"So you think that the hat is of no use, after all?" said Mr. Löwe, in a tone of deep disappointment.
"I won't say that," replied Thorndyke. "We may learn something from it. Leave it with me, at any rate; but you must let the police know that I have it. They will want to see it, of course."
"And you will try to get those things, won't you?" pleaded Löwe.
"I will think over the case. But you understand, or Mr. Marchmont does, that this is hardly in my province. I am a medical jurist, and this is not a medico-legal case."
"Just what I told him," said Marchmont. "But you will do me a great kindness if you will look into the matter. Make it a medico-legal case," he added persuasively.
Thorndyke repeated his promise, and the two men took their departure.
For some time after they had left, my colleague remained silent, regarding the hat with a quizzical smile. "It is like a game of forfeits," he remarked at length, "and we have to find the owner of 'this very pretty thing.'" He lifted it with a pair of forceps into a better light, and began to look at it more closely.
"Perhaps," said he, "we have done Mr. Löwe an injustice, after all. This is certainly a very remarkable hat."
"It is as round as a basin," I exclaimed. "Why, the fellow's head must have been turned in a lathe!"
Thorndyke laughed. "The point," said he, "is this. This is a hard hat, and so must have fitted fairly, or it could not have been worn; and it was a cheap hat, and so was not made to measure. But a man with a head that shape has got to come to a clear understanding with his hat. No ordinary hat would go on at all.