we seriously to suppose that two people—a man and a woman—were separately concerned, and that each was so careless as to drop a clue to their identity? It is a little too much of a coincidence, that!’
‘But where does the hat-box come in?’ asked the doctor, still puzzled.
‘Ah! I’m coming to that. As I say, these clues, the watch stopped at a quarter-past one, the handkerchief, the pipe cleaner, they may be genuine, or they may be fake. As to that I cannot yet tell. But there is one clue here which I believe—though again I may be wrong—has not been faked. I mean this flat match, M. le docteur. I believe that that match was used by the murderer, not by M. Ratchett. It was used to burn an incriminating paper of some kind. Possibly a note. If so, there was something in that note, some mistake, some error, that left a possible clue to the assailant. I am going to endeavour to resurrect what that something was.’
He went out of the compartment and returned a few moments later with a small spirit stove and a pair of curling tongs.
‘I use them for the moustaches,’ he said, referring to the latter.
The doctor watched him with great interest. He flattened out the two humps of wire, and with great care wriggled the charred scrap of paper on to one of them. He clapped the other on top of it and then, holding both pieces together with the tongs, held the whole thing over the flame of the spirit lamp.
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