“It looks as if someone had entered the studio last night with false keys or by picking the lock. But why should they? Perhaps the cupboard will tell. You will know if it has been disturbed.”
She ran her eyes along the shelves and said at once: “It has been. The things are all in disorder and one of the moulds is broken. We had better take them all out and see if anything is missing—so far as I can judge, that is, for the moulds were just as my father left them.”
We dragged a small worktable to the cupboard and emptied the shelves one by one. She examined each mould as we took it out, and I jotted down a rough list at her dictation. When we had been through the whole collection and rearranged the moulds on the shelves—they were mostly plaques and medallions—she slowly read through the list and reflected for a few moments. At length she said:
“I don’t miss anything that I can remember. But the question is, Were there any moulds or casts that I did not know about? I am thinking of Dr. Thorndyke’s question. If there were any, they have gone, so that question cannot be answered.”
We looked at one another gravely, and in both our minds was the same unspoken question: “Who was it that had entered the studio last night?”
We had just closed the cupboard and were moving away when my eye caught a small object half-hidden in the darkness under the cupboard itself—the bottom of which was raised by low feet about an inch and a half from the floor. I knelt down and passed my hand into the shallow space and was just able to hook it out. It proved to be a fragment of a small plaster mould, saturated with wax and black-leaded on the inside. Miss D’Arblay stooped over it eagerly and exclaimed: “I don’t know that one. What a pity it is such a small piece. But it is certainly part of a coin.”
“It is part of the coin,” said I. “There can be no doubt of that. I examined the cast that Dr. Thorndyke made and I recognize this as the same. There is the lower part of the bust, the letters C A—the first two letters of Carolus—and the tiny elephant and castle. That is conclusive. This is the mould from which that electrotype was made. But I had better hand it to Dr. Thorndyke to compare with the cast that he has.”
I carefully bestowed the fragment in my tobacco-pouch, as the safest place for the time being, and meanwhile Miss D’Arblay looked fixedly at me with a very singular expression.
“You realize,” she said in a hushed voice, “what this means. He was in here last night.”
I nodded. The same conclusion had instantly occurred to me, and a very uncomfortable one it was. There was something very sinister and horrid in the thought of that murderous villain quietly letting himself into this studio and ransacking its hiding-places in the dead of the night. So unpleasantly suggestive was it that for a time neither of us spoke a word, but stood looking blankly at one another in silent dismay. And in the midst of the tense silence there came a knock at the door.
We both started as if we had been struck. Then Miss D’Arblay, recovering herself quickly, said: “I had better go,” and hurried down the studio to the lobby.
I listened nervously, for I was a little unstrung. I heard her go into the lobby and open the outer door. I heard a low voice, apparently asking a question; the outer door closed, and then came a sudden scuffling sound and a piercing shriek. With a shout of alarm, I raced down the studio, knocking over a chair as I ran, and darted into the lobby just as the outer door slammed.
For a moment I hesitated. Miss D’Arblay had shrunk into a corner, and stood in the semidarkness with both her hands pressed tightly to her breast. But she called out excitedly: “Follow him! I am not hurt”; and on this I wrenched open the door and stepped out.
But the first glance showed me that pursuit was hopeless. The fog had now become so dense that I could hardly see my own feet. I dared not leave the threshold for fear of not being able to find my way back. Then she would be alone—and he was probably lurking close by even now.
I stood irresolute, stock-still; listening intently. The silence was profound. All the natural noises of a populous neighbourhood seemed to be smothered by the dense blanket of dark yellow vapour. Not a sound came to my ear; no stealthy footfall, no rustle of movement. Nothing but stark silence.
Uneasily I crept back until the open doorway showed as a dim rectangle of shadow; crept back and peered fearfully into the darkness of the lobby. She was still standing in the corner—an upright smudge of deeper darkness in the obscurity. But even as I looked, the shadowy figure collapsed and slid noiselessly to the floor.
In an instant the pursuit was forgotten, and I darted into the lobby, shutting the outer door behind me, and dropped on my knees at her side. Where she had fallen a streak of light came in from the studio, and the sight that it revealed turned me sick with terror. The whole front of her smock, from the breast downwards, was saturated with blood; both her hands were crimson and gory, and her face was dead-white to the lips.
For an instant I was paralyzed with horror. I could see no movement of breathing, and the white face with its parted lips and half-closed eyes, was
