"At the time I was much puzzled. Mademoiselle Stangerson could
not have been her own murderer, since the evidences pointed to some
other person. The assassin, then, had come before. If that were so,
how was it that Mademoiselle had been attacked after? or rather,
that she appeared to have been attacked after? It was necessary for
me to reconstruct the occurrence and make of it two phases--each
separated from the other, in time, by the space of several hours.
One phase in which Mademoiselle Stangerson had really been attacked
--the other phase in which those who heard her cries thought she
was being attacked. I had not then examined The Yellow Room. What
were the marks on Mademoiselle Stangerson? There were marks of
strangulation and the wound from a hard blow on the temple. The
marks of strangulation did not interest me much; they might have
been made before, and Mademoiselle Stangerson could have concealed
them by a collarette, or any similar article of apparel. I had to
suppose this the moment I was compelled to reconstruct the occurrence
by two phases.
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