r a
murder (and this house is a thoroughfare), and the peculiar stress which
he laid upon the choice of a weapon, and tell me why you think he is
innocent of this immediate and most remarkable exemplification of his
revolting theory?"

"Let me first ask," ventured the other, with a remaining tinge of
embarrassment coloring his cheek, "if you have reason to think this
woman had been lying long where she was found, or was she struck soon
before the discovery?"

"Soon. The dinner was still smoking in the kitchen, where it had been
dished up ready for serving."

"Then," declared the detective with sudden confidence, "a single word
will satisfy you that the humpback was not the man who delivered this
stroke. To lay that woman low at the foot of this clock would require
the presence of the assailant in the room. Now, the humpback was not
here this morning, but in the court-room. I know this, for I saw him
there."

"You did? You are sure of that?" cried, in a breath, both his hearers,
somewhat taken aback by this revelation.

"Yes. He sat down by the door. I noticed him particularly."

"Humph! that is odd," quoth Mr. Ferris, with the testiness of an
irritable man who sees himself contradicted in a publicly expressed
theory.

"Very odd," repeated the coroner; "so odd, I am inclined to think he did
not sit there every moment of the time. It is but a step from the
court-house here; he might well have taken the trip and returned while
you wiped your eye-glasses or was otherwise engaged."

Mr. Byrd did not see fit to answer this.

"The tramp is an ugly-looking customer," he remarked, in what was almost
a careless tone of voice.

Mr. Ferris covered with his hand the pile of loose change that was yet
lying on the table, and shortly observed:

"A tramp to commit such a crime must be actuated either by rage or
cupidity; that you will acknowledge. Now the fellow who struck this
woman could not have been excited by any sudden anger, for the whole
position of her body when found proves that she had not even turned to
face the intruder, much less engaged in an altercation with him. Yet how
could it have been money he was after, when a tempting bit like this
remained undisturbed upon the table?"

And Mr. Ferris, with a sudden gesture, disclosed to view the pile of
silver coin he had been concealing.

The young detective shook his head but lost none of his seeming
indifference. "That is one of the little anomalies of crimin