"No wonder you think I am mad, but--ah, yes! see, right here on this panel--I thought I was not mistaken. If you wouldn't mind turning round a little more toward the middle of the room, Miss Debenham--thank you--right here; those dark stains." He went down on his knees suddenly and sniffed them, rubbed them with his fingers, and then beckoned the mystified Mr. Narkom, who joined him immediately. "You see, Mr. Narkom, what it is? Rather peculiar, isn't it?" "What the devil are you driving at?" demanded Ross at this juncture, striding around the desk and taking up a stand beside his fiancee as though to shield her from the hands of these merciless probers of human hearts. "I wish to God you and your kind had never showed up here at all, I do, indeed! You always bring trouble in your wake." "_Follow_ trouble, I think you mean, my friend," supplemented Cleek quietly. "The trouble is generally there first. It is our business to see that it is thrust upon--the right shoulders." "Then Cynthia--what are you driving at now?" There was a moment's tense silence. Then Cleek's voice sounded clearly: "Simply this. Those three stains there--long, narrow ones--upon Miss Debenham's gown (I noticed them this morning at breakfast) are--bloodstains, Mr. Duggan--_bloodstains_!" CHAPTER XIII MR. NARKOM VOICES AN OPINION "_Bloodstains?_" Three pairs of feminine lips voiced that sinister word simultaneously: Lady Paula's, Cynthia's, and Maud Duggan's. "But how, Mr. Deland?-- But why?-- And upon Cynthia's dress, too!" "Well, I'll swear I never had anything to do with it, anyhow!" threw in Cynthia emphatically and in a voice of astonishment. "How _could_ they be bloodstains, Mr. Deland? and how could they possibly get on _my_ frock? Solve that question, if you please, first of all." "Quite a simple one, Miss Debenham. Just this: The murderer--or one of them, as the case may be--entered this room by that middle window, stabbed Sir Andrew with the stiletto, stolen for the purpose, of course--then, in a frenzy lest he be discovered, caught hold of the nearest thing and wiped the bloodstained instrument upon it, and then made off as quickly as possible. You happened to be the nearest, no doubt. So you were the person chosen. Did you not feel anything at all of the action?" She shook her head. "Nothing that I remember. We were all so astonished when the light failed that I don't remember anything at all about it. If it was done, it was done gently--and my skirt is wide." "And you think the murderer, the perpetrator of this wicked crime, was a man, then, Mr. Deland?" put in the soft voice of Lady Paula at this juncture. Cleek spun around toward her, nodding emphatically. "I do, indeed. No woman could have arranged the thing like this, Lady Paula. The electricity would have been too difficult a problem for her, in the first place, and then the shooting----" "And how do you account for _that_, Mr. Deland?"