"Almost exactly four inches."
"And are you prepared to affirm that it is part of a hat-pin, and not a complete pin of a shorter length?"
"I am not. The thought did not before occur to me. But as it had no head on it, we assumed that it was probably the half of a broken hat-pin. It is by no means the first instance on record of using a hat-pin as a murderous weapon."
"No," said Fleming Stone; "and yet that does not prove it a hat-pin. May it not have been a shawl-pin, or some shorter pin that women use in their costumes?"
"It may have been," said I; "but women do not wear shawls nowadays. At any rate, any pin of that length would seem to indicate a woman's crime."
"Well, as a rule," said Fleming Stone, smiling, "we men do not pin our garments together; but I dare say almost any man, if he wanted one, could gain possession of such a pin."
How true this was, and how foolish we had been to assume that a woman's pin must have meant a woman's crime! A picture passed through my mind of Laura's dressing-table, where I could have procured any kind of a pin, with no trouble whatever.
"Moreover," went on Fleming Stone, "the great majority of hat-pins used in America will not break. They will bend, as they are usually made of iron, though occasionally of steel."
I looked at the man with growing admiration. How widespread was his knowledge, and how logical his deduction!