But the table and the chair are fairly new and comparatively
clean. The ladder is covered with dust and there is a cobweb under
the top rung of it. That means that he borrowed the first two quite
recently from some cottage, as we supposed, but the ladder has been
a long time in this rotten old dustbin. Probably it was part of the
original furniture, an heirloom in this magnificent palace of the
Irish kings."
Again Fisher looked at him under his eyelids, but seemed too sleepy
to speak, and Wilson went on with his argument.
"Now it's quite clear that something very odd has just happened in
this place. The chances are ten to one, it seems to me, that it had
something specially to do with this place. Probably he came here
because he could do it only here; it doesn't seem very inviting
otherwise. But the man knew it of old; they say it belonged to his
family, so that altogether, I think, everything points to something
in the construction of the tower itself."
"Your reasoning seems to me excellent," said Sir Walter, who was
listening attentively. "But what could it be?"
"You see now what I mean about the ladder," went on the detective;
"it's the only old piece of furniture here and the first thing that
caught that cockney eye of mine. But there is something else.
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