“On examining the body of John Meredith as it lay in the hall this morning, did you find near it the weapon with which the wound in his throat was made?” asked Penfield.
Mitchell shook his head. “We have searched everywhere but can find no weapon of any kind,” he stated. “It is not in his bedroom where, judging from the bloodstains, the wound was inflicted, nor was it lying by the body, nor along the hall down which he staggered until he fell dead at the staircase.”
Penfield laid down his pencil. “Did you examine the body upon your arrival?” he asked.
“I did, sir.” Mitchell paused and took an envelope out of his pocket. “Mr. Meredith was dressed only in his pajamas and was barefooted. There was nothing noticeable about the pajamas except that the jacket was unbuttoned about the throat and chest. Caught around the second button I found these hairs.” Mitchell leaned over the table and carefully shook some hairs on a paper pad. Penfield as well as the members of the jury leaned forward to get a better look at them. Mitchell enjoyed the interest he had aroused for a moment before adding: “The hairs are from a woman’s head and are chestnut in color.”
Curtis, who had listened to Mitchell’s statements with absorbed attention, started to his feet. The few hairs which he had taken from around that selfsame button were white. What, then, did Inspector Mitchell mean by declaring the hairs he had were chestnut? Curtis made a step forward then halted, stopped by a sudden thought—he had asked Fernando the color of the hairs and the Filipino had declared they were white. Suppose the lad had lied to him and they were chestnut after all? To be sightless—Curtis bit his lip to keep back a groan; a second later he had mastered his feeling of helplessness. The question of color could be easily settled by handing what he had to Coroner Penfield. Curtis pulled out his leather wallet and opened it. His search among its various compartments was unrewarded—the hairs were not there.
Dazedly Curtis resumed his seat and again turned his attention to what was going on in time to hear Penfield address the next witness in the chair.
“Doctor Mayo, kindly inform the jury of the result of the autopsy,” he directed.
The deputy coroner held up an anatomical chart and as he spoke traced a red line to illustrate his meaning.
“Meredith died as the result of a wound inflicted in his throat,” he stated. “The larynx was opened and one of the larger vessels severed. The wound,” he spoke slowly, deliberately, “could not have been self-inflicted.”
A dead silence followed his statement. The reporters sat with their pencils poised, their eyes fixed intently upon the scene being enacted before them. Curtis, also, had hitched his chair around close to the table and sat forward resting his weight upon his cane.