XI
The Opium Joint
O'CONNOR drew back the sheet which covered her and in the calf of the leg disclosed an ugly bullet hole. Ugly as it was, however, it was anything but dangerous and seemed to indicate nothing as to the real cause of her death. He drew from his pocket a slightly misshapen bullet which had been probed from the wound and handed it to Kennedy, who examined both the wound and the bullet carefully. It seemed to be an ordinary bullet except that in the pointed end were three or four little round, very shallow wells or depressions only the minutest fraction of an inch deep.
"Very extraordinary," he remarked slowly. "No, I don't think this was a case of suicide. Nor was it a murder for money, else the jewels would have been taken."
O'Connor looked approvingly at me. "Exactly what I said," he exclaimed. "She was dead before her body was thrown into the water."
"No, I don't agree with you there," corrected Craig, continuing his examination of the body. "And yet it is not a case of drowning exactly, either."
"Strangled?" suggested O'Connor.
"By some jiu jitsu trick?" I put in, mindful of the queer-acting Jap at Clendenin's.
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