"Quite possible," said I. "The place was packed to the doors with all sorts of people. But why?"
"I thought perhaps that he might have contrived to abstract that tobacco-box, knowing that as long as it was in the hands of the police there might be some clue to his identity," she suggested.
"Good notion!" I replied. "But there's just one thing against it. If the murderer had known that, if he felt that, he'd have secured the box when he searched Quick's clothing, as he undoubtedly did."
"Of course!" she admitted. "I ought to have thought of that. But there are such a lot of things to think of in connection with this case—threads interwoven with each other."
"You've been thinking much about it?" I asked.
She made no reply for a moment, and I waited, wondering.
"I don't think it's a very comfortable thing to know that one's had a particularly brutal murder at one's very door and that, for all one knows, the murderer may still be close at hand," she said at last. "There's such a disagreeable feeling of uneasiness about this affair. I know that Uncle Francis is most awfully upset by it."
I looked at her in some surprise. I had not seen any marked signs of concern in Mr. Raven.
"I hadn't observed that," I said.
"Perhaps not," she answered. "But I know him better. He's an unusually nervous man. Do you know that since this happened he's taken to going round the house every night, examining doors and windows?—And—he's begun to carry a revolver."
The last statement made me think. Why should
