He was full of some news of his own, so we listened to him first.
“It’s about that sound Ames heard,” he told us. “You know he said, after several false starts, that it was like a stick drawn along a wall.
“Well, it occurred to me that, if it was anything at all, it might be the murderer trailing along, with his hammer and nail in his hand, and if the hall was dark, feeling along the walls and doors to guide him.”
“Rather far-fetched.” I smiled.
“Well, the only way to see about it was to look on the door of Ames’s room and there, sure enough, was a long scratch, as if a nail or something had been dragged along it. A distinct scratch, but only across the door—at least, I could find no other such mark. So, me for the Coroner’s office to look over the exhibits. And, if you please, with a powerful lens, I discovered some minute particles of dark varnish in under the head of that nail that played the principal part in our death drama.”
“Seems incredible,” I murmured, and indeed it did.
“Yes, but true,” Kee averred. “And the brown varnish corresponds exactly to the door of Ames’s room, all the doors in that wing, in fact.”
“Well, after all, what does it prove?” I asked, wearily, wondering what new horror was to be divulged.
“Only premeditation. It proves that the murderer went to Tracy’s room, passing by Ames’s room, carrying the nail with him, and presumably the hammer. That’s all I can see in it, but it lends a bit of colour to Maud’s idea that the story of The Nail may have been responsible for the whole thing.”
“Yes,” I said, holding myself together, “it does. But of course, even though we found that book at the house on the Island, there are several inmates of that house who may become suspect; also there is the possibility that one of those inmates may have lent that book to anybody in all Deep Lake.”