"You found it?"
H.M. reached into his trousers pocket. He took out the rubber dagger, flimsy and tawdry-looking against sunlight, its scratched silver paint showing shreds and patches of darker rubber beneath. He bent it back and forth.
"Where did you find that thing, sir?"
"In the sofa. Poked down between the bottom and back cushions, out of sight. On the same sofa where Mrs. Fane was lyin' afterwards, presumably hypnotized."
The ensuing pause, as they all envisaged Vicky Fane lying there, was not more sinister than Masters' rather affable voice.
"You don't tell me now?" inquired the chief inspector, taking the dagger from H.M. and examining it. "And when did you find it there?" "Last night."
"Last night? Then why in blazes couldn't you have said something about it?"
H.M. scratched the side of his nose.
"For the same reason I'm not awful keen on showing it now. Masters, the idea is a beauty. I admit that. Woman gets herself (apparently) hypnotized. Then polishes off her husband. And everybody thinks, as you say, that the murderer is the only person who can't possibly be guilty."
"The idea," breathed Ann, "is horrid and fascinating at the same time. It would be rather awful, wouldn't it, if somebody we thought figured in one role really figured in exactly the opposite role?"