"That is correct."
Abandoning this line of inquiry, the Coroner again picked up the dagger with its sombre stains, which the witness identified as his paper-knife. A juror interposed with a question.
"Doctor Westbrook," said he, "was it commonly known by your friends and acquaintances that this dagger—'Exhibit A'—usually lay on your writing-table in the room where your patients wait?"
"Oh, yes," the Doctor replied. "There is not one of them who has not, at one time or another, had it in his hands and expressed curiosity concerning it. It was the occasion of innumerable questions, and I suppose I have been reminded a hundred times that such a present carried with it bad luck—that knives cut friendship, and much to the same effect."
The Coroner took up once more the thread of the examination.
"Now, Doctor Westbrook, the dagger was obviously removed from your desk some time before the commission of the crime. Did you miss it from its accustomed place?"
"No, sir. It might have been gone for several days, for all I know. I used it solely as a paper-cutter, and then not always, unless it was right at hand."
"Did you notice it at any time during the day of November fourth?"
"I cannot say; I am so accustomed to and familiar with its presence, that the circumstance scarcely would have impressed me."
The whole of the witness's testimony up to this point was barren enough of excitement or anything in the nature of a surprise; but the next question elicited the particulars of Clay Fairchild's strange request for the dagger on the day of the tragedy. Witness added: