The grim and dusty desolation of an empty house seemed to be supplemented here by a deeper desolation. Not that there was any dust on the ground floor, which seemed a singular thing seeing that elsewhere the boards were powdered with it, and festoons of brown cobwebs hung everywhere. Bell smiled approvingly as David Steel pointed the fact out to him.
"Do you note another singular point?" the former asked.
"No," David said, thoughtfully; "I—stop! The two side-shutters in the bay-windows are closed, and there is the same vivid crimson blind in the centre window. And the self colour of the walls is exactly the same. The faint discoloration by the fireplace is a perfect facsimile."
"In fact, this is the room you were in the other night," Bell said, quietly.
"Impossible!" Steel cried. "The blind may be an accident, so might the fading of the distemper. But the furniture, the engravings, the fittings generally—"
"Are all capable of an explanation, which we shall arrive at with patience."
"Can we arrive at the number over the door with patience?"
"Exactly what I was coming to. I noticed an old pair of steps in the back sitting-room. Would you mind placing them against the fanlight for me?"
David complied readily enough. He was growing credulous and interested in spite of himself. At Bell's instigation he placed the steps before the fanlight and mounted them. Over his head were the figures 218 in elongated shape and formed in white porcelain.
"Now then," Bell said, slowly. "Take this pocket-knife, apply the blade to the right-hand lower half of the bottom of the 8—to half the small O, in fact—and I shall be extremely surprised if the quarter section doesn't come away from the glass of the fanlight, leaving the rest of the figure intact. Very gently, please. I want you to convince yourself that the piece comes away because it is broken, and not because the pressure has cracked it. Now then."