everything is just as it was when Mrs. Chugg found Miss Mackwayte this morning. There’s Miss Mackwayte’s gloves and handbag on the toilet-table just as she left ’em last night. I wouldn’t let her touch her clothes even. She went over to Mrs. Appleby’s in her dressing-gown, in a taxi.” 

 “Then Master Burglar didn’t burgle this room?” asked the Chief. 

 “Nothing touched, not even the girl’s money,” replied Marigold. 

 “Then why did he come up here at all?” asked Desmond. 

 “Obviously, the old gentleman disturbed him,” was the detective’s reply. “Barney got scared and shot the old gentleman, then came up here to make sure that the daughter would not give him away before he could make his escape. He must have known the report of the gun would wake her up.” 

 “But are there no clues or finger-prints or anything of that kind here, Marigold?” asked the Chief. 

 “Not a finger-print anywhere,” responded the other, “men like Barney are born wise to the fingerprint business, sir.” 

 He dipped a finger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket. 

 “Clues? Well, I’ve got one little souvenir here which I daresay a writer of detective stories would make a good bit of.” 

 He held in his hand a piece of paper folded flat. He unfolded it and disclosed a loop of dark hair. 

 “There!” he said mockingly, straightening out the hair and holding it up in the light. “That’s calculated to set one’s thoughts running all over the place, isn’t it? That piece of hair was caught in the buckle of one of the straps with which Miss Mackwayte was bound to the bed. Miss Mackwayte, I would point out, has brown hair. Whose hair do you think that is?” 

 Desmond looked closely at the strand of hair in the detective’s fingers. It was long and fine and glossy and jetblack. 

 The Chief laughed and shook his head. 

 “Haven’t an idea, Marigold,” he answered, “Barney’s, I should imagine, that is, if he goes about with black ringlets falling round his shoulders.” 

 “Barney?” echoed the detective. “Barney’s as bald as I am. Besides, if you saw his sheet, you’d realize that he has got into the habit of wearing his hair short!” 

 He carefully rolled the strand 

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