was certain from the very first it was not mere robbery. But at the
time, I'm confident, I never reasoned about his motives or his
actions in any way. I merely took in the scene, as it were,
passively, in a great access of horror, which rendered me incapable
of sense or thought or speech or motion. I saw the table, the box,
the apparatus by its side, the murdered man on the floor, the pistol
lying pointed with its muzzle towards his body, the pool of blood
that soaked deep into the Turkey carpet beneath, the ledge of the
window, the young man's rounded back as he paused and hesitated. And
I also saw, like an instantaneous flash, one hand pushed behind him,
waving me off, I almost thought, with the gesture of one warning.

Why didn't I remember the murderer's face? That puzzled me long
after. I must have seen him before: I must surely have been there
when the crime was committed. I must have known at the moment
everything about it. But the blank that came over my memory, came
over it with the fatal shot. All that went before, was to me as
though it were not. I recollect vaguely, as the first point in my
life, that my eyes were shut hard, and darkness came over me. While
they were so shut, I heard an explosion. Next moment, I believe, I
opened them, and saw this Picture. No sensitive-plate could have
photographed it more instantaneously, as by an electric spark, than
did my retina that evening, as for months after I saw it all. In
another moment, I shut my lids again, and all was over. There was
darkness once more, and I was alone with my Horror.

In years then to come, I puzzled my head much as to the meaning of
the Picture. Gradually, step by step, I worked some of it out, with
the aid of my friends, and of the evidence tendered at the coroner's
inquest. But for the moment I knew nothing of all that. I was a