That she had witnessed something altogether out of the common way was plain. This had been no ordinary murder; the work of no everyday assassin. The presumption was that, taken wholly by surprise, she had seen enacted in front of her some spectacle of supreme horror; so close had she been standing as to have been actually drenched by the victim’s blood. My vision--if it was a vision--might not have any legal value, but it was full of suggestion for me; and the impression was still strong upon me that some strange creature had been present in the room, by which the crime had been actually committed. I recalled Edgar Allan Poe’s story of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” in which the criminal was proved to have been a huge ape; but, though I had no notion what the creature I had really seen was, I was persuaded that it had had nothing in common with any member of the ape family. In one respect my vision seemed to have fallen short. I had seen Lawrence and his assailant; I had seen the whirling skirts--as, in this connection, I gazed at the plum-coloured cloak, I was conscious of an inward pang--I had heard the woman’s laughter; but, though I had a clear recollection of looking around me, with a view of taking in the entire scene, I had seen no one else. Yet all the evidence went to show that, at any rate, two other persons had been present: my visitor of the night before, and the dead man’s brother. I will admit at once that I had little belief in the brother’s guilt. I had heard something of Philip Lawrence; and, apart from the known integrity of the man’s character, I could not conceive of any cause which could impel him to the commission of so unnatural a crime. Still, there was Turner’s statement, quite unsuspiciously uttered, that he had seen him go up to his brother, and seen him come down again. As I had said to Hume, he would at least be called upon to explain. But, as it seemed to me, what I had at present to ascertain was, what had been the nature of the errand which had taken a young girl, at that hour of the night, to Edwin Lawrence’s chambers. And, as it chanced, I immediately came upon something which seemed to throw a light upon the matter. Turning over the cloak, with a view of returning it to its hiding-place--for I was aware that, at any moment, I might be interrupted, and I was resolved, at least until I saw my way more clearly, to keep the existence of so, apparently, criminatory a garment a secret locked in my own breast--I came upon a pocket in the green silk lining. There was something in it, which I took out.