A strong wind sang sadly as it bent the trees in front of the Hall. A half moon shone through the dark, flying clouds on to the wild and empty moor.

A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen.

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

As a rule, said Holmes, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

You will, I am sure, agree with me that... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.

The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.