“Smells like varnish,” the station-master remarked.
“Yes. Shellac,” said Thorndyke; “so the first test gives a positive result. The next test will take more time.”
He opened the green case and took from it a little flask, fitted for Marsh’s arsenic test, with a safety funnel and escape tube, a small folding tripod, a spirit lamp and a disc of asbestos to serve as a sand-bath. Dropping into the flask several of the cindery masses, selected after careful inspection, he filled it up with alcohol and placed it on the disc, which he rested on the tripod. Then he lighted the spirit lamp underneath and sat down to wait for the alcohol to boil.
“There is one little point that we may as well settle,” he said presently, as the bubbles began to rise in the flask. “Give me a slide with a drop of Farrant on it, Jervis.”
I prepared the slide while Thorndyke, with a pair of forceps, picked out a tiny wisp from the table-cloth. “I fancy we have seen this fabric before,” he remarked, as he laid the little pinch of fluff in the mounting fluid and slipped the slide onto the stage of the microscope. “Yes,” he continued, looking into the eye-piece, “here are our old acquaintances, the red wool fibres, the blue cotton and the yellow jute. We must label this at once or we may confuse it with the other specimens.”
“Have you any idea how the deceased met his death?” the inspector asked.
“Yes,” replied Thorndyke. “I take it that the murderer enticed him into this room and gave him some refreshments. The murderer sat in the chair in which you are sitting, Brodski sat in that small arm-chair. Then I imagine the murderer attacked him with that iron bar that you found among the nettles, failed to kill him at the first stroke, struggled with him and finally suffocated him with the tablecloth. By the way, there is just one more point. You recognize this piece of string?” He took from his “collecting-box” the little end of twine that had been picked up by the line. The inspector nodded. “Look behind you, you will see where it came from.”
The officer turned sharply and his eye lighted on a string box on the mantelpiece. He lifted it down, and Thorndyke drew out from it a length of white twine with one green strand, which he compared with the piece in his hand. “The green strand in it makes the identification fairly certain,” he said. “Of course the string was used to secure the umbrella and hand-bag. He could not have carried them in his hand, encumbered as he was with the corpse. But I expect our other specimen is ready now.” He lifted the flask off the tripod, and, giving it a vigorous shake, examined the contents through his lens. The alcohol had now become dark-brown in colour, and was noticeably thicker and more syrupy in consistence.
“I think we have enough here for a rough test,” said he, selecting a pipette and a slide from the case. He dipped the former into the flask and, having sucked up a few drops of the alcohol from the bottom, held the pipette over the slide on which he allowed the contained fluid to drop.
Laying a cover-glass on the little pool of alcohol, he put the slide on the microscope stage and examined it attentively, while we watched him in expectant silence.