ch preoccupied
woman, has been written in a way to interest. Though the work of an
everyday police detective, you will find in it no lack of mystery or
romance; and if at the end you perceive that it runs, as such cases
frequently do, up against a perfectly blank wall, you must remember that
openings can be made in walls, and that the loosening of one weak stone
from its appointed place, sometimes leads to the downfall of all.

So much for the letter.

Laying it aside, with a shrug of her expressive shoulders, Violet took
up the manuscript.

Let us take it up too. It runs thus:

On the 17th of July, 19--, a tragedy of no little interest occurred in
one of the residences of the Colonnade in Lafayette Place.

Mr. Hasbrouck, a well known and highly respected citizen, was attacked
in his room by an unknown assailant, and shot dead before assistance
could reach him. His murderer escaped, and the problem offered to the
police was how to identify this person who, by some happy chance or
by the exercise of the most remarkable forethought, had left no traces
behind him, or any clue by which he could be followed.

The details of the investigation which ended so unsatisfactorily are
here given by the man sent from headquarters at the first alarm.

When, some time after midnight on the date above mentioned, I reached
Lafayette Place, I found the block lighted from end to end. Groups of
excited men and women peered from the open doorways, and mingled their
shadows with those of the huge pillars which adorn the front of this
picturesque block of dwellings.

The house in which the crime had been committed was near the centre of
the row, and, long before I reached it, I had learned from more than one
source that the alarm was first given to the street by a woman's shriek,
and secondly by the shouts of an old man-servant who had appeared, in
a half-dressed condition, at the window of Mr. Hasbrouck's room, crying
"Murder! murder!"

But when I had crossed the threshold, I was astonished at the paucity
of facts to be gleaned from the inmates themselves. The old servant, who
was the first to talk, had only this account of the crime to give:

The family, which consisted of Mr. Hasbrouck, his wife, and three
servants, had retired for the night at the usual hour and under the
usual auspices. At eleven o'clock the lights were all extinguished, and
the whole household asleep, with the possible exception of Mr. Hasbrouck
himself, who,