"Granting all your premises—why?"
"And that's just what I would like mightily to know," answered Warriner. "But let's go back to the house; there's something else I want to show you."
We went to the library, and, by way of refreshment after our long walk in the sun, I told Effingham to make us some claret cup. Presently he brought it in, and proceeded to fill a couple of long, Rhinewine glasses with the beverage. The big cut-glass pitcher was heavily beaded with cool moisture, and looked irresistibly inviting; the Eighteenth Amendment was unanimously declared unconstitutional, and we drank and drank again. So long as the cellar of "Hildebrand Hundred" continued to function it was still worth while to acquire a thirst.
Warriner took a small object from a cardboard box, and passed it over to me. "Remember that?" he asked.
"I suppose it's the same moth cocoon which we found plastered on the postern-door——"
"And directly on the line between door and casing," interjected Warriner. "Being proof positive that the door could not have been opened for a period considerably antecedent to Graeme's death."
"I presume so."
"Well, I took that cocoon home, and made some tests. It had been fastened on the door by means of mucilage—common, ordinary mucilage."
I stared at Warriner without speaking. This was indeed confounding.
"To air some of my recently acquired entomological knowledge, I may tell you that the moth caterpillar generally goes underground to enter the pupa stage," continued Warriner. "If the transformation does take place at the surface the cocoon is sometimes found under a dead leaf or a fallen branch; still more rarely beneath the bark of a tree. It is virtually impossible that it should have been fixed naturally in such an exposed position as the crack of a door.