which he set up at one end
of his table. We seemed to be seated over a powder magazine which
threatened to explode at any moment. I, at least, felt the tension so
greatly that it was only after he had started speaking again, that I
noticed that the target was composed of a thick layer of some putty-like
material.

Holding a thirty-two-calibre pistol in his right hand and aiming it at
the target, Kennedy picked up a large piece of coarse homespun from the
table and held it loosely over the muzzle of the gun. Then he fired. The
bullet tore through the cloth, sped through the air, and buried itself
in the target. With a knife he pried it out.

"I doubt if even the inspector himself could have told us that when an
ordinary leaden bullet is shot through a woven fabric the weave of that
fabric is in the majority of cases impressed on the bullet, sometimes
clearly, sometimes faintly."

Here Kennedy took up a piece of fine batiste and fired another bullet
through it.

"Every leaden bullet, as I have said, which has struck such a fabric
bears an impression of the threads which is recognisable even when
the bullet has penetrated deeply into the body. It is only obliterated
partially or entirely when the bullet has been flattened by striking a
bone or other hard object. Even then, as in this case, if only a part
of the bullet is flattened the remainder may still show the marks of the
fabric. A heavy warp, say of cotton velvet or, as I have here,
homespun, will be imprinted well on the bullet, but even a fine batiste,
containing one hundred threads to the inch, will show marks. Even layers
of goods such as a coat, shirt, and undershirt may each leave their
marks, but that does not concern us in this case. Now I have here a
piece of pongee silk, cut from a woman's automobile-coat. I discharge
the bullet through it--so. I compare the bullet now with the others and
with the one probed from the neck of Mr. Parker. I find that the marks
on that fatal bullet correspond precisely with those on the bullet fired
through the pongee coat."

Startling as was this revelation, Kennedy paused only an instant before
the next.

"Now I have another demonstration. A certain note figures in this case.
Mr. Parker was reading it, or perhaps re-reading it, at the time he was
shot. I have not been able to obtain that note--at least not in a form
such as I could use in discovering what were its contents. But in a
certain wastebasket I found a mass