ding a piece of
tracing linen to the coroner. "As far as I can make out, it is a tracing
of some plan or other. But its actual significance I have been unable to
determine."

The coroner spread it out upon his writing-pad and looked at it with a
puzzled expression.

"Anything else?" he inquired.

"Yes, sir; this," and the officer produced the torn half of a man's
visiting-card.

"This is apparently part of one of the deceased's own cards," the
coroner remarked, holding it before him, while the court saw that it had
been torn across obliquely, leaving a jagged edge.

"He seems to have signed his name across the front of it, too, before it
was torn," he added.

"The piece of card was carefully preserved in the inside pocket of his
wallet," the inspector said. "On the back, sir, you will see it is
numbered '213 G.'"

The coroner turned it over and saw on the back the number and letter as
the police-officer had stated.

"There are three others, almost exactly similar," the inspector went on,
producing them carefully from an envelope. "They are numbered '103 F,'
'91 I,' and '321 G.'"

"Curious," remarked the coroner, taking them. "Very curious indeed. They
are all signed across, yet only half the card is preserved. They have
some secret significance without a doubt."

He glanced across at the stranger, but the face of the latter betrayed
no sign of further interest. Indeed, just at that moment, when the whole
court was on the tenterhooks of curiosity he looked as though bored by
the entire procedure.

"The deceased carried a Smith-Wesson hammerless revolver fully loaded,"
the officer added; "but he was so suddenly attacked, it seems, that he
had no time to draw it."

The detectives from Norwich who had the case in hand were not called to
give evidence, for obvious reasons, but Dr. Dennan, of North Walsham,
whom the police called, a short, white-haired, business-like little man,
stepped forward, was sworn, and deposed that when he saw the body at
Gordon's Farm, deceased had been dead nearly two hours.

"He was struck in the throat by some thin, sharp instrument--a deep
wound. The artery was severed, and death must have occurred within a
few minutes," he said. "Probably deceased could not speak. He certainly
could not have uttered a cry. The blade of the instrument was, I should
judge, only about half an inch wide, extremely keen, and tapered to a
fine point. Whoever struck the blow was, I am inclined to thin