"How did he do it?" asked Mr. Coombes, with eager anxiousness. "Was it difficult?" "I do not know how he did it," replied my uncle; "he did not explain the process. The wait had taken up a position just inside the front gate, and was singing a ballad. It is presumed that, when he opened his mouth for B flat, the lump of coal was thrown by the sinful man from one of the windows, and that it went down the wait's throat and choked him." "You want to be a good shot, but it is certainly worth trying," murmured Mr. Coombes thoughtfully. "But that was not his only crime, alas!" added my uncle. "Prior to that he had killed a solo cornet-player." "No! Is that really a fact?" exclaimed Mr. Coombes. "Of course it's a fact," answered my uncle testily; "at all events, as much a fact as you can expect to get in a case of this sort. "How very captious you are this evening. The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. The poor fellow, the cornet-player, had been in the neighbourhood barely a month. Old Mr. Bishop, who kept the 'Jolly Sand Boys' at the time, and from whom I had the story, said he had never known a more hard-working and energetic solo cornet-player. He, the cornet-player, only knew two tunes, but Mr. Bishop said that the man could not have played with more vigour, or for more hours in a day, if he had known forty. The two tunes he did play were "Annie Laurie" and "Home, Sweet Home"; and as regarded his performance of the former melody, Mr. Bishop said that a mere child could have told what it was meant for. "This musician--this poor, friendless artist used to come regularly and play in this street just opposite for two hours every evening. One evening he was seen, evidently in response to an invitation, going into this very house, BUT WAS NEVER SEEN COMING OUT OF IT!" "Did the townsfolk try offering any reward for his recovery?" asked Mr. Coombes. "Not a ha'penny," replied my uncle. "Another summer," continued my uncle, "a German band visited here, intending--so they announced on their arrival--to stay till the autumn. "On the second day from their arrival, the whole company, as fine and healthy a body of men as one could wish to see, were invited to dinner by this sinful man, and, after spending the whole of the next twenty-four hours in bed, left the town a broken and dyspeptic crew; the parish doctor, who had attended them, giving it as his opinion that it was doubtful if they would, any of them, be fit to play an air again." "You--you don't know the recipe, do you?" asked Mr. Coombes. "Unfortunately I do not," replied my uncle; "but the chief ingredient was said to have been railway refreshment-room pork-pie.