s, shuffled forward at this.

It was in his hack that this couple had left the D----. He remembered
them very well as he had good reason to. First, because the man paid him
before entering the carriage, saying that he was to let them out at the
northwest corner of Madison Square, and secondly----But here the Coroner
interrupted him to ask if he had seen the gentleman's face when he paid
him. The answer was, as might have been expected, No. It was dark, and
he had not turned his head.

"Didn't you think it queer to be paid before you reached your
destination?"

"Yes, but the rest was queerer. After I had taken the money--I never
refuses money, sir--and was expecting him to get into the hack, he steps
up to me again and says in a lower tone than before: 'My wife is very
nervous. Drive slow, if you please, and when you reach the place I have
named, watch your horses carefully, for if they should move while she is
getting out, the shock would throw her into a spasm.' As she had looked
very pert and lively, I thought this mighty queer, and I tried to get a
peep at his face, but he was too smart for me, and was in the carriage
before I could clap my eye on him."

"But you were more fortunate when they got out? You surely saw one or
both of them then?"

"No, sir, I didn't. I had to watch the horses' heads, you know. I
shouldn't like to be the cause of a young lady having a spasm."

"Do you know in what direction they went?"

"East, I should say. I heard them laughing long after I had whipped up
my horses. A queer couple, sir, that puzzled me some, though I should
not have thought of them twice if I had not found next day----"

"Well?"

"The gentleman's linen duster and the neat brown gossamer which the lady
had worn, lying folded under the two back cushions of my hack; a present
for which I was very much obliged to them, but which I was not long
allowed to enjoy, for yesterday the police----"

"Well, well, no matter about that. Here is a duster and here is a brown
gossamer. Are these the articles you found under your cushions?"

"If you will examine the neck of the lady's gossamer, you can soon tell,
sir. There was a small hole in the one I found, as if something had been
snipped out of it; the owner's name, most likely."

"Or the name of the place where it was bought," suggested the Coroner,
holding the garment up to view so as to reveal a square hole under the
collar.

"That's it!" cried the hackman. "That's