“You’d better see, Bobby,” he said without turning.

“Yes,” Robinson said.  “Let me show you how wrong you were, Mr. Blackburn.  Let me ask if you knew you were wrong.”

Bobby entered with a quicker pulse.  He, too, stooped and looked in the opening.  Abruptly everything altered for him.  He wondered that his physical surroundings should remain the same, that the eager faces beside him should retain their familiar lines.

Against the back-board of the bureau, where it would fit neatly when the drawer was in place, lay a plaster cast of a footmark.  Near by was a rumpled handkerchief that Bobby recognized as his own, and the envelope, containing Howells’s report which they had told Jenkins to hide.

“Well?” Robinson grinned.

“I swear I didn’t know they were there,” Bobby answered.  “You’ll never make me believe that Katherine knows it.”

“I’ve guessed,” Rawlins said, “that the stuff was hidden here ever since this afternoon when I saw a small bundle sneaked in.”

“Who brought it?” Bobby took him up.

Robinson’s grin expanded.

“Leave us one or two surprises to spring in court.”

“Then,” Bobby said, “my cousin wasn’t in the room when this evidence was brought here.”

“I’ll admit that,” Rawlins answered, “but she wasn’t far away, and she got here before I could investigate, and she’s kept the door locked ever since until just now.”

He lifted the exhibits out.  The shape of the cast, the monogram on the handkerchief cried out their testimony.

Robinson grasped Howells’s report and glanced over the fine handwriting.  After a time he looked up.

“There’s the case against you, Mr. Blackburn, and at the least your cousin’s an accessory.  But why the devil did you come to me and make a clean breast of it?”

“Because,” Bobby cried, “I didn’t know anything about these things being here.  Can’t you see that?”

“That’s the trouble,” Robinson answered uncertainly, “I think I do see it.”

“Besides,” Graham said, “you’re still without the instrument that caused death.”

“I expect to land it in this room,” Rawlins answered grimly.

He replaced the drawer and continued to fumble among the clothing it contained.  All at once he called out and raised his hand.  On the forefinger a tiny red stain showed.

“How did you do that?” Robinson asked.

“Something pricked me,” the detective answered.  “Maybe it was only a pin, but it might have been—­”

Excitedly he resumed his search.  He took the clothing from the drawer and threw it to one side.  Nothing remained in the drawer.

“I guess it must have been a pin,” Robinson said, disappointed.

But Rawlins took up each article of clothing and examined it minutely.  His face brightened.

“Here’s something stiff.  By gad, I believe I’ve got it!”