fe lying handy on the library
table and she did it," said Hutchings with the same vehemence.

"Any one who passed through the library would see that knife," said Mr.
Flexen carelessly, but his eyes were very keen on Hutchings' face.

Hutchings was pale, and he went paler. He tried to stammer something, but
his voice died in his throat.

"Well, I'm sorry you can't give me any information about this lady.
Good afternoon," said Mr. Flexen, and he turned on his heel and went
back to the car.

He was impressed by Hutchings' air and manner. Of course, believing
himself to be suspected, the man was under a strain. But would the strain
on him be so heavy as it plainly was, if he knew himself to be innocent?
And then his eagerness to fasten the crime on the mysterious woman. It
had been astonishingly intense, almost hysterical.

When he reached the Castle he found Inspector Perkins awaiting him with a
small package which had come by special messenger from Scotland Yard. It
contained enlarged photographs of the fingerprints on the handle of the
knife. They were all curiously blurred.

_The murderer had worn a glove._

CHAPTER XIII

Mr. Flexen studied the photographs and the report which stated this fact
with a lively interest and a growing sense of its great importance. For
one thing, it settled the question of suicide for good and all. Lord
Loudwater had worn no glove.

Also, it strengthened the case against the mysterious woman. She had
come, apparently, from a distance, and probably in a motor-car. If she
had driven herself down, she would be wearing gloves. Also, only a woman
would be likely to be wearing gloves on a warm summer night. Indeed,
coming from a distance by train, or car, she would certainly wear gloves.
She would not dream of coming to an interview, with a man with whom she
had been intimate and whom she wished to bend to her will, with hands
dirtied by a journey.

If that gloved hand had not been the hand of the mysterious woman, then
the murder had been premeditated, and the murderer or murderess had put
on gloves with the deliberate purpose of leaving no finger-prints.

It _was_ the woman. In all probability it was the woman.

Then Mr. Flexen's sub-conscious mind began to jog his intellect.
Somewhere in his memory there was a fact he had noted about gloves, and
that fact was now important in its bearing on the case. He set about
trying to recall it to his mind. He was not long about it. O