He and Furneaux are called the Big 'Un and the
Little 'Un, and each is most unlike the average detective. But Heaven
help any wrong-doer they set out to trail! They'll get him, as sure as
God made little apples."
"Then the sooner Mr. Winter visits Steynholme the better I shall be
pleased. This tragedy is becoming a perfect nightmare. You heard that
fat-headed policeman speak of my face being covered with blood. He did it
purposely. I made a fool of him this morning, so he paid me out, the
literal truth being that a branch of that Dorothy Perkins rose there
caught my cheek as I entered this room on Tuesday morning--before I
discovered the body--and broke the skin. I suppose the cut is visible
still? I saw it to-day while shaving."
"Yes," said the other, chortling over the "copy" his colleagues were
missing. "The mark is there right enough. Queer how inanimate objects
like a rose-tree can make mischief. I remember a case in which a chestnut
in a man's pocket sent him to penal servitude. There was absolutely no
evidence against him, except a possible motive, until that chestnut was
found and proved to be one of a particular species, grown only in a
certain locality.
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