“There’s a very deep mystery here!” Cray soliloquized, as he returned to the Waring house. “But I’m getting light on it.”
Cray was far from lacking in ingenuity, and he proceeded at once to compare the finger prints he had of Anita Austin with the prints on the small black-framed chair that had been found drawn up to the desk chair of John Waring.
They were identical and Cray mused over the fact.
“That girl was here that night,” he decided; “there’s no gainsaying that.” He called the butler to him.
“Ito,” he began, “did you let in any one late Sunday night—after you came home?”
“No, sir,” the imperturbable Jap declared, thinking the question foolish, as all the inquirers knew the details of his Sunday evening movements.
“Do you remember seeing this chair, Monday morning?”
“Distinctly. I saw Mr. Lockwood smoothing its back.”
“Smoothing its back! What do you mean?”
“I looked through from the dining-room window, to see if Mr. Lockwood was coming to breakfast, and I perceived him carefully smoothing the plush of the little chair, sir.”