"That hypothesis might be tenable, were it not for this." With these words, the reporter pulled out his watch, opened the case, and with the blade of a penknife took from the surface of the crystal a minute object, which he handed to the physician. "Look at it," said he, pushing over a magnifying glass. Doctor Thurston examined the tiny object carefully. "A splinter of bone," he said at last. "Yes. I found it on the surface of the wound in the back. How did it get there?" "You are right," admitted the physician; "it must have come from within, chipped from a rib and carried out by the bullet which entered from the front." "I think there can be no doubt as to that. Now, the bullet does not seem to have been deflected in its course by its contact with the rib, for, as far as I have been able to judge by probing the two wounds with my pencil, their direction is the same. This is important and brings me to point three, which is illustrated by these diagrams, drawn to scale from the measurements I took this afternoon." As he said these words, the reporter handed his friend a sheet of paper upon which he had drawn some geometrical figures. "The first of these diagrams shows the angle which the course of the bullet made with a horizontal plane; the second represents the inclination from right to left. The former of these angles is nearly sixty, and the latter not far from forty-five degrees. The inclination from right to left shows that the shot was fired from the right side of the dead man. Now then, one of two things: Either it was fired by the man himself, the weapon being held in his right hand; or else it was fired by an assassin who stood close to the victim's right side. The first of these hypotheses, considered by itself, is admissible; but it involves the assumption of an extremely awkward and unusual position of the suicide's hand while firing. On the other hand, the dead man is tall--six feet one inch--and to fire down, at an angle of sixty degrees, upon a man of his height, his assailant would have to be a colossus, or else to stand upon a chair or in some other equally elevated position, unless the victim happened to be seated when the shot was fired." "Happened to be seated!" exclaimed Thurston astounded, "why, of course he was seated, since he was in the cab." "That brings up point four, which is not the least puzzling of this interesting case," said Sturgis impressively; "the shooting was not done in the cab." "Not done in the cab!" "No; otherwise the bullet would have remained in the cushions; and it was not there." "It might have fallen out into the street at the time of the collision," suggested Thurston. "No; I searched every inch of the space in which it might have fallen. If it had been there I should have found it, for the spot was brilliantly lighted by an electric light, as you remember." The physician pondered in silence for a few minutes.