It is an anomaly of our nature that, while our finer sensibilities may recoil from scenes of dire tragedy, there is something deep within our souls that is drawn, with an irresistible attraction, to the morbid—the fearful—the ghastly. Thus, even as Crockett spoke, my gaze was transfixed by the hideous spectacle across the room. I stared at the horribly mutilated corpse with an intensity in which fascination and repulsion were equally commingle. The savage wound which bisected the poor victim’s throat had been inflicted with such violence that the blood from her severed jugular vein had (or so it appeared at first glance) sprayed upward as though from a fountain. Above her head, the dark, clotting fluid stained the wall in stripes, blotches, and streaks, creating a macabre pattern which—as I scrutinized it more narrowly—began to assume a singular design in my perception.

“Cricket,” said the frontiersman. “I reckon it’s time for you to high-tail it back home and leave this business to men that can handle it. You’n me will have to settle our account some other day, after—”

“They are letters,” I exclaimed, cutting him off in mid-declaration.

“What?” Crockett ejaculated. His interrogative was echoed by the police officers, who demanded an elaboration of my extraordinary observation.

“Gentlemen,” I stated. “Look closely at the seemingly random stain above the bedstead. You will discover that the blood has been deliberately, if hastily, applied in the form of a word. Someone has written a message.”

Gasping in amazement, the three officers hurried across the room and bent to the wall. A moment later, the moustachioed captain reassumed his upright posture, looked at Crockett, and said: “Well, I’ll be damned. He’s right.”

“How do you cipher it, Captain?” Crockett asked.

“Hard to say,” the other replied, turning to face me. “Perhaps Mr.…?”

“Poe,” I said, bowing slightly. “Edgar Poe.”

The captain replied with a courteous nod. “Perhaps Mr. Poe will oblige us by inspecting the clue he has so cleverly noted and offering his opinion.”

“I will be gratified to assist in whatever way possible,” I replied and approached the victim’s bed.

Avoiding the gruesome spectacle which lay upon the mattress, I focussed my attention upon the bloody notation on the wall. “The printing, as one would expect given the means by which it was accomplished, is irregular in the extreme. Nevertheless,” I declared, “the first two letters are readily discerned to be N and E.”

As I made this pronouncement, the captain extracted a small notebook and a stubby lead pencil from his coat pocket and copied the letters onto a blank page.

“The third letter,” I continued, “is somewhat more obscure, although it appears to be a capital U. This is followed by another E, then by a letter which may possibly be another N. Its slovenly condition, however, makes it impossible for me to identify it as such with absolute certainty.”