The Red Thumb Mark

to be productive of any permanent ill consequences; his wounds prog

ective thrown in; and as Juliet I shall henceforth speak of her (but without the adjective) in this narrative, wherein nothing has been kept back from the reader-Juli

nts towards our unfortunate client; but what conclusions he arrived at I was unable to discover, for he was by no means communicative after she had left

even o'clock in the morning, to find Polton hovering dejectedly about the sitting-room, apparently pe

ou contrived to tear yourself away fr

omily. "The laboratory has

you mean?

ed the door, and he says I am not to dis

oing in there

aking some experiments in connection with some of his cases, and when the Doctor locks himself in to

ole in the laboratory door

g my facetious intent, he smiled also and added: "But there is a keyhole if you'd lik

about your doings, you

s of the Doctor's, and there are some queer secrets

r which he handed to me. On it was a neatly executed drawing of what looke

wn-one of the Staun

to make twenty-four of them, and what the Doc

ted some new game," I

e turned up in the best-seasoned boxwood! What can they be for? Something to do with the experiments he is carrying on upstairs at this very moment, I expect." He shook his head, and,

jects which he had ordered to be made; but I was unacquainted with any of the cases on which he was engaged, excepting that of Reuben Hornby, and with the latter I was quite unable to connect a

gave no hint as to its nature; and as soon as our meal was finished, he returned to his labours, leaving me to pace up and down the walk, listeni

ue was evidently still at work in the laboratory, and, from the circumstance that the tea-things were set out on the table and a kettle of

ea, enlivening my solitude by turning ov

. As to her feelings towards me, I had not the slightest misgiving, and so my conscience was clear; for Juliet was as innocent as a child, with the innocence that belongs to the direct, straightforward nature that neither does evil itself nor looks for evil motives in others. For myself, I was past praying for. The thing was done and I must pay the price hereafter, content

to me in the egotism of my love. We had spoken of Mr. Hornby and his affairs, and from our t

ence to her adopted uncle. "As if this trouble about Reuben were not e

lter had mentione

te accidentally, that he had a large holding in the mines himself, but he seems to have 'cut his loss,' as the phrase goes, and got out of th

he mines began to d

ly a few days before the robbery. Mr. Hornby was telling me about it only yesterd

that?" I

by's study, which I was tidying up at the time. Here I was found by Reuben, and a dreadful fright it gave him at first; and then he tore up his handkerchief to tie up the wounded finger, and you never saw such an awful mess as he got his hands in. He might have been arrested

e all smeared with blood and marked with the print of gory fingers. I remembered it afterwards, when Reuben's thumb-mark was identified, and thought that perhaps one of the pa

sufficiently important to draw away my thoughts from other subjects, more agreeable, but less relevant to the case. With a sudden remem

yself a cup of tea while you finish your writing, and then yo

t addition to our store of information. By the time the kettle was boiling my entries were completed, and I proce

ual, with deep and

r. It seems that information, which would be strictly withheld from the forbidding Jorkins, trickles freely and unasked int

inly,

ole affair, and if it could only be shown that Mr. Hornby's memorandum block was among the papers on the table, it would rise to a high degree of probability. The obvious moral is, never disregard the improbable. By the way, it is odd that Reuben failed to rec

's memorandum block was on the table

wered, "though I don't suppose th

nt facts an interest that was academic rather than practical. Of course, his calmness might be assumed; but this did not seem likely, for John Thorndyke was far too sincere and dignified a character to cultivate in

was perfectly possible), or he had some other and better means of explaining the crime. I was turning over these two alternatives, not unobserved by my watchful co

e unspoken jest that beamed from

assumes that I have invented a new parlour game, and has been

pect that one of the players w

; "but that doesn't take you very far.

g, and then was terrified lest he had committed a breach of confidence, and I have

teacup in hand, "to guess, eh? I like not that word 'guess' in

, but I professed to take his q

a conclusion arriv

sternness. "Nobody but an utter fool

," I rejoined. "Let us say that a guess is

ite one. Let us take an instance," he continued. "Looking out of the window, I see a man walking round Paper Buildings. Now suppose I say, after the fashion of the inspired detective of the r

rward with me to examine the unconscious subject of the demonstration. "T

was evidently g

e," said Thorndyke; "but I mi

r," said Polton. "You s

ed not a fig for the correctness of th

stationmaster?" pursued Thorndyke,

d. "I seem to have noticed that peculiar, splay-foo

et have become turned outwards, by which the bending of the foot is reduced to a minimum; and as the left foot is the more flattened, so it is turned out more than the right. Then the turning o

teristic-a quick, shuffling walk which enables him to carry liquids without spilling them. This man walks with a long, swinging stride; he is obviously not a waiter. His dress and appearance in general exclude the idea of a hawker or even a hall-porter; he is a man of poor physique and so cannot be a policeman. The shop-walker or salesman is accustomed to move in relatively confined spaces, and so acquires a short, brisk step, and his dress tends to rather exuberant smartness; the station official patrols long platforms, often at a rapid pace, and so tends to take long strides, while his dress is dig

ly wonderful. I should never have known he was a stationmaster." With thi

"that a fortunate guess often brings more credit than a

his eyes you are a wizard from whom nothing is hidden. But to return to these little pieces, as I must call them, for the lack of a better name. I can form no hypothesis as to their use. I s

licately and inspecting with a critical eye the flat b

out a problem of this kind. What is required is constructive imagination and a rigorous exactness in reasoning. Now, you are a good reasoner, and you have recently shown me that you have the necessary imagination; you merely lack experience in the use of your faculties