"Useful stuff, this Fortafix," he remarked; "it makes excellent casts,
and saves the trouble and mess of mixing plaster, which is a
consideration for small work like this. By the way, if you want to know
what was on that poor girl's pillow, just take a peep through the
microscope. It is rather a pretty specimen."
I stepped across, and applied my eye to the instrument. The specimen
was, indeed, pretty in more than a technical sense. Mingled with
crystalline grains of quartz, glassy spicules, and water-worn fragments
of coral, were a number of lovely little shells, some of the texture of
fine porcelain, others like blown Venetian glass.
[Illustration: THE SAND FROM THE MURDERED WOMAN'S PILLOW, MAGNIFIED 25
DIAMETERS.]
"These are Foraminifera!" I exclaimed.
"Yes."
"Then it is not silver sand, after all?"
"Certainly not."
"But what is it, then?"
Thorndyke smiled. "It is a message to us from the deep sea, Jervis;
from the floor of the Eastern Mediterranean."
"And can you read the message?"
"I think I can," he replied, "but I shall know soon, I hope."
I looked down the microscope again, and wondered what message these tiny
shells had conveyed to my friend.
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