Volume XII

"After you came down here to ask me whom I suspected," Holmes explained, "I too was suspicious, suspicious of your interest in the matter. An interest so great that you would allow your luggage to be stolen and sold in Camborne without so much as a shrieklet of outrage. I followed you to the vicarage, where you waited outside for some time, and finally returned to your cottage.

"You then spent a restless night at your cottage with your allies, and you formed certain plans, which in the early morning you proceeded to put into execution. Leaving your door just as day was breaking, you picked up some of the reddish gravel that was lying heaped beside your gate. You then walked swiftly to the vicarage, crossing the lawn yet leaving no marks. There is only one type of footwear that leaves that distinctive pattern of non-tracks; frictionless trainers. Frictionless trainers which are at the present moment on your feet".

"Mr. Trehedgehog sprang to his feet.

"I believe you are the very devil himself!" he cried.

Holmes smiled at the compliment. "When you arrived under the window of the lodger Tregennis you threw some of the gravel you had collected up at it. Gravel which has left its mark upon your white glove. Tregennis came to the window and you beckoned him to come down. There was an interview - a short one - during which you walked up and down the room. Then you exited the way you had come in, closed the window behind you and watched what occurred. Now, Mr. Trehedgehog, how do you justify such conduct and what were the motives for your actions? If you prevaricate or trifle with me, I give you my assurance that the matter will pass out of my hands forever."

Our visitor's face had turned ashen grey as he listened to the words of his accuser. Now he sat for some time in thought with his face sunk in his paws. Then with a sudden impulsive gesture he produced a photograph and threw it on the rustic table before us.

"That is why I have done it," said he.

The photograph showed a group of small cuddly people. Holmes stooped over it.

"Yes, Shaun Tresheep," repeated our visitor, "And all the Reporting Team. For several years now we have all been working on a small website trying to expose the underbelly of St. Ives, using Trejelly as cover. Here is the secret of my Cornish seclusion which people marvelled at. Mrs. Trerichards knew. That was why she telegraphed me and I returned. What was my stolen baggage in Camborne when I learned such a fate had come upon Mr. Tresheep?"

"You mean Mr. Trejelly," I corrected.

"Oh bugger him," sobbed Mr. Trehedgehog, "Just look what that evil git Tregennis did to poor old Shaun!".

"But I don't understand," I protested. "How is Mr. Tresheep connected to the deaths?".

"MMO, Watson," answered Holmes. "Motive. Method. Opportunity. The motive for Tregennis, no doubt, was his financial losses, coupled with the continuing humiliation of losing at animal snap."

"And the method," I enquired.

"There, I fear, was the cause of Mr. Trehedgehog's anguish. Mr. Tresheep was undoubtedly used as the first murder weapon. All I lack by way of final proof is the opportunity. What pray, Mr. Trehedgehog, could cause such horrors as we have witnessed?"

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