The shadow of the Wolf

by R. Austin Freeman

“It is obvious,” said Thorndyke, “that Bromeswell never lived here. Apparently he visited the place only at intervals, but when he came, he stayed until he had finished what he had come to do. Probably, he brought a supply of food and never went out between his arrival and departure.”

He strolled into the tiny kitchen, where a gas-ring, a teapot, a cup and saucer, one or two plates, a tin of milk-powder, one of sugar, another of tea and a biscuit tin containing an unrecognizable mildewy mass, bore out his suggestion. With a glance at the loaded letter-box, he crossed the room and, opening a door, entered what was intended to be the bedroom but had been made into a workshop. And very complete it was, being fitted with a roomy sink and tap, a small boiler—apparently a dentist’s vulcanizer—and a mixer or beater worked by a little electric motor, driven by a bichromate battery, there being no electric light in the premises. By the window was a strong bench on which was a powerful office press, a stack of long, narrow copper plates and a pile of pieces of felt of a similar shape but somewhat larger. Close to the bench was a trough made from a stout wooden box, lined with zinc and mounted on four legs, in which was folded newspaper containing a number of neat coils of cow-hair cord, each coil having an eye-splice at either end, evidently to fit on the hooks which had been fixed in the walls.

“Those cords,” Miller explained, as Thorndyke took them from the paper to examine them, “were used as drying lines to hang the damp sheets of paper on. They are always made of cow-hair because that is the only material that doesn’t mark the paper. But I expect you know all about that. Is there anything that catches your eye in particular? You seem interested in those cords.”

“I was looking at these two,” said Thorndyke, holding out two cords which he had uncoiled. “This one, you see, was too long, it had been cut the wrong length, or more probably was the remainder of a long piece. But, instead of cutting off the excess, our friend has thriftily shortened this rather expensive cord by working a sheepshank on it. Now it isn’t every one who knows how to make a sheepshank and the persons who do are not usually paper-makers.”

“That’s perfectly true, Doctor,” assented Miller. “I’m one of the people who don’t know how to make that particular kind of knot. What is the other point?”

“This other cord,” replied Thorndyke, “which looks new, has an eye-splice at one end only, but it is, as you see, about five inches longer than the other; just about the amount that would be taken up by working the eye-splice. That looks as if Bromeswell had worked the splices himself and if you consider the matter you will see that is probably the case. The length of these cords is roughly the width of this room. They have been cut to a particular measure; but the cord was most probably bought in a single length, as this extra long piece suggests.”

“Yes,” agreed Miller. “They wouldn’t have been sold with the eye-splices worked on them, and in fact, I don’t see what he wanted with the eye-splices at all. A simple knotted loop would have answered the purpose quite as well.”

“Exactly,” said Thorndyke. “They were not necessary. They were a luxury, a refinement; and that emphasizes the point that they suggest, which is that Bromeswell is a man who has some technical knowledge of cordage, is probably a sailor, or in some way connected with the sea. As you say, a common knotted loop, such as a bowline knot, would have answered the purpose perfectly. But that is true of most of the cases in which a sailor uses an eye-splice. Then why does he take the trouble to work the splice? Principally for the sake of neatness of appearance, because, to an expert eye, a tied loop with its projecting end looks slovenly.

“Now this man will have had quite a lot of time on his hands. He will have had to wait about for hours while the pulp was boiling and while it was being beaten up. A sailor would very naturally spend a part of his idle time in tidying up the cordage.”

The Superintendent nodded reflectively. “Yes,” he said, “I think you are right, Doctor; and it is an important point. This fellow was a fairly expert paper-maker. He wasn’t a mere amateur like most of the note-forgers. If he was some kind of sailor man as well, that would make him a lot easier to identify if we should get on his track. But that’s just what we can’t do. There is nothing to start from. He is a mere name, and pretty certainly a false name at that.”