Within was nothing but a square packing-case, standing in the middle
of the floor. Otherwise the light of the electric torch he flashed
around showed only the bare boarding of the floor and the bare
plastered walls.

Near the packing-case a hammer and some nails lay on the floor and
the lid was in position but was not fastened, as though some
interruption had occurred before the task of nailing it down could
be completed.

Dunn noted that one nail had been driven home, and he was on the
point of leaving the attic, for he knew he had not much time and
hoped that downstairs he would be able to make some discoveries of
importance, when it occurred to him that it might be wise to see
what was in this case, the nailing down the lid of which had not
been completed.

He crossed the room to it, and without drawing the one nail, pushed
back the lid which pivoted on it quite easily.

Within appeared a covering of coarse sacking. He pulled this away
with a careless hand, and beneath the beam of his electric torch
showed the pale and dreadful features of a dead man--of a man, the
center of whose forehead showed the small round hole where a bullet
had entered in; of a man whose still-recognizable features were those
of the photograph on the mantel-piece of the room downstairs, the
photograph that was signed:

"Devotedly yours,