THE STORY OF A CLUE.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9668, 5 March 1897, Page 2

THE STORY OF A CLUE.

*_.. By H. D. Traill. *'I see you're impatient to bo off, said my friend, with a faintly r wnte'inp.uo__ smile; "so if you have nothing more to suggest, and you really not have another glass of I won't detain you." .w£JLsar 1 you, air," replied the detective, rising. "If I haven't satisfied you by this tij&e that it's a case sf suicide, I am not by more talking. We h»7e no ilc-übt about it at head quarters, that's alt I will say." "And yet you profess to want a certain .height six feet, bald head, scar over 4fc__ lift eyebrow—in fact, a pretty exact counterpart of myself." said Exray, laughing; "and you offer £100, reward for any information that will lead to " of*** ©h ! that's nothing," interrupted the '*" other. "That's all done to satisfy the public. They always expect something of that sort; and, as yon know, the old man did a few hours before his death receive a dieit from some ono answering to that escription. So perhaps it is just as well fto find him, if possible." ""And Mr Mandrake's missing hoard? The four £1003 notes in the little scarlet silk bag." "Lord bless you, sir, that'll turn up sooner or later, 1 dou't doubt, and perhaps some letter or other ehowing his intention of making away with himself, unless, indeed, it was a sudden impulse, as very likely it may have been, that overtook him while shaving. That has happened before now. He had begun to shave, for the brush was wet, and there were dried suds as well as blood on the razor." " Exactly," said my friend, loaning back in his chair and omiling with half closed eyes at the detective. " Exactly, those •were suds on the razor. By-thebye, the police don't want this, do they ?" he added, carelessly pointing to a circular shaving soap box, whioh stood on the table beside him. "Not us," said Sergeant Bloxam, with a grin; "we know your taste for them 6ort of things, Mr Exray." '• Nor this ? " said uiy friend, pointing to •a dirty little towel at his elbow. " No, or that," echoed the detective grinnine more broadly than ever. "Nor we r doirt want the old boy's hair brushes, nor ■ yet his nail scissors neither. Nor, for the of that, his bootjack. Ha, ha I " You're quite welcome to them all, sir. Good-night." And, laughing at his own easy wit, Sergeant Bloxam took his departure. " Well, the police are confident enough," said I, as the door closed behind him. " But what lias been the result of your inquiries ? Have you got a cluo ?" Exray smoked for a quarter of an hour in Silence, and apparently wrapped in thought. {Then he looked up with one of his charming •miles and said pleasantly: " My dear Wilkins, I have got something more than a clue. I have found the man. Well as I knew my friend's extraordinary powers, I could not restrain my astonishment at his reply. " What," I exclaimed, " with no other pieces de conviction than a tin of shaving . Boap and a towel 1" Exray smiled again, and with the same charm. "Hand mc thetin, Wilkins," said he, "and favour mc with your attention. You will * observe that the soap has been much used. You can see, in fact, from tho deep concavity which has __en made in it by the shaving . brush that the cake is nearly finished." Though I cannot pretend to Exray's analytic acumen, I had drawn the same con- " elusion from the fact that very little of the - cake was left. But it confirmed mc in my •judgiu-nt to find that ho had arrived at the mc result by a different route. " Kindly examine tbe edge of the disc, the ri-i, so to speak, of that oup of soap in your hand." I did so. From one-half of its circumference a thin layer had been apparently shaved off, and the other half was covered with a number of infinitely minute spicula, which, it flashed aoroiis mc in a moment, must be human bristles. I reported my suspicion to Exray, who complimented mc on the aocuracy of my diagnosis. " In the process of tho second soaping," he eaid, "a bristle or two will often attach

' it-self to the brush and be transferred to the -oapcako; and in the course of the days, t-eeka or months during which the soap is In use, these bristles accumulate round the part untouched by the brush. I have removed, as you see, 'a thin slice of the disc, , and have prepared a * slide ' from it, which you will find under my microchromatoßcope. Oblige mc by inspecting it." "Your what? I 'l asked. "Oh, nothing," said -Exray, carelessly ; * * it's only a little invention of my own for intensifying the colours of microscopic objeots. Some day, perhaps, when I have done with it myself, I shall present it to the Royal Bociety. Well," he inquired after a pause, " what; do you make of them? What' about their colour ? " "Colour? They are of all colours. There ■re black, white, brown, grey, red, yellow, and the palest flaxen ? " " Black bristles and white, red bristles and grey," sang my accomplished friend, gaily, for he was in high spirits at his success. "Well, what do you make of Iftott" I could make nothing of it, and said so.

"My dear Wilkins." said Exray, after Watching my perplexed face for a few moments in amused silence; "lam terribly afraid that you'll never make a good ftmateur detective. However, I'll give you another chance. Would you mind fitting that microsmometor on your nose. No not that; the thing next to it. It's a little contrivance of mine for giving olfactory organs the same-sort of lift that the microscope gives to the mechanism of sight. In other words, it is a dodge for magnifying -cents. When I have done with it I think I shall present it to the College of Phy•rioiani*. Have you adjusted it I All right; now Bmell this towel." I did so, and almost started from my chair. My nostrils were filled with a most pungent odour of bay rum. "Now what do you say * " asked Exray in a tone of triumph. m "Well," said I, "I should say that the deceased was in the habit of using bay rum after shaving." J "Pooh.! How many people who shave themselves do that f' "Not many, perhaps; but some may: aad this towel " "Oh, hang the towel 1" exclaimed my friend, who was beginning to lose his I»tience; "I only threw it in as an additional piece of evidence, and as you don't seem to twig well drop it. Look here, Til put it this way. Suppose old Mandrake ■was in the habit of using bay rum when he shaved himself, is it an equally probable ■apposition that the bristles on his face were of six different colours V

I admitted that it was not. "Is it possible, then," continued Exray, With increasing impatience, " thatyou don't Bee the obvious inference ? At the moment of his death the wretched old man was in the act of being shaved by a barber—a barber who brought his own appliances for the purpose, and among them this cake of ■having soap upon which the bristles of a aeries of customers—black haired,-grey haired, red haired, and .bo forth—have gradually accumulated. And the barber who shaved him was the villain who——" , " "Who barbarously murdered him," I •tried in horror.

"Say, rather, whooruelly murdered him," Corrected my friend, in a tone of severity. *'This is not a fitting subject fear feeble jokes." I had not intended one, bat I felt that appearances were against mc, and bowed to the reproof. ' ",V° y° a Bee now whom suspicion points

" 1.d0," I replied. ♦ « It gravely implicates a profession numbering many thousands of tnen. Yon have more than one clue, Exray; you na-re an indefinite number." _ ** Do not attempt irony, Wilkins," said «xray, coldly. "It sits very ill upon you. J. here are, as you say many thousand barbers »n London. But a man living in Stepney £ould not be likely, 1 imagine, to *Sto a barber to step round from a shop in Kilburn Hot* Ten ' perhaps, to one in a--: 1 "? 1 ?'"-- 1 "■**• " bQt there must be several barbers in Stepney." *„ i_ ay I_st?rned1 _ st ? rned °° «-BWw» but opening a card-board box he took from itVVery mmute blue feather,, which he laid before mc. wnT* ou „*? b y wa J ot bein _' ** ornithologist, Wilkins » he said. " Do you know what bird that came from _*' I inspected it closely, and confessed my

Exray drew from his waistcoat a small phial containing a strong acid, and let fall a drop upon a feather, which immediately turned to a dark red. This sudden change, due to its strongly alkaline composition at once enlightened mc.

" I know it now," I exclaimed. • " It is a feather from the Tasmanian ring-tailed roarer, one of the rarest of Australasian Annulopodicida.. I didn't believe there was a single specimen in England."

"I don't know of more than one," said Exray, grimly, "and that one is stuffed. The barber who committed this murder had just been stuffing it, and brought this almost invisible little feather sticking to his clothes. It fell from them to the floor, where I found it. There are, as you say, many, barbers in Stepney, and many Stepney barbers are doubtless also bird stufFere. But I doubt whether there is more than one bird stuffing barber or bartering bird stuffier, who has a recently set-up specimen of the Tasmanian ring-tailed roarer in his shop window. But there is one ; and we are going to pay him a visit this very afternoon. Come along," and knocking the ashes out of his pipe against the mantelpiece, Exray quietly slipped a revolver into his pocket, and we sallied forth.

Half an hour's cab drive brought us to the barber's shop, and there, sure enough, in the window was the stuffed Tasmanian bird. But what almost more surprised mc was to see exhibited conspicuously in the same shop-front the police bill offering a reward for the discovery of the bald-headed man with the scar over the left eye.

"They always do that," said Exray, noticing my look of astonishment. "Itis to disarm suspicion. This chap, however, has to do something more than disarm suspicion ; he has to defeat conviction. My men from Scotland Yard are due at 4.45," he added, looking at his watch; " only another ten minutes, and then—by Jove, lie is going out. That must be stopped, anyhow."

And seeing the barber about to take off his apron, Exray stepped briskly into the shop, and plumped down in the shaving chair.

" Hair cutting, sir I" said the barber, refastening his apron. His countenance was certainly vallainous, but his demeanor was unconcerned.

"Hair-cutting or shaving, sir?" he repeated. I looked at Exray, and for the first time in his life I say him turn pale. His position was, indeed, a dreadful one. He could not accept the barber's invitation, for he wore a wig ; yet, to be shaved 1 To place himself under the razor of a murderer 1 I pitied him sincerely, but I could not offer to take his plage for fear of arousing the man's suspicions. But were they not already aroused? Exray's hesitation to accept or refuse his offer had called the barber's attention to his borrowed hair, from which, after a moment, his glance descended to my friend's brow. He stared horribly. " No; shaving, please," said Exray at last, with a mighty effort, and the barber, pulling himself together, began slowly to soap his customer's face. All of a sudden, as he was bending over him to apply the soap underneath the chin, he stopped in the operation as if he had been shot. His gaze was intently fixed downwards. It seemed to be endeavouring to penetrate the narrow chasm between Exray's collar and his neck, as though to investigate the material of his undorclothing. Was the man mad? At that moment the door opened and two policemen entered. Exray, who had become more and more nervous under the barber's behaviour, sprang, lathered, from his chair, and was advancing to meet them when tho barber, to my amazement, flung himself between them. " No, you don't,'" he cried, and the words, " Constable, I give this man in charge for murder," rang out so exactly simultaneously from two voices that I could hardly believe that both men had spoken. But each had the other by the collar. " Arrest him I" gasped Exray. " I'll explain the evidence against him when we get to the police station." " Cop him," panted the barber, " he's the cove that's wanted in your bill. Scar over the left eye, and," plucking off Exray's wig, "as bald as a new laid hegg. And if you unbutton his shirt," he went on, grasping Exray by the collar stud, " you'll find the governor's scarlet silk bag with the bank notes slung round him." " You infernal ass?" cried my friend indignantly. " That's my red flannel chest protector/ " Look 'ere, gents," said the other constable, producing an evening paper from his coat pocket, " you needn't 'urt yourselves. 'Ere's the Stepney Mystery Explained. The old boy's bank notes bag has been found up the chimbley, and hiis nephew, who came home from sea this morning, has only just got his uncle's letter telling him he was going to commit suicide." We looked at each other for a moment in silence. The barber burst out laughing; Exray did not. " hook here," he said at last, in a slightly injured tone, " perhaps someone will explain how he came to nave an unmistable barber's towel and shaving soap in his possession." " Why, you blooming idjit! " exclaimed Figaro, laughing more loudly than ever, " he was a barber hisself. Ar, and a bird stuffer too, and owner of this here very shop. Why he set up that there bird on'y the day before he killed hisself. The close-fisted old bloke used to take away the worn out razors and used up cakes of soap to shave with at home."

"We could have told you he was a barber, Mr Exray," said one of the constables, with a smile. , I looked at my friend. He never shone more than in the" hour of defeat.

" Shave, please," he said, reseating himself calmly in the barber's chair. " And as you have taken the liberty of removing my wig you may as well give it a touch up with brilliantine."

" And when you are disengaged," said I, determined not to be outdone in magnanimity, " you will, perhaps, be good enough to iron my hat."— Daily Telegraph.