"
The various bedrooms and sitting-rooms had yielded nothing to a
careful search. Apparently the tenants had brought little or
nothing with them, and all the furniture down to the smallest
details had been taken over with the house. A good deal of
clothing with the stamp of Marx and Co., High Holborn, had been
left behind. Telegraphic inquiries had been already made which
showed that Marx knew nothing of his customer save that he was a
good payer. Odds and ends, some pipes, a few novels, two of them
in Spanish, and old-fashioned pinfire revolver, and a guitar were
among the personal property.
"Nothing in all this," said Baynes, stalking, candle in hand,
from room to room. "But now, Mr. Holmes, I invite your attention
to the kitchen."
It was a gloomy, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house,
with a straw litter in one corner, which served apparently as a
bed for the cook. The table was piled with half-eaten dishes and
dirty plates, the debris of last night's dinner.
"Look at this," said Baynes. "What do you make of it?"
He held up his candle before an extraordinary object which stood
at the back of the dresser. It was so wrinkled and shrunken and
withered that it was difficult to say what it might have been.
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