discovery that Rose attached no importance to it, not guessing that, locked in his bedroom upstairs, Gaylor was at that very moment engaged in examining the weapon which, in all probability, had put an end to Lady Hereward's life.
It was a small neat revolver of .32 calibre, and only two of the six cartridges had been discharged. Four were left, and caked round the muzzle was something of a dark reddish colour, which looked like dried blood. Particles of pale brown earth adhered to this mass, as if they had stuck to it while it was still comparatively fresh and semi-liquid. But the fact that the revolver should be bloodstained was singularly suggestive to the mind of the detective. Evidently the murderer, having fired the two shots, and seen his victim fall, had either dropped his weapon, and her blood had stained it, or else he had coolly laid it on the floor near the body while he stripped the dead Lady Hereward of her rings, her bracelets and her other jewelry.
The next step for the detective was to learn whether this revolver which he had found was the one sold by Sailes to Ian Barr; and after the Barnards midday dinner, which he shared with them, he went up to London with his treasure, carefully wrapped in paper, in his pocket. The gunmaker recognized the weapon as that which Mr. Barr had bought from him; and, as Gaylor expressed it to himself, there was "one more nail in the coffin" of Ian Barr.
