“Well?” said that worthy.
“Well, don’t you see the difficulty? Vases don’t suddenly break where they stand. They fall and smash on the ground or something like that. This one calmly fell to pieces in its place, as far as I can see. Dash it all, it isn’t natural!—And that’s about the third unnatural thing we’ve had already,” he added in tones of mingled triumph and resentment.
Alec pressed the tobacco carefully down in his pipe and struck a match. “Aren’t you going the long way round again?” he asked slowly. “Surely there’s an obvious explanation. Someone knocked the vase over on its side and it broke on the shelf. I can’t see anything wrong with that.”
“I can,” said Roger quickly. “Two things. In the first place, those vases were far too thick to break like that simply through being knocked over on a wooden surface. In the second, even if it had been, you’d get a smooth, elliptical mark in the dust where it fell; and there isn’t one. No, there’s only one possible reason for it to break as it did, as far as I can make out.”
“And what’s that, Sherlock?”
“That it had been struck by something—and struck so hard and cleanly that it simply smashed where it stood and was not knocked into the hearth. What do you think of that?”
“It seems reasonable enough,” Alec conceded after consideration.
“You’re not very enthusiastic, are you? It’s so jolly eminently reasonable that it must be right. Now, then, the next question is—who or what hit it like that?”
“I say, do you think this is going to lead anywhere?” Alec asked suddenly. “Aren’t we wasting time over this rotten vase? I don’t see what it can have to do with what we’re looking for. Not that I have the least idea what that is, in any case,” he added candidly.
“You don’t seem to have taken to my vase, Alec. It’s a pity, because I’m getting more and more fond of it every minute. Anyhow, I’m going to put in one or two minutes’ really hard thinking about it; so if you’d like to wander out into the garden and have a chat with William, don’t let me keep you.”