Your humble servant, Floria. Underneath the signature was a crude drawing in ink of a dagger. “Floria,” muttered Dr. Lytton. De Medici’s face, gray in the candle-light, was regarding him. “What was the postmark?” the doctor asked quietly. “Rollo, Maine,” De Medici answered. Dr. Lytton examined the torn envelope. “Rollo, Maine,” he repeated; “mailed yesterday morning. Come now, pull yourself together, Julien.” “Yes.” “The thing is complete. It fits in. Hm, what a curious handwriting. You recognize it?” “Hers,” he answered. “Almost,” the scientist murmured. “Come, the mystery draws to an end. I would like to make comparisons. Have you a letter of hers?” “Yes.” Mechanically, De Medici opened the table drawer. Dr. Lytton brought a candle close to its contents. “Here!” he exclaimed. His eyes studied the envelope. “Written two months ago. Fine. Excellent.” He removed a letter sheet and spread it under the light. De Medici watched him. His calm had returned. “Floria and not Francesca,” he mused. “Floria of the dagger. Then the hallucination was not entirely unreal. He said something ... what was it? A similar image in his brain.” His heart sickened as the realization grew. Guilty! Yet a few moments ago a conviction had overpowered him—a certainty that he was toying with chimeras, that no truth or substance lay in his evil obsessions. But now the letter ... and the postmark.... “A similarity,” Dr. Lytton finally announced. “The letter from Rollo, Maine, could have been written by the same hand that wrote this letter to you. Yet they are not identical. There are several vital differences, although a layman, on cursory examination, would call them of no consequence. Yes, the difference is a difference of tempo. Floria, the lady of the dagger, writes with a certain jerky stiffiness. The characters show high nervous tension, excitement, hysteria. An exaggeration of her natural chirography. Look, the lines are uneven. The letters jumble in spots. The thing resembles the slow, painful scrawl of a child. Yet it was written in fierce haste.... Hysteria.” De Medici nodded. His eyes avoided the thing under the doctor’s hands. “I perceived it from the beginning,” the scientist continued. “Everything pointed to it. A dual personality....” “Florence and Floria,” murmured De Medici. Dr. Lytton’s manner had become elate. A professional singsong was in his voice. He was off on a favorite topic once more. His heavy face glistened with enthusiasm. The underworlds of the soul ... the absorbing novelties of manias ... these were his scientific specialties.