The initials V.V. and under them the number 341 were
rudely scrawled in ink upon it.
"What's this?" he asked, holding it up.
Barker looked at it with curiosity. "I never noticed it before,"
he said. "The murderer must have left it behind him."
"V.V.--341. I can make no sense of that."
The sergeant kept turning it over in his big fingers. "What's
V.V.? Somebody's initials, maybe. What have you got there, Dr.
Wood?"
It was a good-sized hammer which had been lying on the rug in
front of the fireplace--a substantial, workmanlike hammer. Cecil
Barker pointed to a box of brass-headed nails upon the
mantelpiece.
"Mr. Douglas was altering the pictures yesterday," he said. "I
saw him myself, standing upon that chair and fixing the big
picture above it. That accounts for the hammer."
"We'd best put it back on the rug where we found it," said the
sergeant, scratching his puzzled head in his perplexity. "It
will want the best brains in the force to get to the bottom of
this thing. It will be a London job before it is finished." He
raised the hand lamp and walked slowly round the room.
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