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When tea was over, Polly took me to see the guest-chamber in which her husband had offered me a bed. It was a low room in the roof, containing a plain wooden bedstead, one chair, a small wash-hand stand, and a square of looking-glass hanging on the wall.

You don't know a living soul in Rotterdam and no one will be a penny the wiser if you vanish off the face of the earth ... at any rate no one on this side of the water." Starting to undress, I noticed a little door on the left-hand side of the bed. I found it opened into a small cabinet de toilette, a narrow slip of a room with a wash-hand stand and a very dirty window covered with yellow paper.

The bed, which was tumbled and open, seemed to be waiting for somebody; one of the sheets was hanging onto the floor, and wet napkins, with which they had bathed the young man's temples, were lying on the floor, by the side of a wash-hand basin and a glass, while a strong smell of vinegar pervaded the room."

Behind him stood the hostess holding a clean towel with a tiny web of silver thread running across its extremities, and on my right stood the ex-diners with sleeves tucked up, all in a row, waiting their turn at the wash-hand basin.

Suddenly, with a start, he perceived a coiled and blood-stained bandage of linen rag hanging in mid-air, between him and the wash-hand stand. He stared at this in amazement. It was an empty bandage, a bandage properly tied but quite empty. He would have advanced to grasp it, but a touch arrested him, and a voice speaking quite close to him. "Kemp!" said the Voice.

A person can't take a breath of air on the front doorstep but you must be emptying the wash-hand jug on to their heads! Off you go to bed, the lot of you, and try to get up better children in the morning. Now then don't let me have to tell you twice. If I find any of you not in bed in ten minutes I'll let you know it, that's all! A new cap, and everything!

It seems to have been a very deliberate affair." "I should say that he has been dead about three hours, judging by the rigidity of the muscles," said I. "Noticed anything peculiar about the room?" asked Holmes. "Found a screw-driver and some screws on the wash-hand stand. Seems to have smoked heavily during the night, too. Here are four cigar-ends that I picked out of the fireplace."

I see now that this was not quite nice. We cut the candied peel as thin as we wish people would cut our bread-and-butter. We tried to take the stones out of the raisins, but they were too sticky, so we just divided them up in seven lots. Then we mixed the other things in the wash-hand basin from the spare bedroom that was always spare.

Blakeston, in an effort to tear herself away from her husband, had knocked up against the wash-hand stand, and the whole thing had crashed down. 'Go on, John, said the wife. 'No, I ain't goin'; I shan't do no good, an' 'e'll only round on me. 'Well, you are a bloomin' lot of cowards, thet's all I can say, indignantly answered the wife.

She picked up a few tiny pebbles and flung them in a handful at his door. Some spattered on the panes sharply; some dropped dully in the room. One clinked on the wash-hand bowl. There was no response. Beatrice was terribly excited. She ran, with her black eyes blazing, and wisps of her black hair flying about her thin temples, out on to the road.