"What beats me," said the inspector confidentially, as we rode along,
"is how he knew the man was bald. Was it the footprints or the
latchkey? And that comb, too, that was a regular knock-out."
These points were, by now, pretty clear to me. I had seen the hairs with
their atrophied bulbs--such as one finds at the margin of a bald patch;
and the comb was used, evidently, for the double purpose of keeping the
bald patch covered and blackening the sulphur-charged hair. But the
knobbed stick and the artificial limb puzzled me so completely that I
presently overtook Thorndyke to demand an explanation.
"The stick," said he, "is perfectly simple. The ferrule of a knobbed
stick wears evenly all round; that of a crooked stick wears on one
side--the side opposite the crook. The impressions showed that the
ferrule of this one was evenly convex; therefore it had no crook. The
other matter is more complicated. To begin with, an artificial foot
makes a very characteristic impression, owing to its purely passive
elasticity, as I will show you to-morrow. But an artificial leg fitted
below the knee is quite secure, whereas one fitted above the knee--that
is, with an artificial knee-joint worked by a spring--is much less
reliable.
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