When he let go, the dagger slid quietly down the barrel,
until its hilt appeared in the open breech.
"Good God!" exclaimed Marchmont. "You don't suggest that the dagger was
shot from a gun?"
"I do, indeed; and you now see the reason for the aluminium hilt--to
diminish the weight of the already heavy projectile--and also for this
hexagonal boss on the end?"
"No, I do not," said the inspector; "but I say that you are suggesting
an impossibility."
"Then," replied Thorndyke, "I must explain and demonstrate. To begin
with, this projectile had to travel point foremost; therefore it had to
be made to spin--and it certainly was spinning when it entered the body,
as the clothing and the wound showed us. Now, to make it spin, it had to
be fired from a rifled barrel; but as the hilt would not engage in the
rifling, it had to be fitted with something that would. That something
was evidently a soft metal washer, which fitted on to this hexagon, and
which would be pressed into the grooves of the rifling, and so spin the
dagger, but would drop off as soon as the weapon left the barrel. Here
is such a washer, which Polton has made for us.
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