My two companions continued for some time to work silently, leaving me to my meditations—which concerned themselves alternately with Polton’s eyelashes and the dimple aforesaid. Suddenly Marion turned to me and asked:
“Has Mr. Polton told you that we are all to have a holiday tomorrow?”
“No,” I answered; “but Dr. Thorndyke mentioned that Mr. Polton might have something to tell us. Why are we all to have a holiday?”
“Why, you see, sir,” said Polton, standing up and forgetting all about his eyelashes, “the Doctor instructed me to make an appointment with those two ladies, Miss Dewsnep and Miss Bonington, to come to our chambers on a matter of identification. I have made the appointment for ten o’clock tomorrow morning; and as the Doctor wants you to be present at the interview and wants me to be in attendance, and we can’t leave Miss D’Arblay here alone, we have arranged to shut up the studio for tomorrow.”
“Yes,” said Marion; “and Arabella and I are going to spend the morning looking at the shops in Regent Street, and then we are coming to lunch with you and Dr. Thorndyke. It will be quite a red-letter day.”
“I don’t quite see what these ladies are coming to the chambers for,” said I.
“You will see, all in good time, sir,” replied Polton; and, as if to head me off from any further questions, he added: “I forgot to ask how your little party went off this morning.”
“It went off with a bang,” I answered. “We got the coffin up all right, but Mr. Fox wasn’t at home. The coffin was empty.”
“I rather think that was what the Doctor expected,” said Polton.
Marion looked at me with eager curiosity. “This sounds rather thrilling,” she said. “May one ask who it was that you expected to find in that coffin?”
“My impression is,” I replied, “that the missing tenant was a person who bore a strong resemblance to that photograph that I showed you.”
“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “What a pity! I wish that coffin hadn’t been empty. But, of course, it could hardly have been occupied, under the circumstances. I suppose I mustn’t ask for fuller details?”
“I don’t imagine that there is any secrecy about the affair, so far as you are concerned,” I answered; “but I would rather that you had the details from Dr. Thorndyke, or, at least, with his express authority. He is conducting the investigations, and what I know has been imparted to me in confidence.”
This view was warmly endorsed by Polton (who had by now either forgotten his eyelashes or abandoned concealment as hopeless). The subject was accordingly dropped, and the two workers resumed their occupations. When Polton had painted a complete skin of wax over the interior of both pairs of moulds, I helped him to put the latter together and fasten them with cords. Then into each completed mould we poured enough melted wax to fill it, and after a few seconds poured it out again, leaving a solid layer to thicken the skin and unite the two halves of the wax cast. This finished Polton’s job, and shortly afterwards he took his departure. Nor did we remain very much longer, for the final stages of the surface finishing were too subtle to be carried out by artificial light, and had to be postponed until daylight was available.
As we walked homewards we discussed the situation so far as was possible without infringing Thorndyke’s confidences.
“I am very confused and puzzled about it all,” she said. “It seems that Dr. Thorndyke is trying to get on the track of the man who murdered my father. But whenever I hear any details of his investigations they always seem to be concerned with somebody else or with something that has no apparent connection with the crime.”
“That is exactly my condition,” said I. “He seems to be busily working at problems that are totally irrelevant. As far as I can make out, the murderer has never once come into sight, excepting when he appeared at the studio that terrible night. The people in whom Thorndyke has interested himself are mere outsiders—suspicious characters, no doubt, but not suspected of the murder. This man, Crile, for instance, whose empty coffin we dug up, was certainly a shady character. But he was not the murderer, though he seems to have been associated with the murderer at one time. Then there is that fellow Morris, whose mask we found at the studio. He is another queer customer. But he is certainly not the murderer, though he was also probably an associate. Thorndyke has taken an immense interest in him. But I can’t see why. He doesn’t seem to me to be in the picture, or, at any rate, not in the foreground of it. Of the actual murderer we seem to know nothing at all—at least, that is my position.”
“Do you think Dr. Thorndyke has really got anything to go on?” she asked.
“My dear Marion,” I exclaimed, “I am confident that he has the whole case cut and dried and perfectly clear in his mind. What I was saying referred only to myself. My ideas are all in confusion, but his are not. He can see quite clearly who is in the picture and in what part of it. The blindness is mine. But let us wait and see what tomorrow brings forth. I have a sort of feeling—in fact, he hinted—that this interview is the final move. He may have something to tell you when you arrive.”
“I do hope he may,” she said earnestly; and with this we dismissed the subject. A few minutes later we parted at the gate of Ivy Cottage, and I took my way (by the main thoroughfares) home to my lodgings.
On the following morning I made a point of presenting myself at Thorndyke’s chambers well in advance of the appointed time in order that I might have a few words with him before the
