"Come here, Mr. Inspector," I cried. "I thought I should learn something from this. Look at this rope and this pad, and tell me what you make of them."
He took each up in turn and looked them over and over. But he only shook his head.
"I don't see anything to guide us," he said.
"Don't you?" I cried. "Why, they tell me more than I have learnt from anything else I've seen. Look at the two ends of this. They're seized!"
I looked triumphantly at him, but he only stared at me in surprise, and said, "What do you mean by 'seized'?"
"Why, I mean that the ends are bound up in this way—look for yourself. Now not one landsman in a hundred seizes a rope's end. This line was taken from some ship in the harbour, and——By Jove! here's another discovery!"
"What now?" he cried, being by this time almost as excited as I was myself.
"Why, look here," I said, holding the middle of the rope up to the light, so that we could get a better view of it. "Not very many hours ago this rope was running through a block, and that block was an uncommon one."
"How do you know that it was an uncommon one?"
"Because it has been newly painted, and what's funnier still, painted green, of all other colours. Look at this streak of paint along the line; see how it's smudged. Now, let's review the case as we walk along."