t last Moses broke off with Miriam, and engaged himself to
Minna. Then Miriam was furious, and complained to Minna about what she
called her perfidious conduct; but Minna only laughed, and told her she
could have Petrofsky instead."

"And what did Minna say to that?" asked the coroner.

"She was still more angry, because Moses Cohen is a smart, good-looking
young man, while Petrofsky is not much to look at. Besides, Miriam did
not like Petrofsky; he had been rude to her, and she had made her father
send him away from the house. So they were not friends, and it was just
after that that the trouble came."

"The trouble?"

"I mean about Moses Cohen. Miriam is a very passionate girl, and she was
furiously jealous of Minna, so when Petrofsky annoyed her by taunting
her about Moses Cohen and Minna, she lost her temper, and said dreadful
things about both of them."

"As, for instance--?"

"She said that she would kill them both, and that she would like to cut
Minna's throat."

"When was this?"

"It was the day before the murder."

"Who heard her say these things besides you?"

"Another lodger named Edith Bryant and Petrofsky. We were all standing
in the hall at the time."

"But I thought you said Petrofsky had been turned away from the house."

"So he had, a week before; but he had left a box in his room, and on
this day he had come to fetch it. That was what started the trouble.
Miriam had taken his room for her bedroom, and turned her old one into a
workroom. She said he should not go to her room to fetch his box."

"And did he?"

"I think so. Miriam and Edith and I went out, leaving him in the hall.
When we came back the box was gone, and, as Mrs. Goldstein was in the
kitchen and there was nobody else in the house, he must have taken it."

"You spoke of Miriam's workroom. What work did she do?"

"She cut stencils for a firm of decorators."

Here the coroner took a peculiarly shaped knife from the table before
him, and handed it to the witness.

"Have you ever seen that knife before?" he asked.

"Yes. It belongs to Miriam Goldstein. It is a stencil-knife that she
used in her work."

This concluded the evidence of Kate Silver, and when the name of the
next witness, Paul Petrofsky, was called, our Mansell Street friend came
forward to be sworn. His evidence was quite brief, and merely
corroborative of that of Kate Silver, as was that of the next witness,
Edith Bryant. When these had been disposed of,