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Rh have been a London woman," said Hutchings with conviction. "If she'd lived about here, I must have heard about it."

"It was a lady, you must know. The papers do not bring that fact out. My informant is quite sure that it was a lady," said Mr. Flexen.

"That's no 'elp, sir," said Hutchings despondently. "She must have come down by train and gone away by train."

"She would have probably been noticed at the station. But she wasn't. Besides, she could not have walked back to the station in time to catch the last train. I'm sure of it."

"Then she must have come in a car, sir."

"That is always possible," said Mr. Flexen.

There was a pause.

Then Hutchings burst out: "You may depend on it that she did it, sir. There isn't a shadow of a doubt. You get her and you'll get the murderess."

He spoke with the feverish, unbalanced vehemence of a man whose nerves are on edge.

"You think so, do you?" said Mr. Flexen.

"I'm sure of it—dead certain," cried Hutchings.

"It's a long way from visiting a gentleman late at night and quarrelling with him to murdering him," said Mr. Flexen.

"And she went it. You mark my words, sir. She went it. I don't say that she came to do it. But she saw that knife lying handy on the library