She Died a Lady by John Dickson Carr

moustache, but it did not extend up to his eyes. His face was serious, earnest, and thoughtful. I could have sworn he believed every word he said.
    ‘The more I think it over, gentleman, the more I’m convinced it was a suicide-pact,’ he affirmed. ‘On what evidence do you base your assumption of murder? On two things. First, the absence of powder-speckling on the hand of either victim. Second, the finding of the gun some distance away. Yes?’
    ‘Yes, sir. And that’s good enough for me.’
    ‘Well, let’s see.’ Steve leaned his head against the back of the chair. ‘Let’s state a hypothetical case. Mrs Wainright and Mr Sullivan decide to kill themselves. Sullivan procures an automatic. They walk out to the edge of the cliff. Sullivan first shoots her and them himself. On his right hand he’s wearing … what? A glove?’
    It was very quiet in the white sitting-room, except for the ticking of the clock.
    I started to say: ‘A glove on his own hand to shoot himself?’ But, at the very moment I said it, certain cases in medical jurisprudence as well as in my own experience returned with unnerving distinctness. Steve Grange continued:
    ‘Let’s remember the habits of suicides. A suicide will take the most elaborate precautions not to “hurt” or “pain” himself. If he hangs himself, he’ll often pad the rope. He seldom or never shoots himself through the eye, though that’s the one certain method. He puts a cushion in the gas-oven to make his head comfortable.
    ‘Now this particular gun had a bad backfire. Backfire means a very painful powder-speckling; perhaps a bad burn. Sullivan has to shoot Mrs Wainright even before he shoots himself. Isn’t it natural … in fact, isn’t it inevitable … that he’ll wear a glove?’
    Neither H.M. nor Craft said anything, though I could detect a startled look on the latter’s face and he gave a barely perceptible nod.
    Steve Grange nodded towards a wall of books at the back of the room.
    ‘We’re great crime-readers here,’ he told us with faint apology. ‘So I’ll go on. Isn’t it true, Superintendent, that bodies washed up out of water always have some of their clothing – and sometimes nearly all of it – torn away?’
    Craft grunted.
    His glass eye had acquired, if possible, an even more unnatural appearance. He peered up and down from his notebook.
    ‘It’s true enough,’ the superindent admitted. I’ve known one or two of ’em washed up stark naked except for their shoes. Shoes never go, because the leather shrinks. Mrs Wainright and Mr Sullivan were pretty fully clothed, though most of it was rags. But what you mean is – the first thing to go would be an open glove?’
    ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’
    Here Steve hesitated, trying to gnaw at the edges of his small moustache.
    ‘Excuse me,’ he said in his dry voice. ‘The next part isn’t pleasant for me. It’s going to offend an old friend. But I can’t help it.’
    He looked straight at me, and spoke gently.
    ‘Dr Luke, let’s be fair. Yours were the only other footprints there. We all know how much you liked Mrs Wainright. You’d have hated (admit this!), you’d have hated the idea of having it known she committed suicide because she couldn’t be faithful to her husband.
    ‘The gun must have fallen on that tiny little semicircular patch of scrub grass on the edge of Lovers’ Leap. While you were lying at full length, looking over the edge, you could have reached out with a cane and hooked the gun towards you. Confound it, you must have! Then you took it back with you, and dropped it in the road on your way home to get the police.’
    Again Steve gave me an earnest look, of disapproval mingled with commiseration, before turning to the others. He was bending forward, palms upturned, and forehead furrowed with apologetic horizontal wrinkles.
    ‘Say what you like, gentleman. That’s the only possible explanation,’ he declared.
    (Here H.M. looked at him very