Mademoiselle Stangerson had, no doubt, her own
reasons for so doing, since she had told her father nothing of it,
and had made it understood to the examining magistrate that the
attack had taken place in the night, during the second phase. She
was forced to say that, otherwise her father would have questioned
her as to her reason for having said nothing about it.
"But I could not explain the blow on the temple. I understood it
even less when I learned that the mutton-bone had been found in her
room. She could not hide the fact that she had been struck on the
head, and yet that wound appeared evidently to have been inflicted
during the first phase, since it required the presence of the
murderer! I thought Mademoiselle Stangerson had hidden the wound
by arranging her hair in bands on her forehead.
"As to the mark of the hand on the wall, that had evidently been
made during the first phase--when the murderer was really there.
All the traces of his presence had naturally been left during the
first phase; the mutton-bone, the black footprints, the Basque cap,
the handkerchief, the blood on the wall, on the door, and on the
floor.
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