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86 downstairs?" Odell's tone was scornful and Jane bridled beneath it.

"After the deaths and all, it's no wonder I was. I thought he was dead too, and it put me in a panic If it's all nonsense, sir, as you say, why is it that the police are here?"

He laughed at the impudent thrust.

"To put a stop to the silly notions you've all got. Jane, that morning when young Mr. Chalmers died, who cleaned up his room and the bathroom after the undertaker had gone?"

Jane's color ebbed in her cheeks.

"I did, sir; me and the cook together, for I wouldn't have gone into that room alone for all the money in the world." She shuddered. "We didn't wait for the undertaker either; as soon as the doctor came and the med—medical examiner, I think you call it—and made out papers as to how the poor young gentleman had died, the body was carried into one of the guest-rooms across the hall, and me and the cook started in on the bathroom. It was fairly ghastly, sir. There was blood everywhere—"

She was evidently going on with a gruesome relish, but the detective interrupted her.

"Did you notice any on the tub?"

"Yes, sir. The marks of poor Mr. Julian's hands covered with it, where he'd tried to keep himself up."

"Both hands, Jane? Are you sure of it?"

"Yes, sir, both hands. I remember because I called the cook's attention to them. Some of them was blurred, but there was one place where his two hands had grabbed the edge of the tub side by side. Cook can tell you, sir. There was the mark of both hands, plain."