"The Children's Hospital, you say, Doctor?" he asked.
"Yes. But the child, who was entered as Lucien Wallace, was
taken away by his mother two weeks ago. I have tried to trace
them and failed."
All at once I remembered the telegram sent to Louise by some one
signed F. L. W.--presumably Doctor Walker. Could this veiled
woman be the Nina Carrington of the message? But it was only
idle speculation. I had no way of finding out, and the inquest
was proceeding.
The report of the coroner's physician came next. The post-mortem
examination showed that the bullet had entered the chest in the
fourth left intercostal space and had taken an oblique course
downward and backward, piercing both the heart and lungs.
The left lung was collapsed, and the exit point of the ball had
been found in the muscles of the back to the left of the spinal
column. It was improbable that such a wound had been self-
inflicted, and its oblique downward course pointed to the fact
that the shot had been fired from above. In other words, as the
murdered man had been found dead at the foot of a staircase, it
was probable that the shot had been fired by some one higher up
on the stairs. There were no marks of powder. The bullet, a
thirty-eight caliber, had been found in the dead man's clothing,
and was shown to the jury.
Mr. Jarvis was called next, but his testimony amounted to little.
He had been summoned by telephone to Sunnyside, had come over at
once with the steward and Mr.
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