and could go when and where he pleased. It was odd of him, I admit, but he sometimes did odd things; a hasty, impulsive gentleman, quick to jump at conclusions and make decisions and quick to act. Not a discreet gentleman at all; rather an unreasonable gentleman, perhaps, but I should say highly scrupulous. I can’t imagine him committing a theft.”
“Should you describe him as a nervous or timid man?”
Mr. Wampole emitted a sound as if he had clock work in his inside and was about to strike. “I never met a less nervous man,” he replied with emphasis. “No, sir. Bold to rashness would be my description of Mr. John Osmond. A buccaneering type of man. A yachtsman, a boxer, a wrestler, a footballer, and a cricketer. A regular hard nut, sir. He should never have been in an office. He ought to have been a sailor, an explorer, or a big-game hunter.”
“What was he like to look at?”
“Just what you would expect—a big, lean, square-built man, hatchet-faced, Roman-nosed, with blue eyes, light-brown hair, and a close-cropped beard and moustache. Looked like a naval officer.”
“Do you happen to know if his residence has been examined?”
“Mr. Woodstock and the Chief Constable searched his rooms, but of course they didn’t find anything. He had only two small rooms, as he took his meals and spent a good deal of his time with Mr. Hepburn, his brother-in-law. He seemed very fond of his sister and her two little boys.”
“Would it be possible for me to see those rooms?”
“I don’t see why not, sir. They are locked up now, but the keys are here and the rooms are only a few doors down the street.”
Here occurred a slight interruption, for Mr. Wampole, having completed his operations on the bell, now connected it with the battery—which had also been under repair—when it emitted a loud and cheerful peal. At the same moment, as if summoned by the sound, Polton entered holding a small drawing-board on which was a neatly executed plan of the premises.
“Dear me, sir!” exclaimed Mr. Wampole, casting an astonished glance at the plan. “You are very thorough in your methods. I see you have even put in the furniture.”
“Yes,” Thorndyke agreed, with a faint smile; “we must needs be thorough even if we reach no result.”
Mr. Wampole regarded him with a sly smile. “Very true, sir,” he chuckled—“very true, indeed. A bill of costs needs something to explain the total. But, God bless us! what is this?”
“This” was, in effect, a diminutive vacuum cleaner, fitted with a little revolving brush and driven by means of a large dry battery, which Polton was at the moment disinterring from his suitcase. Thorndyke briefly explained the nature of the apparatus while Mr. Wampole stared at it with an expression of stupe faction.
“But why have you brought it here, sir?” he exclaimed. “The premises would certainly be the better for a thorough cleaning, but surely—”
“Oh, we are not going to ‘vacuum clean’ you,” Thorndyke reassured him. “We are going to take samples of dust from the different parts of the premises.”
“Are you, indeed, sir? And, if I may take the liberty of asking, what do you propose to do with them?”
“I shall examine them carefully when I get home,” Thorndyke replied, “and I may then possibly be able to judge whether the robbery took place here or elsewhere.”
As Thorndyke furnished this explanation, Mr. Wampole stood gazing at him as if petrified. Once he opened his mouth, but shut it again tightly as if not trusting himself to speak. At length he rejoined: “Wonderful! wonderful!” and then, after an interval, he continued meditatively: “I seem to have read somewhere of a wise woman of the East who was able, by merely examining a hair from the beard of a man who had fallen downstairs, to tell exactly how many stairs he had fallen down. But I never imagined that it was actually possible.”
“It does sound incredible,” Thorndyke admitted, gravely. “She must have had remarkable powers of deduction. And now, if Mr. Polton is ready, we will begin our perambulation. Which was Mr. Osmond’s office?”
“I will show you,” replied Mr. Wampole, recovering from his trance of astonishment. He led the way out into the hall and thence into a smallish room in which were a writing-table and a large, old-fashioned, flap-top desk.
“This table,” he explained, “is Mr. Hepburn’s. The desk was used by Mr. Osmond and his belongings are still in it. That second door opens into Mr. Woodstock’s office.”
“Is it usually kept open or closed?” Thorndyke asked.
“It is nearly always open; and as it is, as you see”—here he threw it open—“exactly opposite the door of the strong-room, no one could go in there unobserved unless Mr. Woodstock, Mr. Hepburn, and Mr. Osmond had all been out at the same time.”
Thorndyke made a note of this statement and then asked: “Would it be permissible to look inside Mr. Osmond’s desk? Or is it locked?”
“I don’t think it is locked. No, it is not,” he added, demonstrating the fact by raising the lid; “and, as you see, there is nothing very secret inside.”
The contents, in fact, consisted of a tobacco-tin, a couple of briar pipes, a ball of string, a pair of gloves, a clothes-brush, a pair of much-worn hair-brushes, and a number of loose letters and bills. These last Thorndyke gathered together and laid aside without examination, and then proceeded methodically to inspect each of the other objects in turn, while Mr. Wampole watched him with the faintest shadow of a smile.
“He seems to have had a pretty good set of teeth and a fairly strong jaw,” Thorndyke remarked, balancing a massive pipe in his fingers and glancing at the deep tooth-marks on the mouth-piece, “which supports your statement as to his physique.”
He peered into the tobacco-tin, smelt the tobacco, inspected the gloves closely, especially at their palmar surfaces, and tried them on; examined the clothes brush, first with the naked eye and then with the aid of his pocket-lens, and, holding it inside the desk, stroked its hair backwards and forwards, looking closely to see if any dust fell from it. Finally, he took up the hair-brushes one at a time and, having examined them in the same minute fashion, produced from his pocket a pair of fine forceps and a seed-envelope. With the forceps he daintily picked out from the brushes a number of hairs which he laid on a sheet of paper, eventually transferring the collection to the little envelope, on which he wrote: “Hairs from John Osmond’s hair-brushes.”
“You don’t take anything for granted, sir,” remarked Mr. Wampole, who had been watching this proceeding with concentrated interest (perhaps he was again reminded of the wise woman of the East).
“No,” Thorndyke agreed. “Your description was hearsay testimony, whereas these hairs could be produced in Court and sworn to by me.”
“So they could, sir; though, as it is not disputed that Mr. Osmond has been in this office, I don’t quite see what they could prove.”
“Neither do I,” rejoined Thorndyke. “I was merely laying down the principle.”
Meanwhile, Polton had been silently carrying out his part of the programme, not unobserved by Mr. Wampole; and a pale patch about a foot square, between Mr. Hepburn’s chair and the front of the table, where the pattern of the grimy carpet had
