“Beautiful, Parker, beautiful. Did you realize the importance of that?”
“He was probably a sullen, ill-tempered man—his nails were filed down to the quick as though he habitually bit them, and his fingers were bitten as well. He smoked quantities of cigarettes without a holder. He was particular about his personal appearance.”
“Did you examine the room at all? I didn’t get a chance.”
“I couldn’t find much in the way of footprints. Sugg & Co. had tramped all over the place, to say nothing of little Thipps and the maid, but I noticed a very indefinite patch just behind the head of the bath, as though something damp might have stood there. You could hardly call it a print.”
“It rained hard all last night, of course.”
“Yes; did you notice that the soot on the window-sill was vaguely marked?”
“I did,” said Wimsey, “and I examined it hard with this little fellow, but I could make nothing of it except that something or other had rested on the sill.” He drew out his monocle and handed it to Parker.
“It is,” said Wimsey, “and jolly useful when you want to take a good squint at somethin’ and look like a bally fool all the time. Only it don’t do to wear it permanently—if people see you full-face they say: ‘Dear me! how weak the sight of that eye must be!’ Still, it’s useful.”
“Sugg and I explored the ground at the back of the building,” went on Parker, “but there wasn’t a trace.”
“That’s interestin’. Did you try the roof?”
“We’ll go over it tomorrow. The gutter’s only a couple of feet off the top of the window. I measured it with my stick—the gentleman-scout’s vade-mecum, I call it—it’s marked off in inches. Uncommonly handy companion at times. There’s a sword inside and a compass in the head. Got it made specially. Anything more?”
“Afraid not. Let’s hear your version, Wimsey.”
“Well, I think you’ve got most of the points. There are just one or two little contradictions. For instance, here’s a man wears expensive gold-rimmed pince-nez and has had them long enough to be mended twice. Yet his teeth are not merely discoloured, but badly decayed and look as if he’d never cleaned them in his life. There are four molars missing on one side and three on the other and one front tooth broken right across. He’s a man careful of his personal appearance, as witness his hair and his hands. What do you say to that?”