"What makes you think that?" I asked quickly, my eyes wandering around the large, comfortable room, the atmosphere of which was heavy with fragrant odours. "Because he placed that cushion beneath her head," answered the shrewd, observant police-officer. "He had kissed her, and she was in the act of smiling at his last act of love when her heart suddenly failed, and soul and body parted." "And he died immediately afterwards, you think?" "Yes, that's what I surmise. What's your opinion?" "I can form no theory at present," I answered, bewildered. In the course of years spent in the investigation of crime for journalistic purposes I had had my wits sharpened, and rather prided myself upon the soundness of the theories I propounded in the articles I wrote. Patterson knew this, and probably for that reason had invoked my companionship in this curious affair. Together we made a searching examination of the whole room, but there was absolutely nothing to show the motive, or even the mode, of the tragedy. The absence of servants was of course extremely suspicious, but neither of us attached much importance to that. A close examination of the scene was our present object, experience having taught that upon the scene of most crimes there remains some trace of the assassin. The old saying that "Murder will out" is truer than the majority of people believe, for even that night we had had a striking illustration in Patterson's attention being attracted by the snake in the gateway. Beside the dead woman's chair was lying a handkerchief, a tiny square of lawn and lace, which I picked up. It emitted an odour very sweet and subtle, such as I had never before smelt. Patterson sniffed it, but placed it down. "Some new scent," he said. "Women are always going in for the latest inventions in perfumes." "But this is an extraordinary one," I said, again smelling it. "Terribly strong, too," I added, for the odour had a strange, half-intoxicating effect upon me. The small red light steadily burning, the fragrance of the incense, the two dead forms lying there, still and cold, and the single gas-burner, hissing as it flared, combined to present a weird, lurid picture, each detail of which has ever since been indelibly photographed upon my memory. The smile of death upon that woman's lips was horrible. That look of hers has ever since haunted me, for now that I know the truth and have realised all that had taken place in that room prior to the tragedy, that laugh of derision has a significance which renders its recollection bitter, gruesome, hideous. I know not what prompted me at that moment, but bending again beside the prostrate man I placed my hand inside his vest, recollecting that sometimes tailors, adopting the French mode, made pockets there, and that therein many men carried articles of value in secrecy and safety.