'You certainly sent a telegram from somewhere, to someone, or at least dropped a note in the post-box. There are signs, which I need not mention, that point irrevocably to such a conclusion.'
The doomed man, ruined by his own self-complacency, merely smiled in his superior manner, not noticing the eager look with which Doyle awaited his answer.
'Wrong entirely. I neither wrote any telegram, nor spoke any message, since I left London.'
'Ah, no,' cried Doyle. 'I see where I went astray. You merely inquired the way to my house.'
'I needed to make no inquiries. I followed the rear light of the automobile part way up the hill, and, when that disappeared, I turned to the right instead of the left, as there was no one out on such a night from whom I could make inquiry.'
'My deductions, then, are beside the mark,' said Doyle hoarsely, in an accent which sent cold chills up and down the spine of his invited guest, but conveyed no intimation of his fate to the self-satisfied later arrival.
'Of course they were,' said Holmes, with exasperating self-assurance.
'Am I also wrong in deducting that you have had nothing to eat since you left London?'
'No, you are quite right there.'
'Well, oblige me by pressing that electric button.'