you spoke of as lying on the desk. Do you happen to remember what they were?”
“Yes, they were West African mining shares; Abu sum Pa-pa was the name, I think.”
“Then,” said Thorndyke,” Mr. Riggs had been losing money. The Abusum Pa-pa Company has just gone into liquidation. Do you know if anything had been taken from the safe?”
“It is impossible to say, but apparently not, as there was a good deal of money in the cash-box, which we unlocked and inspected. But we shall hear more tomorrow at the inquest, and I trust we shall hear something there from you. But in any case I hope you will attend to watch the proceedings on behalf of poor Fletcher. And if possible, to be present at the autopsy at eleven o’clock. Can you manage that?”
“Yes. And I shall come down early enough to make an inspection of the premises if the police will give the necessary facilities.”
Mr. Foxley thanked him effusively, and when the details as to the trains had been arranged, our clients rose to depart. Thorndyke shook their hands cordially, and as he bade farewell to Miss Markham he murmured a few words of encouragement. She looked up at him gratefully and appealingly as she naïvely held his hand.
“You will try to help us, Dr. Thorndyke, won’t you?” she urged. “And you will examine that blood very, very carefully. Promise that you will. Remember that poor Robert’s life may hang upon what you can tell about it.”
I realise that, Miss Markham,” he replied gently, “and I promise you that the specimens shall be most thoroughly examined; and further, that no stone shall be left unturned in my endeavours to bring the truth to light.”
At his answer, spoken with infinite kindliness and sympathy, her eyes filled and she turned away with a few broken words of thanks, and the good clergyman—himself not unmoved by the little episode—took her arm and led her to the door.
“Well,” I remarked as their retreating footsteps died away, “old Brodribb’s enthusiasm seems to have let you in for a queer sort of task; and I notice that you appear to have accepted Fletcher’s statement.”
“Without prejudice,” he replied. “I don’t know Fletcher, but the balance of probabilities is in his favour. Still, that blood-track in the hall is a curious feature. It certainly requires explanation.”
“It does, indeed!” I exclaimed, “and you have got to find the explanation! Well, I wish you joy of the job. I suppose you will carry out the farce to the bitter end as you have promised?”
Certainly,” he replied. “But it is hardly a farce. I should have looked the specimens over in any case. One never knows what illuminating fact a chance observation may bring into view.”
I smiled sceptically.
“The fact that you are asked to ascertain is that these two samples of blood came from the same person. If there are any means of proving that, they are unknown to me. I should have said it was an impossibility.”
“Of course,” he rejoined, “you are quite right, speaking academically and in general terms. No method of identifying the blood of individual persons has hitherto been discovered. But yet I can imagine the possibility, in particular and exceptional cases, of an actual, personal identification by means of blood. What does my learned friend think?”
“He thinks that his imagination is not equal to the required effort,” I answered; and with that I picked up my brief-bag and went forth to my duties at the courts.
That Thorndyke would keep his promise to poor Lilian Markham was a foregone conclusion, preposterous as the examination seemed. But even my long experience of my colleague’s scrupulous conscientiousness had not prepared me for the spectacle which met my eyes when I returned to our chambers. On the table stood the microscope, flanked by three slide-boxes. Each box held six trays, and each tray held six slides—a hundred and eight slides in all!
But why three boxes? I opened one. The slides—carefully mounted blood-films—were labelled “Joseph Riggs.” Those in the second box were labelled,” Blood from hall floor.” But when I opened the third box, I beheld a collection of empty slides labelled “Robert Fletcher”!
I chuckled aloud. Prodigious! Thorndyke was going even one better than his promise. He was not only going to examine—probably had examined—the two samples produced; he was actually going to collect a third sample for himself!
I picked out one of Mr. Riggs’s slides and laid it on the stage of the microscope. Thorndyke seemed to have been using a low-power objective—the inch-and-a-half. After a glance through this, I swung round the nose-piece to the high power. And then I got a further surprise. The brightly-coloured “white” corpuscles showed that Thorndyke had actually been to the trouble of staining the films with eosin! Again I murmured, “Prodigious!” and put the slide back in its box. For, of course, it showed just what one expected: blood—or rather, broken-up blood-clot. From its appearance I could not even have sworn that it was human blood.
I had just closed the box when Thorndyke entered the room. His quick eye at once noted the changed objective and he remarked: “I see you have been having a look at the specimens.”
“A specimen.” I corrected. “Enough is as good as a feast.”
“Blessed are they who are easily satisfied,” be retorted; and then he added: “I have altered my arrangements, though I needn’t interfere with yours. I shall go down to Southaven tonight; in fact, I am starting in a few minutes.”
“Why?” I asked.
“For several reasons. I want to make sure of the post-mortem tomorrow morning, I want to pick up any further facts that are available, and finally, I want to prepare a set of blood-films from Robert Fletcher. We may as well make the series complete,” he added with a smile, to which I replied by a broad grin.
“Really, Thorndyke,” I protested. “I’m surprised at you, at your age, too. She is a nice girl, but she isn’t so beautiful as to justify a hundred and eight blood-films.”
I accompanied him to the taxi, followed by Polton, who carried his modest luggage, and then returned to speculate on his probable plan of campaign. For, of course, he had one. His purposive, resolute manner told me that he had seen farther into this case than I had. I accepted that as natural and inevitable. Indeed, I may admit that my disrespectful badinage covered a belief in his powers hardly second even to old Brodribb’s. I was, in fact, almost prepared to discover that those preposterous blood-films had, after all, yielded some “illuminating fact” which had sent him hurrying down to Southaven in search of corroboration.
When I alighted from the train on the following day at a little past noon, I found him waiting on the platform, ready to conduct me to his hotel for an early lunch.
“All goes well, so far,” he reported. “I attended the post-mortem, and examined the wound thoroughly. The pistol was held in the right hand not more than two inches from the head; probably quite close, for the skin is scorched and heavily tattooed with black powder grains. I find that Riggs was right-handed. So the prima facie probabilities are in favour of suicide; and the recent loss of money suggests a reasonable motive.”
“But what about that blood in the hall?”
“Oh, we have disposed of that. I completed the blood-film series last night.”
I looked at him quickly to see if he was
