"What about him?" the captain demanded.

"Just one thing," the Doctor continued. "There was no doubt whatever that
he had been operated upon for appendicitis, there was no doubt about the
complications, there was no doubt about his death. I helped Doctor
Gant--who seemed a very reasonable person, and who is known to me as one of
the physicians at Miss Beverley's hospital--in various small details, and
at his request I went over the clothing of the dead man and even knocked
the coffin to see that it hadn't a double bottom. Doctor Gant appeared to
welcome investigation in every shape and form, and yet, now that it's all
over, there is one curious thing which rather bothers me."

"Get on with it, man," the captain admonished. "Can't you see that we're
all in a fever about this business?"

The doctor produced from his pocket a small strip of very fine quality
bandaging.

"It's just this," he explained. "They left this fragment of bandaging in
the stateroom. Phillips was bound up with it around the wound, as was quite
natural, but it isn't ordinary stuff, you see. It's made double like a
tube, with silk inside. He must have had a dozen yards of this around his
leg and side, which of course was not disturbed. It's a horrible idea to a
layman, I know," he went on, turning apologetically to Katharine,--

"Captain, will you send at once for the steward," Crawshay interrupted,
"who carried the coffin out?"

The captain sent a message to the lower deck. Katharine was leaning a
little forward, intensely interested.