t the Shuler Life Insurance Company is likely to be
allowed without further litigation. As our readers will remember, the
contestant has insisted from the first that the bullet causing her
husband's death came from another pistol than the one found clutched in
his own hand. But while reasons were not lacking to substantiate this
assertion, the failure to discover more than the disputed track of a
second bullet led to a verdict of suicide, and a refusal of the company
to pay.

"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