all you have to tell us about them?"

"No, sir; the next morning, which was yesterday, sir, as I was a-dusting
out the coach I found under the cushions a large blue veil, folded and
lying very flat. But it had been slit with a knife and could not be
worn."

This was strange too, and while more than one person about me ventured
an opinion, I muttered to myself, "James Pope, his mark!" astonished at
a coincidence which so completely connected the occupants of the two
coaches.

But the Coroner was able to produce a witness whose evidence carried the
matter on still farther. A policeman in full uniform testified next, and
after explaining that his beat led him from Madison Avenue to Third on
Twenty-seventh Street, went on to say that as he was coming up this
street on Tuesday evening some few minutes before midnight, he
encountered, somewhere between Lexington Avenue and Third, a man and
woman walking rapidly towards the latter avenue, each carrying a parcel
of some dimensions; that he noted them because they seemed so merry, but
would have thought nothing of it, if he had not presently perceived them
coming back without the parcels. They were chatting more gaily than
ever. The lady wore a short cape, and the gentleman a dark coat, but he
could give no other description of their appearance, for they went by
rapidly, and he was more interested in wondering what they had done with
such large parcels in such a short time at that hour of night, than in
noting how they looked or whither they were going. He did observe,
however, that they proceeded towards Madison Square, and remembers now
that he heard a carriage suddenly drive away from that direction.

The Coroner asked him but one question:

"Had the lady no parcel when you saw her last?"

"I saw none."

"Could she not have carried one under her cape?"

"Perhaps, if it was small enough."

"As small as a lady's hat, say?"

"Well, it would have to be smaller than some of them are now, sir."

And so terminated this portion of the inquiry.

A short delay followed the withdrawal of this witness. The Coroner, who
was a somewhat portly man, and who had felt the heat of the day very
much, leaned back and looked anxious, while the jury, always restless,
moved in their seats like a set of school-boys, and seemed to long for
the hour of adjournment, notwithstanding the interest which everybody
but themselves seemed to take in this exciting investigation.

Finally an offi