"Clue number one!" he muttered.
Adam Adams looked around in the water. Soon he came upon the strip of white, and, pulling on it, brought to light a white silk shirtwaist, torn to ribbons in front and at one sleeve. He wrung the water and mud from the garment and examined it. Inside of the collar band were the initials, "M. A. L."
"Margaret A. Langmore," he murmured. "Those initials are hers. If the shirtwaist was hers, how did that fellow get possession of it? And did he place it here or find it here?"
Drying the garment as much as possible, he placed it in his pocket, and continued his search around the vicinity. He spent fully an hour in the locality, and then walked back the way he had come, and into the mansion. There he found Thomas Ostrello in conversation with the policeman.
"It is a terrible blow to me," the commercial traveler was saying. "And to think I was here just the day before it happened! If I had remained here over night, it might not have occurred at all!"
"Well, that's the way things happen," answered the policeman. "Once I was at one end of my beat when a thief broke into a store at the other end and stole sixteen dollars and two hams."
"And I suppose they blamed you for it."
"Sure they did. I was laid off for a week, without pay. If anything happens it is always the poor copper who is to blame."
"Well, the family are not blaming you for this."
"They can't—especially as they've got the person who did the deed."