As Thorndyke was still occupied in browsing inquisitively round the room, I proceeded to make a preliminary inspection of the heaps of dust, picking out the hairs and other recognizable objects with my pocket forceps, and putting them on a separate sheet of paper. Of the former, the bulk were pretty obviously those of the late tenant--white or dull black male hairs--but Mrs. Runt had contributed quite liberally, for I picked out of the various heaps over a dozen long hairs, the mousy brown colour of which seemed to identify them as hers. The remainder were mostly ordinary male hairs of various colours, eyebrow hairs and eyelashes, of no special interest, with one exception. This was a black hair which lay flat on the paper in a close coil, like a tiny watch-spring. “I wonder who this negro was,” said I, inspecting it through my lens. “Probably some African or West Indian Law student,” Thorndyke suggested. “There are always a good many about the Inns of Court.” He came round to examine my collection, and while he was viewing the negro hair with the aid of my lens, I renewed my investigations of the little dust-heaps. Presently I made a new discovery. “Why,” I exclaimed, “here is another of Badger’s boot-laces--another piece of the same one, I think. By the way, did you ascertain what that boot-lace really was?” “Yes,” he replied. “Polton made a section of it and mounted it; and furthermore, he made a magnified photograph of it. I have the photograph in my pocket, so you can answer your own question.” He produced from his letter-case a half-plate print which he handed to me and which I examined curiously. “It is a singular object,” said I, “but I don’t quite make it out. It looks rather like a bundle of hairs embedded in some transparent substance.” “That, in effect,” he replied, “is what it is. It is an elephant’s hair, probably from the tail. But, as you see, it is a compound hair; virtually a group of hairs agglutinated into a single stem. Most very large hairs are compound. A tiger’s whiskers, for instance, are large, stiff hairs which, if cut across, are seen to be formed of several largish hairs fused together; and the colossal hair which grows on the nose of the rhinoceros--the so-called nasal horn--is made up of thousands of subordinate hairs.” “It is a remarkable-looking thing,” I said, handing back the photograph; “very distinctive--if you happen to know what it is. But the mystery is how on earth it came here. There are no elephants in the Temple.”