d meant".... This was all I could make out. The
other papers showed only scattered memoranda, of money, or appointments,
or addresses, with the exception of the diary in pencil.

I read the letter attentively, and at first with very little idea of
its meaning. Many of the words were abbreviated, and there were some
arbitrary signs. It ran over a period of about four months, terminating
six weeks before the man's death. He had been wandering about the
country during this period, sleeping in woods and barns, and living
principally upon milk. The condition of his pulse and other physical
functions was scrupulously set down, with an occasional remark of "good"
or "bad." The conclusion was at last forced upon me that he had been
endeavoring to commit suicide by a slow course of starvation and
exposure. Either as the cause or the result of this attempt, I read, in
the final notes, signs of an aberration of mind. This also explained
the singular demeanor of the man when found, and his refusal to take
medicine or nourishment. He had selected a long way to accomplish his
purpose, but had reached the end at last.

The confused material had now taken shape; the dead man, despite his
will, had confessed to me his name and the chief events of his life.
It now remained--looking at each event as the result of a long chain of
causes--to deduce from them the elements of his individual character,
and then fill up the inevitable gaps in the story from the probabilities
of the operation of those elements. This was not so much a mere venture
as the reader may suppose, because the two actions of the mind test
each other. If they cannot, thus working towards a point and back again,
actually discover what WAS, they may at least fix upon a very probable
MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

A person accustomed to detective work would have obtained my little
stock of facts with much less trouble, and would, almost instinctively,
have filled the blanks as he went along. Being an apprentice in such
matters, I had handled the materials awkwardly. I will not here retrace
my own mental zigzags between character and act, but simply repeat the
story as I finally settled and accepted it.

Otto Lindenschmidt was the child of poor parents in or near Breslau. His
father died when he was young; his mother earned a scanty subsistence
as a washerwoman; his sister went into service. Being a bright,
handsome boy, he attracted the attention of a Baron von Herisau, an old,
child