“Indeed,” said I, savoring the deep, revitalizing warmth that had begun to suffuse my entire frame, “few things are more conducive to a sense of both physical and spiritual well-being than a hospitable fire on an intemperate night.”

“Seeing as how we got us some time to kill,” said my companion, “whyn’t you tell me what put you in such a sweat to see me this morning.”

The enormity of what I had endured that afternoon was so extreme that, for a moment, I could not respond to the frontiersman, having no immediate recollection of the matter to which he was referring. The horrifying ordeals—wild adventures—and unparalleled excitements of that extraordinary day had utterly supplanted all other thoughts in my mind.

At length, after several minutes of intense and highly concentrated effort, I managed to cast my memory back to the events of the early morning. Clearing my throat, I proceeded to tell Crockett of my discovery of the newspaper story that had cast such unexpected light on the portentous word “Nevermore.” I also recounted my subsequent conversation with Muddy regarding the hypothetical fate of the man who had been the source of so much unhappiness to us both.

A minute elapsed following the completion of my tale, during which the frontiersman merely stared at me in ruminative silence. At length, he drew a deep breath, exhaled a sigh, and said: “Well, I’ll be shot for a jackrabbit. How do you cipher it all, Poe?”

“I regret to say,” I humorously replied, “that I have been somewhat too preoccupied for the past several hours to have given the matter much thought. There are, however, a number of points upon which certain deductions may be reasonably based. First, there is my firmly rooted belief that—however much the notion contravenes our commonly held conception of the so-called weaker sex—the perpetrator of these grisly deeds is a woman. Second, the bloody inscription—whose signification, by dint of long, assiduous effort, I have at last succeeded in uncovering—unmistakably indicates that the killer is someone intimately acquainted with the life history of the deplorable being who sired me. The choice of victims, moreover, strongly suggests that the motive for these atrocities is nothing less than revenge against those who participated in the public humiliation that finally ended my father’s ignominious career. Add to these facts the rumor conveyed to me by my Aunt Maria—namely, that her brother reportedly absconded to Europe in the company of an illicit lover—and I believe only one inference is possible.”

Regarding me narrowly, the frontiersman said: “Are you suggesting that the savagerous killer is the noaccount she-male your daddy run off with?”

“By no means,” I answered. “The figure I encountered was far too youthful in appearance. Even if my father had eloped with a female barely past the age of nubility, she would, at present, be significantly older than the person I saw.”