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Page 109
"Sit down," he said. He did not offer any explanation or
comment. He merely silenced the man and returned to the girl
standing eagerly on the step before the bench.
"The wound was in the base of the man's neck at the top of the
left shoulder on the side next to the wall," he said. "But what
has this fact to do with the case?"
"Oh, monsieur," she cried, "it has everything to do with it. If
the assassin who slipped along the wall had carried the knife in
his right hand, the wound would have been on the right side of
the dead man's neck. But if, monsieur, the assassin carried the
knife in his left hand, then the wound would be where it is, on
the left side. That made me believe, at first, that the assassin
had only one arm - had lost his right arm - and must use the
other; then, a little later, I understood . . . . Oh, monsieur,
don't you understand; don't you see that the assassin who stabbed
Mr. Marsh was left-handed?"
In a moment it was all clear to everybody. Only a left-handed
man could have committed the crime, for only a left-handed man
standing close against the left side of a room above one sitting
at a desk against that wall could have struck straight down into
the left shoulder of the murdered man. A right-handed assassin
would have struck straight down into the right shoulder, he would
not have risked a doubtful blow, delivered awkwardly across his
body, into the left shoulder of his victim.
The girl indicated Thompson with her hand. "He did it; he's
left-handed. I found out by dropping my glove."
Panic enveloped the cornered man. He began to shake as with an
ague. Sweat like a thin oil spread over his debauched face and
the folds of his obese neck. With his fatal left hand he began
to finger the lapel of his coat where the faded rosebud hung
pinned into the buttonhole. And the girl's voice broke the
profound silence of the court-room.
"He has the money, too," she said. "I felt a bulky packet when I
gave him the flower out of my bouquet last night."
The big, thin-haired lawyer, leaving the courtroom after his
withdrawal from the case, stopped at a window arrested by the
amazing scene: The police taking the stolen money out of
Thompson's pocket; the woman in the girl's arms, and the
transfigured prisoner standing up as in the presence of a
heavenly angel. This before him . . . and the splendid motor
below under the sweep of the window, waiting before the
courthouse door, brought back the memory of his biting, sarcastic
words:
". . . or Cinderella in a pumpkin coach!"
And there occurred to him a doubt of the exclusive dominance of
life by the gods he served.
XIV. The Yellow Flower
The girl sat in a great chair before the fire, huddled, staring
into the glow of the smoldering logs.
Her dark hair clouded her face. The evening gown was twisted and
crumpled about her. There was no ornament on her; her arms, her
shoulders, the exquisite column of her throat were bare.
She sat with her eyes wide, unmoving, in a profound reflection.
The library was softly lighted; richly furnished, a little beyond
the permission of good taste. On a table at the girl's elbow
were two objects; a ruby necklace, and a dried flower. The
flower, fragile with age, seemed a sort of scrub poppy of a
delicate yellow; the flower of some dwarfed bush, prickly like a
cactus.
The necklace made a great heap of jewels on the buhl top of the
table, above the intricate arabesque of silver and
tortoise-shell.
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