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, 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 investigation 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.
We had nearly reached the ground floor when I became aware of quick footsteps descending the stairs behind us. Near the entry our follower overtook us, and as we stood aside to let him pass, I had a brief vision of a shortish, dapper, smartly-dressed coloured man—apparently an African or West Indian—who carried a small suitcase and a set of golf-clubs.
“Now,” said I, in a low tone, “I wonder if that gentleman is the late owner of that negro hair that I picked up. It seems intrinsically probable as he appears to live in this building, and would be a near neighbour of Herrington’s.” I halted at the entry and read out the only name painted on the door-post as appertaining to the second floor—Mr. Kwaku Essien, which, I decided, seemed to fit a gentleman of colour.
But Thorndyke was not listening His long legs were already carrying him, with a deceptively leisurely air, across Tanfield Court in the wake of Mr. Essien, and at about the same pace. I put on a spurt and over took him, a little mystified by his sudden air of purpose and by the fact that he was not walking in the direction of our chambers. Still more mystified was I when it became clear that Thorndyke was following the African and keeping at a constant distance in rear of him; but I made no comment until, having pursued our quarry to the top of Middle Temple Lane, we saw him hail a taxi and drive off. Then I demanded an explanation.
“I wanted to see him fairly out of the precincts,” was the reply. “because I have a particular desire to see what his chambers are like. I only hope his door has a practicable latch.”
I stared at him in dismay.
