At this point, deserting the worktable, I came and looked over Marion’s shoulder at the mask which she was holding at arm’s length. And then I got a surprise of the most singular kind, for I recognized the face at a glance.
“What is it, Gray?” asked Thorndyke, who had apparently observed my astonishment.
“This is the most extraordinary coincidence!” I exclaimed. “Do you remember my speaking to you about a certain Mr. Morris?”
“The dealer in antiques?” he queried.
“Yes. Well, this is his face.”
He regarded me for some moments with a strangely intent expression. Then he asked: “When you say that this is Morris’ face, do you mean that it resembles his face, or that you identify it positively?”
“I identify it positively. I can swear to the identity. It isn’t a face that one would forget. And if any doubt were possible, there is this harelip scar, which you can see quite plainly on the cast.”
“Yes, I noticed that. And Morris has a harelip scar, hasn’t he?”
“Yes; and in the same position and of the same character. I think you can take it as a fact that this cast was undoubtedly taken from Morris’ face.”
“Which,” said Thorndyke, “is a really important fact and one that is worth looking into.”
“In what way is it important?” I asked.
“In this respect,” he answered. “This man, Morris, is unknown to Miss D’Arblay; but he was not unknown to her father. Here we have evidence that Mr. D’Arblay had dealings with people of whom his daughter had no knowledge. The circumstances of the murder made it clear that there must be such people; but here we have proof of their existence, and we can give to one of them ‘a local habitation and a name.’ And you will notice that this particular person is a dealer in curios and possibly in more questionable things. There is just a hint that he may have had some rather queer acquaintances.”
“He seemed to have had rather a fancy for plaster masks,” I remarked. “I remember that he had one in his shop window.”
“Did your father make many life or death masks as commissions, Miss D’Arblay?” Thorndyke asked.
“Only one or two, so far as I know,” she replied. “There is very little demand for portrait masks nowadays. Photography has superseded them.”
“That is what I should have supposed,” said he. “This would be just a chance commission. However, as it establishes the fact that this man Morris was in some way connected with your father, I think I should like to have a record of his appearance. May I take this mask away with me to get a photograph of it made? I will take great care of it, and let you have it back safely.”
“Certainly,” replied Marion; “but why not keep it, if it is of any interest to you? I have no use for it.”
“That is very good of you,” said he; “and if you will give me some rag and paper to pack it in, I will take myself off, and leave you to finish your work in peace.”
Marion took the cast from him, and, having procured some rag and paper, began very carefully to wrap it up. While she was thus engaged, Thorndyke stood, letting his eye travel once more round the studio.
“I see,” he remarked, “that you have quite a number of masks moulded from life, or death. Do I understand that they were not commissions?”
“Very few of them were,” Marion replied. “Most of them were taken from professional models, but some from acquaintances whom my father bribed with the gift of a duplicate mask.”
“But why did he make them? They could not have been used for producing wax faces for the show figures; for you could hardly turn a shop window into a waxwork exhibition with lifelike portraits of real persons.”
“No,” Marion agreed, “that wouldn’t do at all. These masks were principally used for reference as to details of features when my father was modelling a head in clay. But he did sometimes make moulds for the wax from these masks, only he obliterated the likeness, so that the wax face was not a portrait.”
“By working on the wax, I suppose?”
“Yes; or more usually by altering the mask before making the mould. It is quite easy to alter a face. Let me show you.”
She lifted one of the masks from its peg and laid it on the table.
“You see,” she said, “that this is the face of a young girl—one of my father’s models. It is a round, smooth, smiling face, with a very short, weak chin and a projecting upper lip. We can change all that in a moment.”
She took up a lump of clay and, pinching off a pellet, laid it on the right cheekbone and spread it out. Having treated the other side in the same manner, she rolled an elongated pellet, with which she built up the lower lip. Then, with a larger pellet, she enlarged the chin downwards and forwards, and, having added a small touch to each of the eyebrows, she dipped a sponge in thick clay-water, or “slip,” and dabbed the mask all over to bring it to a uniform colour.
“There,” she said, “it is very rough, but you see what I mean.”
The result was truly astonishing. The weak, chubby, girlish face had been changed by these few touches into the strong, coarse face of a middle-aged woman.
“It really is amazing!” I exclaimed. “It is a perfectly different face. I wouldn’t have believed that such a thing was possible.”
“It is a most striking and interesting demonstration,” said Thorndyke. “But yet I don’t know that we need be so surprised. If we consider that of all the millions of persons in this island alone each one has a face which is different from any other, and yet that all those faces are made up of the same anatomical parts, we
