‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mouraki. I made him no answer. I seized the piece of paper. A pen lay between it and the inkstand. On the paper was a line or two of writing. The characters were blurred, as though the dead woman’s hair had smeared them before the ink was dry. I held it up. Mouraki stepped briskly across to me. ‘Give it to me,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘It may be something I ought to see.’ The first hint of action, of new light or a new development, restored their cool alertness to my faculties. ‘Why not something which I ought to see, my dear Pasha?’ I asked, holding the paper behind my back and facing him. ‘You forget the position I hold, Lord Wheatley. You have no such position.’ I did not argue that. I walked to the window, to get the best of the light. Mouraki followed me closely. ‘I’ll read it to you,’ said I. ‘There isn’t much of it.’ I held it to the light. The Pasha was close by my shoulder, his pale face leaning forward towards the paper. Straining my eyes on the blurred characters I read; and I read aloud, according to my promise, hearing Mouraki’s breathing which accompanied my words. ‘My lord, take care. He is free. Mouraki has set--’ That was all: a blot followed the last word. At that word the pen must have fallen from her fingers as her husband’s dagger stole her life. We had read her last words. The writing of that line saw the moment of her death. Did it also supply the cause? If so, not the old grudge, but rage at a fresh betrayal of a fresh villainy had impelled Constantine’s arm to his foul stroke. He had caught her in the act of writing it, taken his revenge, and secured his safety. After I had read, there was silence. The Pasha’s face was still by my shoulder. I gazed, as if fascinated, on the fatal unfinished note. At last I turned and looked him in the face. His eyes met mine in unmoved steely composure. ‘I think,’ said I, ‘that I had a right to read the note after all; for, as I guess, the writer was addressing it to me and not to you.’ For a moment Mouraki hesitated; then he shrugged his shoulders, saying: ‘My dear lord, I don’t know whom it is addressed to or what it means. Had the unfortunate lady been allowed to finish it--’ ‘We should know more than we do now,’ I interrupted. ‘I was about to say as much. I see she introduced my name; she can, however, have known nothing of any course I might be pursuing.’ ‘Unless some one who knew told her.’ ‘Who could?’ ‘Well, her husband.’ ‘Who was killing her?’ he asked, with a scornful smile. ‘He may have told her before, and she may have been trying to forward the information to me.’ ‘It is all the purest conjecture,’ shrugged the Governor.