"
This was clearly Holmes's doing. The Baker Street address was
enough to prove that. It struck me as rather ingenious, because
it might be read by the fugitives without their seeing in it more
than the natural anxiety of a wife for her missing husband.
It was a long day. Every time that a knock came to the door, or
a sharp step passed in the street, I imagined that it was either
Holmes returning or an answer to his advertisement. I tried to
read, but my thoughts would wander off to our strange quest and
to the ill-assorted and villainous pair whom we were pursuing.
Could there be, I wondered, some radical flaw in my companion's
reasoning. Might he be suffering from some huge self-deception?
Was it not possible that his nimble and speculative mind had
built up this wild theory upon faulty premises? I had never
known him to be wrong; and yet the keenest reasoner may
occasionally be deceived. He was likely, I thought, to fall into
error through the over-refinement of his logic,--his preference
for a subtle and bizarre explanation when a plainer and more
commonplace one lay ready to his hand. Yet, on the other hand, I
had myself seen the evidence, and I had heard the reasons for his
deductions.
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