“Did Mrs. Trevor, or perhaps Miss Beatrice, have a chain like it?” he asked. “Women wear such peculiar gewgaws nowadays.”
But Wilkins stuck to his guns. “No, sir, they didn’t. It’s an uncommon thing, and I’m sure I’d ’a’ remembered it if I had ever seen either of them wear such a thing,” he stubbornly declared. “Some guest must have dropped it, though I dunno how it stayed so long unnoticed.”
Dick looked at Wilkins queerly. A sudden thought had entered his active brain ... by Heaven!... Suppose....
“Has the front hall been swept since the murder of Mrs. Trevor?” he asked.
Wilkins looked bewildered. “We don’t sweep it, sir,” he answered. “It is a hard wood floor, sir. The different rugs in the hall are shaken and gone over by a vacuum cleaner every day. We oiled the entire floor, sir, the morning after the supper for Madame Bernhardt. If the gold link had been there then, sir, we would have found it.”
“The morning after? Why, that was the third—Mrs. Trevor was murdered that same night?”
“Yes, sir,” stolidly.
“Does Mr. Clark, the secretary, own such a chain?”
“No, sir; he always wears a fob.”
“At what hour did Mr. Clark leave the house the day Mrs. Trevor was killed?”