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.” 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 reopened 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 tomorrow 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 be 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 tablecloth, 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 mys terious 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 recognisable 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,