Quotation from: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Written by: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


"The two McCarthys were seen after the time when William Crowder,
the game-keeper, lost sight of them. The Boscombe Pool is thickly
wooded round, with just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the
edge. A girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of
the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the
woods picking flowers. She states that while she was there she
saw, at the border of the wood and close by the lake, Mr.
McCarthy and his son, and that they appeared to be having a
violent quarrel. She heard Mr. McCarthy the elder using very
strong language to his son, and she saw the latter raise up his
hand as if to strike his father. She was so frightened by their
violence that she ran away and told her mother when she reached
home that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling near
Boscombe Pool, and that she was afraid that they were going to
fight. She had hardly said the words when young Mr. McCarthy came
running up to the lodge to say that he had found his father dead
in the wood, and to ask for the help of the lodge-keeper. He was
much excited, without either his gun or his hat, and his right
hand and sleeve were observed to be stained with fresh blood. On
following him they found the dead body stretched out upon the
grass beside the pool. The head had been beaten in by repeated
blows of some heavy and blunt weapon. The injuries were such as
might very well have been inflicted by the butt-end of his son's
gun, which was found lying on the grass within a few paces of the
body. Under these circumstances the young man was instantly
arrested, and a verdict of 'wilful murder' having been returned
at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on Wednesday brought before the
magistrates at Ross, who have referred the case to the next
Assizes. Those are the main facts of the case as they came out
before the coroner and the police-court."

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