I wished to make certain that I had exhausted every suspected, as
well as every known clue, to the information I sought. In my long
journey home and the hours of thought it had forced upon me, I had
more than once been visited by flitting visions of things seen in
this old house and afterward nearly forgotten. Among these was
the book which on that first night of hurried search had given
proofs of being in some one's hand within a very short period. The
attention I had given it at a moment of such haste was necessarily
cursory, and when later a second opportunity was granted me of
looking into it again, I had allowed a very slight obstacle to
deter me. This was a mistake I was anxious to rectify. Anything
which had been touched with purpose at or near the time of so
mysterious a tragedy, - and the position of this book on a shelf so
high that a chair was needed to reach it proved that it had been
sought and touched with purpose, held out the promise of a clue which
one on so blind a trail as myself could not afford to ignore.
But when I had taken the book down and read again its totally
uninteresting and unsuggestive title and, by another reference to
its dim and faded leaves, found that my memory had not played me
false and that it contained nothing but stupid and wholly irrelevant
statistics, my confidence in it as a possible aid in the work I had
in hand departed just as it had on the previous occasion.
Pages:
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264