C., United States
of America, to Antoinette Sloan, daughter of Joseph Dewitt Sloan,
also of that city."
With this notice my interest in the book ceased and I prepared to
step down from the chair on which I had remained standing during
the reading of the above passages.
As I did so I spied a slip of paper lying on the floor at my feet.
As it had not been there ten minutes before there could be little
doubt that it had slipped from the book whose leaves I had been
turning over so rapidly. Hastening to recover it, I found it to
be a sheet of ordinary note paper partly inscribed with words in
a neat and distinctive handwriting. This was a great find, for
the paper was fresh and the handwriting one which could be readily
identified. What I saw written there was still more remarkable.
It had the look of some of the memoranda I had myself drawn up
during the most perplexing moments of this strange case. I
transcribe it just as it read:
"We have here two separate accounts of how death comes to those
who breathe their last on the ancestral hearthstone of the Moore
house library.
"Certain facts are emphasized in both:
"Each victim was alone when he fell.
"Each death was preceded by a scene of altercation or violent
controversy between the victim and the alleged master of these
premises.
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