The blue scarab
that when at three o’clock we set forth in company with the
Superintendent, the bag went with us; and having offered to carry it
and having had my offer accepted with a sly twinkle, its weight
assured me that the quartz was still inside.
“Chambers and Offices to let,” Thorndyke read aloud as we approached
the porter’s lodge. “That lets us in, I think. And the porter knows
Dr. Jervis and me by sight, so he will talk more freely.”
“He doesn’t know me,” said the Superintendent, “but I’ll keep in the
background, all the same.”
A pull at the bell brought out a clerical-looking man in a tall hat
and a frock coat, who regarded Thorndyke and me through his spectacles
with an amiable air of recognition.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Larkin,” said Thorndyke. “I am asked to get
particulars of vacant chambers. What have you got to let?”
Mr. Larkin reflected. “Let me see. There’s a ground floor at No.
5--rather dark--and a small second-pair set at No. 12. And then there
is--oh, yes, there is a good first floor set at No. 51. They wouldn’t
have been vacant until Michaelmas, but Mr. Carrington, the tenant, has
had to go abroad suddenly. I had a letter from him this morning,
enclosing the key. Funny letter, too.” He dived into his pocket, and
hauling out a bundle of letters, selected one and handed it to
Thorndyke with a broad smile.
Thorndyke glanced at the postmark (“London, E.”), and having taken out
the key, extracted the letter, which he opened and held so that Miller
and I could see it. The paper bore the printed heading, “Baltic
Shipping Company, Wapping,” and the further written heading, “S.S.
_Gothenburg_,” and the letter was brief and to the point:
_Dear Sir,_
_I am giving up my chambers at No._ 51, _as I have been suddenly
called abroad. I enclose the key, but am not troubling you with the
rent. The sale of my costly furniture will more than cover it, and the
surplus can be expended on painting the garden railings._
_Yours sincerely,
A. Carrington._
Thorndyke smilingly replaced the letter and the key in the envelope
and asked:
“What is the furniture like?”
“You’ll see,” chuckled the porter, “if you care to look at the rooms.
And I think they might suit. They’re a good set.”
“Quiet?”
“Yes, pretty quiet. There’s a metallurgist overhead--Highley--used to
be Burt & Highley, but Burt has gone to the City, and I don’t think
Highley does much business now.”
“Let me see,” said Thorndyke, “I think I used to meet Highley
sometimes--a tall, dark man, isn’t he?”
“No, that would be Burt. Highley is a little, fairish man, rather
bald, with a pretty rich complexion”--here Mr. Larkin tapped his nose
knowingly and raised his little finger--“which may account for the
falling off of business.”
“Hadn’t we better have a look at the rooms?” Miller interrupted a
little impatiently.
“Can we see them, Mr. Larkin?” asked Thorndyke.
“Certainly,” was the reply. “You’ve got the key. Let me have it when
you’ve seen the rooms; and whatever you do,” he added with a broad
grin, “be careful of the furniture.”
“It looks,” the Superintendent remarked as we crossed the inner court,
“as if Mr. Carrington had done a mizzle. That’s hopeful. And I see,”
he continued, glancing at the fresh paint on the door-post as we
passed through the entry, “that he hasn’t been here long. That’s
hopeful, too.”
We ascended to the first floor, and as Thorndyke unlocked and threw
open the door, Miller laughed aloud. The “costly furniture” consisted
of a small kitchen table, a Windsor chair and a dilapidated
deck-chair. The kitchen contained a gas ring, a small saucepan and a
frying-pan, and the bedroom was furnished with a camp-bed devoid of
bed-clothes, a washhand basin on a packing case, and a water can.
“Hallo!” exclaimed the Superintendent. “He’s left a hat behind. Quite
a good hat, too.” He took it down from the peg, glanced at its
exterior and then, turning it over, looked inside. And then his mouth
opened with a jerk.
“Great Solomon Eagle!” he gasped. “Do you see, Doctor? It’s _the_
hat.”
He held it out to us, and sure enough on the white silk lining of the
crown were the embossed, gilt letters, D.B., just as Mr. Byramji had
described them.
“Yes,” Thorndyke agreed, as the Superintendent snatched up a
greengrocer’s paper bag from the kitchen floor and persuaded the hat
into it, “it is undoubtedly the missing link. But what are you going
to do now?”
“Do!” exclaimed Miller. “Why, I am going to collar the man. These
Baltic boats put in at Hull and Newcastle--perhaps he didn’t know
that--and they are pretty slow boats, too. I shall wire to Newcastle
to have the ship detained and take Inspector Badger down to make the
arrest. I’ll leave you to explain to the porter, and I owe you a
thousand thanks for your valuable tip.”
With this he bustled away, clasping the precious hat, and from the
window we saw him hurry across the court and dart out through the
postern into Fetter Lane.
“I think Miller was rather precipitate,” said Thorndyke. “He should
have got a description of the man and some further particulars.”
“Yes,” said I. “Miller had much better have waited until you had
finished with Mr. Larkin. But you can get some more particulars when
we take back the key.”
“We shall get more information from the gentleman who lives on the
floor above, and I think we will go up and interview him now. I wrote
to him last night and made a metallurgical appointment, signing myself
W. Polton. Your name, if he should ask, is Stevenson.”
As we ascended the stairs to the next floor, I meditated on the rather
tortuous proceedings of my usually straightforward colleague. The use
of the lumps of quartz was now obvious; but why these mysterious
tactics? And why, before knocking at the door, did Thorndyke carefully
take the reading of the gas meter on the landing?
The door was opened in response to our knock by a shortish,
alert-looking, clean-shaved man in a white overall, who looked at us
keenly and rather forbiddingly. But Thorndyke was geniality
personified.
“How do you do, Mr. Highley?” said he, holding out his hand, which the
metallurgist shook coolly. “You got my letter, I suppose?”
“Yes. But I am not Mr. Highley. He’s away and I am carrying on. I
think of taking over his business, if there is any to take over. My
name is Sherwood. Have you got the samples?”
Thorndyke produced the canvas bag, which Mr. Sherwood took from him
and emptied out on a bench, picking up the lumps of quartz one by one
and examining them closely. Meanwhile Thorndyke took a rapid survey of
the premises. Against the wall were two cupel furnaces and a third
larger furnace like a small pottery kiln. On a set of narrow shelves
were several rows of bone-ash cupels, looking like little white
flower-pots, and near them was the cupel-press--an appliance into
which powdered bone-ash was fed and compressed by a plunger to form
the cupels--while by the side of the press was a tub of bone-ash--a
good deal coarser, I noticed, than the usual fine powder. This
coarseness was also observed by Thorndyke, who edged up to the tub and
dipped his hand into the ash and then wiped his fingers on his
handkerchief.
“This stuff doesn’t seem to contain much gold,” said Mr. Sherwood.
“But we shall see when we make the assay.”
“What do you think of this?” asked Thorndyke, taking from his pocket
the small lump of glittering, golden-looking mineral that he had
picked out at the assayist’s. Mr. Sherwood took it from him and
examined it closely. “This looks more hopeful,” said he; “rather rich,
in fact.”
Thorndyke received this statement with an unmoved countenance; but as
for me, I stared at Mr. Sherwood in amazement. For this lump of
glittering mineral was simply a fragment of common iron pyrites! It
would not have deceived a schoolboy, much less a metallurgist.
Still holding the specimen, and taking a watchmaker’s lens from a
shelf, Mr. Sherwood moved over to the window. Simultaneously,
Thorndyke stepped softly to the cupel shelves and quickly ran his eye
along the rows of cupels. Presently he paused at one, examined it more
closely, and then, taking it from the shelf, began to pick at it with
his finger-nail.
At this moment Mr. Sherwood turned and observed him; and instantly
there flashed into the metallurgist’s face an expression of mingled
anger and alarm.
“Put that down!” he commanded peremptorily, and then, as Thorndyke
continued to scrape with his finger-nail, he shouted furiously, “Do
you hear? Drop it!”
Thorndyke took him literally at his word and let the cupel fall on the
floor, when it shattered into innumerable fragments, of which one of
the largest separated itself from the rest. Thorndyke pounced upon it
and in an instantaneous glance as he picked it up, I recognized it as
a calcined tooth.
Then followed a few moments of weird, dramatic silence. Thorndyke,
holding the tooth between his finger and thumb, looked steadily into
the eyes of the metallurgist; and the latter, pallid as a corpse,
glared at Thorndyke and furtively unbuttoned his overall.
Suddenly the silence broke into a tumult as bewildering as the crash
of a railway collision. Sherwood’s right hand darted under his
overall. Instantly, Thorndyke snatched up another cupel and hurled it
with such truth of aim that it shattered on the metallurgist’s
forehead. And as he flung the missile, he sprang forward, and
delivered a swift upper-cut. There was a thunderous crash, a cloud of
white dust, and an automatic pistol clattered along the floor.
I snatched up the pistol and rushed to my friend’s assistance. But
there was no need. With his great strength and his uncanny skill--to
say nothing of the effects of the knock-out blow--Thorndyke had the
man pinned down immovably.
“See if you can find some cord, Jervis,” he said in a calm, quiet tone
that seemed almost ridiculously out of character with the
circumstances.
There was no difficulty about this, for several corded boxes stood in
a corner of the laboratory. I cut off two lengths, with one of which I
secured the prostrate man’s arms and with the other fastened his knees
and ankles.
“Now,” said Thorndyke, “if you will take charge of his hands, we will
make a preliminary inspection. Let us first see if he wears a belt.”
Unbuttoning the man’s waistcoat, he drew up the shirt, disclosing a
broad, webbing belt furnished with several leather pockets, the
buttoned flaps of which he felt carefully, regardless of the stream of
threats and imprecations that poured from our victim’s swollen lips.
From the front pockets he proceeded to the back, passing an
exploratory hand under the writhing body.
“Ah!” he exclaimed suddenly, “just turn him over, and look out for his
heels.”
We rolled our captive over, and as Thorndyke “skinned the rabbit,” a
central pocket came into view, into which, when he had unbuttoned it,
he inserted his fingers. “Yes,” he continued, “I think this is what we
are looking for.” He withdrew his fingers, between which he held a
small packet of Japanese paper, and with feverish excitement I watched
him open out layer after layer of the soft wrapping. As he turned back
the last fold a wonderful crimson sparkle told me that the “great
ruby” was found.
“There, Jervis,” said Thorndyke, holding the magnificent gem towards
me in the palm of his hand, “look on this beautiful, sinister thing,
charged with untold potentialities of evil--and thank the gods that it
is not yours.”
He wrapped it up again carefully and, having bestowed it in an inner
pocket, said, “And now give me the pistol and run down to the
telegraph office and see if you can stop Miller. I should like him to
have the credit for this.”