at her head and waited for any
sign of returning consciousness. The crowd, remanded to the yard, spent
their time alternately in furtive questionings of each other's
countenances, and in eager look-out for the expected return of the
strange young man who had been sent after the incomprehensible humpback
of whom all had heard. The coroner, closeted with the District Attorney
in the dining-room, busied himself in noting certain evident facts.

"I am, perhaps, forestalling my duties in interfering before the woman
is dead," intimated the former. "But it is only a matter of a few hours,
and any facts we can glean in the interim must be of value to a proper
conduct of the inquiry I shall be called upon to hold. I shall therefore
make the same note of the position of affairs as I would do if she were
dead; and to begin with, I wish you to observe that she was hit while
setting the clock." And he pointed to the open door of the huge
old-fashioned timepiece which occupied that corner of the room in which
she had been found. "She had not even finished her task," he next
remarked, "for the clock is still ten minutes slow, while her watch is
just right, as you will see by comparing it with your own. She was
attacked from behind, and to all appearances unexpectedly. Had she
turned, her forehead would have been struck, while, as all can see, it
is the back of her head that has suffered, and that from a right-hand
blow. Her deafness was undoubtedly the cause of her immobility under the
approach of such an assailant. She did not hear his step, and, being so
busily engaged, saw nothing of the cruel hand uplifted to destroy her. I
doubt if she even knew what happened. The mystery is that any one could
have sufficiently desired her death to engage in such a cold-blooded
butchery. If plunder were wanted, why was not her watch taken from her?
And see, here is a pile of small change lying beside her plate on the
table,--a thing a tramp would make for at once."

"It was not a thief that struck her."

"Well, well, we don't know. I have my own theory," admitted the coroner;
"but, of course, it will not do for me to mention it here. The stick was
taken from that pile laid ready on the hearth," he went on. "Odd,
significantly odd, that in all its essential details this affair should
tally so completely with the supposable case of crime given a moment
before by the deformed wretch you tell me about."

"Not if that man was a madman and the assa