The magic casket
“True,” he admitted. “But that would not affect the value of a
positive trace of a particular individual. Supposing, for instance,
that Godfrey Herrington were known to have dyed hair; and suppose that
one or more dyed male hairs were found in the dust from the floor of
the room. That would establish a probability that he had been in that
room, and also that he was the person who had struggled with the
deceased.”
“Yes, I see that,” said I. “Perhaps I ought to have collected some of
the dust. But it isn’t too late now, as Bidwell has locked up the
chambers. Meanwhile, let me present you with Badger’s clues. They came
off the floor.”
I searched in my pocket and produced the paper packet, the existence
of which I had forgotten, and having opened it, offered it to him with
an ironical bow. He looked gravely at the little collection, and,
disregarding the pin and the match, picked out the third object and
examined it curiously.
“That is the alleged boot-lace end,” he remarked. “It doesn’t do much
credit to Badger’s powers of observation. It is as unlike leather as
it could well be.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “it is obviously whalebone or vulcanite.”
“It isn’t vulcanite,” said he, looking closely at the broken end and
getting out his pocket lens for a more minute inspection.
“What do you suppose it is?” I asked, my curiosity stimulated by the
evident interest with which he was examining the object.
“We needn’t suppose,” he replied. “I fancy that if we get Polton to
make a cross section of it, the microscope will tell us what it is. I
will take it up to him now.”
As he went out and I heard him ascending to the laboratory where our
assistant, Polton, was at work, I was conscious of a feeling of
vexation and a sense of failure. It was always thus. I had treated
this fragment with the same levity as had the inspector, just dropping
it into my pocket and forgetting it. Probably the thing was of no
interest or importance; but whether it was or not, Thorndyke would not
be satisfied until he knew for certain what it was. And that habit of
examining everything, of letting nothing pass without the closest
scrutiny, was one of the great secrets of his success as an
investigator.
When he came down again I re-opened the subject.
“It has occurred to me,” I said, “that it might be as well for us to
have a look at that room. My inspection was rather perfunctory, as
Badger was there.”
“I have just been thinking the same,” he replied. “If Godfrey is not
the man, and the police are left stranded, Bidwell will look to us to
take up the inquiry, and by that time the room may have been
disturbed. I think we will get the key from Bidwell to-morrow morning
and make a thorough examination. And we may as well adopt Badger’s
excellent suggestion respecting the dust. I will instruct Polton to
come over with us and bring a full-sized vacuum-cleaner, and we can go
over what he collects at our leisure.”
Agreeably to this arrangement, we presented ourselves on the following
morning at Mr. Bidwell’s chambers, accompanied by Polton, who,
however, being acutely conscious of the vacuum-cleaner which was
thinly disguised in brown paper, sneaked up the stairs and got out of
sight. Bidwell opened the door himself, and Thorndyke explained our
intentions to him.
“Of course you can have the key,” he said, “but I don’t know that it
is worth your while to go into the matter. There have been
developments since I saw you last night. When Carston and I called at
Scotland Yard we found that we were too late. Godfrey Herrington had
come forward and made a voluntary statement.”
“That was wise of him,” said Thorndyke, “but he would have been wiser
still to have notified the porter of what had happened and sent for a
doctor. He claims that the death was a misadventure, of course?”
“Not at all,” replied Bidwell. “He states that when he left, Giles was
perfectly well; so well that he was able to kick him--Godfrey--down
the stairs and pitch him out on to the pavement. It seems, according
to his account, that he called to try to get some financial help from
his uncle. He admits that he was rather importunate and persisted
after Giles had definitely refused. Then Giles got suddenly into a
rage, thrust him out of the chambers, ran him down the stairs, and
threw him out into Tanfield Court. It is a perfectly coherent story,
and quite probable up to a certain point, but it doesn’t account for
the bruises on Giles’s body or the finger-marks on his throat.”
“No,” agreed Thorndyke; “either he is lying, or he is the victim of
some very inexplicable circumstances. But I gather that you have no
further interest in the case?”
Bidwell reflected.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know about that. Of course I don’t believe
him, but it is just possible that he is telling the truth. My feeling
is that, if he is guilty I want him convicted; but if by any chance he
is innocent--well, he is Giles’s nephew, and I suppose it is my duty
to see that he has a fair chance. Yes, I think I would like you to
watch the case independently--with a perfectly open mind, neither for
nor against. But I don’t see that there is much that you can do.”
“Neither do I,” said Thorndyke. “But one can observe and note the
visible facts, if there are any. Has anything been done to the rooms?”
“Nothing whatever,” was the reply. “They are just as Dr. Jervis and I
found them the morning after the catastrophe.”
With this he handed Thorndyke the key and we ascended to the landing,
where we found Polton on guard with the vacuum-cleaner, like a sentry
armed with some new and unorthodox weapon.
The appearance of the room was unchanged. The half-dislodged
table-cloth, the litter of broken glass on the floor, even the
displaced fender and hearth-rug, were just as I had last seen them.
Thorndyke looked about him critically and remarked:
“The appearances hardly support Godfrey’s statement. There was clearly
a prolonged and violent struggle, not a mere ejectment. And look at
the table-cloth. The uncovered part of the table is that nearest the
door, and most of the things have fallen off at the end nearest the
fireplace. Obviously, the body that dislodged the cloth was moving
away from the door, not towards it, which again suggests something
more than an unresisted ejectment.”
He again looked round, and his glance fell on the nail and the
coloured silhouette on the wall-paper.
“That, I presume,” said he, “is where the mysterious sword or dagger
hung. It is rather large for a dagger and somewhat wide for a sword,
though barbaric swords are of all shapes and sizes.”
He produced his spring tape and carefully measured the phantom shape
on the wall. “Thirty-one inches long,” he reported, “including the
loop at the end of the handle, by which it hung; seven and a half
inches at the top of the scabbard, tapering rather irregularly to
three inches at the tip. A curious shape. I don’t remember ever having
seen a sword quite like it.”
Meanwhile Polton, having picked up the broken glass and other objects,
had uncovered the vacuum-cleaner and now started the motor--which was
driven by an attached dry battery--and proceeded very systematically
to trundle the machine along the floor. At every two or three sweeps
he paused to empty the receiver, placing the grey, felt-like mass on a
sheet of paper, with a pencilled note of the part of the room from
whence it came. The size of these masses of felted dust and the
astonishing change in the colour of the carpet that marked the trail
of the cleaner, suggested that Mrs. Runt’s activities had been of a
somewhat perfunctory character. Polton’s dredgings apparently
represented the accumulations of years.
“Wonderful lot of hairs in this old dust,” Polton remarked as he
deposited a fresh consignment on the paper, “especially in this lot.
It came from under that looking-glass on the wall. Perhaps that
clothes brush that hangs under the glass accounts for it.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “they will be hairs brushed off Mr. Herrington’s
collar and shoulders. But,” I added, taking the brush from its nail
and examining it, “Mrs. Runt seems to have used the glass, too. There
are three long hairs still sticking to the brush.”
As Thorndyke was still occupied in browsing inquisitively round the
room, I proceeded to make a preliminary inspection of the heaps of
dust, picking out the hairs and other recognizable objects with my
pocket forceps, and putting them on a separate sheet of paper. Of the
former, the bulk were pretty obviously those of the late tenant--white
or dull black male hairs--but Mrs. Runt had contributed quite
liberally, for I picked out of the various heaps over a dozen long
hairs, the mousy brown colour of which seemed to identify them as
hers. The remainder were mostly ordinary male hairs of various
colours, eyebrow hairs and eyelashes, of no special interest, with one
exception. This was a black hair which lay flat on the paper in a
close coil, like a tiny watch-spring.
“I wonder who this negro was,” said I, inspecting it through my lens.
“Probably some African or West Indian Law student,” Thorndyke
suggested. “There are always a good many about the Inns of Court.”
He came round to examine my collection, and while he was viewing the
negro hair with the aid of my lens, I renewed my investigations of the
little dust-heaps. Presently I made a new discovery.
“Why,” I exclaimed, “here is another of Badger’s boot-laces--another
piece of the same one, I think. By the way, did you ascertain what
that boot-lace really was?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Polton made a section of it and mounted it; and
furthermore, he made a magnified photograph of it. I have the
photograph in my pocket, so you can answer your own question.”
He produced from his letter-case a half-plate print which he handed to
me and which I examined curiously.
“It is a singular object,” said I, “but I don’t quite make it out. It
looks rather like a bundle of hairs embedded in some transparent
substance.”
“That, in effect,” he replied, “is what it is. It is an elephant’s
hair, probably from the tail. But, as you see, it is a compound hair;
virtually a group of hairs agglutinated into a single stem. Most very
large hairs are compound. A tiger’s whiskers, for instance, are large,
stiff hairs which, if cut across, are seen to be formed of several
largish hairs fused together; and the colossal hair which grows on the
nose of the rhinoceros--the so-called nasal horn--is made up of
thousands of subordinate hairs.”
“It is a remarkable-looking thing,” I said, handing back the
photograph; “very distinctive--if you happen to know what it is. But
the mystery is how on earth it came here. There are no elephants in
the Temple.”
“I certainly haven’t noticed any,” he replied; “and, as you say, the
presence of an elephant’s hair in a room in the middle of London is a
rather remarkable circumstance. And yet, perhaps, if we consider all
the other circumstances, it may not be impossible to form a conjecture
as to how it came here. I recommend the problem to my learned friend
for consideration at his leisure; and now, as we have seen all that
there is to see--which is mighty little--we may as well leave Polton
to finish the collection of data from the floor. We can take your
little selection with us.”
He folded the paper containing the hairs that I had picked out into a
neat packet, which he slipped into his pocket; then, having handed the
key of the outer door to Polton, for return to Mr. Bidwell, he went
out and I followed. We descended the stairs slowly, both of us deeply
reflective. As to the subject of his meditations I could form no
opinion, but my own were occupied by the problem which he had
suggested; and the more I reflected on it, the less capable of
solution did it appear.