As we turned to leave the room, Poirot remarked casually: “It was here that M. Renauld received his guest last night, eh?”
“It was—but how did you know?”
“By this. I found it on the back of the leather chair.”
And he held up between his finger and thumb a long black hair—a woman’s hair!
M. Bex took us out by the back of the house to where there was a small shed leaning against the house. He produced a key from his pocket and unlocked it.
“The body is here. We moved it from the scene of the crime just before you arrived, as the photographers had done with it.”
He opened the door and we passed in. The murdered man lay on the ground, with a sheet over him. M. Bex dexterously whipped off the covering. Renauld was a man of medium height, slender and lithe in figure. He looked about fifty years of age, and his dark hair was plentifully streaked with grey. He was clean shaven with a long thin nose, and eyes set rather close together, and his skin was deeply bronzed, as that of a man who had spent most of his life beneath tropical skies. His lips were drawn back from his teeth and an expression of absolute amazement and terror was stamped on the livid features.
“One can see by his face that he was stabbed in the back,” remarked Poirot.
Very gently, he turned the dead man over. There, between the shoulder-blades, staining the light fawn overcoat, was a round dark patch. In the middle of it there was a slit in the cloth. Poirot examined it narrowly.
“Have you any idea with what weapon the crime was committed?”
“It was left in the wound.” The commissary reached down a large glass jar. In it was a small object that looked to me more like a paper-knife than anything else. It had a black handle, and a narrow shining blade. The whole thing was not more than ten inches long. Poirot tested the discoloured point gingerly with his finger tip.
