t the aid of the Parisian
police, and under an assumed name made the acquaintance of M. Lebeau.

The best way of discharging this duty will perhaps be to place before
the reader the contents of the letter which passed under Graham's eyes
on the day in which the heart of the writer ceased to beat.

(Confidential. To be opened immediately after my death, and before the
perusal of my will.--Richard King.)

TO GRAHAM VANE, Esq.

My DEAR GRAHAM,--By the direction on the envelope of this letter,
"Before the perusal of my will," I have wished to save you from the
disappointment you would naturally experience if you learned my bequest
without being prevised of the conditions which I am about to impose upon
your honour. You will see ere you conclude this letter that you are the
only man living to whom I could intrust the secret it contains and the
task it enjoins.

You are aware that I was not born to the fortune that passed to me by
the death of a distant relation, who had, in my earlier youth, children
of his own. I was an only son, left an orphan at the age of sixteen
with a very slender pittance. My guardians designed me for the medical
profession. I began my studies at Edinburgh, and was sent to Paris to
complete them, It so chanced that there I lodged in the same house with
an artist named Auguste Duval, who, failing to gain his livelihood as a
painter, in what--for his style was ambitious--is termed the Historical
School, had accepted the humbler calling of a drawing-master. He had
practised in that branch of the profession for several years at Tours,
having a good clientele among English families settled there. This
clientele, as he frankly confessed, he had lost from some irregularities
of conduct. He was not a bad man, but of convivial temper, and easily
led into temptation. He had removed to Paris a few months before I made
his acquaintance. He obtained a few pupils, and often lost them as soon
as gained. He was unpunctual and addicted to drink. But he had a small
pension, accorded to him, he was wont to say mysteriously, by some
high-born kinsfolk, too proud to own connection with a drawing-master,
and on the condition that he should never name them. He never did name
them to me, and I do not know to this day whether the story of this
noble relationship was true or false. A pension, however, he did receive
quarterly from some person or other, and it was an unhappy provision for
him. It tended to make him an idle