t as I
stood by the body of this boy, for he was hardly older than a boy, or
of the thoughts that came into my head. I was bitterly sorry for this
stranger, bitterly indignant at his murderer, and, at the same time,
selfishly concerned for my own safety and for the notoriety which I saw
was sure to follow. My instinct was to leave the body where it lay, and
to hide myself in the fog, but I also felt that since a succession of
accidents had made me the only witness to a crime, my duty was to make
myself a good witness and to assist to establish the facts of this
murder.

"That it might possibly be a suicide, and not a murder, did not disturb
me for a moment. The fact that the weapon had disappeared, and the
expression on the boy's face were enough to convince, at least me, that
he had had no hand in his own death. I judged it, therefore, of the
first importance to discover who was in the house, or, if they had
escaped from it, who had been in the house before I entered it. I had
seen one man leave it; but all I could tell of him was that he was a
young man, that he was in evening dress, and that he had fled in such
haste that he had not stopped to close the door behind him.

"The Russian servant I had found apparently asleep, and, unless he acted
a part with supreme skill, he was a stupid and ignorant boor, and as
innocent of the murder as myself. There was still the Russian princess
whom he had expected to find, or had pretended to expect to find, in the
same room with the murdered man. I judged that she must now be either
upstairs with the servant, or that she had, without his knowledge,
already fled from the house. When I recalled his apparently genuine
surprise at not finding her in the drawing-room, this latter supposition
seemed the more probable. Nevertheless, I decided that it was my duty to
make a search, and after a second hurried look for the weapon among the
cushions of the divan, and upon the floor, I cautiously crossed the hall
and entered the dining-room.

"The single candle was still flickering in the draught, and showed only
the white cloth. The rest of the room was draped in shadows. I picked up
the candle, and, lifting it high above my head, moved around the corner
of the table. Either my nerves were on such a stretch that no shock
could strain them further, or my mind was inoculated to horrors, for
I did not cry out at what I saw nor retreat from it. Immediately at my
feet was the body of a beautif