The blue scarab
table by the side of the other, and thus placed, crown uppermost, the
two hats were closely similar. Both were black, hard felts of the
prevalent “bowler” shape, and of good quality, and the difference in
their age and state of preservation was not striking; but when Byramji
turned them over and exhibited their interiors it was seen that
whereas the strange hat was unlined save for the leather headband,
Byramji’s had a white silk lining and bore the owner’s initials in
embossed gilt letters.
“What happened,” said Thorndyke, when he had carefully compared the
two hats, “seems fairly obvious. The two men, on entering, placed
their hats crown upwards on the table. In some way--perhaps during a
struggle--the visitor’s hat was knocked down and rolled under the
table. Then the stranger, on leaving, picked up the only visible
hat--almost identically similar to his own--and put it on.”
“Is it not rather singular,” I asked, “that he should not have noticed
the different feel of a strange hat?”
“I think not,” Thorndyke replied. “If he noticed anything unusual he
would probably assume that he had put it on the wrong way round.
Remember that he would be extremely hurried and agitated. And when
once he had left the house he would not dare to take the risk of
returning, though he would doubtless realize the gravity of the
mistake. And now,” he continued, “would you mind giving us a few
particulars? You have spoken of a great ruby, which your cousin had,
and which seems to be missing.”
“Yes. You shall come to my room and I will tell you about it; but
first let us lay my poor cousin decently on his bed.”
“I think,” said Thorndyke, “the body ought not to be moved until the
police have seen it.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Byramji agreed reluctantly, “though it seems
callous to leave him lying there.” With a sigh he turned to the door,
and Thorndyke followed, carrying the two hats.
“My cousin and I,” said our host, when we were seated in his own large
bed-sitting room, “were both interested in gem-stones. I deal in all
kinds of stones that are found in the East, but Dinanath dealt almost
exclusively in rubies. He was a very fine judge of those beautiful
gems, and he used to make periodical tours in Burma in search of uncut
rubies of unusual size or quality. About four months ago he acquired
at Mogok, in Upper Burma, a magnificent specimen over twenty-eight
carats in weight, perfectly flawless and of the most gorgeous colour.
It had been roughly cut, but my cousin was intending to have it recut
unless he should receive an advantageous offer for it in the
meantime.”
“What would be the value of such a stone?” I asked.
“It is impossible to say. A really fine large ruby of perfect colour
is far, far more valuable than the finest diamond of the same size. It
is the most precious of all gems, with the possible exception of the
emerald. A fine ruby of five carats is worth about three thousand
pounds, but, of course, the value rises out of all proportion with
increasing size. Fifty thousand pounds would be a moderate price for
Dinanath’s ruby.”
During this recital I noticed that Thorndyke, while listening
attentively, was turning the stranger’s hat over in his hands,
narrowly scrutinizing it both inside and outside. As Byramji
concluded, he remarked:
“We shall have to let the police know what has happened, but, as my
friend and I will be called as witnesses, I should like to examine
this hat a little more closely before you hand it over to them. Could
you let me have a small, hard brush? A dry nail-brush would do.”
Our host complied readily--in fact eagerly. Thorndyke’s authoritative,
purposeful manner had clearly impressed him, for he said as he handed
my colleague a new nail-brush: “I thank you for your help and value
it. We must not depend on the police only.”
Accustomed as I was to Thorndyke’s methods, his procedure was not
unexpected, but Mr. Byramji watched him with breathless interest and
no little surprise as, laying a sheet of note-paper on the table, he
brought the hat close to it and brushed firmly but slowly, so that the
dust dislodged should fall on it. As it was not a very well-kept hat,
the yield was considerable, especially when the brush was drawn under
the curl of the brim, and very soon the paper held quite a little
heap. Then Thorndyke folded the paper into a small packet and having
written “outside” on it, put it in his pocket-book.
“Why do you do that?” Mr. Byramji asked. “What will the dust tell
you?”
“Probably nothing,” Thorndyke replied. “But this hat is our only
direct clue to the identity of the man who was with your cousin, and
we must make the most of it. Dust, you know, is only a mass of
fragments detached from surrounding objects. If the objects are
unusual the dust may be quite distinctive. You could easily identify
the hat of a miller or a cement worker.” As he was speaking he
reversed the hat and turned down the leather head-lining, whereupon a
number of strips of folded paper fell down into the crown.
“Ah!” exclaimed Byramji, “perhaps we shall learn something now.”
He picked out the folded slips and began eagerly to open them out, and
we examined them systematically, one by one. But they were singularly
disappointing and uninforming. Mostly they consisted of strips of
newspaper, with one or two circulars, a leaf from a price list of gas
stoves, a portion of a large envelope on which were the remains of an
address which read “--n--don, W.C.,” and a piece of paper, evidently
cut down vertically and bearing the right-hand half of some kind of
list. This read:
“--el 3 oz. 5 dwts.
--eep 9½ oz.”
“Can you make anything of this?” I asked, handing the paper to
Thorndyke.
He looked at it reflectively, and answered, as he copied it into his
notebook: “It has, at least, some character. If we consider it with
the other data we should get some sort of hint from it. But these
scraps of paper don’t tell us much. Perhaps their most suggestive
feature is their quantity and the way in which, as you have no doubt
noticed, they were arranged at the sides of the hat. We had better
replace them as we found them for the benefit of the police.”
The nature of the suggestion to which he referred was not very obvious
to me, but the presence of Mr. Byramji rendered discussion
inadvisable; nor was there any opportunity, for we had hardly
reconstituted the hat when we became aware of a number of persons
ascending the stairs, and then we heard the sound of rather peremptory
rapping at the door of the dead man’s room.
Mr. Byramji opened the door and went out on to the landing, where
several persons had collected, including the two servants and a
constable.
“I understand,” said the policeman, “that there is something wrong
here. Is that so?”
“A very terrible thing has happened,” replied Byramji. “But the
doctors can tell you better than I can.” Here he looked appealingly at
Thorndyke, and we both went out and joined him.
“A gentleman--Mr. Dinanath Byramji--has met with his death under
somewhat suspicious circumstances,” said Thorndyke, and, glancing at
the knot of naturally curious persons on the landing, he continued:
“If you will come into the room where the death occurred, I will give
you the facts so far as they are known to us.”
With this he opened the door and entered the room with Mr. Byramji,
the constable, and me. As the door opened, the bystanders craned
forward and a middle-aged woman uttered a cry of horror and followed
us into the room.
“This is dreadful!” she exclaimed, with a shuddering glance at the
corpse. “The servants told me about it when I came in just now and I
sent Albert for the police at once. But what does it mean? You don’t
think poor Mr. Dinanath has been murdered?”
“We had better get the facts, ma’am,” said the constable, drawing out
a large black notebook and laying his helmet on the table. He turned
to Mr. Byramji, who had sunk into a chair and sat, the picture of
grief, gazing at his dead cousin. “Would you kindly tell me what you
know about how it happened?”
Byramji repeated the substance of what he had told us, and when the
constable had taken down his statement, Thorndyke and I gave the few
medical particulars that we could furnish and handed the constable our
cards. Then, having helped to lay the corpse on the bed and cover it
with a sheet, we turned to take our leave.
“You have been very kind,” Mr. Byramji said as he shook our hands
warmly. “I am more than grateful. Perhaps I may be permitted to call
on you and hear if--if you have learned anything fresh,” he concluded
discreetly.
“We shall be pleased to see you,” Thorndyke replied, “and to give you
any help that we can”; and with this we took our departure, watched
inquisitively down the stairs by the boarders and the servants who
still lurked in the vicinity of the chamber of death.
“If the police have no more information than we have,” I remarked as
we walked homeward, “they won’t have much to go on.”
“No,” said Thorndyke. “But you must remember that this crime--as we
are justified in assuming it to be--is not an isolated one. It is the
fourth of practically the same kind within the last six months. I
understand that the police have some kind of information respecting
the presumed criminal, though it can’t be worth much, seeing that no
arrest has been made. But there is some new evidence this time. The
exchange of hats may help the police considerably.”
“In what way? What evidence does it furnish?”
“In the first place it suggests a hurried departure, which seems to
connect the missing man with the crime. Then, he is wearing the dead
man’s hat, and though he is not likely to continue wearing it, it may
be seen and furnish a clue. We know that that hat fits him fairly and
we know its size, so that we know the size of his head. Finally, we
have the man’s own hat.”
“I don’t fancy the police will get much information from that,” said
I.
“Probably not,” he agreed. “Yet it offered one or two interesting
suggestions, as you probably observed.”
“It made no suggestions whatever to me,” said I.
“Then,” said Thorndyke, “I can only recommend you to recall our simple
inspection and consider the significance of what we found.”
This I had to accept as closing the discussion for the time being, and
as I had to make a call at my bookseller’s concerning some reports
that I had left to be bound, I parted from Thorndyke at the corner of
Chichester Rents and left him to pursue his way alone.
My business with the bookseller took me longer than I had expected,
for I had to wait while the lettering on the backs was completed, and
when I arrived at our chambers in King’s Bench Walk, I found Thorndyke
apparently at the final stage of some experiment evidently connected
with our late adventure. The microscope stood on the table with one
slide on the stage and a second one beside it; but Thorndyke had
apparently finished his microscopical researches, for as I entered he
held in his hand a test-tube filled with a smoky-coloured fluid.
“I see that you have been examining the dust from the hat,” said I.
“Does it throw any fresh light on the case?”
“Very little,” he replied. “It is just common dust--assorted fibres
and miscellaneous organic and mineral particles. But there are a
couple of hairs from the inside of the hat--both lightish brown, and
one of the atrophic, note-of-exclamation type that one finds at the
margin of bald patches; and the outside dust shows minute traces of
lead, apparently in the form of oxide. What do you make of that?”
“Perhaps the man is a plumber or a painter,” I suggested.
“Either is possible and worth considering,” he replied; but his tone
made clear to me that this was not his own inference; and a row of