“I hope so,” returned the inspector imperturbably.
Chapter XXI
“One minute, sir. I shan't hurt you!”
With a comical look at the inspector John Steadman submitted himself to the hands of the little old man in the shabby black suit, who was surveying him with critical eyes in the looking-glass, and who now approached him with a curious little instrument looking like a pair of very fine tweezers, combined with a needle so minute that it almost required a microscope to see it.
They were in a small room at the back of a little shop in Soho, whither the inspector had conducted John Steadman, and where the former had already undergone a curious metamorphosis.
The presiding genius of the establishment was this little old man with an oddly wrinkled face that reminded Steadman of a marmoset, and with pale grey eyes that were set far apart, and that seemed to stare straight at you and almost through you, with as little expression as a stone. The room was odd-looking as well as its master. It had very little furniture in it. Nothing on the wall but the big looking-glass that ran from floor to ceiling, and occupied the greater part of one side. Two tables stood near and a very old worm-eaten escritoire was by the window. There were four chairs in the room, all of the plain Windsor variety, one standing right in front of the mirror differing from the others only in that it had arms and an adjustable head.
Inspector Furnival had just been released from its clutches, and now John Steadman was taking his place. A huge enveloping sheet was thrown over him; a brilliant incandescent light was focused upon him, and the queer little marmoset face, with a big, curiously made magnifying glass screwed into it, was submitting him to an anxious scrutiny.
“I shall not hurt you,” the soft, caressing voice with its foreign intonation repeated. “Just a few hairs put in—a few put in, and Monsieur's best friend would not know him.”
Steadman thought it very likely his best friend would not as he glanced back at the inspector. But now the lean yellow fingers were at work. From the angle at which the head-rest was fixed the barrister could not see what they were doing, but they were pinching, prodding, stabbing. It seemed to him that they would never stop. At last, however, the tweezers were thrown aside and he felt little, tiny brushes at work, dropping moisture here, drying it up with fragrant powder.
“Monsieur's teeth?” the foreign voice said with its sing-song intonation.