Fenton, with an admonitory gesture toward his subordinate, turned directly toward the staircase.  Mr. Sutherland followed him, and they at once proceeded to the upper hall and into the large front room which had been the scene of the tragedy.

It was the parlour or sitting-room of this small and unpretentious house.  A rag carpet covered the floor and the furniture was of the plainest kind, but the woman who lay outstretched on the stiff, old-fashioned lounge opposite the door was far from being in accord with the homely type of her surroundings.  Though the victim of a violent death, her face and form, both of a beauty seldom to be found among women of any station, were so majestic in their calm repose, that Mr. Sutherland, accustomed as he was to her noble appearance, experienced a shock of surprise that found vent in these words: 

“Murdered! she?  You have made some mistake, my friends.  Look at her face!”

But even in the act of saying this his eyes fell on the blood which had dyed her cotton dress and he cried: 

“Where was she struck and where is the weapon which has made this ghastly wound?”

“She was struck while standing or sitting at this table,” returned the constable, pointing to two or three drops of blood on its smooth surface.  “The weapon we have not found, but the wound shows that it was inflicted by a three-sided dagger.”

“A three-sided dagger?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing in town.  Philemon could have had no dagger.”

“It does not seem so, but one can never tell.  Simple cottages like these often contain the most unlooked-for articles.”

“I cannot imagine a dagger being among its effects,” declared Mr. Sutherland.  “Where was the body of Mrs. Webb lying when you came in?”

“Where you see it now.  Nothing has been moved or changed.”

“She was found here, on this lounge, in the same position in which we see her now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But that is incredible.  Look at the way she lies!  Hands crossed, eyes closed, as though made ready for her burial.  Only loving hands could have done this.  What does it mean?”

“It means Philemon; that is what it means Philemon.”

Mr. Sutherland shuddered, but said nothing.  He was dumbfounded by these evidences of a crazy man’s work.  Philemon Webb always seemed so harmless, though he had been failing in mind for the last ten years.

“But” cried Mr. Sutherland, suddenly rousing, “there is another victim.  I saw old woman Batsy hanging from a window ledge, dead.”

“Yes, she is in this other room; but there is no wound on Batsy.”

“How was she killed, then?”

“That the doctors must tell us.”

Mr. Sutherland, guided by Mr. Fenton’s gesture, entered a small room opening into the one in which they stood.  His attention was at once attracted by the body of the woman he had seen from below, lying half in and half out of the open window.  That she was dead was evident; but, as Mr. Fenton had said, no wound was to be seen upon her, nor were there any marks of blood on or about the place where she lay.