"I have made a hobby of the study of cigar ends," said the stranger, as the Associated Shades settled back to hear his account of himself.
"From my earliest youth, when I used surreptitiously to remove the unsmoked ends of my father's cigars and break them up, and, in hiding, smoke them in an old clay pipe which I had presented to me by an ancient sea-captain of my acquaintance, I have been interested in tobacco in all forms, even including these self-same despised unsmoked ends; for they convey to my mind messages, sentiments, farces, comedies, and tragedies which to your minds would never become manifest through their agency."The company drew closer together and formed themselves in a more compact mass about the speaker.It was evident that they were beginning to feel an unusual interest in this extraordinary person, who had come among them unheralded and unknown.Even Shylock stopped calculating percentages for an instant to listen.
"Do you mean to tell us," demanded Shakespeare, "that the unsmoked stub of a cigar will suggest the story of him who smoked it to your mind?""I do," replied the stranger, with a confident smile."Take this one, for instance, that I have picked up here upon the wharf; it tells me the whole story of the intentions of Captain Kidd at the moment when, in utter disregard of your rights, he stepped aboard your House-boat, and, in his usual piratical fashion, made off with it into unknown seas.""But how do you know he smoked it?" asked Solomon, who deemed it the part of wisdom to be suspicious of the stranger.
"There are two curious indentations in it which prove that.The marks of two teeth, with a hiatus between, which you will see if you look closely," said the stranger, handing the small bit of tobacco to Sir Walter, "make that point evident beyond peradventure.The Captain lost an eye-tooth in one of his later raids; it was knocked out by a marine-spike which had been hurled at him by one of the crew of the treasure-ship he and his followers had attacked.The adjacent teeth were broken, but not removed.The cigar end bears the marks of those two jagged molars, with the hiatus, which, as I have indicated, is due to the destruction of the eye-tooth between them.It is not likely that there was another man in the pirate's crew with teeth exactly like the commander's, therefore I say there can be no doubt that the cigar end was that of the Captain himself.""Very interesting indeed," observed Blackstone, removing his wig and fanning himself with it; "but I must confess, Mr.Chairman, that in any properly constituted law court this evidence would long since have been ruled out as irrelevant and absurd.The idea of two or three hundred dignified spirits like ourselves, gathered together to devise a means for the recovery of our property and the rescue of our wives, yielding the floor to the delivering of a lecture by an entire stranger on 'Cigar Ends He Has Met,' strikes me as ridiculous in the extreme.Of what earthly interest is it to us to know that this or that cigar was smoked by Captain Kidd?""Merely that it will help us on, your honor, to discover the whereabouts of the said Kidd," interposed the stranger."It is by trifles, seeming trifles, that the greatest detective work is done.
My friends Le Coq, Hawkshaw, and Old Sleuth will bear me out in this, I think, however much in other respects our methods may have differed.They left no stone unturned in the pursuit of a criminal;no detail, however trifling, uncared for.No more should we in the present instance overlook the minutest bit of evidence, however irrelevant and absurd at first blush it may appear to be.The truth of what I say was very effectually proven in the strange case of the Brokedale tiara, in which I figured somewhat conspicuously, but which have never made public, because it involves a secret affecting the integrity of one of the noblest families in the British Empire.Ireally believe that mystery was solved easily and at once because Ihappened to remember that the number of my watch was 86507B.How trivial and yet how important it was, to what then transpired, you will realize when I tell you the incident."The stranger's manner was so impressive that there was a unanimous and simultaneous movement upon the part of all present to get up closer, so as the more readily to hear what he said, as a result of which poor old Boswell was pushed overboard, and fell, with a loud splash into the Styx.Fortunately, however, one of Charon's pleasure-boats was close at hand, and in a short while the dripping, sputtering spirit was drawn into it, wrung out, and sent home to dry.
The excitement attending this diversion having subsided, Solomon asked:
"What was the incident of the lost tiara?""I am about to tell you," returned the stranger; "and it must be understood that you are told in the strictest confidence, for, as Isay, the incident involves a state secret of great magnitude.In life--in the mortal life--gentlemen, I was a detective by profession, and, if I do say it, who perhaps should not, I was one of the most interesting for purely literary purposes that has ever been known.Idid not find it necessary to go about saying 'Ha! ha!' as M.Le Coq was accustomed to do to advertise his cleverness; neither did Idisguise myself as a drum-major and hide under a kitchen-table for the purpose of solving a mystery involving the abduction of a parlor stove, after the manner of the talented Hawkshaw.By mental concentration alone, without fireworks or orchestral accompaniment of any sort whatsoever, did I go about my business, and for that very reason many of my fellow-sleuths were forced to go out of real detective work into that line of the business with which the stage has familiarized the most of us--a line in which nothing but stupidity, luck, and a yellow wig is required of him who pursues it.""This man is an impostor," whispered Le Coq to Hawkshaw.
"I've known that all along by the mole on his left wrist," returned Hawkshaw, contemptuously.
