"Does this belong to your late brother?" he asked jerkily.
Mrs. Coppersley looked at the knife. "Jabez, being a sailor, had all manner of queer things," she said hesitatingly, "but I never set my eyes on that. He wasn't one to show what he had, sir."
"Was your brother ever in Africa on the West Coast?"
"He was all over the world, but I can't rightly say where, sir. Why?"
"This," the gruff Coroner shook the weapon, "is an African sacrificial knife in use on the West Coast. From the way in which the copper is welded into the steel, I fancy some Nigerian tribe possessed it. The members of tribes thereabouts are clever metal-workers. The handle and the lettering also remind me of something," mused the doctor, "for I was a long time out in Senegal and Sierra Leone and saw—and saw—but that's no matter. How comes an African sacrificial knife here?"
"I'm sure I don't know, sir," said Mrs. Coppersley promptly. "Jabez, as I say, had all manner of queer things which he didn't show me."
"You can't say if this knife belonged to him?"
"No, sir, I can't. The murderer may have brought it."
"You are not here to give opinions," growled the doctor, throwing the ugly-looking weapon on the table. "Are you sure," he added to Ward, "that the wound was made with this knife?"
"Yes, I'm sure," replied the young practitioner, tartly, for the Coroner's attitude annoyed him. "The weapon is sharp pointed and fits the wound. Also the deceased wore a thick pea-jacket and only such a knife could have penetrated the cloth."