We sat and looked dumbfounded. For there, before our eyes, he dangled a worn brown shoe-lace!
“By Moses!” yelled the Inspector. “It’s our man after all.”
Webb looked astounded. “Wot d’ye mean?” he stammered. “Wot are yer drivin’ at now?” Baddeley eyed him severely.
“This lace, Webb, where did you get it from?”
“Ask me another,” came the reply. “To tell the ’onest truth, guvnor, I never knew it was there. Must be an old ’un I’ve ’ad in my pocket some time and forgotten. Seems to have poked the breeze up yer though! Am I charged with pinchin’ that, too?”
The Inspector’s eyes never left Webb’s face. “Mr. Gerald Prescott, a guest here of Sir Charles Considine, was found murdered this morning by Marshall, a maid. His body....”
Webb’s eyes blazed at him with a mixture of defiance and fear. “Wot’s that you say? By who?” he blurted out.
“By Marshall, I said,” rattled back Baddeley. “Would you prefer me to say, by Mrs. Webb?”
As the full significance of his statement sank into the “Spider’s” mind his face blanched with terror. “She found him ... murdered ...” he muttered. “How was he done in?”
“He was strangled,” responded his accuser. “Strangled by such a thing as a shoe-lace. A shoe-lace like this.” He held it in front of him.