But the most interesting thing about
this letter is the design drawn at the top. In an artistic sense, the
man could not draw, and the anatomical details of the skull are
ridiculous. Yet the drawing is very neat. It has the clean, wiry line of
a machine drawing, and is done with a steady, practised hand. It is also
perfectly symmetrical; the skull, for instance, is exactly in the
centre, and, when we examine it through a lens, we see why it is so, for
we discover traces of a pencilled centre-line and ruled cross-lines.
Moreover, the lens reveals a tiny particle of draughtsman's soft, red,
rubber, with which the pencil lines were taken out; and all these facts,
taken together, suggest that the drawing was made by someone accustomed
to making accurate mechanical drawings. And now we will return to Mr.
Barlow. He was out when I called, but I took the liberty of glancing
round the office, and this is what I saw. On the mantelshelf was a
twelve-inch flat boxwood rule, such as engineers use, a piece of soft,
red rubber, and a stone bottle of Draper's dichroic ink. I obtained, by
a simple ruse, a specimen of the office notepaper and the ink.
Pages:
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340