Thus armed with the handkerchief to prevent fingerprints, I now looked around the room. It was a typical man’s room—silver-backed brushes on the dresser, various jars of pomade and even hair dye, showing that he was more than a little vain, but no other adornments. No photographs, no letters; nothing to give a clue as to who lived there, or what kind of person he was—except there were good paintings on the walls. After going through a few rooms I realized that Reynold Bryce had a fine collection of Impressionist art. Worth a pretty penny, I decided. Enough to make his wife decide to kill him off? Had the police checked whether she might be in France herself? Then I decided that she would not have stabbed her husband if she’d come over to kill him. Stabbing is always too risky. Unless you strike at exactly the right spot the victim may well live. The knife could hit against one of the ribs and not penetrate far enough. Or a strong person could wrestle the knife away before one has time to deliver the blow. It takes skill or luck to kill with a knife. Which did Bryce’s murderer have?

I prowled the other rooms, even pulled out drawers in his desk, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. Surely important papers would have been removed? Last of all I located the kitchen, now looking neat but forlorn with its bare scrubbed pine table and pans hanging above the stove. An unpleasant smell of stuffiness and rotting vegetables lingered in the air. It appeared that the housekeeper had only taken the good stuff yesterday. I opened a door that led to a pantry with well-stocked shelves, and beyond it a dark square of hallway leading to a pitifully small room that must have been occupied by the housekeeper. All that remained now was an unmade bed, a thin upright chest, and a wardrobe with the door hanging open to reveal no clothes inside. She had definitely taken all her things yesterday. I wondered whether the police would mind. Then I made my way back through the dining room to the room into which I had entered, Reynold Bryce’s studio. I didn’t want to betray my presence by pulling up any of the blinds so I groped about on the wall until I discovered an electric light switch. Thank heavens he was a modern man and I didn’t need to light the gas.