"Will you kindly examine it, sir," he continued,
"and tell me if there is a notch in the edge, near to the point--a
triangular notch about an eighth of an inch long?"
The coroner looked at the knife, and then said in a tone of surprise:
"Yes, there is. You have seen this knife before, then?"
"No, I have not," replied Thorndyke. "But perhaps I had better continue
my statement. There is no need for me to tell you that the fingerprints
on the card and on the candle are those of Paul Petrofsky; I will
proceed to the evidence furnished by the body.
"In accordance with your order, I went to the mortuary and examined the
corpse of the deceased. The wound has been fully and accurately
described by Dr. Davidson, but I observed one fact which I presume he
had overlooked. Embedded in the bone of the spine--in the left
transverse process of the fourth vertebra--I discovered a small particle
of steel, which I carefully extracted."
He drew his collecting-box from his pocket, and taking from it a
seed-envelope, handed the latter to the coroner. "That fragment of steel
is in this envelope," he said, "and it is possible that it may
correspond to the notch in the knife-blade.
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