TIMONY.

"As we have seen, Captain Heathcote left the hotel ostentatiously by the
front entrance at ten o'clock. At eleven, Mrs. Bagshot, who happened to
be looking from her window in the bend of the L, distinctly saw him (her
candle being out) _stealing up by the outside stairway_ in the only
minute of moonlight there was during the entire evening, the clouds
having suddenly and strangely parted, as if for that very purpose. She
saw him enter his wife's room through one of the long windows which
opened to the floor. In about a quarter of an hour she saw him come
forth again, close the blind behind him, and begin to descend the
stairway. As there was no longer any moonlight, she could only
distinguish him by the light that shone from the room; but in that short
space of time, while he was closing the blind, she recognized him
_beyond the possibility of a doubt_.

"THE NIGHT PORTER'S TALE.

"A little before midnight, all the hotel entrances being closed save the
main door, Captain Heathcote returned. As he passed through the office,
the night porter noticed that he looked pale, and that his clothes were
disordered; his shirt cuffs especially were wet and creased, as _though
they had been dipped in water_. He went up stairs to his room, but soon
came down again. He had knocked, but could not awaken his wife. Would
the porter be able to open the door by turning back the key? His wife
was an invalid; he feared she had fainted.

"THE TRAGEDY.

"The night porter--a most respectable person of Irish extraction, named
Dennis Haggerty--came up and opened the door. The lamp was burning
within; the blinds of the window were closed. On the bed, stabbed to the
heart, apparently while she lay asleep, was the body of the wife.

"DUMB WITNESSES.

"Red marks were found on the shutter, which are pronounced by experts to
be the partial print of a _left hand_. On the white cloth which covered
the bureau is a slight impression of finger-tips, also belonging to a
left hand. These marks are too imperfect to be relied upon in
themselves, save that they establish the fact that the hand which
touched the cloth and closed the shutter was a _left hand_.

"AN IMPROBABLE STORY.

"Captain Heathcote asserts that he left the hotel at ten, as testified,
to smoke a cigar and get a breath of fresh air. That he returned through
the garden at eleven, and seeing by the bright light that his wife was
still awake, he went up by the outside st