The Lady in Blue by Fred M. White

Kelso looked eagerly around the little conservatory and exchanged a significant glance with Denver. The latter's vivid imagination was at work now on a theory or his own. Inspector Stead seemed to attach little or no importance to the fact that one of the dead man's cuffs was missing, but this certainly appealed to Denver's dramatic instincts. He could see for himself that the shirt-cuff had been removed by force and violently torn away, which would pre-suppose that the murderer was a person of some considerable strength. It was no great task for a born weaver of plots, like Denver, to construct a romance from this slender material. He looked around him to see if he could see anything of the missing band of linen, but for the moment, at any rate, he looked in vain. Possibly the murderer had put it in his pocket; but, on the other hand, it was hard to believe that anybody could have the slightest use for an article so trivial as a cuff from a clean dress-shirt. Still, it was impossible to tell, and Denver would have given something to have the lost rag in his possession at that moment.

He was wondering why Kelso was half smiling. But Kelso's eyes were a great deal keener than his. They were eyes strained to look for danger everywhere, and almost instantly they had discovered a tiny white spot in the centre of a bank of maidenhair fern. In a dim sort of way Kelso was following the working of his friend's mind. Stead was there to inquire into the mystery surrounding the tragic death of the Grand Duke, but there was something else to be discovered, too, and this was Kelso's own private business. Stead had made light of the affair of the torn cuff, but evidently Denver held another opinion, and if Kelso could help him he was going to get his chance. A moment afterwards, therefore, the torn cuff was safely tucked away in Kelso's pocket.