"He was all over the world, but I can't rightly say where, sir. Why?"

"This," the gruff Coroner shook the weapon, "is an African sacrificial knife in use on the West Coast. From the way in which the copper is welded into the steel, I fancy some Nigerian tribe possessed it. The members of tribes thereabouts are clever metal-workers. The handle and the lettering also remind me of something," mused the doctor, "for I was a long time out in Senegal and Sierra Leone and saw—and saw—but that's no matter. How comes an African sacrificial knife here?"

"I'm sure I don't know, sir," said Mrs. Coppersley promptly. "Jabez, as I say, had all manner of queer things which he didn't show me."

"You can't say if this knife belonged to him?"

"No, sir, I can't. The murderer may have brought it."

"You are not here to give opinions," growled the doctor, throwing the ugly-looking weapon on the table. "Are you sure," he added to Ward, "that the wound was made with this knife?"

"Yes, I'm sure," replied the young practitioner, tartly, for the Coroner's attitude annoyed him. "The weapon is sharp pointed and fits the wound. Also the deceased wore a thick pea-jacket and only such a knife could have penetrated the cloth."

"If the blow were struck with sufficient force," snapped the Coroner.

"It was," rejoined the witness. "Have you any more questions to ask me?"

The Coroner nodded, and Ward gave surgical details to prove that death must have taken place almost instantaneously, since Huxham had been stabbed to the heart. "Apparently deceased heard a noise, and rose suddenly from his chair at the desk to face round in self-defence. But the assassin was too quick for him, and struck the knife to deceased's heart with great force as is apparent from——"

"That's all supposition," contradicted the Coroner rudely. "Stick to facts."

Boiling with rage, the young doctor confined himself forthwith to a bald statement of what he had discovered and then was curtly dismissed to give place to Mrs. Coppersley.

That lady was voluble and sharp-tongued, so that the Coroner quite met with his match, much to the delight of Dr. Ward, smarting under much discourtesy. Mrs. Coppersley 

 Prev. P 50/224 next