The coroner said nothing, but with a significant glance at Kennedy he drew a peculiar contrivance from his pocket.  It had four round holes in it and through each hole he slipped a finger, then closed his hand, and exhibited his clenched fist.  It looked as if he wore a series of four metal rings on his fingers.

“Brass knuckles?” suggested Herndon, looking hastily at the body, which showed not a sign of violence on the stony face.

The coroner shook his head knowingly.  Suddenly he raised his fist.  I saw him press hard with his thumb on the upper end of the metal contrivance.  From the other end, just concealed under his little finger, there shot out as if released by a magic spring a thin keen little blade of the brightest and toughest steel.  He was holding, instead of a meaningless contrivance of four rings, a most dangerous kind of stiletto or dagger upraised.  He lifted his thumb and the blade sprang back into its sheath like an extinguished spark of light.

“An Apache dagger, such as is used in the underworld of Paris,” broke out Kennedy, his eyes gleaming with interest.

The coroner nodded.  “We found it,” he said, “clasped loosely in her hand.  But it is only by expert medical testimony that we can determine whether it was placed on her fingers before or after this happened.  We have photographed it, and the prints are being developed.”

He had now uncovered the slight figure of the little French modiste.  On the dress, instead of the profuse flow of blood which we had expected to see, there was a single round spot.  And in the white marble skin of her breast was a little, nearly microscopic puncture, directly over the heart.

“She must have died almost instantly,” commented Kennedy, glancing from the Apache weapon to the dead woman and back again.  “Internal hemorrhage.  I suppose you have searched her effects.  Have you found anything that gives a hint among them?”

“No,” replied the coroner doubtfully, “I can’t say we have—­unless it is the bundle of letters from Pierre, the jeweller.  They seem to have been engaged, and yet the letters stopped abruptly, and, well, from the tone of the last one from him I should say there was a quarrel brewing.”

An exclamation from Herndon followed.  “The same notepaper and the same handwriting as the anonymous letters,” he cried.

But that was all.  Go over the ground as Kennedy might he could find nothing further than the coroner and Herndon had already revealed.

“About these people, Lang & Pierre,” asked Craig thoughtfully when we had left Mademoiselle’s and were riding downtown to the customs house with Herndon.  “What do you know about them?  I presume that Lang is in America, if his partner is abroad.”

“Yes, he is here in New York.  I believe the firm has a rather unsavoury reputation; they have to be watched, I am told.  Then, too, one or the other of the partners makes frequent trips abroad, mostly Pierre.  Pierre, as you see, was very intimate with Mademoiselle, and the letters simply confirm what the girls told my detective.  He was believed to be engaged to her and I see no reason now to doubt that.  The fact is, Kennedy, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that it was he who engineered the smuggling for her as well as himself.”