nd tapped
it with his finger, while the solicitor and Mr. Felton stared at him in
speechless wonder. "You notice it is a left horn, and you remember that
it was highly sensitive. If you put your ear to it while I strain it,
you will hear the grating of a fracture in the bony core. Now look at
the pointed end, and you will see several deep scratches running
lengthwise, and where those scratches end the diameter of the horn is,
as you see by this calliper-gauge, one inch and seven-sixteenths.
Covering the scratches is a dry blood-stain, and at the extreme tip is a
small mass of a dried substance which Dr. Jervis and I have examined
with the microscope and are satisfied is brain tissue."

"Good God!" exclaimed Stopford eagerly. "Do you mean to say--"

"Let us finish with the facts, Mr. Stopford," Thorndyke interrupted.
"Now, if you look closely at that blood-stain, you will see a short
piece of hair stuck to the horn, and through this lens you can make out
the root-bulb. It is a golden hair, you notice, but near the root it is
black, and our calliper-gauge shows us that the black portion is
fourteen sixty-fourths of an inch long. Now, in this envelope are some
hairs that I removed from the dead woman's head. They also are golden
hairs, black at the roots, and when I measure the black portion I find
it to be fourteen sixty-fourths of an inch long. Then, finally, there is
this."

He turned the horn over, and pointed to a small patch of dried blood.
Embedded in it was a blue sequin.

Mr. Stopford and the butcher both gazed at the horn in silent amazement;
then the former drew a deep breath and looked up at Thorndyke.

"No doubt," said he, "you can explain this mystery, but for my part I am
utterly bewildered, though you are filling me with hope."

"And yet the matter is quite simple," returned Thorndyke, "even with
these few facts before us, which are only a selection from the body of
evidence in our possession. But I will state my theory, and you shall
judge." He rapidly sketched a rough plan on a sheet of paper, and
continued: "These were the conditions when the train was approaching
Woldhurst: Here was the passenger-coach, here was the burning rick, and
here was a cattle-truck. This steer was in that truck. Now my hypothesis
is that at that time Miss Grant was standing with her head out of the
off-side window, watching the burning rick. Her wide hat, worn on the
left side, hid from her view the cattle-truck which she