Page:The Black Camel (IA blackcamel0000earl).djvu/85

FOR a moment, stunned by the picture Miss Dixon’s words presented, the assemblage was silent. Then a low murmur, a buzz of amazed comment, filled the room. Charlie Chan stood looking at his newest witness speculatively, as though he asked himself whether her statement could possibly be true.

“Most interesting,” he said at last. ‘There has been, then, on these grounds to-night, a gentleman whose presence was up to this moment unsuspected by me. Whether or not he carried blood-soaked shirt bosom———”

“But I tell you I saw it,” the girl protested.

Chan shrugged. “Perhaps. Oh, most humble pardon—I do not question your truth. I merely mention overwrought nerves, or maybe optic illusion. You must excuse if I say I might admit murderer would be so clumsy at his work as to inundate himself, but reason totters on pedestal to add that such a man would rush from scene of crime with coat flapping open on his error. Rather I would picture him with garment wrapped close to hide away this crimson evidence. But what does it matter? We must at any rate pursue thought of man with overcoat. The idea in itself presents portrait of queer human being. Overcoat in