Of course--of course! Poor girl--and Dr. Lawson suspected, too--what a
terrible blow for her! Anything I can do, doctor, of course, as I said
to Mr. Potswood--anything I can do I will do as gladly as such sad
circumstances permit."

The rector had been coming to the door with Mr. Myatt, but Plummer,
catching a sign from Hewitt, restrained him unseen, and Hewitt and the
visitor walked into the hall together.

"They have put out the light, it seems," Hewitt said. "I wonder
why--unless people from the crowd have been coming into the garden and
staring in through the glass panels. I wonder if we can find the
door-handle. Yes, here it is. Dark outside, too! Good-night--mind how
you go on the steps!"

Mr. Myatt checked and stumbled in the dark porch, and reached quickly
downward.

"There's a board standing across the porch," he said.

"A board?" replied Hewitt. "So there is. Let me move it, or it'll upset
somebody. Good-night!"

Mr. Myatt strode off into the dark night, and Hewitt, noiselessly
lifting the board he had himself placed in position, hastened back to
the study.

He swung up the board, all sticky and shiny with Brunswick black, and
laid it across a spread newspaper, on the table. There on the top, in
the midst of the black varnish, were the prints of all five finger-tips
of a hand, where Mr. Myatt had felt for the obstruction in the porch.

Hewitt opened the drawer he had shut a little while back, and took
therefrom a sheet of writing-paper. And when, with the lens from his
pocket, he began to examine that paper in comparison with the
finger-marks on the board, Plummer and the rector could see that there
were also two distinct finger-marks on the paper and one faint one--all
red. Plummer came to look.

"What's this?" he said. "Was this what you were going to tell us about?"

Hewitt did not reply for a few moments, but continued his examination.
Then he rose and turned to Plummer.

"You've still got that piece of paper in your pocket, I suppose," he
said, "with the little red smudges of colour put there by the police
surgeon?"

"Yes--here it is," and the detective took it from his waistcoat pocket.

"Thanks," said Hewitt. "Now, see here. That is a little of the red stuff
taken from the mark on Denson's forehead a week ago, and found to
consist of vermilion, oil and wax. You have seen the second impression
of that awful mark on the forehead of your poor friend Mason, Mr.
Potswood, to-night. This room