“Oh, of course it is always well to make these things strong when talking to one of the chief’s caliber, but here is the case as I see it. It may need several revising before we come to the end. I admit, when confronted with the evidence of the knife through the table, the blood-stained slipper, and the mysterious telephone call—to say nothing of the drugged wine and the servants carefully rendered hors de combat. I couldn’t glean a clue from any of their minds. It is evident, however, that Hoppington had been entertaining a man and a woman. Either he disposed of the servants himself in order to carry out some criminal design, or he was tricked into doing it as a part of a plot that proved his undoing.
“The knife thrust through the tabletop seems to suggest either pure bravado or an exces
