recognized it. It was the same dagger I had seen reposing in the glass jar the preceding morning!
“I’m expecting the doctor any minute,” explained Giraud. “Although we hardly need him. There’s no doubt what the man died of. He was stabbed to the heart, and death must have been pretty well instantaneous.”
“When was it done? Last night?”
Giraud shook his head.
“Hardly. I don’t lay down the law on medical evidence, but the man’s been dead well over twelve hours. When do you say you last saw that dagger?”
“About ten o’clock yesterday morning.”
“Then I should be inclined to fix the crime as being done not long after that.”
“But people were passing and repassing this shed continually.”
Giraud laughed disagreeably.
“You progress to a marvel! Who told you he was killed in this shed?”
“Well—” I felt flustered. “I—I assumed it.”
“Oh, what a fine detective! Look at him, mon petit—does a man stabbed to the heart fall like that—neatly with his feet together, and his arms to his side? No. Again does a man lie down on his back and permit himself to be stabbed without raising a hand to defend himself? It is absurd, is it not? But see here—and here—” He flashed the torch along the ground. I saw curious irregular marks in the soft dirt. “He was dragged here after he was dead. Half dragged, half carried by two people. Their tracks do not show on the hard ground outside, and here they have been careful to obliterate them—but one of the two was a woman, my young friend.”
“A woman?”
“Yes.”
“But if the tracks are obliterated, how do you know?”
“Because, blurred as they are, the prints of the woman’s shoes are unmistakable. Also, by this—” And, leaning forward, he drew something from the handle of the dagger and held it up for me to see. It was a woman’s long black hair—
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