nd resisted all his efforts to
open it. The Sergeant looked distinctly disappointed. He stepped to the
corner of the roof, made a further examination of the vines, came back
to the window and again tried to open it, then, with a low whistle, he
pointed to a mark upon the white window sill which had at first escaped
both his and my attention. It was the faint print of a hand--a bloody
hand--small and delicate in structure, yet, mysterious as seemed to be
all the clues in this weird case, it pointed, not outward from the room,
as though made by someone leaving it, but inward, as by a person
standing on the roof and resting his or her hand upon the window sill
while attempting to open the window.

"What do you make of that, Sir?" inquired the detective.

"It looks as though it had been made by someone entering instead of
leaving the room," I replied. "It could not have been made by anyone
leaving the room. No one would get out of a window that way."

"Except a woman," said McQuade dryly. "A man would swing his legs over
the sill and drop to the roof. It's barely three feet. But a woman would
sit upon the sill, turn on her stomach, rest her hands on the sill with
her fingers pointing toward the room, and slide gently down until her
feet touched the roof beneath." He smiled with a quiet look of triumph.

"The whole thing is impossible," I retorted, with some heat. "There's no
sense in talking about how anyone may or may not have got out of the
room, when the bolted window proves that no one got either in or out at
all."

"Perhaps you think that poor devil in there killed himself," said the
detective, grimly. "Somebody must have got in. There is only one
explanation possible. The window was bolted after the murder."

"By the murdered man, I suppose," I retorted ironically, nettled by his
previous remark.

"Not necessarily," he replied coldly, "but possibly by someone who
desired to shield the murderer." He looked at me squarely, but I was
able to meet his gaze without any misgivings. "I was the first person
who entered the room," I said, earnestly, "and I am prepared to make
oath that the window was bolted when I entered."

"Was the room dark?" he inquired.

"It was," I answered, not perceiving the drift of his remarks. "One of
the servants brought a candle."

"Did you examine the windows at once?"

"No."

"What did you do?"

"I knelt down and examined the body."

"What was Major Temple doing?"

"I--I did