f of Pescini's guilt. I
made an entirely different interpretation of it than that of the
officials. I did not think that he was referring to any physical
disease. I believed, at the first hearing, and I believed still that he
had written in veiled language of the persecutions of his brother:

"My old malady, G---- is troubling me again," Florey had
written. "I don't think I will ever be rid of it. It is
certainly the Florey burden--going through all our family.
I can't hardly sleep and don't know how I'll ever get rid of
it. I'm deeply discouraged, yet I know...."

I did not share the sheriff's view that "G----" referred to some
long-named malady that, either for the sake of abbreviation or because
he could not spell it, he had neglected to write out in full. I felt
sure it meant "George" and nothing else. "The Florey burden----"--what
was more reasonable than that his family had been cursed by feuds
within. I hadn't forgotten my talk with Nealman. He had spoken of the
hatred sometimes borne by one brother for another; and had named the
Jason family, main characters in the treasure legend of the old manor
house, as a case in point. But Florey had got rid of his burden at last.
He had got rid of it by death.

Could I make myself believe that Pescini had lured his brother to the
shore, killed him, seized an opportunity to hurl his body into the
lagoon, from which, by the thousandth chance, our drag-hooks had failed
to find it; and the following night, to conceal his guilt, had struck
down his host? Perhaps the former was true, and that the crime, coming
just previous to his own financial failure, had suggested suicide to
Nealman's mind. No one had track of Pescini the night of the crime. For
that matter, unlike Van Hope, Major Dell, and several others, he was not
undressed and in his room when Nealman had disappeared. And the coroner
had suggested a motive for murder in the matter of Pescini's suit for
divorce.

It wasn't easy to believe that such an obviously distinguished
and cultured man could stoop to murder. There is such a thing,
criminologists say, as a criminal face; but Pescini had not the least
semblance of it. Criminologists admit, however, in the same breath that
they are constantly amazed at the varied types that are brought before
them, charged with the most heinous crimes. Pescini looked kind,
self-mastered, not given to outlaw impulses. Yet who could say for sure.

I was alre