Page:The Valley of Fear.pdf/68

Rh you carry the names of all the gunmakers in the world in your memory?”

Holmes dismissed the subject with a wave.

“No doubt it is an American shotgun,” White Mason continued. “I seem to have read that a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon used in some parts of America. Apart from the name upon the barrel, the idea had occurred to me. There is some evidence, then, that this man who entered the house and killed its master was an American.”

MacDonald shook his head. “Man, you are surely traveling overfast,” said he. “I have heard no evidence yet that any stranger was ever in the house at all.”

“The open window, the blood on the sill, the queer card, the marks of boots in the corner, the gun!”

“Nothing there that could not have been arranged. Mr. Douglas was an American, or had lived long in America. So had Mr. Barker. You don’t need to import an American from outside in order to account for American doings.”

“Ames, the butler” [66]