"That sketch and the colour-box appear very suggestive to me," he remarked, as we walked up the street.
"To me also," said Stopford gloomily, "for they are under lock and key, like their owner, poor old fellow."
He sighed heavily, and we walked on in silence.
The mortuary-keeper had evidently heard of our arrival, for he was waiting at the door with the key in his hand, and, on being shown the coroner's order, unlocked the door, and we entered together; but, after a momentary glance at the ghostly, shrouded figure lying upon the slate table, Stopford turned pale and retreated, saying that he would wait for us outside with the mortuary-keeper.
As soon as the door was closed and locked on the inside, Thorndyke glanced curiously round the bare, whitewashed building. A stream of sunlight poured in through the skylight, and fell upon the silent form that lay so still under its covering-sheet, and one stray beam glanced into a corner by the door, where, on a row of pegs and a deal table, the dead woman's clothing was displayed.
"There is something unspeakably sad in these poor relics, Jervis," said Thorndyke, as we stood before them. "To me they are more tragic, more full of pathetic suggestion, than the corpse itself. See the smart, jaunty hat, and the costly skirts hanging there, so desolate and forlorn; the dainty _lingerie_ on the table, neatly folded--by the mortuary-man's wife, I hope--the little French shoes and open-work silk stockings. How pathetically eloquent they are of harmless, womanly vanity, and the gay, careless life, snapped short in the twinkling of an eye. But we must not give way to sentiment. There is another life threatened, and it is in our keeping."
He lifted the hat from its peg, and turned it over in his hand. It was, I think, what is called a "picture-hat"--a huge, flat, shapeless mass of gauze and ribbon and feather, spangled over freely with dark-blue sequins. In one part of the brim was a ragged hole, and from this the glittering sequins dropped off in little showers when the hat was moved.
"This will have been worn tilted over on the left side," said Thorndyke, "judging by the general shape and the position of the hole."
"Yes," I agreed. "Like that of the Duchess of Devonshire in Gainsborough's portrait."