I nodded, not without some self-congratulation as I recalled how I had made this very point in my talk with Miss D’Arblay.
“Those,” Thorndyke continued, “are the data that the inquest furnished. Now we come to those added by Inspector Follett.”
“I don’t see that they help us at all,” said I. “The ancient coin was a curious find, but it doesn’t appear to tell us anything new excepting that this man may have been a collector or a dealer. On the other hand, he may not. It doesn’t seem to me that the coin has any significance.”
“Doesn’t it really?” said Thorndyke, as he refilled my glass. “You are surely overlooking the very curious coincidence that it presents.”
“What coincidence is that?” I asked, in some surprise.
“The coincidence,” he replied, “that both the murderer and the victim should be, to a certain extent, connected with a particular form of activity. Here is a man who commits a murder and who, at the time of committing it appears to have been in possession of a coin, which is not a current coin, but a collector’s piece; and behold! the murdered man is a sculptor—a man who, presumably, was capable of making a coin, or at least the working model.”
“There is no evidence,” I objected, “that D’Arblay was capable of cutting a die. He was not a die sinker.”
“There was no need for him to be,” Thorndyke rejoined. “Formerly, the medallist who designed the coin cut the die himself. But that is not the modern practice. Nowadays, the designer makes the model, first in wax and then in plaster, on a comparatively large scale. The model of a shilling may be three inches or more in diameter. The actual die-sinking is done by a copying machine which produces a die of the required size by mechanical reduction. I think there could be no doubt that D’Arblay could have modelled the design for a coin on the usual scale, say three or four inches in diameter.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “he certainly could, for I have seen some of his small relief work; some little plaquettes, not more than two inches long and most delicately and beautifully modelled. But still, I don’t see the connexion, otherwise than as a rather odd coincidence.”
“There may be nothing more,” said he. “There may be nothing in it at all. But odd coincidences should always be noted with very special attention.”