“But now that bullet has been found. And where? In the most startling place in the world, viz.: in the larynx of the child found lying dead upon the floor beside his father, strangled as was supposed by the weight of that father’s arm. The theory is, and there seems to be none other, that the father, hearing a suspicious noise at the window, set down the child he was endeavouring to soothe and made for the bed and his own pistol, and, mistaking a reflection of the assassin for the assassin himself, sent his shot sidewise at a mirror just as the other let go the trigger which drove a similar bullet into his breast. The course of the one was straight and fatal and that of the other deflected. Striking the mirror at an oblique angle, the bullet fell to the floor where it was picked up by the crawling child, and, as was most natural, thrust at once into his mouth. Perhaps it felt hot to the little tongue; perhaps the child was simply frightened by some convulsive movement of the father who evidently spent his last moment in an endeavour to reach the child, but, whatever the cause, in the quick gasp it gave, the bullet was drawn into the larynx, strangling him. “That the father’s arm, in his last struggle, should have fallen directly across the little throat is one of those anomalies which confounds reason and misleads justice by stopping investigation at the very point where truth lies and mystery disappears. “Mrs. Hammond is to be congratulated that there are detectives who do not give too much credence to outward appearances.” We expect soon to hear of the capture of the man who sped home the death-dealing bullet. END OF PROBLEM II PROBLEM III. AN INTANGIBLE CLUE “Have you studied the case?” “Not I.” “Not studied the case which for the last few days has provided the papers with such conspicuous headlines?” “I do not read the papers. I have not looked at one in a whole week.” “Miss Strange, your social engagements must be of a very pressing nature just now?” “They are.” “And your business sense in abeyance?” “How so?” “You would not ask if you had read the papers.” To this she made no reply save by a slight toss of her pretty head. If her employer felt nettled by this show of indifference, he did not betray it save by the rapidity of his tones as, without further preamble and possibly without real excuse, he proceeded to lay before her the case in question. “Last Tuesday night a woman was murdered in this city; an old woman, in a lonely house where she has lived for years. Perhaps you remember this house? It occupies a not inconspicuous site in Seventeenth Street--a house of the olden time?” “No, I do not remember.” The extreme carelessness of Miss Strange’s tone would have been fatal to her socially; but then, she would never have used it socially. This they both knew, yet he smiled with his customary indulgence. “Then I will describe it.” She looked around for a chair and sank into it. He did the same.