This was the last flicker of his candle of life. I could no longer find the pulse at the wrist. The heart sounds grew feebler and feebler and finally ceased altogether. The face grew gray and ghastly. The eyes were set and dully staring and the jaw relaxed. There was a last convulsive expansion and contraction of the chest and a gasping, strident, laryngeal sound as the breath finally left the poor fellow’s body forever. My unfortunate patient was dead! “What was the matter with him, Doctor?” asked in chorus the people about the bedside. Long years of experience had brought discretion to this particular warhorse, and so I replied, “Acute gastritis.” I did not propose to tell all I thought I knew, or to issue premature bulletins. I wanted time to think. I scented mystery here, and perhaps crime, and let him who will condemn my taste as a depraved one, such things have always had an overpowering fascination for me. I knew that some hours would elapse before I would be called upon for a death certificate, and much could be done in the way of investigation in that time. I resolved to keep my own counsel and allow future developments to determine whether or when I should place the case in the hands of the coroner. But, was the case one of murder or suicide? This question I proposed to solve myself, if I could. I could at least try to do so, before turning the matter over to the authorities. If it were suicide there might be reasons satisfactory to my conscience why I should keep my counsel. There are times when the physician is justified in closing and forever locking the door of the closet that contains the grinning family skeleton. I may be telling tales out of school, but I am not ashamed to say that this has been done by men whom I revere. All honor to the profession that has the courage to protect the fair name of its _clientele_! Of course, I had no intention of concealing what I knew, if the case should prove to be at all doubtful, nor was there in this particular case much chance of any circumstances existing which would be likely to impel me to conceal a suicide. Should the case prove to be a murder, I resolved to at once notify the coroner, no matter what the circumstances might be. I suspected from the history of the case that it was murder, not suicide, with which I had to deal. * * * * * One by one the friends and curious neighbors of my late patient filed silently out of the room, till none remained save the landlady and myself. Mrs. Wharton was evidently a simple, kind-hearted creature, who had known sorrow of her own and had had experience. She quietly set about performing the last sad offices for the dead, whilst I proceeded to critically inspect the dead man’s surroundings. Mrs. Wharton removed the pillow from beneath the head of the corpse. As she did so a letter fell from the pillow upon the floor, unnoticed save by myself.