"I think we at last have the right man, Sergeant," he said. "Sit down, and I'll go over the matter with you in a moment. There are one or two things I want to attend to first."
He handed Major Benson's pistol to the fire-arms expert.
"Look that gun over, Captain, and tell me if there's any way of identifying it as the weapon that killed Benson."
Hagedorn moved ponderously to the window. Laying the pistol on the sill, he took several tools from the pockets of his voluminous coat, and placed them beside the weapon. Then, adjusting a jeweller's magnifying glass to his eye, he began what seemed an interminable series of tinkerings. He opened the plates of the stock, and drawing back the sear, took out the firing-pin. He removed the slide, unscrewed the link, and extracted the recoil spring. I thought he was going to take the weapon entirely apart, but apparently he merely wanted to let light into the barrel; for presently he held the gun to the window and placed his eye at the muzzle. He peered into the barrel for nearly five minutes, moving it slightly back and forth to catch the reflection of the sun on different points of the interior.
At last, without a word, he slowly and painstakingly went through the operation of redintegrating the weapon. Then he lumbered back to his chair, and sat blinking heavily for several moments.
"I'll tell you," he said, thrusting his head forward and gazing at Markham over the tops of his steel-rimmed spectacles. "This, now, may be the right gun. I wouldn't say for sure. But when I saw the
