a shrewd man, and thus not likely to thoughtlessly commit himself.

I now know he was right; my pretensions dating from the moment I found
that this affair, at first glance so simple, and at the next so
complicated, had aroused in me a fever of investigation which no
reasoning could allay. Though I had other and more personal matters on
my mind, my thoughts would rest nowhere but on the details of this
tragedy; and having, as I thought, noticed some few facts in connection
with it, from which conclusions might be drawn, I amused myself with
jotting them down on the back of a disputed grocer's bill I happened to
find in my pocket.

Valueless as explaining this tragedy, being founded upon insufficient
evidence, they may be interesting as showing the workings of my mind
even at this early stage of the matter. They were drawn up under three
heads.

First, was the death of this young woman an accident?

Second, was it a suicide?

Third, was it a murder?

Under the first head I wrote:

_My reasons for not thinking it an accident._

1. If it had been an accident and she had pulled the cabinet over upon
herself, she would have been found with her feet pointing towards the
wall where the cabinet had stood.

(But her feet were towards the door and her head under the cabinet.)

2. The decent, even precise, arrangement of the clothing about her feet,
which precludes any theory involving accident.

Under the second:

_Reason for not thinking it suicide._

She could not have been found in the position observed without having
lain down on the floor while living and then pulled the shelves down
upon herself.

(A theory obviously too improbable to be considered.)

Under the third:

_Reason for not thinking it murder._

She would need to have been held down on the floor while the cabinet was
being pulled over on her; something which the quiet aspect of the hands
and feet made appear impossible.

To this I added:

_Reasons for accepting the theory of murder._

1. The fact that she did not go into the house alone; that a man entered
with her, remained ten minutes, and then came out again and disappeared
up the street with every appearance of haste and an anxious desire to
leave the spot.

2. The front door, which he had unlocked on entering, was not locked by
him on his departure, the catch doing the locking. Yet, though he could
have re-entered so easily, he had shown no disposition to return.

3. The arrange