“So I perceive.”
“This stump is the stump of a d’Auvergne Cigarette.”
“I hope you enjoyed it, Mullins.”
“I didn’t smoke it, sir!”
“Who did?”
“That’s for you to say, sir; but it’s one of the little things I collected near the scene of the murder, but took for a common cheroot, yesterday morning in Hyde Park.”
“Near the actual place?”
Thrush had pounced upon the stump, and was holding it under the strongest of the electric lamps.
“Under a seat, sir, not above a hundred yards away!”