“A cornflower.”
“Just so — And, Mr. Prescott, a wilted cornflower was found by Andy Dunn not far from Hawthorne’s body, hanging on a rose briar. I have two proofs that that was a patch of rose briars, a picture of the scene taken by Sara Dunn Wednesday morning, and a plant in a vase upstairs, brought me by one of my men. I assume it was before you shot Hawthorne, while you were talking with him there, that, being as casual as possible until you got hold of the gun by some ruse, you discarded your cornflower and replaced it with a wild rose. Or possibly Hawthorne did that for you, seeing that your cornflower was wilted. That appears more likely. He laid the gun down to do that, and that was your chance to pick it up. Then, with him dead, in your frenzy to get away and return to New York as fast as possible so as to establish an alibi by calling for Miss Dunn, you forgot all about the rose, and you were still wearing it when you arrived and Miss Dunn took a picture of you. It was that picture that betrayed—”
“Hey!”
Cramer jumped a good eight feet, right over Skinner’s legs and seized Prescott’s throat with both hands. I never saw anything more pitiful, and don’t want to. The poor sap had suddenly stuffed the snapshot in his mouth and began chewing as fast as he could with his sore and swollen jaw, and was trying to gulp it down.
“Let him alone,” Wolfe said curtly. “I have the film. You can have him, Mr. Skinner. Please get him out of here.”
I felt the same way about it. Having looked at Prescott all I cared to, I surveyed the famous Hawthorne gals and their entourage. You might have thought we were running a matrimonial bureau, or even something not so genteel. Andy and Celia were wrapped around each other by the bookshelves. April was letting Ossie enfold her in his protecting arms. John Charles Dunn was leaning over June, kissing her, and she had her hands up clinging to him.
May leveled her eyes at Wolfe and demanded, “About the will. If he destroyed that first page, how are we going to establish—”
Wolfe merely glared at her.
The warrant for Wolfe’s arrest as a material witness is in a drawer of my desk where I keep souvenirs.