker's story is corroborated by Mrs. Douglas. Therefore she
is lying also. They are both lying, and in a conspiracy. So now
we have the clear problem. Why are they lying, and what is the
truth which they are trying so hard to conceal? Let us try,
Watson, you and I, if we can get behind the lie and reconstruct
the truth.
"How do I know that they are lying? Because it is a clumsy
fabrication which simply could not be true.
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