trange impression that their contents had made on me;
and yet a sort of fascination led me to take down the top one--labelled
"Series B 5"--and raise the lid. But if those dreadful dolls' heads had
struck me as uncanny when poor Challoner showed them to me, they now
seemed positively appalling. Small as they were--and they were not as
large as a woman's fist--they looked so life-like--or rather, so
death-like--that they suggested nothing so much as actual human heads
seen through the wrong end of a telescope. There were five in this box,
each in a separate compartment lined with black velvet and distinguished
by a black label with white lettering; excepting the central one, which
rested on scarlet velvet and had a red label inscribed in gold "13th
May, 1909."

I gazed at this tiny head in its scarlet setting with shuddering
fascination. It had a hideous little face; a broad, brutal face of the
Tartar type; and the mop of gray-brown hair, so unhuman in color, and
the bristling mustache that stood up like a cat's whiskers, gave it an
aspect half animal, half devilish. I clapped the lid on the box, thrust
it back on the shelf, and, plucking down the first volume of the
"Archives," hurried out of the museum.

That night, when I had rounded up the day's work with a good dinner, I
retired to my study, and, drawing an armchair up to the fire, opened
the volume. It was a strange document. At first I was unable to perceive
the relevancy of the matter to the title, for it seemed to be a journal
of Challoner's private life; but later I began to see the connection, to
realize, as Challoner had said, that the collection was nothing more
than a visible commentary on and illustration of his daily activities.

The volume opened with an account of the murder of his wife and the
circumstances leading up to it, written with a dry circumstantiality
that was to me infinitely pathetic. It was the forced impassiveness of a
strong man whose heart is breaking. There were no comments, no
exclamations; merely a formal recital of facts, exhaustive, literal and
precise. I need not quote it, as it only repeated the story he had told
me, but I will commence my extract at the point where he broke off. The
style, as will be seen, is that of a continuous narrative, apparently
compiled from a diary; and, as it proceeds, marking the lapse of time,
the original dryness of manner gives place to one more animated, more
in keeping with the temperament of th