The Master of the Shell

by Talbot Baines Reed

First of all he examined once more the match-box, and satisfied himself that there was no doubt about the identity of its contents with the stray vestas he had picked up. The result was decisive. The box had been placed above the door very recently by someone who, unless he stood on a form or climbed on somebody else’s back, must have been more than six feet high. No one puts matches above doors by accident. Whoever put it there must have meant it—and more than that, must have opened it and dropped one out inside the boot-box.

“Now,” considered the astute Arthur, “it was pitch dark when Bickers was collared; lights were out, and the fellows thought they’d have a glim handy in case of need. They struck one and spilt one, and shoved the box up there, in case they should want it again. I say! what a clever chap I am! The tall chap this box belongs to did the job, eh?”

An expert might possibly find a flaw in this clue, but Arthur was a little proud of himself.

Next he spread out the sack and inspected the cord. There was not much to help him here, one would suppose, and yet Arthur, being once on a good tack, thought it worth his while to look closely at these two relics.

The sack was not the ordinary type of potato-sack which most people associate with the term, but more like a large canvas pillow-case, such as some article of furniture might be packed in, or which might be used to envelop a small bath and its contents on a railway journey. Arthur perceived that it had been turned inside out, and took the trouble to reverse it. It was riddled with holes, some of them to admit the running cords which had closed round the neck and elbows of the unfortunate Mr Bickers, and some, notably that in the region of the nose, made hastily, with the motive of giving the captive a little ventilation.

Arthur could not help thinking, as he turned the sack outside in, that it would have been nicer for Mr Bickers to have the comparatively clean side of the canvas next to his face instead of the very grimy and travel-stained surface which had fallen to his lot.

But these speculations gave place to other emotions as he discovered two black initials painted on the canvas, and still legible under their covering of dirt and grease. There was no mistaking them, and Arthur gave vent to a whistle of consternation as he deciphered an “M.R.”

Now, as Arthur and everybody else knows, “M.R.” may mean Midland Railway, but the Midland Railway is not six feet two inches, and does not carry wax vestas about him, or drop them on the floor of the boot-box.

Arthur gaped at those initials for fully three minutes, and then hurriedly hid the sack away in the cupboard.

He had still one more point to clear up. He pulled the wedge of paper out of his pocket and began nervously to unroll it. It was frayed and black where the door had ground it against the floor; but, on beginning to open it, it turned out to be a portion of a torn newspaper. It was a Standard of February 4—two days ago—and Arthur whistled again and turned pale as he saw a stamp and a postmark on the front page, and read a fragment of the address—”...ford, Esquire, Grandcourt.”