Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/196

 she said, "I decided this morning to spend a day in cleaning my parlour—it's a thing I do twice a year, as opportunity offers. And in moving a certain piece of furniture I made a discovery—a horrifying discovery! An object! Without touching it I ran headlong to find you!"

"Very proper, ma'am," said the inspector. "An object, eh? Now what sort of an object Miss Tandy!"

For answer Miss Tandy swept her companions into the parlour, where the carpet was up, brown holland sheets over the furniture, and newspapers pinned about the curtains, and leading them to a corner wherein a bureau had been partly dragged aside, pointed to something that lay between it and the wall.

"That!" she ejaculated in a horror-struck tone. "That!"

The two men craned their necks, looking around and over the top of the bureau. They saw something that looked like a weapon lying in the dust below. Without a word Wedgwood pulled the bureau further into the room, and, stooping, picked up and held out to the inspector a short, sturdy-looking thing, one end of which was stout wood, the other a curved blade of rusty steel