“I don’t know!” he exclaimed, covering his white face with his hands, as if to shut out the awful memory. “Do you suppose I noticed such details?” he cried, looking up again. “I picked up the dagger, scarce knowing that I did it! It was almost an unconscious act. I was stunned, dazed, at what I saw before me, and I know nothing of the dagger or its bloodstains!”

Truly, the man was almost frenzied, and out of consideration for his perturbed state, the coroner asked him no more questions just then.

“It seems to me,” observed Rob Fessenden, “that the nature or shape of the stains on the dagger handle might determine this point. If they appear to be fingermarks, the weapon must have been held by some other hand. If merely stains, as from the floor, they might be considered to strengthen Doctor Hill’s theory.”

The Venetian paper-cutter was produced and passed around.