Part 32

“Yes, we’ve been through it,” replied Miller, “but everything has been put back as we found it.”

Thorndyke picked up the bag and proceeded to make a systematic inspection of its exterior.

“A good bag,” he commented; “quite an expensive one originally, though it has seen a good deal of service. You noticed the muddy marks on the bottom?”

“Yes,” said Miller. “Those were probably made when he dropped the bag to jump over the wall.”

“Possibly,” said Thorndyke, “though they don’t look like street mud. But we shall probably get more information from the contents.” He opened the bag, and after a glance at its interior, spread out on the table a couple of sheets of foolscap from the stationery rack, on which he began methodically to deposit the contents of the bag, accompanying the process with a sort of running commentary on their obvious characteristics.

“Item one: a small leather dressing wallet. Rather shabby, but originally of excellent quality. It contains two Swedish razors, a little Washita hone, a diminutive strop, a folding shaving-brush, which is slightly damp to the fingers and has a scent similar to that of the stick of shaving soap. You notice that the hone is distinctly concave in the middle and that the inscription on the razors, ‘Arensburg, Eskilstuna, Sweden,’ is partly ground away. Then there is a box containing a very dry cake of soap, a little manicure set, a well-worn toothbrush, a nailbrush, dental-brush, button-hook, corn-razor, a small clothes-brush and a pair of small hairbrushes. It seems to me, Badger, that this wallet suggests--mind, I only say ‘suggests’--a pretty complete answer to one of your questions.”

“I don’t see how,” said the Inspector. “Tell us what it suggests to you.”

“It suggests to me,” replied Thorndyke, laying down the lens through which he had been inspecting the hairbrushes, “a middle-aged or elderly man with a shaven upper lip and a beard; a well-preserved, healthy man, neat, orderly, provident and careful as to his appearance; a man long habituated to travelling, and--though I don’t insist on this, but the appearances suggest that he had been living for some time in a particular household, and that at the time when he lost the bag, he was changing his residence.”

“He was that,” cackled the Inspector, “if the constable’s account of the way he went over that wall is to be trusted. But still, I don’t see how you have arrived at all those facts.”

“Not facts, Badger,” Thorndyke corrected. “I said suggestions. And those suggestions may be quite misleading. There may be some factor, such as change of ownership of the wallet, which we have not allowed for. But, taking the appearances at their face value, that is what they suggest. There is the wallet itself, for instance--strong, durable, but shabby with years of wear. And observe that it is a travelling wallet and would be subjected to wear only during travel. Then further, as to the time factor, there are the hone and the razors. It takes a good many years to wear a Washita hone hollow or to wear away the blade of a Swedish razor until the maker’s mark is encroached on. The state of health, and to some extent the age, are suggested by the toothbrush and the dental-brush. He has lost some teeth, since he wears a plate, but not many; and he is free from pyorrhea and alveolar absorption. You don’t wear a toothbrush down like this on half a dozen rickety survivors. But a man whose teeth will bear hard brushing is probably well-preserved and healthy.”

“You say that he shaves his upper lip but wears a beard,” said the Inspector. “How do you arrive at that?”

“It is fairly obvious,” replied Thorndyke. “We see that he has razors and uses them, and we also see that he has a beard.”

“Do we?” exclaimed Badger. “How do we?”

Thorndyke delicately picked a hair from one of the hairbrushes and held it up. “That is not a scalp hair,” said he. “I should say that it came from the side of the chin.”

Badger regarded the hair with evident disfavour. “Looks to me,” he remarked, “as if a small-tooth comb might have been useful.”

“It does,” Thorndyke agreed, “but the appearance is deceptive. This is what is called a moniliform hair--like a string of beads. But the bead-like swellings are really parts of the hair. It is a diseased, or perhaps we should say an abnormal, condition.” He handed me the hair together with his lens, through which I examined it and easily recognized the characteristic swellings.

“Yes,” said I, “it is an early case of trichorrexis nodosa.”

“Good Lord!” murmured the Inspector. “Sounds like a Russian nobleman. Is it a common complaint?”

“It is not a rare disease--if you can call it a disease,” I replied, “but it is a rare condition, taking the population as a whole.”

“It is rather a remarkable coincidence that it should happen to occur in this particular case,” the Superintendent observed.

“My dear Miller,” exclaimed Thorndyke, “surely your experience must have impressed on you the astonishing frequency of the unusual and the utter failure of the mathematical laws of probability in practice. Believe me, Miller, the Bread-and-butterfly was right. It is the exceptional that always happens.”

Having discharged this paradox, he once more dived into the bag, and this time handed out a singular and rather unsavoury-looking parcel, the outer investment of which was formed by what looked like an excessively dirty towel, but which, as Thorndyke delicately unrolled it, was seen to be only half a towel which was supplemented by a still dirtier and excessively ragged coloured handkerchief. This, too, being opened out, disclosed an extremely soiled and frayed collar (which, like the other articles, bore no name or mark), and a mass of grass, evidently used as packing material.

The Inspector picked up the collar and quoted reflectively, “He is a man, neat, orderly and careful as to his appearance,” after which he dropped the collar and ostentatiously wiped his fingers.

Thorndyke smiled grimly but refrained from repartee as he carefully separated the grass from the contained objects, which turned out to be a small telescopic jemmy, a jointed auger, a screwdriver and a bunch of skeleton keys.

“One understands his unwillingness to encounter the constable with these rather significant objects in his possession,” Thorndyke remarked. “They would have been difficult to explain away.” He took up the heap of grass between his hands and gently compressed it to test its freshness. As he did so a tiny, cigar-shaped object dropped on the paper.

“What is that?” asked the Superintendent. “It looks like a chrysalis.”

“It isn’t,” said Thorndyke. “It is a shell, a species of Clausilia, I think.” He picked up the little shell and closely examined its mouth through his lens. “Yes,” he continued, “it is a Clausilia. Do you study our British mollusca, Badger?”

“No, I don’t,” the Inspector replied with emphasis.