, of Stepney, the source and origin of busts.
I shall be surprised if we don't get some help down there."
In rapid succession we passed through the fringe of fashionable
London, hotel London, theatrical London, literary London,
commercial London, and, finally, maritime London, till we came
to a riverside city of a hundred thousand souls, where the
tenement houses swelter and reek with the outcasts of Europe.
Here, in a broad thoroughfare, once the abode of wealthy City
merchants, we found the sculpture works for which we searched.
Outside was a considerable yard full of monumental masonry.
Inside was a large room in which fifty workers were carving or
moulding. The manager, a big blond German, received us civilly,
and gave a clear answer to all Holmes's questions. A reference
to his books showed that hundreds of casts had been taken from
a marble copy of Devine's head of Napoleon, but that the three
which had been sent to Morse Hudson a year or so before had been
half of a batch of six, the other three being sent to Harding
Brothers, of Kensington. There was no reason why those six
should be different to any of the other casts.
Pages:
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327