uld in person go to the Timloe Hotel, and see with
her own eyes "the very spot."

"The effect, Mrs. Young, is curdling," she declared.

Mrs. Young was willing to be curdled, if Mrs. Strain would support her
in the experience. On the next afternoon, therefore, they went to the
Timloe Hotel, and were shown over "the very floor" which had been
pressed by the footsteps of the murderer, his beautiful wife, and her
highly respectable and observing (one might almost say _providentially_
observing) maid. The landlord himself, Mr. Graub, did not disdain to
accompany them. Mr. Graub had attended the trial in person, and he had
hardly ceased since to admire himself for his own perspicuous cleverness
in owning the house where such a very distinguished crime had been
committed. There might be localities where a like deed would have
injured the patronage of an inn; but the neighborhood of Timloesville
was not one of them. The people slowly took in and appreciated their
event, as an anaconda is said slowly to take in and appreciate his
dinner; they digested it at their leisure. Farmers coming in to town on
Saturdays, instead of bringing luncheon in a tin pail, as usual, went
to the expense of dining at the hotel, with their wives and daughters,
in order to see the room, the blind, and the outside stairway. Mr.
Graub, in this position of affairs, was willing to repeat the tale, even
to a non-diner. For Mrs. Young was a stranger from Washington, and who
knew but that Washington itself might be stirred to a dining interest in
the scene of the tragedy, especially as the second trial was still to
come?

The impression on the blind was displayed; it was very faint, but
clearly that of a left hand.

"And here is the cloth that covered the bureau," continued the landlord,
taking it from a paper and spreading it on the old-fashioned chest of
drawers. "It is not the identical cloth, for that was required at the
trial, together with a fac-simile of the blind; but I can assure you
that this one is just like the original, blue-bordered and fringed
precisely the same, and we traced the spots on it exactly similar before
we let the other go. For we knew that folks would naturally be
interested in such a memento."

"It is indeed deeply absorbing," said Mrs. Young. "I wonder, now, what
the size of that hand might be? Not yours, Mr. Graub; yours is a very
small hand. Let me compare. Suppose I place my fingers so (I will not
touch it). Yes, a larg