“There is a half-made road that runs past a house about three hundred yards from here. It belonged to a building estate that was never built. There is a footpath from it to the station.”
“Are there any other houses near?”
“No. That is the only house for half-a-mile round, and there is no other road near here.”
“Then the probability is that Brodski approached the rail way from that direction, as he was found on that side of the permanent way.”
The inspector agreeing with this view, we all set off slowly towards the house, piloted by the station-master and searching the ground as we went. The waste land over which we passed was covered with patches of docks and nettles, through each of which the inspector kicked his way, searching with feet and lantern for the missing hat. A walk of three hundred yards brought us to a low wall enclosing a garden, beyond which we could see a small house; and here we halted while the inspector waded into a large bed of nettles beside the wall and kicked vigorously. Suddenly there came a clinking sound mingled with objurgations, and the inspector hopped out holding one foot and soliloquizing profanely.
“I wonder what sort of a fool put a thing like that into a bed of nettles!” he exclaimed, stroking the injured foot. Thorndyke picked the object up and held it in the light of the lantern, displaying a piece of three-quarter inch rolled iron bar about a foot long. “It doesn’t seem to have been here very long,” he observed, examining it closely, “there is hardly any rust on it.”
“It has been there long enough for me,” growled the inspector, “and I’d like to bang it on the head of the blighter that put it there.”
Callously indifferent to the inspector’s sufferings, Thorndyke continued calmly to examine the bar. At length, resting his lantern on the wall, he produced his pocket-lens, with which he resumed his investigation, a proceeding that so exasperated the inspector that that afflicted official limped off in dudgeon, followed by the station-master, and we heard him, presently, rapping at the front door of the house.
“Give me a slide, Jervis, with a drop of Farrant on it,” said Thorndyke. “There are some fibres sticking to this bar.”
I prepared the slide, and, having handed it to him together with a cover-glass, a pair of forceps and a needle, set up the microscope on the wall.