The early light of dawn stealing in faintly through the spider-web of
the fire-escape ladder, found a partially open window on the third
floor of the Waldron apartments, and began slowly to brighten the walls
of the room within. There were no curtains on this window as upon the
others, and the growing radiance streamed in revealing the whole
interior. It was a large apartment, furnished soberly and in excellent
taste as either lounging-room or library, the carpet a dark green, the
walls delicately tinted, bearing a few rare prints rather sombrely
framed, and containing a few upholstered chairs; a massive sofa, and a
library table bearing upon it a stack of magazines.

Its tenant evidently was of artistic leanings for about the room were
several large bronze candle-sticks filled with partially burned tapers.
A low bookcase extended along two sides of the room, each shelf filled,
and at the end of the cases a heavy imported drapery drawn slightly
aside revealed the entrance to a sleeping apartment, the bed's snowy
covering unruffled. Wealth, taste and comfort were everywhere manifest.

Yet, as the light lengthened, the surroundings evidenced disorder. One
chair lay overturned, a porcelain vase had fallen from off the
table-top to the floor and scattered into fragments. A few magazines
had fallen also, and there were miscellaneous papers scattered about
the carpet, one or two of them torn as though jerked open by an
impatient hand. Still others lying near the table disclosed corners
charred by fire, and as an eddy of wind whisked through the window and
along the floor it tumbled brown ashes along with it, at the same time
diluting the faint odour of smoke that clung to the room. Back of the
table a small safe embedded in the wall stood with its door wide open,
its inner drawer splintered as with a knife blade and hanging half out,
and below it a riffle of papers, many of them apparently legal