“I was just coming to that. The witnesses were narrowed to five: Mrs. Millicent and her daughter, Dr. Henry, Perkins, and Martin. I’ll take them in their order, so Mrs. Millicent comes first. She told a very simple story. Her husband was forty-five, and the latter part of their married life had been spent at Beech Lodge. He had at one time a very comfortable income, which latterly had been reduced by speculations. They were not, however, in difficult circumstances, although she seemed to know very little of his financial affairs. He was always much interested in anything that had to do with the Orient. So far as she was aware he had no enemies. He spent a good deal of his time in the garden and often went for long walks, always alone. Since his last trip to the East, from which he returned five years before his death, he seemed to have some kind of worry, of which he would never speak, or explain. Letters had arrived for him from Singapore, at which his worry seemed to increase; but he always destroyed these and never referred to their contents. From what I make of it, he was up to his eyes in something he found it necessary to conceal from those he cared for most. There had been no hard words with any of the staff, and no stranger had been at the house that day so far as we could learn.”

“I understand that Mrs. Millicent engaged Perkins, while later on her husband employed Martin. How much later?”

“About a year.”

“So that any collusion between them before this is improbable?”

“I should say so; and it seems that they took very little notice of each other at any time.”

“Then, as far as we have gone, the period between the actual moment of the murder and the time when Perkins notified Mrs. Millicent is unaccounted for.”

Burke nodded. “Exactly!”

“Before we go on to the other evidence, can you tell me whether anything was missed after the murder?”

The sergeant opened another envelope, extracting a sheet of brown paper some eighteen inches long.

“This is a drawing made by Mrs. Millicent of a thing that her husband used as a paper-knife. It’s not been found since that night.”

Derrick took it eagerly and scrutinized the outline of a murderous-looking weapon. Its curving blade must have measured a foot, being chopped off at 

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