It was that of a hunter, standing as though he had just delivered a shot, and was peering to see the effect. The butt of his gun projected behind him, and as Dr. Warren moved the statue into the light of the jewelry store chandeliers, they all saw, clinging to the stock of the gun, some straggling, white hairs.
"That's what did it!" exclaimed the county physician. "I'll wager, when I try, I can fit that gun butt into the depression of the fracture. The burglar—or whoever it was—swung this statue as a club. It would make a deadly one, using the foot end for a handle," and Dr. Warren waved the ornament in the air over the dead woman's head to illustrate what he meant.
"Don't!" muttered Darcy in a strained voice.
"Don't what?" asked the physician sharply.
"Use the statue that way."
"Why not?"
"Well—er—I—we were going to buy it for our new home. But now— Oh, I never want to see it in the house! I couldn't bear to look at it—nor could she!"
"She? We? What do you mean?" asked Carroll quickly. "Say, do you know something about this killing that you're keeping back from us?"
He took a step nearer Darcy—a threatening step it would seem, from the fact that the jewelry worker drew back as if in alarm.
"No, I don't know anything," said Darcy in a low voice.