“They arrived at the house in two automobiles; with the exception of Phelps, who was there already, and Manton, who came in his own limousine.  That means that Miss Lamar had company on the trip out, the principals probably riding with each other in one car.  At the house they were all more or less together.  There were people about constantly and it would seem as if there was small opportunity for anyone to inflict the scratch which caused her death.  I don’t mean that it would have been impossible to prick her.  I mean that she would have felt the jab of the point.  In all likelihood she would have cried out and glanced around.  Take a needle yourself, sometime, Walter, and try to duplicate the scratch on your own arm in such a way that you would not be aware of it.

“So you see I’m counting upon some sort of exclamation from Miss Lamar.  If she were inoculated with the poison with other folks about, it is sure some one would have remembered a cry, a questioning glance, a quick grasp of the forearm—­for the nerves are very sensitive in the skin there—­”

“No one did recall anything of the kind,” I interrupted.

“It is from that fact that I hope to deduce something.  Now let’s follow her, figuratively, to her little dressing room.  This was a part of the living room where the rest waited.  It is not a certainty, but yet rather a sure guess, that if she had received a scratch behind those thin silk curtains her cry would have been heard.  What is even more plausible is that she would have hurried out, or at least put her head out, to see who had pricked her.

“I made a very careful examination of that little alcove with the idea that some artifice might have been used.  It occurred to me that a poisoned point could have been inserted in her belongings in some way so that she would have brought about her own death, directly.  To have caught herself on a needle point in her bag, for instance, would not have impressed her to the point of making a disturbance.  She might have checked her exclamation, in that case, because she would be blaming herself.

“But I found nothing in her things, nor did I discover anything in the library.  It seems to me, therefore, that we must look for a direct human agency.”

A thought struck me and I hastened to suggest it.  “Could some device have been arranged in her clothes, Craig; something like the poison rings of the Middle Ages, a tiny metal thing to spring open and expose its point when pressed against her in the action of the scenes?”

“That occurred to me at the time.  That’s why I asked Mackay to send all her clothes down here, every stitch and rag of them.  I’ve gone over everything already this morning.  Not only have I examined the various materials for stains, but I’ve tested each hook and eye and button and pin.  I’ve been very careful to cover that possibility.”

“You think, then, she was scratched deliberately by some one during the taking of the scenes?”