Seven
Shaking off the feelings that oppressed me, I went quickly upstairs. I hadno difficulty in finding the room of the tragedy. On the day the body wasdiscovered it had rained heavily, and large muddy boots had trampled¹ theuncarpeted floor in every direction. I wondered if the murderer had leftany footmarks the previous day. It was likely that the police would be reti-cent on the subject if he had, but on consideration I decided² it was un-likely. The weather had been fine and dry.
There was nothing of interest about the room. It was almost square withtwo big bay windows, plain white walls and a bare floor, the boards beingstained round the edges where the carpet had ceased. I searched it care-fully, but there was not so much as a pin lying about. The gifted young de-tective did not seem likely to discover a neglected clue.
I had brought with me a pencil and notebook. There did not seem muchto note, but I duly dotted down a brief sketch³ of the room to cover my dis-appointment at the failing of my quest. As I was in the act of returning thepencil to my bag, it slipped from my fingers and rolled along the floor.
The Mill House was really old, and the floors were very uneven⁴. Thepencil rolled steadily⁵, with increasing momentum⁶, until it came to rest un-der one of the windows. In the recess⁷ of each window there was a broadwindow seat, underneath⁸ which there was a cupboard. My pencil was ly-ing right against the cupboard door. The cupboard was shut, but it sud-denly occurred to me that if it had been open my pencil would have rolledinside. I opened the door, and my pencil immediately rolled in andsheltered modestly in the farthest corner. I retrieved⁹ it, noting as I did sothat owing to lack of light and the

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