each other; and neither of them would have been accepted in an English criminal court as compatible with the theory of suicide. According to one certificate, the bullet entered the head behind the ear and carried off the top part of the skull; according to the other, it had entered by the left temple and issued by the right temple. The critics pointed out that Rudolph was most unlikely to have shot himself in the left temple, because he was not left-handed, and that it was materially impossible for him to have shot himself from behind. The inference was clear. If Rudolph had been shot, and had not shot himself, then he must have been shot by some other person. That is to say, either there had been an accident or he had been murdered. But if there had been an accident, there would have been no need to envelop it in mystery or tell certificated lies about it; so the hypothesis of murder held the field. But who could have murdered him, and why should he have been murdered? Conjecture fastened itself on those problems, and found solution for them: solutions which varied accordingly, as the speculators knew, or did not know, that Mary Vetsera, as well as the Crown Prince, was involved in the tragedy, and that her death, as well as his, had to be accounted for. The theories which obtained the widest credence were the following:— 1. Rudolph had been killed in the course of a drunken quarrel by one of his boon companions. 2. Rudolph had been pursuing the daughter of a gamekeeper with his attentions. The gamekeeper had caught him _in flagrante delicto_, and had shot him without waiting to ascertain who he was. His body had been carried into his bedroom in the hunting-box, and the suicide _tableau_ had been arranged in order to cover up the scandal. 3. One of the Baltazzis, jealous of his niece’s honour, had tracked Mary Vetsera to Meyerling, and had there committed the double murder. Not one of these three theories will hold water, in view of the facts which have since been brought to light. The first and second may be set aside on the ground that there is nothing in either of them to account for the death of Mary Vetsera. The third theory is incompatible with statements, the truth of which there is no reason to doubt, made by Countess Marie Larisch in “My Past.” That, in Countess Marie’s book, we have “the secret of Meyerling disclosed” is an exaggerated claim; and there are weak points in her narrative which it is important to enumerate. She was not at Meyerling at the time of the tragedy, nor was she present when the dead bodies were discovered. All that she tells us on that branch of the subject is second-hand evidence, derived from Count George Stockau and the Court physician, Dr. Wiederhofer. But there were two things, not known to the general public, which she did know. She knew:— 1. That the Baltazzis had tried in vain to discover Mary Vetsera’s whereabouts.