myself to mention it.  The lights in the house having been left burning, I had no difficulty in finding her apartment.  I knew it by the folderols scattered about.  But I did not stop to look at them.  I was on a search for her slippers, and presently came upon them, thrust behind an old picture in the dimmest corner of the room.  Taking them down, I examined them closely.  They were not only soiled, gentlemen, but dreadfully cut and rubbed.  In short, they were ruined, and, thinking that the young lady herself would be glad to be rid of them, I quietly put them into my pocket, and carried them to my own home.  Abel has just been for them, so you can see them for yourselves, and if your judgment coincides with mine, you will discover something more on them than mud.”

Dr. Talbot, though he stared a little at the young man’s confessed theft, took the slippers Abel was holding out and carefully turned them over.  They were, as Sweetwater had said, grievously torn and soiled, and showed, beside several deep earth-stains, a mark or two of a bright red colour, quite unmistakable in its character.

“Blood,” declared the coroner.  “There is no doubt about it.  Miss Page was where blood was spilled last night.”

“I have another proof against her,” Sweetwater went on, in full enjoyment of his prominence amongst these men, who, up to now, had barely recognised his existence.  “When, full of the suspicion that Miss Page had had a hand in the theft which had taken place at Mrs. Webb’s house, if not in the murder that accompanied it, I hastened down to the scene of the tragedy, I met this young woman issuing from the front gate.  She had just been making herself conspicuous by pointing out a trail of blood on the grass plot.  Dr. Talbot, who was there, will remember how she looked on that occasion; but I doubt if he noticed how Abel here looked, or so much as remarked the faded flower the silly boy had stuck in his buttonhole.”

“—­me if I did!” ejaculated the coroner.

“Yet that flower has a very important bearing on this case.  He had found it, as he will tell you, on the floor near Batsy’s skirts, and as soon as I saw it in his coat, I bade him take it out and keep it, for, gentlemen, it was a very uncommon flower, the like of which can only be found in this town in Mr. Sutherland’s conservatory.  I remember seeing such a one in Miss Page’s hair, early in the evening.  Have you that flower about you, Abel?”

Abel had, and being filled with importance too, showed it to the doctor and to Mr. Fenton.  It was withered and faded in hue, but it was unmistakably an orchid of the rarest description.

“It was lying near Batsy,” explained Abel.  “I drew Mr. Fenton’s attention to it at the time, but he scarcely noticed it.”

“I will make up for my indifference now,” said that gentleman.

“I should have been shown that flower,” put in Knapp.