or, and we entered together; but, after
a momentary glance at the ghostly, shrouded figure lying upon the slate
table, Stopford turned pale and retreated, saying that he would wait for
us outside with the mortuary-keeper.

As soon as the door was closed and locked on the inside, Thorndyke
glanced curiously round the bare, whitewashed building. A stream of
sunlight poured in through the skylight, and fell upon the silent form
that lay so still under its covering-sheet, and one stray beam glanced
into a corner by the door, where, on a row of pegs and a deal table, the
dead woman's clothing was displayed.

"There is something unspeakably sad in these poor relics, Jervis," said
Thorndyke, as we stood before them. "To me they are more tragic, more
full of pathetic suggestion, than the corpse itself. See the smart,
jaunty hat, and the costly skirts hanging there, so desolate and
forlorn; the dainty _lingerie_ on the table, neatly folded--by the
mortuary-man's wife, I hope--the little French shoes and open-work silk
stockings. How pathetically eloquent they are of harmless, womanly
vanity, and the gay, careless life, snapped short in the twinkling of an
eye. But we must not give way to sentiment. There is another life
threatened, and it is in our keeping."

He lifted the hat from its peg, and turned it over in his hand. It was,
I think, what is called a "picture-hat"--a huge, flat, shapeless mass of
gauze and ribbon and feather, spangled over freely with dark-blue
sequins. In one part of the brim was a ragged hole, and from this the
glittering sequins dropped off in little showers when the hat was moved.

"This will have been worn tilted over on the left side," said Thorndyke,
"judging by the general shape and the position of the hole."

"Yes," I agreed. "Like that of the Duchess of Devonshire in
Gainsborough's portrait."

"Exactly."

He shook a few of the sequins into the palm of his hand, and, replacing
the hat on its peg, dropped the little discs into an envelope, on which
he wrote, "From the hat," and slipped it into his pocket. Then, stepping
over to the table, he drew back the sheet reverently and even tenderly
from the dead woman's face, and looked down at it with grave pity. It
was a comely face, white as marble, serene and peaceful in expression,
with half-closed eyes, and framed with a mass of brassy, yellow hair;
but its beauty was marred by a long linear wound, half cut, half bruise,
running down the right