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The Hollow of Her Hand by George Barr McCutcheon
page 13 of 500 (02%)
the night at half-past ten. He went to bed. She must have slipped
out after every one was sound asleep. There were no other guests
on that floor. Burton and his wife sleep on this floor, and the
servants are at the top of the house and in a wing. No one heard
a sound. We have not the remotest idea when the thing happened, or
when she left the place. Dr. Sheef says the man had been dead for
six or eight hours when he first saw him, and that was very soon
after Burton's discovery. Burton, on finding the door open, naturally
suspected that his guests had skipped out during the night to avoid
paying the bill, and lost no time in entering the room.

"He found the man lying on the bed, sprawled out, face upward and
as dead as a mack--I should say, quite dead. He was partly dressed.
His coat and vest hung over the back of a chair. A small service
carving knife, belonging to the inn, had been driven squarely into
his heart and was found sticking there. Burton says that the man,
on their arrival at the inn, about nine o'clock at night, ordered
supper sent up to the room. The tray of dishes, with most of the food
untouched, and an empty champagne bottle, was found on the service
table near the hed. One of the chairs was overturned. The servant
who took the meal to the room says that the woman was sitting at
the window with her wraps on, motor veil and all, just as she was
when she came into the place. The man gave all the directions,
the woman apparently paying no attention to what was going on. The
waitress left the room without seeing her face. She had instructions
not to come for the tray until morning.

"That was the last time the man was seen alive. No one has seen
the woman since the door closed after the servant, who distinctly
remembers hearing the key turn in the lock as she went down the
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