Mr. Stone took the pin, glanced at it a moment, and then, taking a magnifying-glass from his pocket, examined it carefully.
"It is not a hat-pin," he said, "nor is it part of a hat-pin. The pin as you see it there is its full length. The head has been removed, not accidentally, but purposely. It had been removed, and carefully, before the pin was used as a weapon."
"May I ask how you know this, sir?" asked the coroner respectfully.
"Certainly," said Stone, in his affable way. "If you will look at the end of the pin through this glass, you will see unmistakable signs that the head has been removed. For about an eighth of an inch you note a slight discoloration, caused by the attaching of the glass head. You also see on one side a minute portion of glass still adhering to the steel. Had the head been accidentally or carelessly broken off, it is probable that more glass would have adhered to the pin. The head was therefore purposely and carefully removed, perhaps by smashing it with something heavy or by stepping on it. The fragment of glass that is attached to the pin is, as you may see if you will hold it up to the light, of a violet color. The pin, therefore, I'm prepared to assert, is one of the pins which first-class florists give away with bunches of violets bought at their shops. I have never seen these pins with violet-colored heads used for any other purpose, though it is not impossible that they may be. I say a first-class florist, because it is only they who use this style of pin; the smaller shops give black-headed ones. But the larger flower dealers make a specialty of using purple tin-foil for their violet bunches, tying them with purple cord or ribbon, and placing them in a purple pasteboard box. To harmonize with this color scheme, they have of late years provided these violet-headed flower pins. All this is of importance in our quest, for it ought to be easier to trace a violet pin than the more universally used hat-pin."
How different Fleming Stone's manner from the bumptious and know-it-all air of the average detective! He was quite willing to share any information which he gained, and seemed to treat his fellow-workers as his equals in perspicacity and cleverness.
We had learned something, to be sure. But as the coroner had no other objects of evidence to show us, and there seemed nothing more to be learned from the pin, Fleming Stone turned into the street, and I followed him.
"Could not the head have been broken off after the pin was used to commit the murder?" I inquired.
"No," said Stone; "it would be impossible to break off a glass head with one's fingers under such conditions. It could have been done by some instrument, but that is not likely. And then, too, there would probably have been bits of glass on the pillow."
"Bits of glass!" I exclaimed. "Bits of violet-colored glass! Why, man alive, I have them in my pocket now!"