"I don't know. I haven't the remotest idea. I did think of suicide. It looked like that. But then there was no reason for it."
"When you said to me at Carninnish that in your opinion a woman had killed Sorrell, what did you mean?"
"Well, you see, I knew all Bert's men friends, and he didn't have any girl ones — I mean girls that are more than acquaintances. But I always thought there might have been a woman before I knew him. He was very quiet about the things he cared about, and he wouldn't have told me in any case. I have seen him sometimes get letters in a woman's handwriting, but he never re-marked about them, and Bert wasn't the kind you teased about that sort of thing."
"Has a letter of that sort arrived for him lately — within the past six months, say?"
Lamont thought for a while and said yes, he thought so.
"What kind of writing?"
"Biggish, with very round letters."
"You have read the description of the dagger that killed Sorrell. Have you ever handled one like it?"
"I not only never handled one but I never saw one.
"Have you any suggestions as to who or what this hypothetical woman might have been?"