"How will that help us?
A knife, yes--perhaps.

But a skewer!" "At the shops--there will not be so many in Aix at which you can buy skewers--they may remember to whom they sold one within the last day or so." "How do we know it was bought in the last day or so ?" cried Hanaud scornfully.

"We have not to do with a man who walks into a shop and buys a single skewer to commit a murder with, and so hands himself over to the police.

How often must I say it!" The violence of his contempt nettled Ricardo.
"If the murderer did not buy it, how did he obtain it ?" he asked obstinately.
"Oh, my friend, could he not have stolen it?
From this or from any hotel in Aix?
Would the loss of a skewer be noticed, do you think?
How many people in Aix today have had rognons a la brochette for their luncheon! Besides, it is not merely the death of this poor woman which troubles me.

We have lost the evidence which she was going to bring to us.