“All right, we’ll keep all the flotsam and jetsam—there’s nothing else, but a few beads and a small, trumpery vanity case—not a gold one.
“Mostly women’s stuff.”
“Yes, but men don’t have many loose trifles to shed. Now, what about this white streak on the rug? About six inches long”
“Looks like face powder—probably from that vanity case.”
“Maybe. Now, here’s one spot of blood—poor lady. There was little of that—it was contusion rather than abrasion, though the skin was broken.”
“Reconstruct, Hutchins. Can you see the murderer standing here—or here?”
Dickson seriously moved from spot to spot.
“No,” Hutchins declared positively, “he stood about here. The other side of the table from his victim. I see them quarreling—perhaps she was repelling his advances—and he, in a sudden, uncontrollable fit of anger at some thing she said, fired the thing—almost involuntarily.”
“Yes, it must have been something like that. Now, do you suppose it was Locke?”
“Who else?”
“Why not Charley? Orientals have strong passions.”
“But why would a Chinese servant have anything at all to do with a grand society lady?”
“I don’t know, of course, but he might have. Suppose he had been her butler—and she had unjustly accused him or discharged him—anyway, on the other hand, what could the grand lady have to do with an uncelebrated young artist?”
“Idle speculation, all of it. Let’s take a look at our facts. We have the wife of Andrew Barham murdered at
