"I have," said Cleggett. "I have read Poe's detective tales and Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories."
"Ah! Sherlock Holmes!" The three detectives looked at each other with glances in which were mingled both bitterness and amusement; the look seemed to dispose of Sherlock Holmes. Once again Cleggett had a fleeting thought that Wilton Barnstable might possibly be a vain man.
"Sherlock Holmes," said Barnstable, "never existed. His marvelous feats are not possible in real life, Cleggett. But the deductive method which he pretended to use—mind you, I say PRETENDED, Cleggett!—is, nevertheless, sound."
And then the three detectives gave Cleggett an example of the phenomenal cleverness.
"Mr. Ward," said Wilton Barnstable, "Logan Black entered this hold."
"He did," said Barton Ward.
"He is not here now," said Wilton Barnstable.
"He is not," said Watson Bard.
"Therefore he has escaped," said Wilton Barnstable.
"But how?" said Barton Ward.