ney except to buy us bread here in the tenement block.
And my bad head has been telling me it's best to kill myself and take
her with me. So I kill myself before my head grows so bad that I might
take away my little girl's life. It belongs to her and I hope she may
be happy. Will somebody take her and give her happiness? It is wicked to
kill myself, but my head is so bad I cannot think out the right way to
do. This is the key to the room in Block Ten.

"'MRS. ELISIANE SIROIS.

"'Her name is Rosemarie.'"

Walker Farr finished reading and stared into the glittering eyes of the
old man.

Etienne Provancher swore roundly and furiously--the strange, hard oaths
that his ancestors had brought from the Normandy of the seventeenth
century.

"So you shall see--it is as I have say." He shook his fists again at the
mill. Its open windows vomited the staccato chatterings of the
myriad looms. "It chews up the poor people. Hear its dam' teeth go
chank--chank--chank!"

"The Gallic imagination is always active," said Farr, joggling the key
at the end of the cord and eyeing it with peculiar interest. "But in
this case it seems to picture conditions pretty accurately. I wonder
just what a visitor would find inside the door that this key fits!"

"You shall go tell them at the office of the mill," commanded Etienne.
"Tell them they have killed another. They will telephone for the
coroner. I will give the paper and the key when he come." He held out
his hand. "It is the law."

"I have a natural hankering--sometimes--to break the law," affirmed the
young man. "I feel that fatal curiosity of mine stirring again, Friend
Etienne. I will send the coroner. But coroners love mysteries. If we
give him the letter it will take all the spice out of this affair. Let's
make him happy--he can drag out the inquest and give his friends a long
job on the jury." He smiled and started away, shaking his head when the
old man protested shrilly. "Better say nothing about this letter and
the key. You'll get into trouble for letting a stranger come in here and
carry away evidence. Better keep out of the law, Etienne." He grabbed
the "No Trespassing" sign for a hand-hold and climbed over the fence.
"I'll come back and tell you, Etienne. But keep mum," he advised.

"It is his smile--it makes me break the law," mumbled the old man.

VIII

THE KEY TO A DOOR IN BLOCK TEN

Walker Farr gave the first policeman--a fat and sweltering individual--a
pi