Very gently Callaghan moved the head back to its original position. Then he started on the grisly business of getting the pistol out of Lionel's right hand. The spasm of death had loosed the grip on the butt a little, but the hand and fingers were stiff in rigor mortis. It took ten minutes work to get the pistol free.
He looked at it. It was a .28 Spanish automatic. Callaghan slipped out the ammunition clip and examined it. There were nine cartridges left in the clip, which took ten. Lionel had used one on himself. The rest of the ammunition was intact. Callaghan smiled a little.
He sat down on the tree stump with his back to the body. He picked up his damp and muddy handkerchief, and with a fairly clean corner of it began to clean the butt of the pistol, to remove Lionel's fingerprints.
