me rudely, "did Sir Philip Derval in his conversation with you mention
the steel casket which it seems he carried about with him?"

I felt my countenance change slightly as I answered, "Yes."

"Did he tell you what it contained?"

"He said it contained secrets."

"Secrets of what nature,--medicinal or chemical? Secrets which a
physician might be curious to learn and covetous to possess?"

This question seemed to me so offensively significant that it roused my
indignation, and I answered haughtily, that "a physician of any degree of
merited reputation did not much believe in, and still less covet, those
secrets in his art which were the boast of quacks and pretenders."

"My question need not offend you, Dr. Fenwick. I put it in another shape:
Did Sir Philip Derval so boast of the secrets contained in his casket that
a quack or pretender might deem such secrets of use to him?"

"Possibly he might, if he believed in such a boast."

"Humph!--he might if he so believed. I have no more questions to put to
you at present, Dr. Fenwick."

Little of any importance in connection with the deceased or his murder
transpired in the course of that day's examination and inquiries.

The next day, a gentleman distantly related to the young lady to whom Sir