odour on the little cloth than is commonly used by people of good taste.
And yet this handkerchief was far too fine and delicate in texture to
belong to the sort of people who habitually passed along this street.
It must have something to do with the mysterious carriage. It was still
quite dry, and in spite of the fact that the wind had been playing with
it, it had been but slightly torn. It could therefore have been in that
position for a short time only. At the nearest lantern Muller saw that
the monogram on the handkerchief was the same in style and initials as
that on the notebook. It was the letters A. L.

CHAPTER TWO. THE STORY OF THE NOTEBOOK

It was warm and comfortable in the little room where Muller sat. He
closed the windows, lit the gas, took off his overcoat--Muller was a
pedantically careful person--smoothed his hair and sat down comfortably
at the table. Just as he took up the little book, the attendant brought
the tea, which he proceeded at once to enjoy. He did not take up his
little book again until he had lit himself a cigar. He looked at the
cover of the dainty little notebook for many minutes before he opened
it. It was a couple of inches long, of the usual form, and had a cover
of brown leather. In the left upper corner were the letters A. L. in
gold. The leaves of the book, about fifty in all, were of a fine quality
of paper and covered with close writing. On the first leaves the writing
was fine and delicate, calm and orderly, but later on it was irregular
and uncertain, as if penned by a trembling hand under stress of terror.
This change came in the leaves of the book which followed the strange
and terrible title, "How I was murdered."

Before Muller began to read he felt the covers of the book carefully. In
one of them there was a tiny pocket, in which he found a little piece of
wall paper of a noticeable and distinctly ugly pattern. The paper had a
dark blue ground with clumsy lines of gold on it. In the pocket he
found also a tramway ticket, which had been crushed and then carefully
smoothed out again. After looking at these papers, Muller replaced them
in the cover of the notebook. The book itself was strongly perfumed with
the same odour which had exhaled from the handkerchief.

The detective did not begin his reading in that part of the book which
followed the mysterious title, as the commissioner had done. He began
instead at the very first words.

"Ah! she is still young," he