“Anyway, we can find out the truth about the telephone call from the exchange. If it was put through from here, I don’t see how anyone else but Parker could have sent it. Depend upon it, he’s our man. But keep it dark⁠—we don’t want to alarm him just yet, till we’ve got the evidence. I’ll be concentrating on your mysterious stranger.”

He rose from where he had been sitting astride the chair belonging to the desk, and crossed over to the still form in the armchair.

“The weapon ought to give us a clue,” he remarked, looking up. “It’s something quite unique⁠—a curio, I should think, by the look of it.”

He bent down, surveying the handle attentively, and I heard him give a grunt of satisfaction. Then, very gingerly, he pressed his hands down below the hilt and drew the blade out from the wound. Still carrying it so as not to touch the handle, he placed it in a wide china mug which adorned the mantelpiece.