The Opening Door

A red STICKINESS, partly coagulated, on the hand of a child of five… A BROWN STAIN carried to a hall carpet from a pool of blood under a dead woman in a park… A three-cornered FRAGMENT torn from a photograph… A GOLF BAG carried up fire escapes and over roofs in December… A MORPHINE COCKTAIL which shows murder can be anybody's game… A pair of practically new OXFORDS reposing in the brook… A CHEST containing a handful of yellow CLOTH and pink STONES which Charlotte took from the bank the day before she died… A DIRTY PINK BEAD for which Susan searched her house inch by inch… An open CISTERN in a third-floor tank room beside which lies one white SLIPPER… A TINY SHRED of GREEN STUFF, invisible to the naked eye....