hippenfield was by no means pleased at his subordinate's
discovery of what promised to be an important clue, especially after the
clue had been missed by himself. But he congratulated Rolfe in a tone of
fictitious heartiness.

"Well done, Rolfe!" he exclaimed. "You are coming on. Anyone can see that
you've the makings of a good detective."

Rolfe could afford to ignore the sting contained in such faint praise.

"What do you make of it?" he asked.

"Looks as though there is a woman in it," said the inspector, who was
still examining the scrap of lace and muslin.

"There can't be much doubt about that," replied Rolfe.

"We mustn't be in a hurry in jumping at conclusions," remarked the
inspector.

"No, and we mustn't ignore obvious facts," said Rolfe.

"You think a woman murdered him?" asked the inspector.

"I think a woman was present when he was shot: whether she fired the shot
there is nothing to show at present. There may have been a man with her.
But there was a struggle just before the shot was fired and as Sir Horace
fell he grasped at the hand in which she was holding her handkerchief. Or
perhaps her handkerchief was torn in his dying struggles when she was
leaning over him."

"You have overlooked the possibility of this having been placed in the
dying man's hand to deceive us," said the inspector.

"If the intention was to mislead us it wouldn't have been placed where it
might have been overlooked."

As the inspector had overlooked the presence of the scrap of handkerchief
in the dead man's hand, he felt that he was not making much progress with
the work of keeping his subordinate in his place.

"Well, it is a clue of a sort," he said. "The trouble is that we have
too many clues. I wish we knew which is the right one. Anyway, it knocks
over your theory of a burglary," he added in a tone of satisfaction.

"Yes," Rolfe admitted. "That goes by the board."

CHAPTER V

"What is your name?"

"James Hill, sir."

"That is an alias. What is your real name?" Inspector Chippenfield glared
fiercely at the butler in order to impress upon him the fact that
subterfuge was useless.

"Henry Field, sir," replied the man, after some hesitation.

Inspector Chippenfield opened the capacious pocketbook which he had
placed before him on the desk when the butler had entered in response to
his summons, and he took from it a photograph which he handed to the man
he was interrogating.

"Is that your photog