“Like these?” Once more the resourceful Mr. Farr had delved into the square box, and he placed the result of his research deftly on the edge of the witness box. A pair of silver slippers with rhinestone buckles, exquisite and inadequate enough for the most foolish of women, small enough for a man to hold in one outstretched hand—sparkling, absurd, and coquettish, they perched on that dark rim, the buckles gleaming valiantly above the dark and sinister splotches that turned them from gay and charming toys to tokens of horror.
“Those are the slippers,” said Mr. Conroy, his shaken voice barely audible.
“I offer them in evidence.”
“No objections.” Mr. Lambert’s voice was an objection in itself.
“Now, Mr. Conroy, will you be good enough to tell us what you did as soon as you made this discovery?”
“I said to my client, ‘There has been foul play here. We must get the police.’ ”
“No, not what you said, Mr. Conroy—what you did.”
“I returned to my roadster with my client, locking the front door behind me with a key from the ring that I had found under the doormat, and drove as rapidly as possible to police headquarters in Rosemont, reporting what I had discovered.”
“Just what did you report?”
“I reported that I had found the body of Mrs. Stephen Bellamy in the gardener’s cottage of the old Thorne place, and that it looked as though she had been murdered.”