iff, Boris, bringing up the rear.
We first entered the room which I had occupied, McQuade using the key
which he had obtained from the officer who had discovered the supposed
weapon in my dresser drawer. The drawer was soon unlocked, and there lay
the wretched poker wrapped in my handkerchief, just as I had left it.
Inspector Burns took it up, examined it carefully then brandished it as
though in the act of delivering a heavy blow. "Hardly heavy enough, I
should think, to fracture a man's skull," he muttered, as he replaced it
in the drawer. "It is evidently the upper half of a long poker which has
been broken off." He turned to Major Temple. "What do you know about
this thing?" he inquired.

The Major looked puzzled. He had not seen the weapon before. I imagine
the police had guarded its discovery carefully, and I wondered how Miss
Temple came to know of it, in order to notify me.

"It is, as you say, half of an old poker," he replied. "It was used
originally in the lower hall, and the lower end was burnt through, owing
to its having been carelessly left in the fire one night. I gave it to
the gardener. He wanted it to use as a stake in laying out his flower
beds, and running the edges of the paths and roads while trimming the
turf. He had a long cord, and a wooden stake for the other end. It has
been roughly ground to a point, as you see, so that it might be readily
thrust into the earth. The last time I saw it, he was using it upon the
pathways about the house."

"Then it was not in the green room?" asked the Inspector in an
aggrieved tone. He saw that his theory would already require some
readjustments.

"Never, to my knowledge," said Major Temple. "There is no fireplace in
that room, and it would have been of no use there."

The Inspector closed the drawer with a slam. "Then, if this was the
weapon the murderer used," he said, rather lamely, "he must have taken
it along with him. Let us have a look at the room."

We all adjourned to the green room, which the detective unlocked, and
the Inspector went over the ground, as McQuade and I had done before
him, without discovering anything new. The dark-brown spot upon the
green carpet, which marked the place where the murdered man's head had
rested, was still plainly visible, a grewsome reminder of the terrible
tragedy which had been enacted there, but all else seemed ordinary and
commonplace enough. The dog seemed strangely oppressed by the
surroundings and, afte