But the third fact that I observed was
still more conclusive. The hairs of which that little tress was composed
had not been pulled out at all. They had fallen out spontaneously. They
were, in fact, shed hairs--probably combings. Let me explain the
difference. When a hair is shed naturally, it drops out of the little
tube in the skin called the root sheath, having been pushed out by the
young hair growing up underneath; the root end of such a shed hair shows
nothing but a small bulbous enlargement--the root bulb. But when a hair
is forcibly pulled out, its root drags out the root sheath with it, and
this can be plainly seen as a glistening mass on the end of the hair. If
Miriam Goldstein will pull out a hair and pass it to me, I will show you
the great difference between hair which is pulled out and hair which is
shed."
[Illustration: _A_, SHED HAIRS SHOWING THE NAKED BULB, MAGNIFIED 32
DIAMETERS.
_B_, HAIRS PLUCKED FROM SCALP, SHOWING THE ADHERENT ROOT-SHEATHS,
MAGNIFIED 20 DIAMETERS.]
The unfortunate Miriam needed no pressing. In a twinkling she had
tweaked out a dozen hairs, which a constable handed across to Thorndyke,
by whom they were at once fixed in a paper-clip.
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