intelligible and involved no impossibilities. But Drs. Heath and
Webster, under the eye of the Challoners' own physician, have made
an examination of the wound--an official one, thorough and quite
final so far as they are concerned, and they declare that no bullet
is to be found in the body. As the wound extends no further than
the heart, this settles one great point, at least."

"Dr. Heath is a reliable man and one of our ablest coroners."

"Yes. There can be no question as to the truth of his report. You
know the victim? Her name, I mean, and the character she bore?"

"Yes; so much was told me on my way down."

"A fine girl unspoiled by riches and seeming independence. Happy,
too, to all appearance, or we should be more ready to consider the
possibility of suicide."

"Suicide by stabbing calls for a weapon. Yet none has been found,
I hear."

"None."

"Yet she was killed that way?"

"Undoubtedly, and by a long and very narrow blade, larger than a
needle but not so large as the ordinary stiletto."

"Stabbed while by herself, or what you may call by herself? She
had no companion near her?"