CHAPTER VII
Some New Developments
Ashton-Kirk filled a finely colored meerschaum from the jar of Greek tobacco on the table; the pipe was a large one; upon the stem was a charging boar, exceptionally well done; and the curving bit was hard, gray bone.
"That combination always struck me as an exciting smoke," observed Bat Scanlon, from the opposite side of the table. "The tobacco, like most things from the Balkans, is a little unsettled; and the wild porker means battle with every bristle."
"It was no ordinary carver who gave this old chap his warlike look," said Ashton-Kirk, as he tapped the boar's bristling back with one finger. "No less a person than Pasquale Guiccioli is responsible for him."
"That so?" said Scanlon. "It seems like small work for a sculptor of his displacement."
"It was merely curiosity. He wanted to test this sort of clay as a medium, I suppose. And with a man like Guiccioli, even a whim must result in something like a masterpiece. It was just about the time of that turmoil about the Florentine bronzes; and a bad light was thrown on the old man by persons interested in spoiling his career. I had the good fortune to come at the truth of the matter; and the sculptor, in an outburst of Italian fervor, declared that I might name any of his possessions as a reward."
"And you picked the pipe, eh?" Scanlon drew at his cigar, and nodded approval. But his eyes went from the meerschaum to a sheet of white letter paper upon the table which contained some fragments of hardened mortar gathered in two little heaps. "If you are ready," added he, "I'd like to hear why you are so interested in this stuff, and what it has to do with the Stanwick murder."
The investigator paced up and down the room; the smoke from the pipe lifted about him in small eddies as he moved.
"Two places may be associated mentally," said Ashton-Kirk, "and yet, physically, they may be as far apart as the poles. At the beginning of this affair, Nora Cavanaugh's house and 620 Duncan Street were brought together in my mind only because the murdered man had visited both on the night of his death. But," and Ashton-Kirk laughed, "mortar is a most adhesive substance; and it is holding them together quite firmly."