or tragedy in which the
dagger had been concerned.

"I returned to my room, washed, shaved and dressed, after which I read
awhile. Then I went downstairs and got the acting butler to give me some
sandwiches and a cup of coffee.

"Half an hour later I was heading for Burtontree, as hard as I could
walk; for a sudden idea had come to me, which I was anxious to test. I
reached the town a little before eight thirty, and found the local
photographer with his shutters still up. I did not wait, but knocked
until he appeared with his coat off, evidently in the act of dealing with
his breakfast. In a few words I made clear that I wanted the use of his
dark room immediately, and this he at once placed at my disposal.

"I had brought with me the slide which contained the plate that I had
used with the flashlight, and as soon as I was ready I set to work to
develop. Yet, it was not the plate which I had exposed, that I first put
into the solution, but the second plate, which had been ready in the
camera during all the time of my waiting in the darkness. You see, the
lens had been uncapped all that while, so that the whole chancel had
been, as it were, under observation.

"You all know something of my experiments in 'Lightless Photography,'
that is, appreciating light. It was X-ray work that started me in that
direction. Yet, you must understand, though I was attempting to develop
this 'unexposed' plate, I had no definite idea of results--nothing more
than a vague hope that it might show me something.

"Yet, because of the possibilities, it was with the most intense and
absorbing interest that I watched the plate under the action of the
developer. Presently I saw a faint smudge of black appear in the upper
part, and after that others, indistinct and wavering of outline. I held
the negative up to the light. The marks were rather small, and were
almost entirely confined to one end of the plate, but as I have said,
lacked definiteness. Yet, such as they were, they were sufficient to make
me very excited and I shoved the thing quickly back into the solution.

"For some minutes further I watched it, lifting it out once or twice to
make a more exact scrutiny, but could not imagine what the markings might
represent, until suddenly it occurred to me that in one of two places
they certainly had shapes suggestive of a cross hilted dagger. Yet, the
shapes were sufficiently indefinite to make me careful not to let myself
be overimpressed