Then you and Freeling had better return to London by the next train--you'll be wanted in that Putney case." The photographer and the finger-print expert left the room together, and Merrington walked across to the bed.

He drew away the sheet which covered the dead girl, and bent over the body, examining it closely, but without touching it.
"The corpse has not been moved, I suppose ?" he remarked to Caldew, who was standing beside him.
"Not since I arrived.

But she may not have been shot in that position.
She lived some minutes afterwards, and may have moved slightly--not much, I should say, for there are no marks of bloodstains on any other part of the bed." Merrington nodded.

He was looking at the bullet wound, which was plainly visible through a burnt orifice in the rest-gown which the dead girl was wearing.

The wound was a circular punctured hole in the left breast, less than the size of a sixpenny piece.
"The wound has been washed," he observed.