"The thrust," he asked of Doctor Blair, who was medical officer of the district, "through the neck was effected by means of a long narrow instrument, with two sharp edges, a dagger in fact?"
"A dagger or a stiletto or a skewer," replied the doctor. "Any sharp, two-edged instrument would cause a wound like the one in the neck of the deceased."
"Was death instantaneous?"
"Almost so."
He explained at some length the intricacies of the human throat at the points where the murderer's weapon had entered the neck of his victim. Louisa listened attentively. Every moment she expected to see the coroner's hand wandering to the piece of green baize in front of him, and then drawing it away disclosing a snake-wood stick with silver ferrule stained, and showing the rise of the dagger, sheathed within the body of the stick. Every moment she expected to hear the query:
"Is this the instrument which dealt the blow?"
But this apparently was not to be just yet. The opaque veil of green baize was not to be lifted; that certain long Something was not to be revealed, the Something that would condemn Luke irrevocably, absolutely, to disgrace and to death.
Only one of the members of the jury—Louisa understood that he was the foreman—asked a simple question:
"Would," he said, "the witness explain whether in his opinion the—the unknown murderer—the—I mean——"
He floundered a little in the phrase, having realized that in his official capacity he must keep an open mind—and in that open mind of an English juryman there could for the present dwell no certainty that a murderer—an unknown murderer—did exist.