When the lifted cloth exposed the bare legs of the table, both the young men caught sight of an object lying underneath. Bruge, stepping back, espied it also, with his trained faculty of instant observation, and stooped to pick it up. The jade-handled paper-cutter lay just where the feet of the dead man had rested before the body had been shifted on to the table. The wonder was that it had not been discovered before; but then it had been concealed by the drooping cloth.
"The weapon with which the crime has been committed," murmured Bruge in a complacent tone; "after stabbing his victim, the assassin must have allowed the knife to fall under the table, or perhaps threw it there intentionally. A jade handle! H'm! It looks like a dagger too—an Eastern dagger. Where have I seen it—where?" And the Inspector fell into a brown study, turning and twisting the paper-cutter slowly.
Prelice pressed Shepworth's shoulder to keep him quiet, and cleared his throat to answer. "It is the knife used to kill Sir Oliver," he said, and felt Shepworth jerk his body in surprised remonstrance at this unnecessary frankness.
Bruge glanced up in amazement. "Why, so it is," he remarked wonderingly—"the very dagger. I remember now that I read the description given of this in the newspaper report of the inquest at Hythe. H'm! So that is how I fancied that I had seen it before." He balanced the knife on the palm of his hand. "A very good piece of description it must have been to so enable me to recognise this. But you," he glanced suspiciously at Prelice, "how did you know?"
The young man shrugged his square shoulders. "That is easily explained," he replied suavely. "I went to hear the case at the New Bailey to-day, as I thought that my friend here," he again pressed Shepworth's shoulder significantly, "was to speak in defence of Miss Chent. At the Court I heard the knife described. It is quite simple, you see."
"I wonder how it comes to be here?" mused Bruge, nodding acquiescence to this lucid explanation. "Odd, isn't it?"
"Not at all," rejoined Prelice easily; "the assassin of Sir Oliver Lanwin brought it here to kill Agstone."
"But Miss Chent is in prison," remonstrated the Inspector; "she could not have——"
"She never did in any case," interrupted Shepworth faintly, but rousing himself sufficiently to defend his promised wife. "She is innocent."
"It is natural that you should say so," remarked Bruge, with polite scepticism, then added significantly: "Did you expect Agstone?"