hich suggested with almost
irresistible conviction:

The picture! That inane and seemingly worthless drawing over the
fireplace in The Colonel's Own, whose presence in so rich a room
has always been a mystery!

Why this object should have suggested itself to me and with such
instant conviction, I can not readily say. Whether, from my
position near the bed, the sight of this old drawing recalled the
restless nights of all who had lain in face of its sickly smile,
or whether some recollection of that secret law of the Moores
which forbade the removal of any of their pictures from the
time-worn walls, or a remembrance of the curiosity which this
picture excited in every one who looked at it--Francis Jeffrey
among the number--I no sooner asked myself what object in this
house might possibly yield counsel or suggest aid when subjected
to the influence of a magnifying glass, than the answer, which I
have already given, sprang instantly into my mind: The picture!

Greatly excited, I sprang upon a chair, took down the drawing from
the wall and laid it face up on the bed. Then I placed the glass
over one of the large coils surrounding the insipid face, and was
startled enough, in spite of all mental preparation, to perceive
the crinkly lines which formed it, resolve themselves into script
and the script into words, some of which were perfectly legible.

The drawing, simple as it looked, was a communication in writing
to those who used a magnifying glass to read it. I could hardly
contain my triumph, hardly find the self-control necessary to a
careful study of its undulating and often conflicting lines and to
the slow picking out of the words therein contained.

But when I had done this, and had copied the whole of the wandering
scrawl on a page of my note book the result was of value.

Read, and judge for yourself.

"Coward that I am, I am willing to throw upon posterity the shadow
of a crime whose consequences I dare not incur in life. Confession
I must make. To die and leave no record of my deed is impossible.
Yet how tell my story so that only my own heirs may read and they
when at the crisis of their fate? I believe I have found the way
by this drawing and the injunction I have left to the holders of
the filigree ball.

"No man ever wished his enemy dead more than I did, and no man
ever spent more cunning on the deed. Master in my own house, I
contrived a device by which the man who held my fate in his han