"I take it," said he,
"that the deceased read herself to sleep. There is a book on the table
by the bed, and a candlestick with nothing in it but a bit of burnt wick
at the bottom of the socket. I imagine that the woman came in quietly,
lit the gas, put the box and the hassock at the bedhead, stood on them,
and cut her victim's throat. Deceased must have waked up and clutched
the murderess's hair--though there doesn't seem to have been much of a
struggle; but no doubt she died almost at once. Then the murderess
washed her hands, cleaned the knife, tidied up the bed a bit, and went
away. That's about how things happened, I think, but how she got in
without anyone hearing, and how she got out, and where she went to, are
the things that we've got to find out."
"Perhaps," said the surgeon, drawing the bedclothes over the corpse, "we
had better have the landlady in and make a few inquiries." He glanced
significantly at Thorndyke, and the inspector coughed behind his hand.
My colleague, however, chose to be obtuse to these hints: opening the
door, he turned the key backwards and forwards several times, drew it
out, examined it narrowly, and replaced it.
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