THE ALUMINUM DAGGER
THE SAND FROM THE MURDERED WOMAN'S PILLOW
HUMAN HAIR, SHOWING ROOTS
SUPERINTENDENT MILLER RISES TO THE OCCASION




JOHN THORNDYKE'S CASES


I

THE MAN WITH THE NAILED SHOES


There are, I suppose, few places even on the East Coast of England more
lonely and remote than the village of Little Sundersley and the country
that surrounds it. Far from any railway, and some miles distant from any
considerable town, it remains an outpost of civilization, in which
primitive manners and customs and old-world tradition linger on into an
age that has elsewhere forgotten them. In the summer, it is true, a
small contingent of visitors, adventurous in spirit, though mostly of
sedate and solitary habits, make their appearance to swell its meagre
population, and impart to the wide stretches of smooth sand that fringe
its shores a fleeting air of life and sober gaiety; but in late
September--the season of the year in which I made its acquaintance--its
pasture-lands lie desolate, the rugged paths along the cliffs are seldom
trodden by human foot, and the sands are a desert waste on which, for
days together, no footprint appears save that left by some passing