This is an interesting thought; I’d never considered the timing of this story in the canon, although I knew Doyle had come to loathe the character and the stories. Thanks!
The only problem I have with that interpretation (which certainly sounds very plausible) is that Holmes always explained his little tricks and stratagems when he was wrapping up a case. He didn’t do that in this instance; in fact, when he returns to Woking the next day and learns of the attempt to break in through Percy’s window the night before, he goes outside to examine the ground underneath it, and doesn’t see anything he can use as a clue (“I don’t think any one could make much of this,” he says, which is noteworthy on its own; I can think of only one other time he couldn’t deduce something from smudges on the ground). He never mentions trying to examine the ground outside the window before that.