And it will be good discipline even if the fact turns out to mean nothing." At this moment he stepped back suddenly, and, looking down at the floor, said: "Give me the lamp, Jervis, I've trodden on something that felt like glass." I brought the lamp to the place where he had been standing, close by the bed, and we both knelt on the floor, throwing the light of the lamp on the bare and dusty boards.

Under the bed, just within reach of the foot of a person standing close by, was a little patch of fragments of glass.

Thorndyke produced a piece of paper from his pocket and delicately swept the little fragments on to it, remarking: "By the look of things, I am not the first person who has trodden on that object, whatever it is.

Do you mind holding the lamp while I inspect the remains ?" I took the lamp and held it over the paper while he examined the little heap of glass through his lens.
"Well," I asked.

"What have you found ?" "That is what I am asking myself," he replied.