during the Japanese-Chinese war. I was in Port Arthur after the
massacre. So a dead man, for the single reason that he is dead, does
not repel me, and, though I knew that there was no hope that this man
was alive, still for decency's sake, I felt his pulse, and while I
kept my ears alert for any sound from the floors above me, I pulled
open his shirt and placed my hand upon his heart. My fingers instantly
touched upon the opening of a wound, and as I withdrew them I found
them wet with ^ blood. He was in evening dress, and in the wide bosom
of his shirt I found a narrow slit, so narrow that in the dim light it
was scarcely discernable. The wound was no wider than the smallest
blade of a pocket-knife, but when I stripped the shirt away from the
chest and left it bare, I found that the weapon, narrow as it was, had
been long enough to reach his heart. There is no need to tell you how
I felt as I stood by the body of this boy, for he was hardly older
than a boy, or of the thoughts that came into my head. I was bitterly
sorry for this stranger, bitterly indignant at his murderer, and, at
the same time, selfishly concerned for my own safety and for the
notoriety which I saw was sure to follow. My instinct was to leave the
body where it lay, and to hide myself in the fog, but I also felt that
since a succession of accidents had made me the only witness to a
crime, my duty was to make myself a good witness and to assist to
establish the facts of this murder.

"That it might possibly be a suicide, and not a murder, did not
disturb me for a moment. The fact that the weapon had disappeared, and
the expression on the boy's face were enough to convince, at least me,
that he had had no hand in his own death. I judged it, therefore, of
the first importance to discover who was in the house, or, if they had
escaped from it, who had been in the house before I entered it. I had
seen one man leave it; but all I could tell of him was that he was a