Part 20

Here his glance fell on the hat, which I had laid on the table, and he bent forward to look at it.

“Whose hat is this?” he demanded, glancing at the chair on which Thorndyke’s hat and mine had been placed.

“Is it not your cousin’s?” asked Thorndyke.

“No, certainly not. His hat was like mine--we bought them both together. It had a white silk lining with his initials, D.B., in gold. This has no lining and is a much older hat. It must be the murderer’s hat.”

“If it is,” said Thorndyke, “that is a most important fact--important in two respects. Could you let us see your hat?”

“Certainly,” replied Byramji, walking quickly, but with a soft tread, to the door. As he went out, shutting the door silently behind him, Thorndyke picked up the derelict hat and swiftly tried it on the head of the dead man. As far as I could judge, it appeared to fit, and this Thorndyke confirmed as he replaced it on the table.

“As you see,” said he, “it is at least a practicable fit, which is a fact of some significance.”

Here Mr. Byramji returned with his own hat, which he placed on the table by the side of the other, and thus placed, crown uppermost, the two hats were closely similar. Both were black, hard felts of the prevalent “bowler” shape, and of good quality, and the difference in their age and state of preservation was not striking; but when Byramji turned them over and exhibited their interiors it was seen that whereas the strange hat was unlined save for the leather headband, Byramji’s had a white silk lining and bore the owner’s initials in embossed gilt letters.

“What happened,” said Thorndyke, when he had carefully compared the two hats, “seems fairly obvious. The two men, on entering, placed their hats crown upwards on the table. In some way--perhaps during a struggle--the visitor’s hat was knocked down and rolled under the table. Then the stranger, on leaving, picked up the only visible hat--almost identically similar to his own--and put it on.”

“Is it not rather singular,” I asked, “that he should not have noticed the different feel of a strange hat?”

“I think not,” Thorndyke replied. “If he noticed anything unusual he would probably assume that he had put it on the wrong way round. Remember that he would be extremely hurried and agitated. And when once he had left the house he would not dare to take the risk of returning, though he would doubtless realize the gravity of the mistake. And now,” he continued, “would you mind giving us a few particulars? You have spoken of a great ruby, which your cousin had, and which seems to be missing.”

“Yes. You shall come to my room and I will tell you about it; but first let us lay my poor cousin decently on his bed.”

“I think,” said Thorndyke, “the body ought not to be moved until the police have seen it.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Byramji agreed reluctantly, “though it seems callous to leave him lying there.” With a sigh he turned to the door, and Thorndyke followed, carrying the two hats.

“My cousin and I,” said our host, when we were seated in his own large bed-sitting room, “were both interested in gem-stones. I deal in all kinds of stones that are found in the East, but Dinanath dealt almost exclusively in rubies. He was a very fine judge of those beautiful gems, and he used to make periodical tours in Burma in search of uncut rubies of unusual size or quality. About four months ago he acquired at Mogok, in Upper Burma, a magnificent specimen over twenty-eight carats in weight, perfectly flawless and of the most gorgeous colour. It had been roughly cut, but my cousin was intending to have it recut unless he should receive an advantageous offer for it in the meantime.”

“What would be the value of such a stone?” I asked.

“It is impossible to say. A really fine large ruby of perfect colour is far, far more valuable than the finest diamond of the same size. It is the most precious of all gems, with the possible exception of the emerald. A fine ruby of five carats is worth about three thousand pounds, but, of course, the value rises out of all proportion with increasing size. Fifty thousand pounds would be a moderate price for Dinanath’s ruby.”

During this recital I noticed that Thorndyke, while listening attentively, was turning the stranger’s hat over in his hands, narrowly scrutinizing it both inside and outside. As Byramji concluded, he remarked:

“We shall have to let the police know what has happened, but, as my friend and I will be called as witnesses, I should like to examine this hat a little more closely before you hand it over to them. Could you let me have a small, hard brush? A dry nail-brush would do.”

Our host complied readily--in fact eagerly. Thorndyke’s authoritative, purposeful manner had clearly impressed him, for he said as he handed my colleague a new nail-brush: “I thank you for your help and value it. We must not depend on the police only.”

Accustomed as I was to Thorndyke’s methods, his procedure was not unexpected, but Mr. Byramji watched him with breathless interest and no little surprise as, laying a sheet of note-paper on the table, he brought the hat close to it and brushed firmly but slowly, so that the dust dislodged should fall on it. As it was not a very well-kept hat, the yield was considerable, especially when the brush was drawn under the curl of the brim, and very soon the paper held quite a little heap. Then Thorndyke folded the paper into a small packet and having written “outside” on it, put it in his pocket-book.

“Why do you do that?” Mr. Byramji asked. “What will the dust tell you?”

“Probably nothing,” Thorndyke replied. “But this hat is our only direct clue to the identity of the man who was with your cousin, and we must make the most of it. Dust, you know, is only a mass of fragments detached from surrounding objects. If the objects are unusual the dust may be quite distinctive. You could easily identify the hat of a miller or a cement worker.” As he was speaking he reversed the hat and turned down the leather head-lining, whereupon a number of strips of folded paper fell down into the crown.

“Ah!” exclaimed Byramji, “perhaps we shall learn something now.”

He picked out the folded slips and began eagerly to open them out, and we examined them systematically, one by one. But they were singularly disappointing and uninforming. Mostly they consisted of strips of newspaper, with one or two circulars, a leaf from a price list of gas stoves, a portion of a large envelope on which were the remains of an address which read “--n--don, W.C.,” and a piece of paper, evidently cut down vertically and bearing the right-hand half of some kind of list. This read:

“--el 3 oz. 5 dwts. --eep 9½ oz.”

“Can you make anything of this?” I asked, handing the paper to Thorndyke.

He looked at it reflectively, and answered, as he copied it into his notebook: “It has, at least, some character. If we consider it with the other data we should get some sort of hint from it. But these scraps of paper don’t tell us much. Perhaps their most suggestive feature is their quantity and the way in which, as you have no doubt noticed, they were arranged at the sides of the hat. We had better replace them as we found them for the benefit of the police.”