"I gather that at about a quarter to two on the morning of the crime, a
man (who had, on the previous day visited the house to obtain the tress
of hair and oil the locks) entered the house by means of a latchkey. We
can fix the time by the fact that it rained on that morning from
half-past one to a quarter to two, this being the only rain that has
fallen for a fortnight, and the murder was committed at about two
o'clock. The man lit a wax match in the hall and another halfway up the
stairs. He found the bedroom door locked, and turned the key from
outside with a bent wire. He entered, lit the candle, placed the box and
hassock, murdered his victim, washed his hands and knife, took the
candle-end from the socket and went downstairs, where he blew out the
candle and dropped it into the tray.
"The next clue is furnished by the sand on the pillow. I took a little
of it, and examined it under the microscope, when it turned out to be
deep-sea sand from the Eastern Mediterranean. It was full of the minute
shells called 'Foraminifera,' and as one of these happened to belong to
a species which is found only in the Levant, I was able to fix the
locality.
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