"That's his tobacco-box," said Inspector Carfon, placing on the table a small tin-box.
Opening it, and after a swift glance at the contents, Malcolm Sage raised it to his nose: "Cigarette-ends," he remarked without looking up.
"And that's his pipe." The inspector laid on the table a black clap pipe, with some two inches of stem attached to the bowl.
Malcolm Sage scarcely glanced at it. Pulling out a drawer he produced a small cardboard box, which he opened and pushed towards the inspector.
"That is the tobacco smoked by the murderer. The makers are prepared to swear to it."
"Where the deuce did you get it?" gasped the inspector.
"Grain by grain from the linoleum in the laboratory," replied Malcolm Sage. "That is why it was necessary to be sure it was swept each day. It also helped me to establish the man as middle or upper class. This tobacco is expensive. What is the man like who has been condemned?"
"A regular wandering willie," replied the inspector. "Oldish chap, gives his age as sixty-one. Five foot three and a half, thin as a rake, twenty-nine inch chest. Miserable sort of devil. Says he picked up the watch about a quarter of a mile from 'The Hollows' early one morning."
"Does he eat marmalade?"
"Eat it!" the inspector laughed. "He wolfs it. I remembered what you said and took a pound along with me to Strinton, just for fun." He looked across at Malcolm Sage a little shamefacedly. "I afterwards heard that there was only the jar and the label left; but I don't see what all this has to do with it. The fellow's got to swing for it and——"