“That’s just it; if you disprove them, I’m covered with shame and confusion at having hinted them.”
“All right, I’ll do the hinting. Or, rather, I’ll speak right out. What did you do with the paper-cutter from your library table,—I see there is an empty sheath still there?”
“That?” and Miss Prall glanced casually at the sheath in question.
“The paper-knife was broken and I gave it to Sir Herbert Binney, who had promised to get it mended for me at some specialty place he knew of. Why?”
“Because that was, probably, the weapon that killed him.”
If Gibbs had expected any sudden telltale blush or confusion on Miss Prall’s part, he must have been disappointed, for she only said:
“Indeed! How could that happen?”
“I don’t know, but the knife has been found, in peculiar circumstances, and I’d like to know just when you gave it to him to get it mended.”
“Oh, I don’t know; several days before his death. Perhaps four or five days, or a week. Go on.”
“The knife,—if that was the one,—was driven into the body in such a way as to make it likely that the hand that thrust it was the hand of some one experienced in surgical lore——”