Sir Everard looked at it and recognized it at once.
"It is mine," he replied. "I purchased it last year in Paris. My initials are upon it."
"So I see," was the dry response.
"How comes it here? Where did you find it?"
The detective eyed him narrowly, almost amazed at his coolness.
"I found it in a very queer place, Sir Everard—lodged in the branches of an elm-tree, not far from the stone terrace. It's a miracle it was ever found. I think this little weapon did the deed. I'll go and have a look at the body."
He went. Yes, there in the region of the heart was a gaping wound.
The inquest came on; the facts came out—mysteriously whispered before, spoken aloud now. And for the first time the truth dawned on the stunned baronet—he was suspected of the murder of the wife he loved!
The revolting atrocity, the unnatural horror of the charge, nerved him as nothing else could have done. His pale, proud face grew rigid as stone; his blue eyes flashed scornful defiance; his head reared itself haughtily aloft. How dare they accuse him of so monstrous a crime?
But the circumstantial evidence was crushing. Sybilla Silver's evidence alone would have damned him.