IN THE MATTER OF A MOTIVE That was between eight and nine o'clock at night; before ten an outrageous thought occurred to the man with the undisciplined imagination.

It closed his mind to the tragedy of an hour ago, to the dead man lying upstairs, whose low and eager voice still went on and on in his ears.

It was a thought that possessed Langholm like an unclean spirit from the moment in which he raised his eyes from the last words of the manuscript to which the dead man had referred.
In the long, low room that Langholm lived in a fire was necessary in damp weather, irrespective of the season.

It was on the fire that his eyes fell, straight from the paper in his hand ...
No one else had read it.

There was an explicit assurance on the point.
The Chelsea landlady had no idea that such a statement was in existence; she would certainly have destroyed it if she had known; and further written details convinced Langholm that the woman would never speak of her own accord.