“One can see by his face that he was stabbed in the back,” remarked Poirot.
Very gently, he turned the dead man over. There, between the shoulder-blades, staining the light fawn overcoat, was a round dark patch. In the middle of it there was a slit in the cloth. Poirot examined it narrowly.
“Have you any idea with what weapon the crime was committed?”
“It was left in the wound.” The commissary reached down a large glass jar. In it was a small object that looked to me more like a paper-knife than anything else. It had a black handle, and a narrow shining blade. The whole thing was not more than ten inches long. Poirot tested the discoloured point gingerly with his finger tip.
“Ma foi! but it is sharp! A nice easy little tool for murder!”
“Unfortunately, we could find no trace of fingerprints on it,” remarked Bex regretfully. “The murderer must have worn gloves.”
“Of course he did,” said Poirot contemptuously. “Even in Santiago they know enough for that. The veriest amateur of an English Mees knows it—thanks to the publicity the Bertillon system has been given in the Press. All the same, it interests me very much that there were no finger-prints. It is so amazingly simple to leave the finger-prints of some one else! And then the police are happy.” He shook his head. “I very much fear our criminal is not a man of method—either that or he was pressed for time. But we shall see.”
He let the body fall back into its original position.
“He wore only underclothes under his overcoat, I see,” he remarked.
“Yes, the examining magistrate thinks that is rather a curious point.”