Thorndyke took the bead and examined it curiously.

"It is certainly," he said, "a very odd thing to find in the bedroom of
an old bachelor like Jeffrey, especially as we know that he employed no
woman to look after his rooms. Of course, it may be a relic of the last
tenant. Let us see if there are any more."

We renewed our search, crawling under the bed and throwing the light of
the lamp in all directions over the floor. The result was the discovery
of three more beads, one entire bugle and the crushed remains of
another, which had apparently been trodden on. All of these, including
the fragments of the bugle that had been crushed, Thorndyke placed
carefully on the paper, which he laid on the dressing-table the more
conveniently to examine our find.

"I am sorry," said he, "that there are no more fragments of the
watch-glass, or whatever it was. The broken pieces were evidently picked
up, with the exception of the one that I trod on, which was an isolated
fragment that had been overlooked. As to the beads, judging by their
number and the position in which we found some of them--that crushed
bugle, for instance--they must have been dropped during Jeffrey's
tenancy and probably quite recently."

"What sort of garment do you suppose they came from?" I asked.

"They may have been part of a beaded veil or the trimming of a dress,
but the grouping rather suggests to me a tag of bead fringe. The colour
is rather unusual."

"I thought they looked like black beads."