"I don't say everything I know, Mr. Deland," she said smoothly. "For a person who tells everything he knows leaves nothing within to show that he has anything of interest left for the next person who comes along. It was shortly after the tragedy had taken place. Everything, as of course you know, was absolutely in confusion. People rushing about here, there, and everywhere, as though they had gone mad, which indeed they must surely have done in such tragic circumstances. I was as bad as the rest, and with Cynthia searched the room for any clues or anything which might lead to the tracing of the murderer. I had just gone to the open window and——"
"Oho!" said Cleek in two different tones, "so the window was open, was it?"
"Yes—about halfway up from the bottom. The centre one, Mr. Deland. Someone had asked me to shut it—it was Ross, I think, poor distracted boy!—which I immediately proceeded to do, and brushed against the curtains—the big green plush ones which hang at the outer edges of the bay window—when something clattered lightly to the floor. Cynthia was at the other side, looking out into the darkness, everyone else was occupied with Sir Andrew himself, so I bent down quickly and picked the thing up. And there it is."
Yes, there it undoubtedly was. And undoubtedly too, the weapon which had stabbed Sir Andrew so cruelly, if Cleek knew aught of such things. He frowned a moment over it, and then looked up into Miss Dowd's dark face through narrowed lids.
"And you know to whom it belongs?"
"I cannot say for certain, but I fancy it is Lady Paula's. She had one similar, I know, but whether it is the same one I am not prepared to say."
"Showing yourself a very wise young lady," put in Cleek with a smile.
She acknowledged the compliment gracefully.
"And that you are a very gallant gentleman, Mr. Deland—in spite of your somewhat unusual role," she supplemented. Then, becoming serious again, "But don't you think it—well, queer, that if this were the instrument which stabbed Sir Andrew, that there should be no mark of stain upon it, no blood of any sort? The blade when I found it was absolutely clean."
"H'm. Yes. Rather extraordinary. Unless the murderer had time to wipe it upon anything, Miss Dowd, before consigning it to the curtains. And now, another question: What made you keep the thing secret?"