After you assure Mrs. Hargrave that you’ll investigate the matter, you hurry over to the hospital. You find sour-faced Henry Courtenay in an examining room, preparing to leave. You ask the doctor if you may examine the wound.
The doctor draws up the sharply creased, spotlessly clean leg of Courtenay’s light gray trousers. He carefully removes the bandage, revealing freshly cauterized marks on the right calf.
You ask the doctor, “Are you sure these are a dog’s tooth marks?”
The doctor replies, “They look like it, but I wouldn’t swear to it.”
Then you ask Courtenay, “Did you come here immediately after the incident in front of your apartment building?”
“You bet I did!” he says. “You can’t take a chance with a dog bite.”
“I think you’re taking chances,” you say, “with a foolish attempt to frame a charge against the Hargraves. I think you inflicted that wound on your leg yourself – maybe with a fork – to look like tooth marks. In any event, I’m sure the Hargraves’ dog did not bite you!”