“You're on the mark there, sir, right enough. Here's her wedding-ring. It's engraved ‘7–11–23’—that'll be the date of her marriage, I suppose. Then on each side of the date are initials. ‘Y.S.’—that's for Yvonne Silverdale, obviously; and ‘F.S.’—these'll be her husband's initials. Then there's a diamond ring that she was using for a keeper. Let's see. It's got the same pairs of initials on each side of the date ‘4–10–23.’ That'll be her engagement-ring, I expect. H'm! They don't seem to have given themselves much time for second thoughts if the engagement lasted only a month and three days.”
He passed the two rings to Sir Clinton and picked the last one from his palm for examination.
“This is off the little finger. It's a plain gold signet with Y and S intertwined on it. Evidently it's Mrs. Silverdale right enough, sir. The inscription's inside . . . H'm! there's a variation here. The date's ‘15–11–25’ here; but there's only a single letter at each end: a Y at one side and a B at the other. That's a bit of a puzzle,” he concluded, glancing at his superior to see if he could detect anything in his face.
“I agree with you, Inspector,” was all that he elicited for his pains. “Now take off the bracelet, and that string of pearls round her neck. Anything of note on the bracelet?”
“Nothing whatever, sir,” the Inspector reported after a glance at it.
“Well, you'd better put these in a safe place when we get back to town. Now does that finish us here?”
He glanced round the room and his eye was caught by the second window which looked out from the side of the bungalow. The curtains were still undrawn, and he noticed a minute gap through which the outer daylight could pass freely. A thought seemed to strike him as he ran his eyes over the fabric.
“We'll just go outside for a minute,” he announced, and led the way through the hall and out of the front door. “Let's see, that window's round here, isn't it. Keep back for a moment.”
He halted outside the window and scrutinised the ground with care for a few seconds.
“See that, Inspector?” he inquired. “There aren't any foot-prints that one could make anything out of; but someone has put his foot on the box edging of the path just in front of the window. It's quite obviously crushed . . . and freshly crushed, too, by the look of it.”