The blue scarab
Whose bag is it? What sort of person is the owner? Where did he come
from and where has he gone to?”
Thorndyke chuckled. “That seems quite simple,” said he. “A cursory
inspection ought to dispose of trivial details like those. But how did
you come by the bag?”
“The history of the derelicts,” said Miller, “is this: About four
o’clock this morning, a constable on duty in King’s Road, Chelsea, saw
a man walking on the opposite side of the road, carrying a hand-bag.
There was nothing particularly suspicious in this, but still the
constable thought he would cross and have a closer look at him. As he
did so the man quickened his pace and, of course, the constable
quickened his. Then the man broke into a run, and so did the
constable, and a fine, stern chase started. Suddenly the man shot down
a by-street, and as the constable turned the corner he saw his quarry
turn into a sort of alley. Following him into this, and gaining on him
perceptibly, he saw that the alley ended in a rather high wall. When
the fugitive reached the wall he dropped his bag and stick and went
over like a harlequin. The constable went over after him, but not like
a harlequin--he wasn’t dressed for the part. By the time he got over,
into a large garden with a lot of fruit trees in it, my nabs had
disappeared. He traced him by his footprints across the garden to
another wall, and when he climbed over that he found himself in
another by-street. But there was no sign of our agile friend. The
constable ran up and down the street to the next crossings, blowing
his whistle, but of course it was no go. So he went back across the
garden and secured the bag and stick, which were at once sent here for
examination.”
“And no arrest has been made?”
“Well,” replied Miller with a faint grin, “a constable in Oakley
Street who had heard the whistle arrested a man who was carrying a
suspicious-looking object. But he turned out to be a cornet player
coming home from the theatre.”
“Good,” said Thorndyke. “And now let us have a look at the bag, which
I take it has already been examined?”
“Yes, we’ve been through it,” replied Miller, “but everything has been
put back as we found it.”
Thorndyke picked up the bag and proceeded to make a systematic
inspection of its exterior.
“A good bag,” he commented; “quite an expensive one originally, though
it has seen a good deal of service. You noticed the muddy marks on the
bottom?”
“Yes,” said Miller. “Those were probably made when he dropped the bag
to jump over the wall.”
“Possibly,” said Thorndyke, “though they don’t look like street mud.
But we shall probably get more information from the contents.” He
opened the bag, and after a glance at its interior, spread out on the
table a couple of sheets of foolscap from the stationery rack, on
which he began methodically to deposit the contents of the bag,
accompanying the process with a sort of running commentary on their
obvious characteristics.
“Item one: a small leather dressing wallet. Rather shabby, but
originally of excellent quality. It contains two Swedish razors, a
little Washita hone, a diminutive strop, a folding shaving-brush,
which is slightly damp to the fingers and has a scent similar to that
of the stick of shaving soap. You notice that the hone is distinctly
concave in the middle and that the inscription on the razors,
‘Arensburg, Eskilstuna, Sweden,’ is partly ground away. Then there is
a box containing a very dry cake of soap, a little manicure set, a
well-worn toothbrush, a nailbrush, dental-brush, button-hook,
corn-razor, a small clothes-brush and a pair of small hairbrushes. It
seems to me, Badger, that this wallet suggests--mind, I only say
‘suggests’--a pretty complete answer to one of your questions.”
“I don’t see how,” said the Inspector. “Tell us what it suggests to
you.”
“It suggests to me,” replied Thorndyke, laying down the lens through
which he had been inspecting the hairbrushes, “a middle-aged or
elderly man with a shaven upper lip and a beard; a well-preserved,
healthy man, neat, orderly, provident and careful as to his
appearance; a man long habituated to travelling, and--though I don’t
insist on this, but the appearances suggest that he had been living
for some time in a particular household, and that at the time when he
lost the bag, he was changing his residence.”
“He was that,” cackled the Inspector, “if the constable’s account of
the way he went over that wall is to be trusted. But still, I don’t
see how you have arrived at all those facts.”
“Not facts, Badger,” Thorndyke corrected. “I said suggestions. And
those suggestions may be quite misleading. There may be some factor,
such as change of ownership of the wallet, which we have not allowed
for. But, taking the appearances at their face value, that is what
they suggest. There is the wallet itself, for instance--strong,
durable, but shabby with years of wear. And observe that it is a
travelling wallet and would be subjected to wear only during travel.
Then further, as to the time factor, there are the hone and the
razors. It takes a good many years to wear a Washita hone hollow or to
wear away the blade of a Swedish razor until the maker’s mark is
encroached on. The state of health, and to some extent the age, are
suggested by the toothbrush and the dental-brush. He has lost some
teeth, since he wears a plate, but not many; and he is free from
pyorrhea and alveolar absorption. You don’t wear a toothbrush down
like this on half a dozen rickety survivors. But a man whose teeth
will bear hard brushing is probably well-preserved and healthy.”
“You say that he shaves his upper lip but wears a beard,” said the
Inspector. “How do you arrive at that?”
“It is fairly obvious,” replied Thorndyke. “We see that he has razors
and uses them, and we also see that he has a beard.”
“Do we?” exclaimed Badger. “How do we?”
Thorndyke delicately picked a hair from one of the hairbrushes and
held it up. “That is not a scalp hair,” said he. “I should say that it
came from the side of the chin.”
Badger regarded the hair with evident disfavour. “Looks to me,” he
remarked, “as if a small-tooth comb might have been useful.”
“It does,” Thorndyke agreed, “but the appearance is deceptive. This is
what is called a moniliform hair--like a string of beads. But the
bead-like swellings are really parts of the hair. It is a diseased, or
perhaps we should say an abnormal, condition.” He handed me the hair
together with his lens, through which I examined it and easily
recognized the characteristic swellings.
“Yes,” said I, “it is an early case of _trichorrexis nodosa_.”
“Good Lord!” murmured the Inspector. “Sounds like a Russian nobleman.
Is it a common complaint?”
“It is not a rare disease--if you can call it a disease,” I replied,
“but it is a rare condition, taking the population as a whole.”
“It is rather a remarkable coincidence that it should happen to occur
in this particular case,” the Superintendent observed.
“My dear Miller,” exclaimed Thorndyke, “surely your experience must
have impressed on you the astonishing frequency of the unusual and the
utter failure of the mathematical laws of probability in practice.
Believe me, Miller, the Bread-and-butterfly was right. It is the
exceptional that always happens.”
Having discharged this paradox, he once more dived into the bag, and
this time handed out a singular and rather unsavoury-looking parcel,
the outer investment of which was formed by what looked like an
excessively dirty towel, but which, as Thorndyke delicately unrolled
it, was seen to be only half a towel which was supplemented by a still
dirtier and excessively ragged coloured handkerchief. This, too, being
opened out, disclosed an extremely soiled and frayed collar (which,
like the other articles, bore no name or mark), and a mass of grass,
evidently used as packing material.
The Inspector picked up the collar and quoted reflectively, “He is a
man, neat, orderly and careful as to his appearance,” after which he
dropped the collar and ostentatiously wiped his fingers.
Thorndyke smiled grimly but refrained from repartee as he carefully
separated the grass from the contained objects, which turned out to be
a small telescopic jemmy, a jointed auger, a screwdriver and a bunch
of skeleton keys.
“One understands his unwillingness to encounter the constable with
these rather significant objects in his possession,” Thorndyke
remarked. “They would have been difficult to explain away.” He took up
the heap of grass between his hands and gently compressed it to test
its freshness. As he did so a tiny, cigar-shaped object dropped on the
paper.
“What is that?” asked the Superintendent. “It looks like a chrysalis.”
“It isn’t,” said Thorndyke. “It is a shell, a species of Clausilia, I
think.” He picked up the little shell and closely examined its mouth
through his lens. “Yes,” he continued, “it is a Clausilia. Do you
study our British mollusca, Badger?”
“No, I don’t,” the Inspector replied with emphasis.
“Pity,” murmured Thorndyke. “If you did, you would be interested to
learn that the name of this little shell is _Clausilia biplicata_.”
“I don’t care what its beastly name is,” said Badger. “I want to know
whose bag this is; what the owner is like; and where he came from and
where he has gone to. Can you tell us that?”
Thorndyke regarded the Inspector with wooden gravity. “It is all very
obvious,” said he, “very obvious. But still, I think I should like to
fill in a few details before making a definite statement. Yes, I think
I will reserve my judgment until I have considered the matter a little
further.”
The Inspector received this statement with a dubious grin. He was in
somewhat of a dilemma. My colleague was addicted to a certain dry
facetiousness, and was probably “pulling” the Inspector’s “leg.” But,
on the other hand, I knew, and so did both the detectives, that it was
perfectly conceivable that he had actually solved Badger’s problem,
impossible as it seemed, and was holding back his knowledge until he
had seen whither it led.
“Shall we take a glance at the stick?” said he, picking it up as he
spoke and running his eye over its not very distinctive features. It
was a common ash stick, with a crooked handle polished and darkened by
prolonged contact with an apparently ungloved hand, and it was smeared
for about three inches from the tip with a yellowish mud. The iron
shoe of the ferrule was completely worn away and the deficiency had
been made good by driving a steel boot-stud into the exposed end.
“A thrifty gentleman, this,” Thorndyke remarked, pointing to the stud
as he measured the diameter of the ferrule with his pocket
calliper-gauge. “Twenty-three thirty-seconds is the diameter,” he
added, looking gravely at the Inspector. “You had better make a note
of that, Badger.”
The Inspector smiled sourly as Thorndyke laid down the stick, and once
more picking up the little green canvas case that contained his
research outfit, prepared to depart.
“You will hear from us, Miller,” he said, “if we pick up anything that
will be useful to you. And now, Jervis, we must really take ourselves
off.”
As the tinkling hansom bore us down Whitehall towards Waterloo, I
remarked, “Badger half suspects you of having withheld from him some
valuable information in respect of that bag.”
“He does,” Thorndyke agreed with a mischievous smile; “and he doesn’t
in the least suspect me of having given him a most illuminating hint.”
“But did you?” I asked, rapidly reviewing the conversation and
deciding that the facts elicited from the dressing wallet could hardly
be described as hints.
“My learned friend,” he replied, “is pleased to counterfeit
obtuseness. It won’t do, Jervis. I’ve known you too long.”