for the murderer to have
studied the situation and provided for all contingencies."

"The murderer? Whom do you suspect?" I whispered.

He looked impassively at the ring on my finger.

"Every one and nobody. It is not for me to suspect, but to detect." And
dropping the curtain into its former position he led me from the room.

The coroner's inquest being now in session, I felt a strong desire to be
present, so, requesting Mr. Gryce to inform the ladies that Mr. Veeley
was absent from town, and that I had come as his substitute, to render
them any assistance they might require on so melancholy an occasion, I
proceeded to the large parlor below, and took my seat among the various
persons there assembled.

II. THE CORONER'S INQUEST

"The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come."
--Troilus and Cressida.

FOR a few minutes I sat dazed by the sudden flood of light greeting me
from the many open windows; then, as the strongly contrasting
features of the scene before me began to impress themselves upon
my consciousness, I found myself experiencing something of the same
sensation of double personality which years before had followed an
enforced use of ether. As at that time, I appeared to be living two
lives at once: in two distinct places, with two separate sets
of incidents going on; so now I seemed to be divided between two
irreconcilable trains of thought; the gorgeous house, its elaborate
furnishing, the little glimpses of yesterday's life, as seen in the open
piano, with its sheet of music held in place by a lady's fan, occupying
my attention fully as much as the aspect of the throng of incongruous
and impatient people huddled about me.

Perhaps one reason of this lay in the extraordinary splendor of the room
I was in; the glow of satin, glitter of bronze, and glimmer of marble
meeting the eye at every turn. But I am rather inclined to think it
was mainly due to the force and eloquence of a certain picture which
confronted me from the opposite wall. A sweet picture--sweet enough and
poetic enough to have been conceived by the most idealistic of artists:
simple, too--the vision of a young flaxen-haired, blue-eyed coquette,
dressed in the costume of the First Empire, standing in a wood-path,
looking back over her shoulder at some one following--yet with such a
dash of something not altogether saint-like in the corners of her meek
eyes and baby-like lips, that it impressed me with the