The letter ended with additional apologies, somewhat incoherent, and
explanatory details as to effects that had been under the writer's
charge. This flight may perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man
wished to go to Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently
mixed up with the events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of
that conjecture; rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to many
persons the most probable solution of improbable occurrences. My
belief in my own theory remained unshaken. I returned in the evening
to the house, to bring away in a hack cab the things I had left there,
with my poor dog's body. In this task I was not disturbed, nor did any
incident worth note befall me, except that still, on ascending and
descending the stairs, I heard the same footfall in advance. On
leaving the house, I went to Mr. J----'s. He was at home. I returned
him the keys, told him that my curiosity was sufficiently gratified,
and was about to relate quickly what had passed, when he stopped me,
and said, though with much politeness, that he had no longer any
interest in a mystery which none had ever solved.

I determined at least to tell him of the two letters I had read, as
well as of the extraordinary manner in which they had disappeared; and
I then inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the woman who
had died in the house, and if there were anything in her early history
which could possibly confirm the dark suspicions to which the letters
gave rise. Mr. J---- seemed startled, and, after musing a few moments,
answered, "I am but little acquainted with the woman's earlier
history, except as I before told you, that her family were known to
mine. But you revive some vague reminiscences to her prejudice. I will
make inquiries, and inform you of their result. Still, even if we
could admit the popular superstition that a person who had been either
the perpetrator or the victim of dark crimes in life could revisit, as