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transcriber's note: the synated z and r are shown as script which is not reproducible here

"I was too excited to do ht the official in charge to let me take all the books ho to him the vital importance of my request He readily consented and I hastened hoine hat interest I put the page I wished to exalass which, you will perhaps remember, I cut from aof the room in which the murder was committed I believe I have never yet explained to Miss Darrohy I preserved that bit of glass There were two reasons for it The house had been prilass and two almost identical slass had been struck with a short bit of rope,--or possibly rubber tubing since no rope-like texture was visible,--which had previously been soiled with the paint from the sill The other mark was that of a human thumb I had seen at the World's Fair an exhibit of these thumbmarks collected by a Frenchman who has made an exhaustive study of the subject, and had learned there for the first time that no two thumbs in the world can lass would at any tiuilty I had not failed to get the thumb-marks of the men who painted the house on that day, as well as those of every other person known to be about the place The lass could not, by any possibility, have been made by any of them The deduction was inevitable They were made by the man who stood by the hen the murder was committed

"You will be surprised when I tell you it was soh e beneath it You see, I had been seized by an unaccountable conviction that I had at last found a real clue to the lance should show this to have been an idle delusion At length I looked The thumb that had pressed the paper was the thulass! There was not a doubt of it My suspicions were confir this book was of ie upon which the mark was found--well, I think you would open your eyes if I were to read it to you I will defer this pleasure, however, till I see if e 469 of 'Poisons, Their Effects and Detection,' by Alexander Wynter Blyth