y objection to informing the jury of the nature of the
business he had with you?" asked the coroner suavely.

Leslie faced his interrogator squarely, a slight frown of intelligible
annoyance contracting his brows. "I should prefer not to," he made
answer. "The business was of a very private nature."

"You can, perhaps, at least state to the Court what his occupation was?"

"I believe he called himself a financial agent," was the reply.

"One more question I am bound to ask you, Mr. Chermside," pursued the
coroner with a deprecatory wave of his hand: "Were you in the company of
the deceased on Wednesday evening last?"

"Most certainly I was not," said Leslie firmly. "I have not spoken to or
been with Levison since the morning of the previous day, when he called
for me at the club, and we discussed our business during a short walk."

The word had gone round that the bronzed young soldier from India, who
occupied the best-furnished apartments in the town, was very wealthy,
with a steam yacht lying at Portland, and this had been communicated to
the coroner by the police sergeant. Leslie was therefore politely
informed that he might stand down, though it might be necessary to
recall him at the adjournment.

The next witness was Mr. Mallory. In brief snappy sentences he briefly
described how he had found the body in the pool on the marsh while
strolling about after the picnic-tea given by the tenant of the Manor
House. Mr. Mallory's manner was distinctly that of the old official, who
was aware of the fact that he was a merely formal witness. If only the
coroner could have penetrated the thoughts which that sphinxlike
demeanour veiled he would have started his officer hot-foot to fetch
certain witnesses who were not in the room, even as spectators. Travers
Nugent was playing pool at the club, and Mademoiselle Louise Aubin was
attending to her young mistress's wardrobe a couple of miles away at the
Manor.

Then followed the doctor, who described the dead man's injuries, and in
doing so cleared the ground of all doubt as to it being a case of
murder. Not only had Levi Levison been slain, but he had fallen by the
hand of some one who had literally "savaged" him to death. For the gash
in the throat was but an item in a whole series of wounds inflicted on
the hapless Jew's body. He had been stabbed three times in the back and
once in the chest, any one of the wounds being in itself sufficient to
kill.

Sergeant Bruce, in