"And it was he who shrieked when the door of the showroom opened. The
out-cry of a deaf-mute, if you have ever heard one, has the same
squawking, senseless sound as that of a psittaceous bird like the
parrot or cockatoo."
"But," said Pendleton, "the fact that the man who scrawled these signs
upon the step _was_ a deaf-mute, scarcely justifies the eccentricity
of the thing. Why did he not use a pencil, as you have done?"
"I can't say exactly, of course. But did it never happen that you were
without a pencil at a time when you needed one rather urgently?"
"This thing has sort of knocked me off my balance, I suppose," said
Pendleton, rather bewildered. "Don't expect too much of me, Kirk." He
stuffed his hands in his pockets dejectedly and continued: "You now
tell me that this man was a mute. Yesterday you said he was small,
that he was near-sighted, that he was well dressed and knew something
of the modern German dramatists. You also told the conductor that he
wore thick glasses and a silk hat. Now, I suppose I'm all kinds of an
idiot for not understanding how you know these things about a man you
never saw. But I confess it candidly; I _don't_ understand."
"It all belongs to my method of work," said Ashton-Kirk.
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