"That's out of a woman's jacket, or boa, or something," he declared, gradually disengaging it, and placing it in the hollow of his hand for closer inspection. "There are one or two black hairs with it, showing it, I believe, to be ermine fur--a woman who wore some garment of ermine." "Are you certain?" I gasped. "Almost--but not quite until I put it beneath the microscope. Then I'll be able to tell for certain. But surely it couldn't have been a woman who killed him?" "It looks very much like it, sir," remarked Knight, who had been gazing eagerly over the doctor's shoulder. "Then what woman?" asked Warr, glancing across at me. I held my breath. A silence fell between us. The mystery was of such a character that neither of us dare advance any further theory. For my own part, however, the discovery of this tiny piece of fur was directly suspicious, and went much to confirm my belief that Lolita had been at the spot where the tragedy had been enacted, for I now recollected that sometimes when she went out after dinner she put on a wide ermine boa with long ends to cover her shoulders, a very handsome piece of fur that had been brought for her from Petersburg when the young Countess of Stanchester went to visit the Grand-Duchess Paul in the previous winter. Was it possible that the poor young fellow had clutched at it in his dying grasp? Or had he seized the fur garment of some other woman? Yet, I recollected, furs are not usually worn in mid-August save just to throw over a dinner-gown as protection from chills when the damp is rising after the heat of the day. On the other hand, I tried to convince myself that the cry was not that of the sweet-eyed woman I loved; nevertheless, such thought was in vain. I knew that voice far too well to have been mistaken. For quite an hour Pink continued his investigations as keenly and methodically as any practised detective, for he rather prided himself upon the manner in which he made discoveries about persons, and frequently astounded his patients by his knowledge of their actions and movements, which they believed only known to themselves. At last, however, he exhausted all the points possible to investigate without a post-mortem, and just as the church clock struck three we came forth, Warr locking the door of the outhouse, while Knight left us to ride on his bicycle into Northampton to report to the headquarters of the constabulary. Pink's way lay past my house, for he lived in a big, square, comfortable house about a quarter of a mile out of the village, on the London road, and as we walked together up the silent street, he suddenly said--