Arriving at the head of the stairs, I first gave my attention to the étagère. This piece of furniture was simply a pedestal of shelves, without sides, front, or back, so that to tilt it in any direction far out of the perpendicular would mean to spill its burden of old newspapers and periodicals.
Maybe it would have been convenient in a music-room, but situated where it was it was certainly in the way of anybody using the stairs. If a person unfamiliar with the house should ascend the stairs in the dark, the instant he turned at the top he must almost inevitably collide with it—a circumstance which I was to have brought home to me a few nights later, with consequences which missed being fatal by only the slenderest of margins. But after all, I concluded, if a stranger missed it only by a miracle it might have served a double purpose here; no one slept in the second story, ordinarily, and it would make a good burglar alarm, as well as a repository for the iron candlestick and the sea-shell match receptacle.
From the point where it now leaned against the balusters back to the lateral corridor or hall, there were many little details to arrest and stimulate my curiosity. The carpet between these two points plainly showed signs of a recent struggle, and at the western vortex of the angle formed by the balustrade surrounding the stair-well, innumerable drops of congealed paraffin were scattered widely over the floor.
And the railing itself also held a record. Stout as were the uprights sustaining it, it had received the impact of a body sufficiently heavy to throw it askew. At this point on the railing there was a deep triangular dent, destined to assume a high place in solving the problem of Felix Page's murder.
When I stood directly in front of the bath room door, I could look down over the balustrade to the landing—the body had been removed to a more suitable place—and I could also see the front door and most of the first-floor hall.
A dozen or so feet west of the stair-well two doors opened upon the lateral passage. They were directly opposite each other; the front room having been the one occupied by Maillot the previous night, while the other was Burke's.
Now as I allowed my glance to rove along the dim-lighted hall in the direction of the two bed-chambers, it was at once arrested by some small—and at the distance, indistinguishable—object lying in the centre of the floor a few feet beyond the two doors. I went and picked it up.
It was the shabby leather jewel-case.
But now it bore many indications of extremely rough usage. It was not only open, but empty; the lid was bent, twisted out of shape, and hanging precariously by one damaged hinge. The leather was freshly torn and scratched, while the inner lining of faded blue satin had been slit in a number of places. I contrived after some manipulation to get the box into a semblance of its former shape, and then slipped it into a pocket of my coat.
Neither Maillot's room nor Burke's revealed anything of much consequence. In the former I noted the open wardrobe door, and, owing to its position relative to the bed, was obliged to admit the likelihood of Maillot's accident. In the other room, in a small leather satchel, were the papers by which Burke accounted for his presence. They were of no interest to me. I turned them over to Mr. White, who, with the other gentlemen, was just departing.