`Sit down, everybody!' Hadley said, sharply. `This place is turning into a madhouse. You're certain of that, Mrs Bitton?'
She seemed to recover herself from an almost hypnotized stare at the bright steel
‘I., I mean… of course I can't; say. Things like that are on sale at Carcassonne, and hundreds of people must buy them.'
`Quite,' Hadley agreed, dryly. `However, you bought one just like it. Where did you keep it?'
`I honestly don't know. I haven't seen it for months. I remember when we returned from the trip I ran across it in the baggage and thought, "Now, why on earth did I buy that stupid thing?" My impression is that I chucked it away somewhere.'
Hadley turned the bolt over in his hand, weighing it. Then he felt the point and sides of the head,
`Mrs Bitton, the point, and barb are as sharp as a knife. Was it like that when you bought it?'
`Good Lord, no! It was very blunt. You couldn't possibly have cut yourself with it.'
`As a matter of fact,' said the chief inspector, holding the head close, 'I think it's been filed and whetted. And there's something else. Has anybody got a lens?… Ah, thanks; Hamper.' He took the small magnifying glass which the sergeant passed over, and tilted up the bolt to scrutinize the engraving along the side. `Somebody has been trying to efface this Souvenir de Carcassonne thing with a file. H'm. And it isn't as though the person had given it up as a bad job. The s-o-u part is blurred and filed almost out, systematically. It's as though the person had been interrupted and hadn't finished his job.'
He put down the bolt glumly. Dr Watson, having evidently satisfied himself that nobody was in a joking mood, had grown more amiable.