e him
shiver, as accustomed as he was to strange sights. It was a tiny red
stream, which had managed to pass under the door and had then run along
the edge of the carpet for the space of a few inches. Instantly he
stooped, dipped his finger into it, and then ejaculated under his
breath:

"Blood, and clotted."

Standing upright, he once more peered into the room. The figure in bed
had not moved. Without further hesitation he slowly slid the doors
apart. One glance within, and murmuring the single word "Murder," Mr.
Barnes was no longer slow in his actions. Stepping across a big pool of
blood which stained the carpet, he stood at the side of the bed. He
recognized the features of the woman who had claimed that she had been
robbed of her diamonds. She seemed sleeping, save that there was an
expression of pain on the features, a contraction of the skin between
the eyebrows, and one corner of the mouth drawn aside, the whole kept in
this position by the rigidity of death. The manner of her death was as
simple as it was cruel. Her throat had been cut as she slept. This
seemed indicated by the fact that she was clad in her night-dress. One
thing that puzzled Mr. Barnes at once, was the pool of blood near the
door. It was fully six feet from the head of the bed, and whilst there
was another just by the bedstead, formed by blood which had trickled
from the wound, running down the sheets and so dropping to the floor,
the two pools did not communicate.

"Well," thought Mr. Barnes, "I am first on the scene this time, and no
busybodies shall tumble things about till I have studied their
significance."

This room had not been designed for a sleeping apartment but rather as a
dining-room, which, upon occasion, could be opened into the parlor,
converting the two into one. There was one window upon an air-shaft, and
in an angle was a handsome carved oak mantel with fireplace below. Mr.
Barnes raised the curtain over the window, letting in more light.
Looking around he noticed almost immediately two things: first, that a
basin stood on a washstand half filled with water, the color of which
plainly indicated that the murderer had washed off tell-tale marks
before taking his departure. Second, that in the fireplace was a pile of
ashes.

"The scoundrel has burned evidence against him, and deliberately washed
the blood from his person before going away. Let me see, what was it
that Mitchel said: 'I should have stopped to wash the stai