The blue scarab
after a brief glance in through the window, entered with an air of
business. I immediately bolted in after him, and was just in time to
hear him demand a fishing rod of a light and inexpensive character.
When this had been supplied he asked for a line and one or two hooks;
and I was a little surprised--and the vendor was positively
scandalized--at his indifference to the quality or character of these
appliances. I believe he would have accepted cod-line and a shark-hook
if they had been offered.
“And now I want a float,” said he.
The shopkeeper produced a tray containing a varied assortment of
floats over which Thorndyke ran a critical eye, and finally reduced
the shopman to stupefaction by selecting a gigantic, pot-bellied,
scarlet-and-green atrocity that looked like a juvenile telegraph buoy.
I could not let this outrage pass without comment. “You must excuse
me, Thorndyke,” I said, “if I venture to point out that the Greenland
whale no longer frequents the upper reaches of the Thames.”
“You mind your own business,” he retorted, stolidly pocketing the
telegraph buoy when he had paid for his purchases. “I like a float
that you can see.”
Here the shopman, recovering somewhat from the shock of surprise,
remarked deferentially that it was a long time since a really large
pike had been caught in the neighbourhood; whereupon Thorndyke
finished him off by replying: “Yes, I’ve no doubt. They don’t use the
right sort of floats, you know. Now, when the pike see my float, they
will just come tumbling over one another to get on the hook.” With
this he tucked the rod under his arm and strolled out, leaving the
shopman breathing hard and staring harder.
“But what on earth,” I asked, as we walked down the street (watched by
the shopman, who had come out on the pavement to see the last of us),
“do you want with such an enormous float? Why, it will be visible a
quarter of a mile away.”
“Exactly,” said Thorndyke. “And what more could a fisher of men
require?”
This rejoinder gave me pause. Evidently Thorndyke had something in
hand of more than common interest; and again it occurred to me that my
own business engagements were of no special urgency. I was about to
mention this fact when Thorndyke again halted--at an oilshop this
time.
“I think I will step in here and get a little burnt umber,” said he.
I followed him into the shop, and while the powder-colour was being
weighed and made up into a little packet I reflected profoundly.
Fishing tackle and burnt umber had no obvious associations. I began to
be mystified and correspondingly inquisitive.
“What do you want the burnt umber for?” I asked as soon as we were
outside.
“To mix with plaster,” he replied readily.
“But why do you want to colour the plaster? And what are you going to
do with it?”
“Now, Jervis,” he admonished with mock severity, “you are not doing
yourself justice. An investigator of your experience shouldn’t ask for
explanations of the obvious.”
“And why,” I continued, “did you want to know if I was going straight
back to the chambers?”
“Because I may want some assistance later. Probably Polton will be
able to do all that I want, but I wished to know that you would both
be within reach of a telegram.”
“But,” I exclaimed, “what nonsense it is to talk of sending a telegram
to me when I’m here!”
“But I may not want any assistance, after all.”
“Well,” I said doggedly, “you are going to have it whether you want it
or not. You’ve got something on and I’m going to be in it.”
“I like your enthusiasm, Jervis,” he chuckled; “but it is quite
possible that I shall merely find a mare’s nest.”
“Very well,” said I. “Then I’ll help you to find it. I’ve had plenty
of experience in that line, to say nothing of my natural gifts. So
lead on.”
He led on, with a resigned smile, to the station, where we were
fortunate enough to find a train just ready to start. But our journey
was not a long one, for at Chiswick Thorndyke got out of the train,
and on leaving the station struck out eastward with a very evident air
of business. As we entered the outskirts of Hammersmith he turned into
a by-street which presently brought us out into Bridge Road. Here he
turned sharply to the right and, at the same brisk pace, crossed
Hammersmith Bridge and made his way to the towing path. As he now
slowed down perceptibly, I ventured to inquire whether this was the
spot on which he proposed to exhibit his super-float.
“This, I think, will be our fishing-ground,” he replied; “but we will
look over it carefully and select a suitable pitch.”
He continued to advance at an easy pace, and I noticed that, according
to his constant habit, he was studying the peculiarities of the
various feet that had trodden the path within the last day or two,
keeping, for this purpose, on the right-hand side, where the shade of
a few pollard willows overhanging an indistinct dry ditch had kept the
ground soft. We had walked on for nearly half a mile when he halted
and looked round.
“I think we had better turn back a little way,” said he. “We seem to
have overshot our mark.”
I made no comment on this rather mysterious observation, and we
retraced our steps for a couple of hundred yards, Thorndyke still
walking on the side farthest from the river and still keeping his eyes
fixed on the ground. Presently he again halted, and looking up and
down the path, of which we were at the moment the only occupants,
placed the canvas case on the ground and unfastened its clasps.
“This, I think, will be our pitch,” said he.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I am going to make one or two casts. And meanwhile you had better get
the fishing rod fixed together so as to divert the attention of any
passers by.”
I proceeded to make ready the fishing tackle, but at the same time
kept a close watch on my colleague’s proceedings. And very curious
proceedings they were. First he dipped up a little water from the
river in the rubber mixing bowl with which he mixed a bowlful of
plaster, and into this he stirred a few pinches of burnt umber,
whereby its dazzling white was changed to a muddy buff. Then, having
looked up and down the path, he stooped and carefully poured the
plaster into a couple of impressions of a walking-stick that were
visible at the edge of the path and finished up by filling a deep
impression of the same stick, at the margin of the ditch, where it had
apparently been stuck in the soft, clayey ground.
As I watched this operation, a sudden suspicion flashed into my mind.
Dropping the fishing rod, I walked quickly along the path until I was
able to pick up another impression of the stick. A very brief
examination of it confirmed my suspicion. At the centre of the little
shallow pit was a semicircular impression--clearly that of a half-worn
boot-stud.
“Why!” I exclaimed, “this is the stick that we saw at Scotland Yard!”
“I should expect it to be and I believe it is,” said Thorndyke. “But
we shall be better able to judge from the casts. Pick up your rod.
There are two men coming down the path.”
He closed his “research case” and drawing the fishing-line from his
pocket, began meditatively to unwind it.
“I could wish,” said I, “that our appearance was more in character
with the part of the rustic angler; and for the Lord’s sake keep that
float out of sight, or we shall collect a crowd.”
Thorndyke laughed softly. “The float,” said he, “was intended for
Polton. He would have loved it. And the crowd would have been rather
an advantage--as you will appreciate when you come to use it.”
The two men--builder’s labourers, apparently--now passed us with a
glance of faint interest at the fishing-tackle; and as they strolled
by, I appreciated the value of the burnt umber. If the casts had been
made of the snow-white plaster they would have stared conspicuously
from the ground and these men would almost certainly have stopped to
examine them and see what we were doing. But the tinted plaster was
practically invisible.
“You are a wonderful man, Thorndyke,” I said, as I announced my
discovery. “You foresee everything.”
He bowed his acknowledgments, and having tenderly felt one of the
casts and ascertained that the plaster had set hard, he lifted it with
infinite care, exhibiting a perfect facsimile of the end of the stick,
on which the worn boot-stud was plainly visible, even to the remains
of the pattern. Any doubt that might have remained as to the identity
of the stick was removed when Thorndyke produced his calliper-gauge.
“Twenty-three thirty-seconds was the diameter, I think,” said he as he
opened the jaws of the gauge and consulted his notes. He placed the
cast between the jaws, and as they were gently slid into contact, the
index marked twenty-three thirty-seconds.
“Good,” said Thorndyke, picking up the other two casts and
establishing their identity with the one which we had examined. “This
completes the first act.” Dropping one cast into his case and throwing
the other two into the river, he continued: “Now we proceed to the
next and hope for a like success. You notice that he stuck his stick
into the ground. Why do you suppose he did that?”
“Presumably to leave his hands free.”
“Yes. And now let us sit down here and consider why he wanted his
hands free. Just look around and tell me what you see.”
I gazed rather hopelessly at the very undistinctive surroundings and
began a bald catalogue. “I see a shabby-looking pollard willow, an
assortment of suburban vegetation, an obsolete tin
saucepan--unserviceable--and a bald spot where somebody seems to have
pulled up a small patch of turf.”
“Yes,” said Thorndyke. “You will also notice a certain amount of dry,
powdered earth distributed rather evenly over the bottom of the ditch.
And your patch of turf was cut round with a large knife before it was
pulled up. Why do you suppose it was pulled up?”
I shook my head. “It’s of no use making mere guesses.”
“Perhaps not,” said he, “though the suggestion is fairly obvious when
considered with the other appearances. Between the roots of the willow
you notice a patch of grass that looks denser than one would expect
from its position. I wonder----”
As he spoke, he reached forward with his stick and prized vigorously
at the edge of the patch, with the result that the clump of grass
lifted bodily; and when I picked it up and tried it on the bald spot,
the nicety with which it fitted left no doubt as to its origin.
“Ha!” I exclaimed, looking at the obviously disturbed earth between
the roots of the willow, which the little patch of turf had covered;
“the plot thickens. Something seems to have been either buried or dug
up there; more probably buried.”
“I hope and believe that my learned friend is correct,” said
Thorndyke, opening his case to abstract a large, powerful spatula.
“What do you expect to find there?” I asked.
“I have a faint hope of finding something wrapped in the half of a
very dirty towel,” was the reply.
“Then you had better find it quickly,” said I, “for there is a man
coming along the path from the Putney direction.”
He looked round at the still distant figure, and driving the spatula
into the loose earth stirred it up vigorously.
“I can feel something,” he said, digging away with powerful thrusts
and scooping the earth out with his hands. Once more he looked round
at the approaching stranger--who seemed now to have quickened his pace
but was still four or five hundred yards distant. Then, thrusting his
hands into the hole, he gave a smart pull. Slowly there came forth a
package, about ten inches by six, enveloped in a portion of a
peculiarly filthy towel and loosely secured with string. Thorndyke
rapidly cast off the string and opened out the towel, disclosing a