red debatable
ground.

I had taken the little house on the Alexander Quay, as the reader
will have guessed, as a post of observation from which to watch the
proceedings of the Russian Ministry of Marine, more particularly with
regard to the fleet under the command of Admiral Rojestvensky.

It is my subsequent observations and discoveries which compel me,
greatly to my regret, to give a direct contradiction to the gallant
Admiral's version of what took place in the North Sea on the night
of Trafalgar Day, 1904.

It is for that reason that I desire to exercise particular care in
this part of my statement.

Such care is the more incumbent on me, inasmuch as I was requested by
the British Government to furnish a confidential copy of my evidence
in advance, for the use of the members of the international court
which sat in Paris to inquire into this most mysterious affair.

The following chapters should be read, therefore, as the sworn
depositions of a witness, and not as the carelessly worded account of
a journalist or popular historian.

The electrocution of the murderer, Petrovitch, already described,
furnished me with a valuable opportunity which I was quick to seize.

I have not extenuated this act, and I will not defend it. I content
myself with recording that this man had been the principal instrument
in promoting the Russo-Japanese war, and the principal obstacle to
peace. In this he was acting as the paid agent of a foreign Power,
and was therefore guilty of high treason to his own country. On these
grounds my execution of him, although irregular at the time, has
since been formally ratified by the highest tribunal of the Russian
Empire, the Imperial Council of State.

A justification which I value still more, consists in the fact that
the removal of this man proved the turning point in the history of
the war.

Within a month of his death I had the satisfaction to be made the
medium of an informal overture for peace. The negotiations thus
opened have proceeded with great secrecy, but before these lines meet
the public eye, I have every hope that the calamitous struggle in
Manchuria will have been suspended indefinitely.

To return:

Owing to the secret life led by the deceased man, it was some time
before his absence from his usual haunts excited remark.

When it became evident that something must have happened to him,
people were still slow to suspect that he had come to a violent end.
Many persons