As we walked away from the mortuary, Thorndyke was silent and deeply
thoughtful, and I gathered that he was piecing together the facts that
he had acquired. At length Mr. Stopford, who had several times looked at
him curiously, said:
"The _post-mortem_ will take place at three, and it is now only
half-past eleven. What would you like to do next?"
Thorndyke, who, in spite of his mental preoccupation, had been looking
about him in his usual keen, attentive way, halted suddenly.
"Your reference to the _post-mortem_," said he, "reminds me that I
forgot to put the ox-gall into my case."
"Ox-gall!" I exclaimed, endeavouring vainly to connect this substance
with the technique of the pathologist. "What were you going to do
with--"
But here I broke off, remembering my friend's dislike of any discussion
of his methods before strangers.
"I suppose," he continued, "there would hardly be an artist's colourman
in a place of this size?"
"I should think not," said Stopford. "But couldn't you got the stuff
from a butcher? There's a shop just across the road."
"So there is," agreed Thorndyke, who had already observed the shop.
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