Mr, Leffington Feels Inspired 



which someone had shot, and placed it in the 

 middle of the yard, — there was not a link in the 

 chain missing, and Sherlock Holmes himself 

 would have been obliged to take numerous hypo- 

 dermics of the deadly drug and play on the violin 

 for hours before he could have discovered the 

 deception. 



To Mr. Leffington's trained and veteran ear, 

 somewhat guiltily sensitive this morning, the very 

 manner in which the hounds acted after they were 

 cast into the woods, was suspicious. The blatant 

 way in which they picked up the scent en masse, 

 as it were, and went away in such unheard of full 

 cry, before people could even tighten their girths, 

 made Mr. Leffington think that the stable boy 

 must have emptied half of the aniseed bag some- 

 where up there in the woods, and he fancied that 

 he could almost detect the scent himself. Mr. 

 Leffington glanced back every once in a while 

 over his shoulder, whenever the Nut-Cracker 

 stopped pulling and boring long enough to give 

 him a chance, and he noticed that John Rexford 

 was riding well up in front and that Gwen was 

 close behind him. The field however had strag- 

 gled and Mr. Leffington chuckled inwardly to 

 see how well his plan was working out, for in 

 truth it had been no careless makeshift, and he 

 had reckoned upon the fact that both John Rex- 

 Ill 



