The Pursuit of the House-Boat | Page 5

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
marline-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 I have never made public, because it involves
a secret affecting the integrity of one of the noblest families in the
British Empire. I really believe that mystery was solved easily and at
once because I happened to remember that the number of my watch
was 86507B. How trivial a thing, and yet how important it was, as the
event 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?"
[Illustration: "POOR OLD BOSWELL WAS PUSHED
OVERBOARD"]
"I am about to tell you," returned the stranger; "and it must be