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Rh was right, the unknown had brought the denture to the house with him, and left it in the bedroom, with the same object as he had in leaving the shoes: to make it impossible that any one should doubt that Manderson had been in the house and had gone to bed there. This, of course, led me to the inference that Manderson was dead before the false Manderson came to the house; and other things confirmed this.

For instance, the clothing, to which I now turned in my review of the position. If my guess was right, the unknown in Manderson's shoes had certainly had possession of Manderson's trousers, waistcoat, and shooting jacket. They were there before my eyes in the bedroom; and Martin had seen the jacket–which nobody could have mistaken–upon the man who sat at the telephone in the library. It was now quite plain (if my guess was right) that this unmistakable garment was a cardinal feature of the unknown's plan. He knew that Martin would take him for Manderson at the first glance.

And there my thinking was interrupted by the realization of a thing that had escaped me before. So strong had been the influence of the unquestioned assumption that it was