valuable as every small detail was likely to prove in case my theory
of this crime should ever come to be looked on as the true one.

"How came you to search here for the wife who had written you this
vague and far from satisfactory farewell? I see no hint in these
lines of the place where she intended to take her life."

"No! no!" Even this strong man shrank from this idea and showed a
very natural recoil as his glances flew about the ill-omened room
and finally rested on the fireside over which so repellent a mystery
hung in impenetrable shadow. "She said nothing of her intentions;
nothing! But the man who came for me told me where she was to be
found. He was waiting at the door of my house. He had been on a
search for me up and down the town. We met on the stoop."

The captain accepted this explanation without cavil. I was glad he
did. But to me the affair showed inconsistencies which I secretly
felt it to be my especial duty to unravel.




V

MASTER AND DOG


No further opportunity was afforded me that night for studying the
three leading characters in the remarkable drama I saw unfolding
before me. A task was assigned me by the captain which took me from