“As far as I can, sir,” Boyd said solemnly, “of course I will.”
“You’re a good fellow, Boyd,” said Anthony warmly, “and you can start now.” He stopped the car and turned in his seat. “Where’s the Bow—I mean the wood-rasp?”
“At present it’s at the station. Where we’re going. Tomorrow it’ll be taken up to the Yard.”
“Can I see it this evening?”
“You can, sir, seeing that you’re an old friend, if I may say so.”
“Excellent man!”
“Look here, sir,” Boyd took a wallet from his pocket; from the wallet some photographs. “You might care to see these. Enlargements of the fingerprints.”
Anthony took the six pieces of thin pasteboard and bent eagerly to examine them. They had been taken, these photographs, from three points of view. They showed that the handle of the rasp had been marked by a thumb and two fingers—all pointing downwards towards the blade.
“And these were the only marks?” Anthony said.
“Enough, aren’t they, sir?”
“Yes,” murmured Anthony. “Oh, yes. What lovely little marks! How kind of Archibald!”
“What’s that, sir?”
“I was remarking, Boyd, on the kindly forethought which Mr. Deacon showed for Scotland Yard. He couldn’t bear to think of you wasting your time detecting all the wrong people, so he left his card for you.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at at all, sir.” Boyd shook his head sadly.
Anthony handed back the photographs and started the car. In less than a minute they had finished the descent and turned the corner into the village of Marling. Boyd caught his breath and clung to his seat. The High Street streamed by them. At its far end Anthony pulled up, outside the little police station. Marling was proud of its police station, an offensive affair of pinkish brick. To Anthony, coming upon it in the midst of the little leaning houses, the low-browed shops and thatched cottages, it was like finding a comic postcard of the Mother-in-law school in an exhibition of pleasing miniatures.
He shivered, and dragged Boyd inside. Here he was received by the local inspector. At a word from Boyd the inspector produced keys, opened locks and at last laid on the table the wood-rasp.
It was, as Sir Arthur had said, the biggest of its kind—a foot-long bar of serrated iron, looking like a file whose roughnesses have been ten times magnified. To the points of these roughnesses clung little scraps of stained and withered flesh, while in the corresponding hollows were dark encrustations of dried blood. The handle was new, of some light-coloured wood, and was perhaps four inches long and three and a half in circumference.
“Now that’s not at all pretty,” said Anthony, with a grimace. “Can I pick it up? Or would that spoil the marks?”
Boyd said: “Oh, that’s all right, sir. The coroner’s jury have passed it about. And we’ve got the official record and the photos.”
Anthony took it from the table; peered at it; shook it; weighed it in his hand.
Boyd pointed to the blade. “Not much doubt that’s what did the trick, is there, C—Mr. Gethryn?”
“Never a doubt,” said Anthony, and shook the thing with vigour.
There was a sudden clatter. The blade had flown off, struck the table, and fallen to the floor.
“Bit loose,” said Anthony, looking at the handle in his fingers.
He stooped and picked up the blade, holding it gingerly.
“Those blows that broke in the deceased’s skull,” said Boyd, “must’ve been hard enough to loosen anything, so to speak.”
“Possibly.” Anthony’s tone was not one of conviction. “Aha! Now what are you doing here, little friends?” He picked, from a notch in the thin iron tongue upon which the handle had been fitted, two threads of white linen. “And you, too, what are you?” He stopped and picked up from the floor a small, thin wedge of darkish wood. “There should be another of you somewhere,” he murmured, and peered into the handle. He shook it, and there dropped out of the hollow where the tongue of the blade had been another slip of wood, identical with the first.
He turned to the two men watching him. “Boyd, I give these, the threads and the woods, into your official keeping. You and the inspector saw where they came from.” He took an envelope from his pocket, slipped his discoveries into it and laid it upon the table beside the dismembered rasp.
The inspector looked at the man from Scotland Yard, and scratched his head.
“That’s all, I think,” Anthony said. “Can I see the prisoner now?”
XII
Exhibits
The door of the cell clanged to behind Boyd. From a chair, Deacon unfolded his bulk to greet Anthony. They shook hands.
“Wasn’t long before I yelled for you,” the criminal grinned. “Take the chair. I’ll squat on the gent’s bedding.”
Anthony sat, running his eye over the cell. There was the chair he sat on, the truckle bed, a tinware washstand, a shelf, a dressing-case of Deacon’s, and, in one corner, a large brown-paper parcel.
“Pretty snug, brother, isn’t it?” Deacon smiled. “I languish in comfort. ’D’ve been pretty glad of this at times during the recent fracas in France. I say, wouldn’t you like to write the story of my life? Some Criminals I Have Known: Number One—The Abbotshall Murderer. You know the sort of thing.”
Anthony laughed. “Well, you take it easily enough. I’m afraid I should alternate fury and depression.”
For a moment Deacon’s blue eyes met his; and in them Anthony saw a kind of despairing horror. But only for the half of a second. And then the old laughing look was in them again. More than ever, Anthony felt admiration and a
