e dust
would show it. Now the shell did slide, for you can plainly see where
it scraped the dust in doing so.

"Again, considering your supposition, the candle-stick would have
struck about half-way up the flight; if Mr. Page had been at that point
on the stairs--in the line of its fall--his head would have been too
high to have encountered it. And then, Maillot, look here." I pointed
to the object of interest itself.

"If you were carrying it while the candle was lighted," I said, "your
thumb would be uppermost, and your little finger nearest the
base--would n't they?"

"Naturally."

"Very well. Suppose, now, I reverse my grasp--my thumb toward the
base, the little finger toward the top--I now have it in a pretty
effective position for use as a bludgeon, eh?"

He was following me intently, and now nodded his head in token of
comprehension.

"Look at those drippings," I went on; "the hand that last grasped the
candlestick did not try to avoid them, although they were yet soft and
warm from the flame. It does n't require a trained eye to determine
that the _thumb_ was nearest the base."

"I declare!" he wonderingly interrupted. "Blest if you 're not right,
Swift. The candle was burning when somebody grabbed it up for use as a
club. Whoever it was he caught hold of it with a pretty firm grip."

"An additional argument," I added, "that it was put to some violent
use. It is n't necessary to hold it anything near so tight merely to
carry it.

"However," I pursued, "the circumstance is in a way unfortunate. While
I can gather the idea that the hand was n't inured to hard labor, and
that it was a rather long and slender one, it closed so powerfully upon
the drippings that the pattern of little lines--the vermiculations
which differentiate one man's hand from everybody else's--is merely a
blur. As a wax impression of the murderer's hand it is not a success."

My audience seemed to be immensely interested.

But I was not yet through with the wax impression.

"One peculiarity is suggested, though: this is unmistakably the impress
of a right hand, and the owner of the hand wore a broad ring on the
second finger--an unusual place for a man to sport that sort of
jewelry."

The third finger of Maillot's _left_ hand was adorned with a modest
signet ring, while the private secretary's abnormally long, bloodless
digits bore no sign that they had ever been encircled by any ring at
all.

The situation was se