That person had indeed been
wounded slightly, but wished it to appear that the wounds were
very serious. The fact of the matter is that the carving-knife is
spotted deeply with blood, but it is not human blood. It is the
blood of a cat. A few years ago even a scientific detective would
have concluded that a fierce hand-to-hand struggle had been waged
and that the murderer was, perhaps, fatally wounded. Now, another
conclusion stands, proved infallibly by this Reichert test. The
murderer was wounded, but not badly. That person even went out of
the room and returned later, probably with a can of animal blood,
sprinkled it about to give the appearance of a struggle, perhaps
thought of preparing in this way a plea of self-defence. If that
latter was the case, this Reichert test completely destroys it,
clever though it was." No one spoke, but the same thought was
openly in all our minds. Who was this wounded criminal?
I asked myself the usual query of the lawyers and the detectives--
Who would benefit most by the death of Pitts? There was but one
answer, apparently, to that.
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