“Very well. . . . But how did you know she left here that afternoon before Benson did?” persisted Markham.
“How else could she have changed into an evening gown? Really, y’ know, ladies don’t go about décolletées in the afternoon.”
“You assume, then, that Benson himself brought her gloves and hand-bag back here that night?”
“Someone did,—and it certainly wasn’t Miss St. Clair.”
“All right,” conceded Markham. “And what about this Morris chair?—how did you know she sat in it?”
“What other chair could she have sat in, and still thrown her cigarettes into the fireplace? Women are notoriously poor shots, even if they were given to hurling their cigarette stubs across the room.”
“That deduction is simple enough,” admitted Markham. “But suppose you tell me how you knew she had tea here unless you were privy to some information on the point?”
“It pos’tively shames me to explain it. But the humiliating truth is that I inferred the fact from the condition of yon samovar. I noted yesterday that it had been used, and had not been emptied or wiped off.”
Markham nodded with contemptuous elation.
“You seem to have sunk to the despised legal level of material clues.”