It was a very small wound, round and neat and clean, and there was very little blood.

"It was made by a bullet," said Hanaud--"some tiny bullet from an air-pistol." "No," answered the doctor.
"No knife made it," Hanaud asserted.
"That is true," said the doctor.

"Look!" and he took up from the floor by his knee the weapon which had caused Marthe Gobin's death.

It was nothing but an ordinary skewer with a ring at one end and a sharp point at the other, and a piece of common white firewood for a handle.

The wood had been split, the ring inserted and spliced in position with strong twine.