«One of Sherlock Holmes's defects - if, indeed, one may call it a defect -- was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment. Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly also from his professional caution, which urged him never to take any chances. The result, however, was very trying for those who were acting as his agents and assistants. I had often suffered under it, but never more so than during that long drive in the darkness.

"A few minutes later we had reached the lodgegates, a maze of fantastic tracery in wrought iron, with weatherbitten pillars on either side, blotched with lichens, and summounted by the boars' heads of the Baskervilles. The lodge was a ruin of black granite and bared ribs of rafters, but facing it was a new building, half constructed, the first fruit of Sir Charles's South African gold.

© Кадр из фильма режиссера Дугласа Хикокса "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1983).

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a "Penang lawyer." (ACD) (Шерлок Холмс, обычно встававший очень поздно - кроме тех нередких случаев, когда он бодрстовал всю ночь - сидел за завтраком. Я стоял перед камином и держал в руках трость, забытую вчера вечером нашим посетителем.