Now, the Chief Inspector had learnt that everyone who had seen the dead woman expressed this same sentiment, yet it came unexpectedly from Furneaux's lips; because Furneaux never said the obvious thing.
"Clarke believes,"—Winter loathed the necessity for this constant reference to Clarke—"Clarke believes that she was killed by one of two people, either a jealous husband or a dissatisfied lover."
"As usual, Clarke is wrong."
"He may be."
"He is."
In spite of his prior agreement with Furneaux's estimate of their colleague's intelligence, Winter felt nettled at this omniscience. From the outset, his clear brain had been puzzled by this crime, and Furneaux's extraordinary pose was not the least bewildering feature about it.
"Oh, come now," he said, "you cannot have been here many minutes, and it is early days to speak so positively. I have been hunting you the whole afternoon—in fact, ever since I saw what a ticklish business this was likely to prove—and I don't suppose you have managed to gather all the threads of it into your fingers so rapidly."
"There are so few," muttered Furneaux, looking down on the carpet with the morbid eyes of one who saw a terrible vision there.
"Well, it is a good deal to have discovered the instrument with which the crime was committed."
Furneaux's mobile face instantly became alive with excitement.