ht of stairs
to the first story. He pushed open the first door he came to.

"Mackwayte's room, on the back," he said, "bed slept in, as you
see, old gentleman's clothes on a chair--obviously he was
disturbed by some noise made by the burglar and came out to see
what was doing! And here," he indicated a door adjoining, "is
Miss Mackwayte's room, on the front; as you observe. They don't
use the two rooms on the second floor, except for box-rooms... one's
full of old Mackwayte's theatre trunks and stuff. They keep
no servant; Mrs. Chugg comes in each morning and stays all day.
She goes away after supper every evening."

Desmond found himself looking into a plainly furnished but dainty
bedroom with white furniture and a good deal of chintz about.
There were some photographs and pictures hanging on the walls.
The room was spotlessly clean and very tidy.

Desmond remarked on this, asking if the police had put the room
straight.

Mr. Marigold looked quite shocked.

"Oh, no, 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 t