As I went to the professor's room I framed a knotty, if unnecessary, problem out of a case upon which I was engaged; but I was not to propound it.
I was suddenly plunged into a mystery which led to one of the most curious investigations I have ever undertaken, and showed a new phase of the professor's powers.
Christopher Quarles was sitting limply in the arm-chair, but he started as I entered, and looked at me with blinking eyes, as though he did not recognize me.
Energy returned to him suddenly, and he sat up.
"Paper and pencil," he said, pointing to the writing-table. I handed him a pencil and a writing-block.
By a gesture he intimated that he wanted me to watch him.
Quarles was no draughtsman. He had told me so—quite unnecessarily, because I had often seen him make a rough sketch to illustrate some argument, and he always had to explain what the various parts of the drawing stood for. Yet, as I watched him now, he began to draw with firm, determined fingers—a definite line here, another there, sometimes pausing for a moment as if to remember the relative position of a line or the exact curve in it.
For a time there seemed no connection between the lines, no meaning in the design.
I have seen trick artists at a music-hall draw in this way, beginning with what appeared to be the least essential parts, and then, with two or three touches, causing all the rest to fall into proper perspective and a complete picture. So it was with Quarles. Two or three quick lines, and the puzzle became a man's head and shoulders. No one could doubt that it was a portrait with certain characteristics exaggerated, not into caricature, but enough to make it impossible not to recognize the original from the picture. It was an attractive face, but set and rather tragic in expression.
Quarles did not speak. He surveyed his work for a few moments, slightly corrected the curve of the nostril, and then very swiftly drew a rope round the neck, continuing it in an uncertain line almost to the top of the paper. The sudden stoppage of the pencil give a jagged end to the line. The rope looked as if it had been broken. The effect was startling.