"Smith & Wesson," said he. "Twenty-two calibre, five chambers, all loaded." He stood weighing the revolver in his hand and looking at the investigator. "Anything more?" he asked.
"I saw undoubted indications of a woman's presence—a woman who had been lurking outside the house and peering in at the window of the room in which the Bounder was killed."
"A woman!" Quick excitement was in Osborne's face. "Why, one of the first things I said when the news came in was——" He stopped, a frown wrinkled his brow and he shook his head. "Indications are one thing, but proof is another," he said. "Suppose it was shown that a woman was hanging around outside the house that night?—suppose she carried this gun? What would that get us? She wasn't inside—therefore she couldn't have killed the Bounder. And then, again, the man was killed by a blow on the head. He wasn't shot."
Ashton-Kirk shrugged his shoulders with the air of one who had relieved himself of a responsibility.
"I'm merely pointing out these facts to you," he said. "Of course you can do with them what you like."
With a nod to Scanlon, he was ready to go. Osborne stopped them at the door and asked a half dozen questions, all bearing pointedly upon what the investigator had just told him.
"All right," said he. "Thanks. This looks as though it'd be of little use; but then it doesn't do any harm to know all you can about a case."
Bat Scanlon heard the investigator chuckle as they got into the waiting taxi.
"It would be a safe gamble that he will be out at Stanwick in the morning looking over those places he has neglected heretofore," laughed Ashton-Kirk, as the driver slammed the door shut after them and started toward the destination given him.
Bat, anxious of eye, and with lips grimly pressed together, was silent for a space, and then he said: