stward of the village of
Withyham, upon the Kent and Sussex border. It was on the 15th
September last that an agricultural labourer, James Flynn, in the
employment of Mathew Dodd, farmer, of the Chauntry Farm, Withyham,
perceived a briar pipe lying near the footpath which skirts the hedge
in Lower Haycock. A few paces farther on he picked up a pair of broken
binocular glasses. Finally, among some nettles in the ditch, he caught
sight of a flat, canvas-backed book, which proved to be a note-book
with detachable leaves, some of which had come loose and were
fluttering along the base of the hedge. These he collected, but some,
including the first, were never recovered, and leave a deplorable
hiatus in this all-important statement. The note-book was taken by the
labourer to his master, who in turn showed it to Dr. J. H. Atherton, of
Hartfield. This gentleman at once recognized the need for an expert
examination, and the manuscript was forwarded to the Aero Club in
London, where it now lies.

The first two pages of the manuscript are missing. There is also one
torn away at the end of the narrative, though none of these affect the
general coherence of the story. It is conjectured that the missing
opening is concerned with the record of Mr. Joyce-Armstrong's
qualifications as an aeronaut, which can be gathered from other sources
and are admitted to be unsurpassed among the air-pilots of England.
For many years he has been looked upon as among the most daring and the
most intellectual of flying men, a combination which has enabled him to
both invent and test several new devices, including the common
gyroscopic attachment which is known by his name. The main body of the
manuscript is written neatly in ink, but the last few lines are in
pencil and are so ragged as to be hardly legible--exactly, in fact, as
they might be expected to appear if they were scribbled off hurriedly
from the seat of a moving aeroplane. There are, it may be added,
several stains, both on the last page and on the outside cover which
have been pronounced by the Home Office experts to be blood--probably
human and certainly mammalian. The fact that something closely
resembling the organism of malaria was discovered in this blood, and
that Joyce-Armstrong is known to have suffered from intermittent fever,
is a remarkable example of the new weapons which modern science has
placed in the hands of our detectives.

And now a word as to the personality