The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5666]
"Are you sure?" asked Dunbar.
"Certain. If you care to call at my place later to-day I can show you some _cash._ Bring the envelope with you and you will see that the coins correspond to the impression in the wax. The inscriptions vary in different provinces, but the form of all _cash_ is the same."
"Very good. Thanks for letting me know at once. It seems to establish a link with China, don't you think?"
"It does, but it merely adds to the mystery."
Coming out of the call-box, Stuart proceeded home, but made one or two professional visits before he actually returned to the house. He now remembered having left this particular _cash_ piece (which he usually carried) in his dispensary, which satisfactorily accounted fro his failure to find the coin in his waistcoat pocket. He had broken the cork of a flask, and in the absence of another of correct size had manufactured a temporary stopper with a small cork to the top of which he had fixed the Chinese coin with a drawing-pin. His purpose served he had left the extemporized stopper somewhere in the dispensary.
Stuart's dispensary was merely a curtained recess at one end of the waiting-room and shortly after entering the house he had occasion to visit it. Lying upon a shelf among flasks and bottles was the Chinese coin with the cork still attached. He took it up in order to study the inscription. Then:
"Have I cultivated somnambulism!" he muttered.
Fragments of black sealing-wax adhered to the coin!
Incredulous and half fearful he peered at it closely. He remembered that the impression upon the wax sealing the mysterious envelope had had a circular depression in the centre. It had been made by the head of the drawing-pin!
He found himself at the shelf immediately above that upon which the coin had lain. A stick of black sealing wax used for sealing medicine was thrust in beside a bundle of long envelopes in which he was accustomed to post his Infirmary reports!
One hand raised to his head, Stuart stood endeavouring to marshal his ideas into some sane order. Then, knowing what he should find, he raised the green baize curtain hanging from the lower shelf, which concealed a sort of cupboard containing miscellaneous stores and not a little rubbish, including a number of empty cardboard boxes.
A rectangular strip had been roughly cut from the lid of the topmost box!
The mysterious envelope and its contents, the wax and the seal--all had come from his own dispensary!
CHAPTER X
"CLOSE YOUR SHUTTERS AT NIGHT"
Inspector Dunbar stood in the little dispensary tapping his teeth with the end of a fountain-pen.
"The last time he visited you, doctor--the time when he gave you the envelope--did the cabman wait here in the waiting-room?"
"He did--yes. He came after my ordinary consulting hours and I was at supper, I remember, as I am compelled to dine early."
"He would be in here alone?"
"Yes. No one else was in the room."
"Would he have had time to find the box, cut out the piece of cardboard from the lid, put it in the envelope and seal it?"
"Ample time. But what could be his object? And why mark the envelope 30?"
"It was in your consulting-room that he asked you to take charge of the envelope?"
"Yes."
"Might I take a peep at the consulting room?"
"Certainly, Inspector."
From the waiting-room they went up a short flight of stairs into the small apartment in which Stuart saw his patients. Dunbar looked slowly about him, standing in the middle of the room, then crossed and stared out of the window into the narrow lane below.
"Where were you when he gave you the envelope?" he snapped suddenly.
"At the table," replied Stuart with surprise.
"Was the table-lamp alight?"
"Yes. I always light it when seeing patients."
"Did you take the letter into the study to seal it in the other envelope?"
"I did, and he came along and witnessed me do