ound open.
No one had perceived their entrance or exit, except Desmarais, who
stated that he heard a cry; that he, having spent the greater part of
the night abroad, had not been in bed above an hour before he heard it;
that he rose and hurried towards my room, whence the cry came; that he
met two men masked on the stairs; that he seized one, who struck him in
the breast with a poniard, dashed him to the ground, and escaped; that
he then immediately alarmed the house, and, the servants accompanying
him, he proceeded, despite his wound, to my apartment, where he found
Isora and myself bleeding and lifeless, with the escritoire broken open.

The only contradiction to this tale was, that the officers of justice
found the escritoire not broken open, but unlocked; and yet the key
which belonged to it was found in a pocketbook in my clothes, where
Desmarais said, rightly, I always kept it. How, then, had the
escritoire been unlocked? it was supposed by the master-keys peculiar to
experienced burglars; this diverted suspicion into a new channel, and it
was suggested that the robbery and the murder had really been committed
by common housebreakers. It was then discovered that a large purse of
gold, and a diamond cross, which the escritoire contained, were gone.
And a few articles of ornamental _bijouterie_ which I had retained from
the wreck of my former profusion in such baubles, and which were kept
in a room below stairs, were also missing. The circumstances immediately
confirmed the opinion of those who threw the guilt upon vulgar and
mercenary villains, and a very probable and plausible supposition was
built on this hypothesis. Might not this Oswald, at best an adventurer
with an indifferent reputation, have forged this story of the packet in
order to obtain admission into the house, and reconnoitre, during the
confusion of a wedding, in what places the most portable articles of
value were stowed? A thousand opportunities, in the opening and shutting
of the house-doors, would have allowed an ingenious villain to glide in;
nay, he might have secreted himself in my own room, and seen the place
where I had put the packet: certain would he then be that I had selected
for the repository of a document I believed so important that place
where all that I most valued was secured; and hence he would naturally
resolve to break open the escritoire, above all other places, which, to
an uninformed robber, might have seemed not only less e