He now
remembered having left this particular _cash_ piece (which he usually
carried) in his dispensary, which satisfactorily accounted fro his
failure to find the coin in his waistcoat pocket. He had broken the
cork of a flask, and in the absence of another of correct size had
manufactured a temporary stopper with a small cork to the top of which
he had fixed the Chinese coin with a drawing-pin. His purpose served
he had left the extemporized stopper somewhere in the dispensary.
Stuart's dispensary was merely a curtained recess at one end of the
waiting-room and shortly after entering the house he had occasion to
visit it. Lying upon a shelf among flasks and bottles was the Chinese
coin with the cork still attached. He took it up in order to study
the inscription. Then:
"Have I cultivated somnambulism!" he muttered.
Fragments of black sealing-wax adhered to the coin!
Incredulous and half fearful he peered at it closely. He remembered
that the impression upon the wax sealing the mysterious envelope had
had a circular depression in the centre. It had been made by the head
of the drawing-pin!
He found himself at the shelf immediately above that upon which the
coin had lain. A stick of black sealing wax used for sealing medicine
was thrust in beside a bundle of long envelopes in which he was
accustomed to post his Infirmary reports!
One hand raised to his head, Stuart stood endeavouring to marshal his
ideas into some sane order.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72