Nevsky
was there and Kazanovitch, and even brave Olga Samarova, her pretty
face burning with the fever, would not be content until she was
carried upstairs, although Dr. Kharkoff protested vigorously that
it might have fatal consequences. Revalenko, an enigma of a man,
sat stolidly. The only thing I noticed about him was an occasional
look of malignity at Nevsky and Kazanovitch when he thought he was
unobserved.
It was indeed a strange gathering, the like of which the old house
had never before harboured in all its varied history. Every one
was on the qui vive, as Kennedy placed on the table a small wire
basket containing some test-tubes, each tube corked with a small
wadding of cotton. There was also a receptacle holding a dozen
glass-handled platinum wires, a microscope, and a number of slides.
The bomb, now rendered innocuous by having been crushed in a huge
hydraulic press, lay in fragments in the box.
"First, I want you to consider the evidence of the bomb," began
Kennedy. "No crime, I firmly believe, is ever perpetrated without
leaving some clue. The slightest trace, even a drop of blood no
larger than a pin-head, may suffice to convict a murderer. The
impression made on a cartridge by the hammer of a pistol, or a
single hair found on the clothing of a suspected person, may serve
as valid proof of crime.
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