The enquiries we were able to make from it came to nothing." "Where was it picked up ?" "In the middle of the waste plot of ground next to Soto's.

The murderer evidently threw it there the moment he had discharged it.

He must have been wearing rubber-soled shoes, for not a soul heard him go." Francis nodded thoughtfully.
"I wonder," he said, after a slight pause, "whether it ever occurred to you to interview Miss Daisy Hyslop, the young lady who was with Bidlake on the night of his murder ?" "I called upon her the day afterwards," the detective answered.
"She had nothing to say ?" "Nothing whatever." "Indirectly, of course," Francis continued, "the poor girl was the cause of his death.

If she had not insisted upon his going out for a taxicab, the man who was loitering about would probably have never got hold of him." The detective glanced up furtively at the speaker.

He seemed to reflect for a moment.
"I gathered," he said, "in conversation with the commissionaire, that Miss Hyslop was a little impatient that night.