Tony Walker

I opened it and went in.

The place was completely empty.

No car, no body.

No, nothing.

There was a patch of grease on the floor where I dropped a candle.

Otherwise, there was nothing to show I'd been there before.

One of two things must have happened.

Either some people had come along during the night and taken the car away, or else I'd fallen asleep in front of the fire and dreamt the whole thing.

Then I remembered the whiskey glasses.

They should still be in the sitting room.

I went back to look, and they were, all three of them.

So it hadn't been a dream, and the car had been fetched away, but they must have been jolly quiet over it.

The girl had left her glass on the mantelpiece and it showed several very clearly defined finger marks.

Some were mine, naturally, because I'd fetched the glass from the kitchen and poured out the drink for her.

But hers, her finger marks, were clean and mine were oily, so it was quite easy to tell them apart.

It isn't necessary to point out that this glass was very important.

There had evidently been a murder or something of the kind, and the girl must have known all about it, even if she hadn't actually done it herself.

So anything she had left in the way of evidence ought to be handed over to the police, and this was all she had left.

So I packed it up with meticulous care in an old biscuit box out of the larder.

When Mrs. Selston came, I settled up with her and came back to town.