There was a little mud upon her shoes, as though she had walked after the rain had ceased.

Monsieur will remember that two heavy showers fell last evening between six and eight." "Yes," said Hanaud, nodding his approval.
"She was quite dead.

Her face was terribly swollen and black, and a piece of thin strong cord was knotted so tightly about her neck and had sunk so deeply into her flesh that at first I did not see it.

For Mme.
Dauvray was stout." "Then what did you do ?" asked Hanaud.
"I went to the telephone which was in the hall and rang up the police.
Then I crept upstairs very cautiously, trying the doors.

I came upon no one until I reached the room under the roof where the light was burning; there I found Helene Vauquier, the maid, snoring in bed in a terrible fashion." The four men turned a bend in the road.