Fuller nodded his head at this.
"They make a good case against him," said he. "I'm also of the opinion that Warwick, when found, will tell a mighty illuminating story—if he has the mind."
Ashton-Kirk threw the papers from him with a yawn.
"As usual," said he, "they grasp the obvious and apparently sensational features. The trouble with some of the journals and their staffs, however, is not lack of acuteness; it is the desire to get in on a good story before their rivals—to flame out into broad-faced type which will give the prospective purchaser a blow between the eyes as it lies upon the stand, or allow the newsboys a fine line to fill the streets with. But the real things are not brought forward with such a dramatic rush; they filter gradually through a mass of extraneous matter and their quality appears only to a person seeking an absolutely convincing result."
He pulled off his coat and turned up his sleeves; entering the laboratory, he opened the drawer of a stand and took out the two pieces of glass broken from the front of Dr. Morse's bookcase. Holding these up to the light he said:
"We secured two very satisfactory blood smears under most unpromising conditions. That the clot was not altogether hard was fortunate; and that I was able to take advantage of the fact without accident was doubly so."
Lighting a Bunsen burner he passed the glass once through the flame; then he took a shallow vessel and poured out a quantity of liquid; in this he immersed one of the bits of glass with its dry stain.
"Some sort of a test?" inquired Fuller.
"Yes. This bath of alcohol will fix the smear."
"I see."