been murdered.'

'Murdered?'

Margaret looked hard at Griggs, and then she suddenly shuddered from
head to foot. She had never before had such a sensation; it was like
a shock from an electric current at the instant when the contact is
made, not strong enough to hurt, but yet very disagreeable. She felt
it at the moment when her mind connected what Griggs was saying with
the dying girl's last words, 'he did it'; and with little Ida's look
of horror when she had watched Mr. Van Torp's lips while he was
talking to himself on the boat-deck of the _Leofric_; and again, with
the physical fear of the man that always came over her when she had
been near him for a little while. When she spoke to Griggs again the
tone of her voice had changed.

'Please tell me how it could have been done,' she said.

'Easily enough. A steel bodkin six or seven inches long, or even a
strong hat-pin. It would be only a question of strength.'

Margaret remembered Mr. Van Torp's coarse hands, and shuddered again.

'How awful!' she exclaimed.

'One would bleed to death internally before long,' Griggs said.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes. That is the reason why the three-cornered blade for duelling