She got up from the easy chair and thought out her plans. She must first get some fine flour and test the statuette. She was about to go downstairs to beg some from the cook, when glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece she noticed that it was just two o’clock. The sense of time had slipped from her: she saw instantly that it would be the most ill-fitting time to approach the cook, but the best to pursue unobserved any private inquiry of her own. The servants would all be at their dinner. At once her mind was made up. She went to her room, took scissors and paper, and, hurrying to the stain which had so baffled her, cut out another pattern. Then she made her way without noise or hesitation to the room she knew to be Fairlie’s. Outside she paused, wondering what explanation she would give if she were seen, but the clatter and voices in the servants’ hall reassured her: she opened the door and stole in. Beneath the washstand were a couple of pairs of boots; she dived at a left foot, turned it over and placed her pattern upon it. She had made no error this time: one thing was certain now, Fairlie’s foot had made the stain. She was fearful of being discovered and had no definite object in further delay. But she saw no evening shoes; no doubt the pair then on his feet were those he had been wearing the evening of the murder, but they might be hidden away. Hastily she searched the most likely places, but without result; she opened rapidly one after another the drawers, but could find nothing. She dared stay no longer, and closed the drawers silently. She could not quite push home the top left-hand drawer, however; it had been closed and she was anxious to leave everything exactly as she had found it. She made another attempt and became convinced something was obstructing it. Hurriedly she pulled the drawer right out, felt at the back, and to her horror drew out a dirty, crumpled handkerchief stained with blood. She had hardly done so when she heard the screech of a chair being pushed back in the servants’ hall: she snatched a clean handkerchief from the drawer, thrust it behind, inserted and forced the drawer home, and fled back to her room with her pattern and the blood-stained relic crushed in her hand. Then, locking the door, she examined what she had so unexpectedly stumbled upon. It was a man’s ordinary white handkerchief of good, but not especially fine, linen; it bore in the corner the initials J.F.; right across its width from edge to edge the centre was stained with a streaky band of blood, about three inches across at its widest and then narrowing irregularly to about an inch and a half; and it was marked by little ribs of dirt. “More puzzles!” thought Evelyn. “Now what has this been used for?”