“There is no need,” said I. “It is known to me as a fact that he did. The little plaquettes that I took for castings are electrotypes, made by himself. He worked the process quite a lot, and was very skilful in finishing. For instance, he did a small bust of his daughter in two parts and brazed them together.”
“Then, you see, Gray,” said Thorndyke, “that advances us considerably. We now have a plausible suggestion as to the motive and a new field of investigation. Let us suppose that this man employed D’Arblay to make electrotype copies of certain unique objects with the intention of disposing of them to collectors. The originals, being stolen property, would be almost impossible to dispose of with safety, but a copy would not necessarily incriminate the owner. But when D’Arblay had made the copies, he would be a dangerous person, for he would know who had the originals. Here, to a man whom we know to be a callous murderer, would be a sufficient reason for making away with D’Arblay.”
“But do you think that D’Arblay would have undertaken such a decidedly fishy job? It seems hardly like him.”
“Why not?” demanded Thorndyke. “There was nothing suspicious about the transaction. The man who wanted the copies was the owner of the originals, and D’Arblay would not know or suspect that they were stolen.”
“That is true,” I admitted. “But you were speaking of a new field of investigation.”
“Yes. If a number of copies of different objects have been made, there is a fair chance that some of them have been disposed of. If they have, and can be traced, they will give us a start along a new line, which may bring us in sight of the man himself. Do you ever see Miss D’Arblay now?”
“Oh, yes,” I replied. “I am quite one of the family at Highgate. I have been there every Sunday lately.”
“Have you!” he exclaimed with a smile. “You are a pretty locum tenens. However, if you are quite at home there you can make a few discreet inquiries. Find out, if you can, whether any electros had been made recently, and if so, what they were and who was the client. Will you do that?”
I agreed readily, only too glad to take an active part in the investigation; and having by this time reached the end of Doughty Street, I took leave of Thorndyke, and made my way back to Cornish’s house.
X
Marion’s Peril
The mist, which had been gathering since the early afternoon, began to thicken ominously as I approached Abbey Road, Hornsey, from Crouch End Station, causing me to quicken my pace so that I might make my destination before the fog closed in; for this was my first visit to Marion D’Arblay’s studio, and the neighbourhood was strange to me. And in fact I was none too soon; for hardly had I set my hand on the quaint bronze knocker above the plate inscribed “Mr. J. D’Arblay,” when the adjoining houses grew pale and shadowy and then vanished altogether.
My elaborate knock—in keeping with the distinguished knocker—was followed by soft, quick footsteps, the sound whereof set my heart ticking in double-quick time; the door opened, and there stood Miss D’Arblay, garbed in a most alluring blue smock or pinafore, with sleeves rolled up to the elbow, with a smile of friendly welcome on her comely face, and looking so sweet and charming that I yearned then and there to take her in my arms and kiss her. This, however being inadmissible, I shook her hand warmly and was forthwith conducted through the outer lobby into the main studio, where I stood looking about me with amused surprise. She looked at me inquiringly as I emitted an audible chuckle.
“It is a queer-looking place,” said I; “something between a miracle-shrine hung with votive offerings from sufferers who have been cured of sore heads and arms and legs, and a meat emporium in a cannibal district.”
“It is nothing of the kind!” she exclaimed indignantly. “I don’t mind the votive offerings, but I reject the cannibal meat-market as a gross and libellous fiction. But I suppose it does look rather queer to a stranger.”
“To a what?” I demanded fiercely.
“Oh, I only meant a stranger to the place, of course, and you know I did. So you needn’t be cantankerous.”
She glanced smilingly round the studio, and for the first time, apparently, the oddity of its appearance dawned on her, for she laughed softly and then turned a mischievous eye on me as I gaped about me like a bumpkin at a fair. The studio was a very large and lofty room or hall, with a partially glazed roof and a single large window just below the skylight. The walls were fitted partly with rows of large shelves, and the remainder with ranks of pegs. From the latter hung row after row of casts of arms, hands, legs, and faces—especially faces—while the shelves supported a weird succession of heads, busts, and a few half-length but armless figures. The general effect was very strange and uncanny, and what made it more so was the fact that all the heads presented perfectly smooth, bare craniums.
“Are artists’ models usually bald?” I inquired, as I noted this latter phenomenon.
“Now you are being foolish,” she replied; “wilfully and
