Then I placed the glass
over one of the large coils surrounding the insipid face, and was
startled enough, in spite of all mental preparation, to perceive
the crinkly lines which formed it, resolve themselves into script
and the script into words, some of which were perfectly legible.
The drawing, simple as it looked, was a communication in writing
to those who used a magnifying glass to read it. I could hardly
contain my triumph, hardly find the self-control necessary to a
careful study of its undulating and often conflicting lines and to
the slow picking out of the words therein contained.
But when I had done this, and had copied the whole of the wandering
scrawl on a page of my note book the result was of value.
Read, and judge for yourself.
"Coward that I am, I am willing to throw upon posterity the shadow
of a crime whose consequences I dare not incur in life. Confession
I must make. To die and leave no record of my deed is impossible.
Yet how tell my story so that only my own heirs may read and they
when at the crisis of their fate? I believe I have found the way
by this drawing and the injunction I have left to the holders of
the filigree ball.
"No man ever wished his enemy dead more than I did, and no man
ever spent more cunning on the deed.
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