of wet and pulp-like paper. It had
been cut up, macerated, perhaps chewed; perhaps it had been also soaked
with water. There was a washbasin with running water in this room. The
ink had run, and of course was illegible. The thing was so unusual that
I at once assumed that this was the remains of the note in question.
Under ordinary circumstances it would be utterly valueless as a clue
to anything. But to-day science is not ready to let anything pass as
valueless.

"I found on microscopic examination that it was an uncommon linen bond
paper, and I have taken a large number of microphotographs of the
fibres in it. They are all similar. I have here also about a hundred
microphotographs of the fibres in other kinds of paper, many of them
bonds. These I have accumulated from time to time in my study of the
subject. None of them, as you can see, shows fibres resembling this one
in question, so we may conclude that it is of uncommon quality. Through
an agent of the police I have secured samples of the notepaper of every
one who could be concerned, as far as I could see, with this case. Here
are the photographs of the fibres of these various notepapers, and among
them all is just one that corresponds to the fibres in the wet mass of
paper I discovered in the scrap-basket. Now lest anyone should question
the accuracy of this method I might cite a case where a man had been
arrested in Germany charged with stealing a government bond. He was not
searched till later. There was no evidence save that after the arrest a
large number of spitballs were found around the courtyard under his cell
window. This method of comparing the fibres with those of the regular
government paper was used, and by it the man was convicted of stealing
the bond. I think it is almost unnecessary to add that in the present
case we know precisely who--"

At this point the tension was so great that it snapped. Miss La Neige,
who was sitting beside me, had been leaning forward involuntarily.
Almost as if the words were wrung from her she whispered hoarsely: "They
put me up to doing it; I didn't want to. But the affair had gone too
far. I couldn't see him lost before my very eyes. I didn't want her to
get him. The quickest way out was to tell the whole story to Mr. Parker
and stop it. It was the only way I could think of to stop this thing
between another man's wife and the man I loved better than my own
husband. God knows, Professor Kennedy, that was all--"

"